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!!