the past few days...

so the past few days have been crazy busy, but super duper fun! here's some pictures of the two shoots i've done the past few days. robert and jodi's engagement session went really well. they are so funny and comfortable in front of the camera, which made it quite easy to get a ginormous amount of great pictures! josiah is the cutie patootie 10 month old below. he's a HAM~ i love his expressions.
this weekend i'm traveling an hour or so for another engagement shoot. this time with shane and april, an adorably fun couple. i'm excited to see what we come up with!
toodles!
p.s. don't mind the temporary header...it's under construction...:)

flat charlie & flat sally

another one of our school projects is something called "flat charlie" and "flat sally". it's based of the book "flat stanley" and it's about a boy who is flattened while he sleeps, and because he's no wider than a piece of paper, his parents slip him in an envelope and send him out to california to visit. he's also able to catch an art thief by hanging like a picture in a museum.

sooo, the kids made their own versions of "flat stanley" and they are being shipped off as i type to california to visit our family there. once they get there, they will have their pictures taken with various members of our family at different locations in so. cal. (the beach, disneyland, etc). after they get back from the trip to cali, they'll be on their way to n. carolina to visit my brother and his family. once again, pictures will be taken, and they will be sent back to us, so that we can log on the map where all they've been, put pictures in the albums we've made for them, and send them off to south dakota. from there it's new york, oregon, washington, australlia, etc. everywhere we have friends and family, they will be sent, and we'll chart their travels on the map and chronicle the trips with the pictures taken. the kids are so excited, and it's a great geography lesson in the process. above are some pics of the "flats" before their first trip...

warm fuzzy fortunes...

okay, so one of our school projects was to make warm fuzzy fortunes and randomly hide them around town for strangers to find. the "fortunes" were simple. the kids colored pictures on one side, then wrote little messages on the inside like "you are beautiful" or "God loves you" or "you are lovely" we hid them at shopping centers and stores around town. so fun, and the kids had a blast! as we were leaving one of the shopping centers, lauryn spotted a woman who had found one of her fortunes. the girl was very pregnant, and we were close enough to see that she had picked up one that said "you are prettier than a rainbow". the smile that spread across the girls face was priceless. she gave it to her co-worker, who read it and then passed it around the salon where they worked. we got to see their faces as they read it, and then gave it back to the girl that found it. she took it and left in her car. seeing the smile on her face, and hearing her tell her coworkers how it made her day to find the fortune, made lauryns day.

the kids got so into it, and wanted to make it an everyday thing. i hated to squash that idea, but we agreed that every few months or so, we'd distribute them. he's some pics from that day...

i've missed you.

wow. seems like an eternity since i've done this. living without internet has been one of the hardest things i've ever had to do. and just in case your blissfully unaware as to whats been going on with us, i'll give you the readers digest version of the past 4 months. j and i decide to put the house on the market, thinking that it won't sell for quite a while, and that we'll be almost done building the house before we meet the new owners. well, two days after we listed it, it was under contract. and we had to be out...in less than two weeks.

needless to say, the new house wasn't near finished...or started. we didn't want to rent a house and waste money, so we decided to move down to the lake house until the shop/barn was completed on the land. then we would move into that while we built the actual house. our plan had us at the lake house (which mind you is a hour away from town and an hour and a half away from church) for no more than 2 1/2 months. we are now into our 4th month, and look to be here another 2 months or so. between the weather, scheduling troubles and such, it's taken longer than expected. at first i thought i would just deal with the fact that we didn't have internet, and i was sure that i would find somewhere close to here that had a wi-fi i could use. i was wrong. so after a month of sitting in a parking lot at the local motel, i started calling different internet companies, none of which were capable of getting us internet access in the middle of nowhere. so, back to the hotel i went.

FINALLY. we found a company that could do it, and not charge us an arm and a leg. to make a long story even longer, i am now online and AT HOME!!!! what a concept! now that i'm home, and online, life at the lake isn't as bad as it was in the beginning.

sooo, here we go~ catching up on all that i've missed out blogging on these past few months.

lauryns new painting

i just finished lauryns painting for her new room, and i'm crazy about it! it didn't photograph as well as i would've liked, so the colors aren't true, but regardless, the painting in person is exactly what i was wanting. raspberry, pumpkin, lime, turqoise, aqua, lemon, all muted. i just love the way it turned out. reminds me of a dream when your in between light and deep sleep, when nothing makes sense, yet it all makes sense. happy. comforting, colorful and mismatched. i love that she can pick out a part or section that is her favorite, where your eye natually draws to. around the sides are the lyrics to "somewhere over the rainbow". i just love it.

