HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! (yesterday)

Started yesterday…

Today is my 24th birthday and precisely at 11:30am something-ish early this afternoon I will officially be such. Yeah, I don't remember the exact time, although I've been told numerous times by my mom. She'd be able to tell you... all I remember is that it was right before lunch because she didn't get to eat anything. And apparently, she said I was supposed to be born on the 17th instead of the 18th, but the doctors wouldn't let her have me then. Reason being... I was born three weeks early and well back then, it was probably considered a little earlier than it was these days. In any case, I made my grand entrance into the world today, my parent's used to be anniversary, you know since they are divorced now. Not sure if I've ever mentioned that before, not the divorced part, but the being born on their anniversary part.

I'm looking forward to a relaxing day and thus far it has been pretty relaxing. Well, as I'm writing this it is only 9:05 in the morning and I am at work, but still. Work is pretty chill, not a whole lot to get done today, so thus my little bit of free time to blog. My other plans for the day... to go and visit my friend Leah and see her babies! And Kristi and Robin are both able to come along as well so that's even better! It's getting rarer and rarer than we are all able to get together at the same time, so I'm excited! Plus I'll get to see me some tiny babies!!!

And then tonight I am making Jay take me to Noodles and Co. for supper. Hu Hot would be much better, but we live so far away that it probably wouldn't be smart to drive all the way there just for supper. Then again, maybe it will. I'll have to see what he would prefer. The mind is a rolling now, hehe! Because I'd love me some Hu Hot as well, and I'm sure that Jay would pick that over Noodles since he's never been to Noodles and I really am just craving their mac and cheese dish (it's SO good)!

Camping last weekend with my dad's family was great, but it usually always is. We went last year as well and really enjoyed ourselves! There was talk of not doing it next year, but I don't know. Anyways, we went down Friday afternoon while the weather was still pretty crappy. It was pretty crappy for a little while, while we were down there, but the sun did finally make an appearance and the kids went swimming. I got some awesome pictures as well! I left to come back to Point Friday night since I had to get up obscenely early for the wedding photos Saturday morning and it would have been even earlier had I stayed at the campground. I totally saw my first bear in the wild on my drive home, it was just a teeny bit scary! I wasn't close enough that I almost hit the thing, although I did hit the breaks, just didn't slam on them. At first I thought it was a cow running across the road because I knew for sure that it wasn't a deer. It was black and BIG! And then I realized that it wasn't running like a cow and that it was probably a bear. I mean, what else could it have been?! I even had my contacts in, so I can't blame my bad eyesight!

The wedding got done a lot earlier than I thought it would on Saturday so I was able to get back and enjoy much of the afternoon with my family which was nice. I was also able to help Jay cook the potatoes we were making for everyone! My sister and aunt had made up this tournament type thing for all of the kids to play in. They were split into teams and had to compete in different activities. One was an amazing race type thing where they had to go all over the campground looking for clues, one was an eating contest where they had to eat disgusting things, like Jell-O with noodles and raisins in it, and another one was charades. I only got to see the charades one, but it was hilarious! Everyone had a good time, although my sister said she wasn't the one coming up with the activities next year because apparently it took a lot of work. But she is definitely creative like that, so I'm thinking someone could con her into it, hehe! That is, if we go camping again.

We had some pretty good weather again this year too which I was happy about, although I slept like crap on Saturday night and took the best nap in the world once we got home Sunday mid morning. It totally zapped me though and I was really tired for the rest of the afternoon and then slept like crap again Sunday night because I wasn't tired. Go figure! Lol!

Ayden went home with my dad to spend the week at Grandpa's house. From what I heard from my brother last night, Ayden is having a pretty good time and behaving as well as he normally does. It helped that my brother was at my dad's house too because Alexis was gone until last night so he had someone besides my dad to play with and my dad's back has been giving him problems lately so I'm sure my brother helped out in more ways than one as well.

It's Thursday now... the day after my birthday, boo! My birthday didn't last long enough, lol! But I did have a GREAT day! I finished up work, went home and got a few things ready for the afternoon out with my friends, and then ventured to Leah's house with Robin and Kristi. Oh my goodness, are her two babies the smallest things EVER! I couldn't believe just how tiny they were, seriously! I have never held a baby that tiny before! They are both just currently over five pounds! They are so tiny that they cannot sit in their car seats yet, but have these special car beds from the hospital which are the cutest things ever, although Leah says they are a pain in the patootie!

