Thank Heaven for Little Girls

Kinsley is just growing up so fast and becoming so curious about big girl things. Recently she has become obsessed with my nail polish. Every time I paint my fingers or toes she is enthralled, always touching the surface of my nails and saying things like "pretty" and "smooth." So today after I spent a lot of time on the phone with the my mom I could tell Kinsley was feeling a little neglected. So I brought down my nail polish and thought I'd give her some much needed mother daughter time. She's never had her toes painted before so this was a really big deal for her. She picked out pink for her color and waiting eagerly while I put cotton between her toes. She was so excited she kept giggling while trying to hold herself so still. The smile plastered across her face was priceless! She wouldn't let me take a pic of her face, but happily showed off her sparkling toes for some quick shots. Once I was finished she said "mommy I'm ten-and-a-half now." I've always told her that nail polish is for big girls and apparently to her ten-and-a-half is big. She's been squealing with delight since, and can't stop looking at her toes. Even mid run she'll stop, lift up her toes, stand on her heels and say "oh mommy I have nail polish."

Kinsley taught me today how easy it can be to gain big joy from the littlest things.

So You Think You Can Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance....

Many of you have been waiting for my re-cap from my long anticipated Saturday night. The evening didn't quite turn out as expected. Let me first begin by saying that the concert itself was fantastic and it was amazing to be able to see the dancers live. Now onto the not so good details. The concert was in Tacoma about and 1 and 30 minutes from here so my friend and I left in plenty of time to hit dinner and the show. I had a discount card for The Melting Pot and since neither of us had been there before, we figured we might has well have a real girls night out. The show was scheduled to start at 7:30pm and we arrived at The Melting Pot at 5:00pm just to be informed that without a reservation there was no chance in %$* that we could get a table. Being that there were no other restaurants anywhere near our location, we opted to sit in the bar. Thankfully this is a smoke-free area and after some time of waiting we actually got a little booth off in the corner to sit in. Our waitress was totally swamped and as a result pretty much ignored us. We had been there for over an hour by the time we finally got our salads. Our main dish only came out 10 minutes before we had to leave. This is very problematic at The Melting Pot, as your meats come out raw and you have to cook them yourself. The main reason we wanted to try The Melting Pot was for the chocolate fondue of course, and sadly we were left with no time to spare! I shoveled the food into my mouth as quickly as I could. I didn't feel so great afterward. It's just not natural to ingest that amount of food in just a couple of swallows, but there was no way I was going to let a $24.00 plate go to waste! It was do or die. The worst part is our waitress took almost 15 minutes to prepare our check. Had I been armed with that knowledge before, chewing would have been an option. Grrr, my extensive efforts to emulate the speed and skill of a world champion hot dog, or pie eater were in vain! Lets just say she got a really crummy tip! I waited tables for three years and even on my worst and busiest nights, my customers were still taken care of and often compensated for the inconvenience.

We got out of the restaurant at 7:25pm and ran to our vehicle. Because of our extreme tardiness we didn't have time to look for a great parking space and had to fork over $20.00 for our spot, ouch! Once we finally arrived at the Tacoma Dome we were very disappointed to see how ridiculously far from the stage our seats were. I think my nose is still bleeding! I'm totally ticked about ticket masters photo of the seating chart--quite deceptive. The good news is despite the horrible restaurant experience and the terrible seats the concert itself was fantastic. The energy was enormous, the dancing better than ever, and all of my favorite routines from the season were showcased. Chelsea and Mark stole the show with their moving performance to Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love." It was so great to see my favorite dance of the season performed live!

Will I go again! Heck yes, but I'll have much better seats and I won't be stopping at The Melting Pot before the show. I only bought tickets two days after they were up for grabs. Next time around I'll set an alarm so I can log on the moment they're available for purchase. Here's the only photo I have from the evening. I didn't take my SLR with me, and am kicking myself for leaving it behind. I had my old point-and-shoot in my purse and got this horrible pic. Against my better judgement I'll share it anyway.