oh christmas tree...

as most of you know, we celebrated this christmas at the lake house. i'll admit i was pretty excited about this, even though i knew there would be no room for a tree...especially our tree which is ginormous in height and width...so i improvised and made my own "modern" version of a "christmas tree"...then i hunted around at various antique shops collecting "shiny brite" ornaments. i just love 'em, they have so much more character than new store bought ones, i think. anyway, our "tree" sat on our dining room table, and i'm hating the thought of taking it down. ( usually all things "christmas-sy" are OUT the day after christmas) but i just don't want to take this down. not yet. i had gotten the idea a few years ago from a picture i saw online, and knew one day i'd make one similar for myself. i took a silver water pitcher and spray painted it milky white ( j about died when he found out it was one of the silver pitchers, but i told him it was the one i hated) ;) and then i took polished rocks ( hobby lobby) and sprayed them silver, lastly, had the kids round up a bunch of fallen branches around the lake and sprayed them turqouis. tied white ribbon to each of the vintage ornaments and a bit of tulle here and there, and called it good. it's fun to think of the families that used these ornaments in past christmas's and know that somewhere, someone probably has really fond childhood memories of some of them. anyway, hope your christmas was shiny and bright!

my babies aren't babies anymore...

baloo~ i'm thinking reference to jungle book? who knows where he (london) comes up with stuff...

this is gracie. lauryn had a difficult time naming this one. she couldn't make up her mind.

i just love my kids stuffed animals. they are getting seriously close to the not wanting them in their rooms or on their beds, since they seem to think that they are older than they are, but i can't make myself put them away. i figured taking some pictures of them will help in remembering just how precious this time in my life is with my two little monkeys. it's amazing how badly you want to hang on to each year of your babies lives. how part of you is so ready for them to get older and more "responsible" and the other half fights allowing them to grow up. it's a constant struggle of emotions. as heartbreaking as it is, i wouldn't have it any other way.
this is george. as in "curious george"...;)

this is jane. i made this for lauryn several years ago, and she has been well loved ever since. she's starting to look a *bit* ragged, but lauryn won't let me do anything to her. she'd hate for me to say it, but lauryn rarely goes anywhere overnight without her.

this is slurp. the other side is sip. london is *king* of names. we once had a toad that lived in our flower beds, he'd come out at night, let us pet him and watch him up close, london named him warts. we had him about 3 years till he had an unfortunate accident with the front tire of j's truck...then we had wally ( also named by london) he was the groundhog that lived at the corner of our subdivision. london loves naming things. i love that kid.

lauryn named this one bellini. i have no idea why, but it's cute.

a saturday all to myself!

since living at the lake, i've had so much more time to indulge in some of my favorite hobbies...my drawing journal being one. rarely do i leave home without it, for i find myself finding inspiration for a painting, or some sort of craft while driving...whether it be something off a logo, or whatnot. anyway, these little pieces of "art" are so fun to look through and draw inspiration from. the milla jane stuff shown is for a project i'm working on. anyway, i had a saturday all to myself, with j at the property working on the shop, and the kids at grandma and papa's, i played with my camera, painted, drew, embroidered and watched some good ol' girly movies. what a great saturday.

hello winter!

here's some pics i took the other day of the kids. we were bored one day, and it was pretty, so i decided to go "explore" our new area...we found this adorable old general store, and the color was such a gorgeous green. these are probably some of my fav pics now. i'm only posting 6 because it takes too long to upload them now...thanks to us not having internet at the moment and having to go elsewhere to get online...it's getting a *bit* old...

anyway, we're doing well, getting semi-settled...as settled as you can get when you know your moving again in 3 months, and j and i are loving starting the process of building our home! the kids are doing well, they think we're on permanent vacation and wonder why we have to do school when were at the lakehouse?! ;) take care. i'll try to post more soon.

chad, alicia, and the lovely miss lilly!

i know it's been a long time coming on these, but with moving, losing power cords in the millions of boxes that we've aquired, and having to find crazy places ( like a little mom and pop motel parking lot in forsyth, which i'm parked in at the moment) to find wi-fi until we can get internet at the house, they are finally up! i have many more to edit, but here are some of my favs so far! i've come to the conclusion that you can't take a bad picture of miss lilly. she's just too cute, and quite the entertainer! i enjoyed every moment of it. :) hope you enjoy!