Robin, Kristi, and I definitely got our baby fill in yesterday. We had so much fun holding those girls and doting on their mommy! We brought gobs of food for lunch and ate until we burst and held the babies some more. They were literally in their bouncy seats for maybe five minutes each while we were eating lunch during the almost four hours that we were there, some spoiled girls, that's for sure! And even if the babies weren't there, I'd still have had a good time because getting together with my friends is always a good time. But let me tell you, I definitely have baby fever now. Getting to hold my cousin's baby for a few minutes last weekend, then these babies, and then Jay's aunt this coming weekend, oh I'm surrounded by babies!

Here are a few pictures that I took. They definitely aren't the quality that I was going for, but you gotta take what you can get and I wasn't going all 'newborn photography' on them, just wanted to take a few. I definitely know now that if at some point I did ever want to go into business taking pictures, newborn photography would not be at the top of my list, hehe! It is definitely hard to get a baby to cooperate when they are awake and during the time that I had my camera out, they were pretty much awake so I didn't get to 'play' with them picture wise, haha! The pictures don't do them justice on just how small they are though. I wish we would have laid them down next to something so I could show their true size. So, Kristi had the ‘smart’ idea to try and recreate the above pose in daddy’s arms, which was not taken by me. Above picture = fabulous, below picture = our try, lol! Would have been cute had babies been sleeping, not diapered, and daddy without his shirt on, but alas, it’s cute in its own way, right?! Or at least funny cute! I have two baby girl names that I really love picked out if/when Jay and I have another baby and it happens to be a girl. I like one a little more than the other. I haven't talked to Jay about either of the names, so maybe he'd hate them both. But... I just happen to adore them! I know one is a name that Jay's aunt likes, but she just had a baby and didn't use it so that's good, lol, but his other aunt is having a baby in November, lets just hope she doesn't use it either. However, this said name is the second name I prefer. I'm not too worried about the name that I really love being used. Maybe Jay and I just need to have another baby so we can use it, lol! Or maybe not... at least not right now. Ahh... babies... Jay and I were in the baby section of Walmart last night looking at booster seats for Ayden. The ones in both of our vehicles are still good, however it won't be long before he is too tall for either of them and we were trying to decide if we just get a booster with no back or a high back booster that can go higher than the one he currently is in. We couldn't decide and since his current ones are still working, we were just looking. And then I was oogling over the baby car seats and telling Jay that if/when we have another baby we'd have to get a new one. I didn't now that after a certain amount of years a car seat expires. I mean, I knew that after an extended period of time you'd probably want to get a new one, but not that it technically expired. As a mom, I feel like I should have known that, but oh well. I do now... thanks Amanda! Anyways, our baby seat will have expired by the time any new baby comes along so that means... new baby car seat, new cuteness! Haha! I get excited over the little things, lol!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Pictures from a recent wedding…

Another great weekend done and over with! Despite the fact that this summer has flown by without me even knowing, it has definitely been a joyful one! I'm not quite ready for class and clinic to start back up yet, but within the next week or so I will be looking forward to it. There is just something about getting back into a more structured routine that appeals to me after a while. Call me crazy, lol, but it does! Even though this will probably be the semester (or even year) from ****!

Here are a few pictures from the wedding that I photographed with my cousin this past weekend! Enjoy!

This couple decided to forgo the traditional unity candle and do the more commonly seen these days sand thingy (for lack of a better description). I like the whole sand idea and since the couple has four children between the two of them, it was cool that they could incorporate them into it as well.This is probably one of my favorite photos of the day. I just love how it turned out with the editing that I did to it.Wouldn’t be a wedding without the ring shot and the bride had gotten the flower girl the cutest Little People wedding set as a gift and we could resist using it for one of our shots. I think it turned out super cute!The guys waiting for the girls to walk down the aisle. Bride and groom saying their vows. It was such a cute small ceremony and I loved lots of the little things about it!This is another favorite from the day! It turned out so cute I think!Happy family!!!I really love this one too!The bride was trying to coax her youngest into taking one last picture with us and he was just not having it. I love the moment caught between them here. She was SO patient with him!I’ll be back with lots of pictures from our weekend camping soon!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Oldies but goodies…

I can’t believe that in just over a week… this sweet little thing… will be… SIX YEARS OLD!!! I got a little nostalgic tonight and decided to go digging through my cds of pictures and find some of Ayden when he was a baby. And oh man, I didn’t think I took nearly as many pictures then as I do now, guess I was wrong because I was just as bad six years ago!How adorable is that little guy?! I mean seriously, okay, so I know I have my mommy goggles on. I don’t really see any of the almost six year old Ayden in this picture, and boy do I miss that cuddly little guy, but the not as cuddly almost six year old lights up every moment of my day right now! (You’ll have to excuse the poor quality of the picture as my digital camera at the time was one of the first ones out, with a whopping 3.1 megapixels, you know, what most cell phone cameras come with these days!)