On a more positive note: my mind works in a funny way and disaster seems to spell out "vivid memories" for me. If nothing else the experience won't be forgotten!

Andree's Wedding

Just posted a few more favorites from Andree's wedding on my photoblog. You'll have to head on over there to check them out.

www.youreverycolorphotography.blogspot.com

3 Days Left

Only three days left until the "So You Think You Can Dance" concert! I am so excited I can hardly stand the wait. I bought tickets for the show and am bringing a good friend of mine to watch the fab top ten in all their glory. I have been obsessed with every season, but the choreography this time around was phenomenal. It's not very often that you get to see some of the most talented choreographers from all over the world come together for one show. The best part of it all is that it was free. Blissfully, free entertainment every Wednesday and Thursday during the summer. Though I'm paying a pretty penny for the show this weekend I'd pay more if I had too! As with every season there's always at least one Mormon on the show. Good old Benji won it for us during the second season, and others have followed at least to the top ten. This year's Chelsea was home taught by a close family friend of ours. Small world, ehh! Dance really does dominate in Utah.

I love dancing and for those of you who don't know I danced all growing up. I wasn't fantastic but I was passionate about it. I competed, danced with studios, and did musical theatre. I miss it terribly--ahh the good old days. I thought I would be dancing my whole life but alas a lame back injury during my junior year of high school forced me to quit. I was heartbroken. After that other parts of my life just took over. With Americorps, college, meeting my awesome hubby, and the kiddos I haven't been able to dance much over the last few years. One day I'll get started again. Once Shawn graduates from school I'll be enrolling in a class, yipee!

So here are pics of my two favorite contestants from this season. Wouldn't it be cool if I took these photos? Ha, only in my dreams! The first is Will who truly was the most gifted dancer I have ever watched. His technique was complete perfection and his movement was so fluid, natural, and emotionally stirring. The second photo is of Mark. He had this great corkiness about him and danced with tremendous passion, character, and humor.



Thanks for reading about one of my many obsessions :)

Finally I'm writing about our Summer trip

It's about time I got this up! Last time I gave the lame excuse about not being able to get my photos off of my laptop (which was true) but there were other reasons for my procrastination:

1. I've been busy with clients lately, yipee! So I spend most of my time working on photos of other people instead of my family.

2. "The Twilight Saga." Just like the rest of you I was sucked in the moment I picked up Twilight. I read all four books in 5 days and became terribly obsessed! Once I finished the series I found myself in mourning thinking about the characters and wishing there was another book to read. I didn't want Bella and Edwards story to end! Okay, I realize how ridiculous and melodramatic I sound, but for those of you who have gone there and loved every minute of it you know exactly what I'm talking about. I feel like I should be wearing a sign that says "open mouth, insert foot" in front of all my friends who I casually made fun of for their Twilight obsessions. Sorry, I give you all full permission to say "I told you so."

Ahh see there I go again with the Twilight thing, wasn't this supposed to be about my trip to Utah? I wish I could remember more of the details. That's what I get for waiting so long to journal about our vaca. Will I ever learn? No probably not! I actually didn't end up taking too many pictures of our activities as I spent most of my time doing photo shoots for others (which I loved!) As I mentioned earlier I had the opportunity to photograph Andree's wedding (one of my best buds from high school) and I loved that. More photos from her wedding, as well as my other photo sessions should be up on my photography blog within the next day or two, so please check it out. http://www.youreverycolorphotography.blogspot.com



*The first picture is of my sisters daughter Tailinn. Kinsley and Tailinn are only two weeks apart. They had such a great time playing together.
*The second photo is of my dad with mine and my sisters kids. He was so happy to have all his grandchildren together.
*The third picture is one of my favorites from the trip. It's off my brothers son Mason. He looks like he's gloating "NBA here I come!" I won't tell him yet that his favorite aunt Andrea (me) is taller than his own dad. Sorry Mason but you haven't got a chance! LOL, love ya Zach!

