Katie's first bowling experience

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We spent most of ours what we love to do, cook. Oh and eat. LOL Katie got to go bowling for the first time on Sunday at my nephew's 11th birthday party. She L-O-V-E-D it! She had a blast. So much so we took her again yesterday. Katie even got a strike both yesterday and on Sunday. Of course, she has a ton of help, with the bumper lanes and the ramp. :) Katie has also recently become obsessed with putting on makeup. We bought a kids make up kit to play around with for her birthday and it is now out all the time. I can't tell you how often I turn around to find her covered in makeup. It's totally cute though. Except now when I am putting my own makeup on, she always tells me she needs "mascara". Have you seen her lashes? She may never ever need mascara, lucky girl.

Busy week

Here's a few of my favorites from my other shoot this past week. Thanks to Michelle and her family!

Saturday's shoot....

I had a shoot this past Saturday and just thought I would share a few of my favorites. Enjoy! Thanks to Kelly and her family!

Happy Half Year Boogie!

For those of you who aren't around us a whole lot, that's what we often call Sam. It started because every time I said "boogie" when he was very very tiny, he smiled at me. :) And it's just kind of stuck. I like to sing that song to him too, "...Boogie woogie bugle boy...". That normally gets at least a chuckle from him these days. So I digress. I suppose you might be interested in his stats. If not, enjoy them anyways. LOL
He's little. 15 lbs 1 oz and 26 inches. It wouldn't be so bad him being little if he hadn't fallen off of his growth curve. So as Dr's generally tend to get when babies do that, ours was concerned. So I have to try my best to fatten him between now and the day after Christmas. Just like a turkey. ;) Developmentally, he's doing excellently. He passes things between his hands, he sits up, he inch worms, rolls over, pulls himself up to standing and kneeling, and even rocks on all fours in that threatening to crawl way. He's just on the small side. In fact, 90 percent of his peers are bigger than him, poor thing. Or so THEY say anyway. Katie did do something similar like this too when she was a baby, but not nearly as drastic. I am sure he his fine. We just make small kids. :)

Oh and quick let me address the photo. This was during our Christmas card shoot attempts. It was an idea, that didn't really work, I admit. But the look on his face is priceless. To me it says, "Mom, really?".

Some contenders for the Christmas card shots

And I say contenders, because my dear sweet Kate refused to take a bath or shower before the pics so her hair is not as I would have liked. I am going to see if she will redo them in the morning, but I do not have high hopes. So we shall see. They are still cute none the less.

Oh poor blog, how I have ignored thee....

You all know I am normally much better about updating my blogs fairly often, but it just seems life is so busy lately. Sam is a much more active little thing now. Wanting to be mobile and all that jazz. He's almost crawling. He kind of scoots and reaches, but is also doing the whole rock on all fours thing. I think Katie was crawling for real within a month of that whole business. He also sits up more than lies down now and is into EVERYTHING. Especially Daddy's new and nifty G1. Sam looks like an addict when Miguel pulls it out. Or better yet, he looks like Gollum (ok, a much cuter version)when he sees the ring in Lord of the Rings. Anyway, Sam's 6 month appointment is on Thursday and tomorrow I am hoping to do his 6 month pics. So you'll get the rest of his half year update later.


Katie is doing well. Enjoying her homeschooling a whole lot. She's likes to do it everyday. I see this as a good thing in that she obviously likes it and thinks it's fun. She is currently OBSESSED with that new Pink song, "So What". She knows almost all of the words. We are currently working on weaning her off of that one onto maybe, hopefully, Coldplay or Weezer or really anything else at this point. And not that I have a problem with Pink, I like her and the song. But one can only here it so many times, before one begins to lose one's mind when said song is on. Still it is cute when Kate wants to sing you a song and she starts out with, "I just lost my....Na na na na na na....". :) Her behavior is much improved since we pulled her out of preschool. So we are totally happy about that. She interacts a lot more with Sam. Probably more because he is interacting more with her, and it is so cute. I hope for them a close and happy siblinghood. Yeah, that's right, I just made up that word. LOL

Oh and here's some exciting news. We sold the truck after having it listed for 6 days. Yup, we know how to sell stuff. Or we just have incredibly good luck. We sold our house in 6 weeks. And I don't just mean got an offer in 6 weeks, we actually closed the sale 6 weeks after we listed it. So I am sending all my "quick sell" dust to my friend Robin whose about to put her own house on the market. ;) So if you know anyone looking......

And now it's time for a plug....

If you know anyone looking for a nice, fully loaded pick up truck for just under $10k. let me know. Or better yet have them email me. You can see the full Craig's List ad here. It's the same as what will be listed on autotrader.com soon. Here's a few pictures too. Help a sista out ya'll. ;)

So what are the other reasons I haven't been around?

Mainly, that I took Katie out of school and that I joined the Crossfit gym with Miguel. The whole process of going to the gym, working out and coming back home takes about an hour and half. Doesn't sound like a long time, but you know there is a lot I would normally get done in an hour and a half at home. I don't know if anyone else looks at it this way, but I do. Every hour of my day basically has a goal. I don't always reach them, but the goals are there. In any case, yesterday was my first day there, we did a workout called Fight Gone Bad. I think I have posted the link before as to what Crossfit is, but in case you missed it. Check it out here. I promise, I am not crazy. :) The workouts are addicting. And the results are phenomenal. Oh and I should mention, I do the workouts way scaled down. I am not lifting 65lbs over my head, yet. Miguel has had me doing somewhat of a Crossfit workout since August. In August I wore a size 16, now a size 10. So with some prompting from Miguel, I decided to join him and actually go to the gym and workout. I am hoping to get in really good shape and get to a size 6 by next summer. As most of you women may know, it is SO hard to get from an 8 to a 6, so that's why the goal is so far out.
As to taking Kate out of preschool.... Things just were not working out for us there. Mostly it had to do with her behavior at home after school and then a few things I just did not like about her being there with a class so much younger than her. We've been doing a school type program at home, and have started a home school co-op with Robin and Mr. Caleb. It's been going really well so far and Katie loves it. She actually asks to do her "school work". Which consists of the preschool workbooks, major amounts of "art" time, some time spent trying to get her to understand how to use the computer, a good amount of story time, P.E., music time, and tomorrow we start some basic Spanish. Which by the way if you didn't know, she's half Chilean, so it's about time we start teaching it to her. Most of it she's sees as playtime with the exception being the work books. But I've been impressed with the rate she flies through those. So I'll continue to do this with her for awhile and we'll see how it goes. Hopefully well, if not, we'll figure something else out.
In any case, I'll post some pictures of her art projects later, because they are so cute and they'll give you a smile, or maybe a laugh. Till later ya'll.

Why haven't I been around lately?

Because I've been busy. LOL Makes perfect sense doesn't it? I had another shoot over the weekend with Melody and her beautiful kids. It was the continuation of a shoot we had to cut short earlier. I had an AHA! moment with my studio lighting and think I have finally got a set up I am happy with. Now, just to improve upon it. Anyway, here are a few of my favorites from the shoot. Thanks to Melody!

Claire Again

She's just too cute. I had to post some more.

Some pictures of sweet Claire, now 6 months

Nostalgia edit

Bright edit

Just for fun and practice

A different treatment for something different. :)