motivated

lots of things in my life are motivitating me right now..
my kiddos.. my faith... my husband.... my job(the one where I take pictures!)

my head is spinning with all kinds of ideas to further myself in all these areas, to shine and soar!

i'll be back later with some updates!

happy heart day!

from my littlest valentine. I do have a few others that I'll be celebrating with a special dinner, yummy treats and a few surprise gifts. this one just happens to be celebrating her SIXTH month milestone this week! I started with a few pics for her session.. but our weekend ended up getting so busy, that we had to call it quits. perk of having a photographer for a mommy. rescheduling is pretty easy. =)

we were busy preparing our valentines to take in to school today. Tatum was super excited for her party. I went in to help a bit, along with my 2 side kicks... kid #3, and baby girl. (who just happens to look just like her big sis at this age). crazy. except she hasn't turned blonde. we kept thinking she would , but it just hasn't faded yet. maybe I'll end up with a blonde and a brunette , blue eyed girls... along with my 2 blue eyed blondie boys. I love my little family. it is so perfect.

and with that, I am gonna hop off here and go finish prepping up dinner before kid #1 bounces (notice the word choice?) from school today- no doubt he'll be hopped up on sugar ( I read the list of class party treats being brought in ! lol). Then we're off to his last art class.. which by the way has been fantastic for him. a little budding artist , we have on our hands.. he has really enjoyed it and is doing a great job with it.

hope you enjoy your day with your sweets! (take that however you want. =).. )

Christmas Morning 2011, part one

Christmas Eve..

being that Christmas Eve came on a Saturday, we had lots of extra time to hang out , finish up with cleaning the house,(because who wants to add all those Christmas morning hoop laahh into a mess house?!), and finish up making treats for our neighbors. this is a tradition that I started when Brigham was about 3.... he (now I have 3 little helpers) have fun in the kitchen making all kinds of cookies and candy treats. In years past, I have always gone to several cookie exchanges and get togethers or hosted some even.. it made sense to bake and make so much.. welp.. this year no activities to attend.. however, that didn't keep me from having fun creating things in the kitchen with my kiddos. Um.. I just ended up gaining practically all my baby weight that I lost (within 2 weeks of having Tegan) all back in the month of December! lol- ok, not really , but it felt like it! I finally send a bunch of tins full of goodies to work with Andrew so I wouldn't eat any of it!

Well the above pictures were some delicious surprised that came from Andrew and Brigham delivering to a new neighbor. They had moved in this summer and we had met them briefly.. nice people. Andrew found out that they own a local and AHH MAZING gourmet restaurant here in town and no wonder, their Christmas Eve dinner was so delish. How generous of them to send home two plates , a sampling (Andrew said she was going to give an entire pork loin home!) of their traditional dinner.

Didn't take any pictures of the kids before church.. or at our traditional Chinese dinner, so I snapped one quickly before we started with the gifts with grandpa and Uncle Monkey

this is like my most favorite image ever... and I love that her brothers are so happy for her. I sure hope it is always that way in our family. At least that is what we are teaching and modeling.. that we always support and encourage each other in the family.

she. is SOOOOOO excited about one of her gifts from grandpa. well done. I think he won her over.

yep. he sure did.

and a princess tent..... which became a hide out for the rest of the evening.. and mama's hide out every so often ever since. =P

and soooo I wrote up this draft and realized that it has gone un published! gonna do a real quick recap of our Christmas festivities, since we are a mere week away from Valentine's day after all!!
Realizing that my time is even more lacking for scrapping up the memories we are creating, so I better at least put forth the effort to put it down on paper , and with pictures.. someplace!

Still gonna turn these all into a book one day! and with that.. I am going to go press the publish post button!!

getting thru life with four....

a sampling of her first couple weeks.... pretty much sums it up!!

has been a stinking blast!! seriously, we are just having the time of our lives with our new addition.. and just look at her!! not much work besides the occasional( ok, daily.. even hourly) blow out and the constant soaking of clothes.. People ask me all the time how is it adapting with four kids.. Or they see us out (don't know us) and they say "oh, you have your hands full!"..My reply is always, well, actually it is pretty easy. Little T didn't come out walking or back talking.. so yeah.. she is pretty darn easy. Her older siblings just adore her and they fight over who gets to give her a hug and kiss good night during the bedtime routine. Today, while driving to pick up Big T from school, Tegan was coo'ing(yeah, she does that now.. so melts me!) and so Beckham was talking to her. He said " hi Tegan will you be my best friend?".. AWE. hearing that come from the back seat of the van, just filled me with joy. I realized (yet again) how amazingly blessed I am. Do you ever stop and look into the sweet eyes of your children and say "what did I do to deserve such awesome gifts?". I do. I find myself thanking God every single night during my prayer time for the beautiful gifts he has blessed me with. I pray for each one of the individually(um, even pray for their future mates.. I know jumpin the gun just a tad on that one perhaps.. lol) and I ask him to give me guidance on how to raise them. and who am I kidding?? I ask for LOTS of patience.. four is kind of a rough age.. just sayin'.

It's a good thing she is so stinkin' adorable.

Anyway... my busy, busy time of year is *almost* coming to an end.. so I had some free time to actually pop over here and blog on this page. I am so ever grateful for the amazing growth in my business this year.. (I'll do a separate post on that here soon). I wanted to give a few updates here before we get full force immersed into the Christmas season. Well, actually we started fun festivities last weekend and have been doing something each night since. I have been taking pics along the way and I look forward to sharing them here on my blog.

I'll leave you with the announcement that we sent out for Miss Tegan.

this little lady....

Tegan Evangeline

has been taking up a lot of my time lately! oh.. yeah. I kinda had a baby. and surprise , she is a girl!! And we are so loving having her in our family. Two and two.. almost feel like my family is complete.... almost... Adapting to four kiddos has been a breeze. Really it has. She just comes in tow to every where we go. She has been more places.. and it is so funny, because each time, the older kids say. " this is Tegan's first time to.. church, to the park, to school, to football, to grandma's house, to wal-mart, .. etc.".. um yep. Lots and lots of 'firsts' for this little one.

She is a great baby.. sleeps almost all the time. Sleeps 5-6 hr stretches at night. Eats like a champ and is growing like crazy. speaking of, guess I should make her 2 month dr. appt. EEK. YES, she is almost 6 weeks old already.( did you really think I would blog about her birth.. c'mon my blogging capabilities are severely lacking ...) funny.. because with her eldest brother and sister, I blogged their every sneeze and fart. (you think I am joking?? lol) I'll leave you with this one.. taken during her first week.... awwww. it is a good thing I specialize in newborn photography.. get to have my newbie fix as my own newborn grows up..