We started off our trip at Shawn's dads family reunion. They had a talent portion and Kinsley asked me if she could get up and sing. The photo is not that great, but she did a wonderful job. There must have been at least 100 people there and she sang the "Fifty Nifty United States" all by herself. My favorite part is when she sings "Texas". She draws out the note as if she were singing the last note from "Tomorrow" as Annie on Broadway. She is quite the little performer.

The rest of the photos are from our trip to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. The kids had a blast and so did we! The museum is usually pretty expensive to get into, but we went on "Two dollar Tuesday". Once we arrived we were shocked to see that the line extend out the door and around the building. We didn't know this was the first time they had ever run the promotion and boy did it draw a crowd! Though it was a little more crowded than we would have hoped for, we had an awesome time.





Can't wait for our next trip to Utah! We miss all of you!

The new blog banner

What do you think? I love photoshop! It's so much fun to see what you can create. Our new family pictures were taken by the amazing Jeremy Pexton. While in Utah we did a picture swap, I took his family photos and he took ours. It was a great trade off. I really am going to post photos from our trip to Utah but am in the process of getting them off of my laptop. I don't have a burner and because the files are so large they're not fitting on my memory stick. Anywho, as soon as I get it figured out I'll give a recap on our trip. Not that any of you are really dying to find out what we did, but since this blog serves as our family journal I've got to get caught up for the sake of future generations! Okay could I be anymore dramatic? As a sneak peek here is one of my favorite shots from our trip to Utah. I was able to photograph one of my best friends weddings. Love ya Andree. I had a blast! Stay tuned for more.....

We're Back

Just arrived home from a great vacation in Utah! Can't wait to get caught up with all of your blogs. I'll have a post up soon with some of the hightlights from our trip. :)

Okay I try really hard not to post about my photography stuff on this blog, but I just couldn't contain my excitement about my last two photoshoots. Here are two of my favorite pics from my recent senior and newborn sessions. If you want to see more you'll have to visit my photography blog.

www.youreverycolorphotography.com

Three days til Utah, horay!

Happy Anniversary

To the love of my life, Happy Anniversary!!!! It's been five years and I can't believe it, but I've adored every minute of it! Thank you for inspiring me everyday to do more, be more, and believe in myself more. I love you!

I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane. Sadly in the last five years we really haven't had many pictures of us taken. Our wedding photos were taken with a film camera and I haven't bothered to have them made into digital files yet. Here are a few, of the very few :) pictures we have together.



These were taken in 2005 by Jeremy Pexton, a great friend and fab photographer too! 2005 was the last time we had quick family pictures taken so when we head out to Utah Jeremy will be taking our photos again. This time I get to pay it forward and do their family photos in return. It will be nice to actually be in a picture for a change :)


This one is the oldest of the bunch. It was taken inside our first place, a small basement apartment in Lehi, Utah. Oh those were the days of care free responsibility. Okay it seemed hard at the time--full time work, full time school, but compared to parenting, law school, Boeing, and three businesses we had it soooooooo easy!!!! I ought to mention too that the photograph was taken with our first digital camera a $5.00, one megapixel, Fuji, that we picked up at a garage sale. I laugh hysterically now when I think of how proud of that thing we were. I thought it was the best camera ever, LOL!


This was our first Halloween in Washington. It was taken inside the Pexton's apartment. The Pexton's quickly became our best friends out here and even though the jerks had to move to Utah, we still keep-in-touch almost on a daily basis. The convenient thing is they bought a house only two miles away from Shawn's parents, so every time we go to Utah it's easy to get together.



This last one is from our trip to visit Shawn's sister in D.C. back in April of 06. We had such a great time and can't wait until Shawn graduates and we can start traveling again. Just one year left!!!!!!

Here's to a great 5 years and many more to come! I love you babe!