I took this next picture for Ayden’s first Christmas card. It is a little better quality because I begged my mom to let me use her digital camera at the time which was a little better than mine at the time, and then I tweaked it in Lightroom before adding it here, so it didn’t look quite so good on the card.Here is the little dude probably just over a year old. It was taken at our first place in Point. He sure loved his bubble baths!And Mr. Cool Dude at probably 20ish months. We still have that four wheeler, although the battery doesn’t hold a charge anymore. He loved that thing! I just can’t get over the fact that my baby is turning SIX! That is two hands! That is one finger TOO MANY! I could deal with five and kindergarten, but I’m starting a strike, he simply CANNOT get any older. I refuse to let him age! Won’t allow it!

Just where oh where did the last six years go?!!?

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Project Time

Before I show you the projects that I’ve been up to lately, I need to show you these bitchin’ boots I got at Kohls today! Okay, so I know I didn’t need them, but I had a 30% off coupon and needed to pick up some pants for Ayden for school this fall and they were on sale. I think they totally rock! What do you think?! I don’t know what I would wear them with besides my skinny jeans as I’m not really the skirt type person, but who knows… I just think they are totally uber cute! There was this dress in the Kohls catalog that I wanted to get as well for an upcoming wedding, but our Kohls store didn’t have it so I passed.I’ve been pretty busy lately doing some projects. My friend recently had identical twin girls and as a baby gift I made wooden letter names for their bedroom wall. Here are some sneak peaks at them. They were really easy and semi cheap to make. They would have been cheaper had there been only one baby and had I gone to Hobby Lobby and gotten the letters and not Michaels. But, we don’t have a Hobby Lobby in town and it probably would have cost the same using gas to go to Hobby Lobby and get the letters cheaper there. In any case, it was totally worth it and TON cheaper than some of the places online you can buy wooden names. They turned out pretty good for my first go at it and once you get them up on the wall they will look even better! They have the holes in the bottom because you can put them on a dowel to stand up, but I think they’ll look cute on the wall. Its just a matter of deciding how to do it. Velcro or nails… I’ll let the parents decide!

And today I made Ayden a personalized shirt and his annual birthday party shirt. I’ve made the shirt that he’s worn at his birthday party the last two years so this will be the third year that I’ve made it. I’ve seen personalized shirts for sale online for uber bucks and instead of buying one, I made my own. It cost me nothing since I had everything already at home.

I wouldn’t have had the shirts, but the other day while at Walmart I picked up a pack of white t-shirts. They were 10 shirts for $7 and I thought they were the men's size. I bought the pack because I’m in desperate need of some new bed time shirts. I just wear a t-shirt to bed and the shirts I’ve been wearing are like YEARS old, but I just can’t justify paying $5 or more for one shirt that I will wear to bed. So I thought, heck yeah, 10 shirts for less than a $1 a piece, these will work perfect for pajamas for me. Needless to say, I didn’t look close enough and they were boy sizes, not men. So Ayden ended up with 10 new shirts. I probably could have taken them back, maybe, but I mutilated the package when I opened it before realizing they were too small, and they were cheap enough.

So, anyways, I had plain white shirts at home, photoshop to create the design in, a printer with ink, and a few left over iron on transfers from last years shirt, and an iron that I use way too little, lol!

And off I went! What do you think?! I think they turned out pretty well! I can’t say they will look this good after I wash them after he wears them the first time, but that is okay. Like I said, I didn’t pay anything for them so I don’t really care. The weather has been uber hot this week so we haven’t done anything outside. I can’t wait for it to cool down a little bit so we can spend some time outside, that, and not get eaten alive by mosquitoes!

I found out yesterday that I ended up with the supervisor I didn’t really want this semester, but there is nothing that I can do about it and I am not so much nervous about having him as I am about getting an ‘A’ from him because he hardly gives out ‘A’s. That… and we have him for three other classes! One of which I found out was changed from 8-8:50 am on Mondays and Wednesdays to 5:00-6:40pm on Monday nights. At first I was totally upset by this change because who wants class at 5pm at night, but after a little while I realized it was probably for the best. I have no qualms with said professor changing the time because it is due to medical reasons, and no one can help that, and after figuring things out, it will cost us less in child care costs since I’ll be able to stay home later in the morning and get Ayden on the bus… which means… sleeping in!

That and I have morning clinic on Tuesdays, which means I have nothing going on Thursday or Fridays! Well, except for rotating clinic and hearing aid duty, but I can deal with that!

CIAO! LOVE ME!