Andrea :)

Summer Days

We are having so much fun this summer. The weather was off to a slow start this season, but summer really is here and it's fantastic! We've spent lots of time at different parks, beaches, museums and more. I feel like I'm always packing the kids up to go somewhere, but we sure have a good time. My close girlfriends and I get together each week for a playgroup and we went to Forest Park with the kiddos. They've got a huge playground, petting zoo, and a small water area with lots of fountains for the kids. The best part...FREE! Yup, it's all free. Kinsley spent most of her time splashing around and Grant decided to get in on the action too. He called it quits right after the water seemed to swallow him up in that fifth photo. My favorite picture was taken by my girlfriend Silvina who's daughter looks similar to Kinsley. They are the same age and play together often. In fact they look so much a like that they're mixed up for twins sometimes. It's the coloring ,and the beautiful curls. Anyway back to the pic. Silvina caught this one of Kinsley goofing off with her sippy hanging out of her mouth. I just love it because it totally captures her personality. She really is such a goofball and we love it!!!!!!

Shawn will finish up his finals in two weeks and than we're off to Utah for a much needed vacation. We're ready for some more summer fun!

Happy Fourth of July, okay two weeks late!

So I'm a little late.......You all know why, busy, busy, busy. I'll spare you all the details. We kept it kind of low key and didn't even go out to see the fireworks. I know can you say ba-hum-bug? Really we had a lot going on and needed to take advantage of the long holiday weekend to get caught up. Anywho we had brunch with some friends earlier in the day and spent the afternoon and Richards house we're we enjoyed a tasty barbecue, lots of games, and good company. The kids all enjoyed blowing bubbles while the parents indulged in the food and games. Here are a few pics from our Fourth of July celebration. Oh my kids are so dang cute!!!!!! Thanks to all our buddies for the great time!

The Time Has Come!

Okay so it's the moment you've all been waiting for. Okay really it's the moment I've been waiting for, the official launch of my photography business. I have spent countless hours working on my website and more and I'm so excited to finally be done! Here's the link http://www.youreverycolorphotography.com/ . Yipee!!!!!!!

I recently did a maternity shoot with some great friends of ours. Check it out on the blog at http://www.youreverycolorphotography.blogspot.com/ . BTW my photo blog needs a little comment love, any room in your heart? LOL!

One more time YIPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5:40

That's the time Grant has been waking up in the mornings, yuck! These mornings are particularly hard as I've been staying up to work on my website till' almost 1:00am every night. Oh I am so close to being finished!!!!
I also thought I'd clarify things up from my last post. I think I gave the impression that I don't love Kinsley's candid pictures, when in fact I do. Her candids are by far my favorites, but I just want one pic of her looking at me. As in the post, "just one image with those piercing eyes". Enough said.
On a funny note, Kinsley said the most hysterical thing yesterday as we were leaving the grocery store. I bought myself a small package of Red Vines Liquorice, oh how I love them. I pulled them out once we got in the car, and of course Kinsley started begging for some immediately (yes I know, what was I thinking?). I told her she could have one piece and the grin on her face was priceless. Anyway Grant saw the candy and started grunting as to indicate, "hey you forgot about me!" I let the kids know that Grant was just too little for Liquorice. Kinsley echoing my statement responded with, "Grant you're to young for this, but Mommy and I are big enough to have Liquor." I laughed-out-loud the rest of the way home!

$70.45

$70.45, yep that's how much it cost me to put gas in my car yesterday!!!!!!!! Yikes gas prices are so outrageous! I just read a post on my friends blog and she's paying $5.40 a gallon in Canada. When will it ever stop! Aside from the rising gas prices, my frustration with my cutie-pie Kinsley is rising too!

There's a gorgeous field of purple flowers right across the street from Shawn's office. I've been eyeing it for a couple weeks now but have had trouble working out our schedules to make it work. We decided to just give it a shot right after Shawn got off of work so I met up with him at Boeing. As we walked across the street I could see the most beautiful shots in my minds eye. Sadly it didn't turn out that way. The field was a little more overgrown than it looked from the road and the flowers in some spots stood taller than Kinsley's head. We weren't really dressed for the excursion either (in terms of foot wear). The ground was so muddy and our feet keep sinking into the wet, sticky, sludge. I was determined to try anyway. We already made the hike, Kinsley looked cute and I wasn't about to just give up. To my great demise Kinsley's plans were otherwise. She has developed a strong dislike for the camera. Anytime I have it on she runs away and if I find a way to convince her to stay put all she does is pull ridiculous faces with her head turned away. She knows all I want is for her to look at me, just once, and with that knowledge she takes full control. No even a bribe (and yes I have sunk so low) will get her to look at the camera. It's not that I want her looking at me in every photo, in fact I really don't like shots that look to posed, but you know what I mean. I just want that one picture were her eyes are fixed on the camera and piercing to the view. Grrr...........

Well now that I'm done complaining here are a couple of pics I thought were decent. Just imagine how wonderful the set would have been if we could have seen that beautiful face in just one shot. The last picture is the funniest this is the face she gives me every time I do get her to look at me! One day.......

Things are always crazy busy around here and some days I feel like it's all I can do to catch my breath. Yet at the same time I love it this way! I'm one of those types of people that would rather be working than relaxing. Yes, relaxation is good and all, but the satisfaction of work (that is work I love, I'm not talking about cleaning toilets or anything) is so much sweeter! As all of you know I've been focusing on my Photography business lately and there is a lot to get in order. I call this the grass-roots period and once it's finished I'll have more time on my hands. I'm in the process of building my website, creating the policy docs, pricing, packages, ordering info, and more. There's are so many little things that go into starting a business, sometimes it's overwhelming but I've really enjoyed the learning experience. I love what I do, I think I've really found my passion, okay I take that back, I know I have found my passion. I only wish I would have discovered it sooner. I've been trying really hard to make sure this venture doesn't get in the way of the kids daily routine. I don't do any work during the day but wait until they go to bed at 7:00pm to "clock-in" if you will. I do photo shoots maybe once a week and am only gone for a couple hours at a time. While I love my business my kids are my favorite and most important job :) Anyway I'll make the big announcement soon once the website is done and everything is official.
Well enough about my photography. Can't say it will be the last time, but for today's post I'm through with it. Now onto the joy of kids and watching every little thing they do. Kinsley is a crack-up! She loves the show Super-Why on PBS and has been really into playing superheros lately, or rather Super-Readers. There are four main characters in the show and she likes to assign out their roles amongst the family. She is always Super-Why the leader of the group of course. I'm Wonder-Red, Grant is Alpha-Pig, and Shawn Princess P. Ha, ha..... I love it! Shawn has tried to trade characters with all us but we've stuck firm to who we are and so daddy is now Princess P and I think it's hysterical. The best part is that she'll address us by our super-reader names in public and it makes things that much more entertaining.

Grant has been really fun lately too. He's starting to try and make animal sounds, his favorite word is no, and he loves to get into trouble, seriously. When he's heading somewhere he's not allowed to be, like by the oven, or at the bottom of the stairs, he'll stop and turn around and give you the biggest smile, start laughing and then go for it. He loves to be mischievous and I think I've got my work cut out for me. We have a basket of shoes by our front door and the staircase is nearby. I was in the kitchen and decided to go check on Grant in the other room as he was being pretty quiet. He had created a little game for himself by taking the shoes one by one out of the basket, crawling over the the gate at the stairs, and dropping them over to the other side. Soon the shoe basket was empty and the stairs were littered with our size 5 to 10's. What a character!
Oh and I can't forget to mention the crazy weather we've been plagued with. It's June and freezing outside. On Sunday I wore a jacket and a long sleeve shirt to church and was still cold. It's been in the 50's and last night Shawn saw snowflakes in Seattle. Not only is it insane but it totally bites. It's rains here all the time and is always gray so I really look forward to summers here, no I'm feeling doubtful. Will it ever come....... The picture I included I took of Kinsley several weeks back when we had a little teaser of sunny weather. Oh well I just need to be patient. It can't be winter forever or can it?