Benny's Baptism Announcement

I love putting together cute baptism invites.  I've been able to watch Benny grow for the past five years.  He's got the best smile, and I wanted something that really captured him.  Love the way the red and blue from his tie was able to work with the rest of the card.  

 Is it dorky that I always come close to crying when I do these baptism announcements?

Cause I do. 

Just a smidge of what I've been working on..

So I have been slaving away. But don't ask me what I've been slaving away ON.. I seem to have a slight problem with painting everything over and over again. But that's another post.. I am happy to say that I have been working on my writing often, and I have actually been getting some things done around my house.. It's decked out tackily in Halloween and one of the bigger accomplishments- my garage is almost clean enough to park in (As long as you don't count the five pieces of furniture I bought last Saturday). I have had tons of fun photo shoots over the past couple weeks, and wanted to show this one..

I had the pleasure of working with a sassy little crew of ladies..

Do we love the tutus?

Super intense tea party. Many more cuties to come.. I'm a horrible blogger, but I'm trying my best to keep up with my projects.. Here's a list of things I want to show that I've been working on:

Bauer's room remodel complete with refinished vintage dressers

Bentley's finished product of a room

Our homemade Halloween costumes

Our homemade Halloween decorations

My new refinished coffee table.. in indigo

My ruffle pillows

My under construction chandelier

etc..etc...etc..

They may not be that interesting, but I want to post 'em!

Plus many more photos!

See ya soon! I hope...

p.s. can I just say I am obsessed with this Bruno Mars song?? I am dorky enough to admit it's getting me excited for the new Twilight movie!!

A little shmidgen of what I've been up to..

I have been trying to keep up with so many things! Here's some of the photography I've been doing... I have much more to post, but here's a taste..


My little Bauer.. he usually won't pose for long, but is very well behaved in the one minute window he gives me.


Bentley is my cute little serious thing. This house reminded me of my great grandma's, so I love the porch!


My younger sister, Brooke.. she thinks she looks like an Asian man in the picture, but I think she looks darling.


My cute little Linds.. one of my Young Women who is now graduating from college!! She's going to make a great teacher!!

baptism invite example

Back..

I never really post the cards that I put together, and thought I'd share this one.. maybe one day I'll get more with it and have cards people can upload from my blog.. if someone can tell me how I do that, I will post some free templates. Help a brotha out, yo!

Salt Flats Graffiti-Tastic Extraordinaire Family Shoot

So I gotsta love me these Hodson girls! How cute is this family? And such troopers in the cold weather. I have to admit, I've never seen a family work the graffiti like they do. Notice the "sissy pants" on the door frame? We couldn't help ourselves... All three cute kiddos.. Someone's got a baptism coming up! We got extra of this cutie for her invites.. Love this one! Somehow graffiti just works better for teenage boys pics. Call me crazy, I know.. I'm sure a field of flowers would be great, too. Thanks for looking!

Baptism Preview

Cutest lil' thang ever! She was such a trooper even through cold windy weather. I can't wait to post some more of her and the rest of her cute fam!

Meet Baby Kenslie

How fun is it for me to hold a teensy tiny baby? Especially since mine are born full grown?

I love this one.

What parent can't appreciate that look your little one gets right before they fall asleep?


And you gotta love that newborn little pose..

And what girl doesn't love shoes? Even if she is only a few weeks old..

My oh-so talented friend made the cute blanket (who happens to have had her third baby TODAY.. CoNgRats to the Trosts!!).. And I love the name, Kenslie by the way.. super cute name for a super cute little one.

kickin' off V*day

So the plan was 14 days of Valentine's.. makes sense, right? But I have a defect. I'm a little bit bi-polar when it comes to my blog. 90 % of me wants to fix it up and have cute fun stuff on it including pictures, crafts, recipes.. anything!! And the 10% of me that's too ornery/busy/ more in the mood to watch a lifetime movie usually wins. But.. that takes us back to the New Year's resolutions.. and I made a resolution to be better about blogging. I took a second to go through my old family blog yesterday, and now I realize why. There are so many little things I blogged about that I have forgotten about. And it's so fun to go back and see! So whether someone finds something here that they like, or I have something for a point of reference for myself.. I'm happy.

Here are two of my kiddos that didn't make the cut for our Valentine's Day cards.. but I thought they were too cute not to share.. I hate to post the ones that are on the card.. then it's like you're already seen it.. and what fun is a card you've already seen? None.

That takes us back to the 14 days of Valentine's. It's now down to twelve. That's how I roll. Next year may be better. Maybe I'll be worse? Maybe it'll be 9 days of Valentine's. Who knows.. that's what you get when you're dealin' with a bipolar blogger. ANywaY, In an hour or two, my official first day of Valentine's Partyin' will be up!

More of my cute Family + their cute dogs

These are some of my cute cousins.. I always want to say nephews.. We went on a chilly Wheeler Farm shoot and they were such good sports even though it was freezin!



I feel short when my younger cousins are taller than me.. Chancey made me feel short! Or maybe just my shortness makes me feel short. Who knows.

I got to hang out with their dogs for a second, meet Bella...

and SUEY (you have to read that name in a really low voice). This is going to blow your mind, but no.. the measurements are not off on this picture. The dog is really that wide. When Jess got me my pug, Dolce.. this is what I hopefully thought she would turn into... so far no luck. I need to know the secret skills in getting your dog this awesome..

... mind blown??

One of my favs...

I like how the colors turned out in this one..

My favorite from the group...

A big ol' Thanks to my aunt Jeni for being so cute and patient while we went through me trying to make their Christmas cards! Next year I promise I'll have it down.

Let's get back into it!

So this will give you an idea of how far behind I am.. these are some pictures from our stay in Las Vegas for Thanksgiving. My cute Christiansen clan fam, this is the Jon and Summer department. I have to say, I love Las Vegas, I could happily live there. Thanksgiving was great, Summer and Debbie's squash soup was aMaZing. I think about it fondly daily. One thing I learned about Jesse's brother, Jon, is that he HAtEs taking pictures. Hates it. So we had to move fast because he didn't want to spend much time. So we ran to a nearby spot and then Summer and I had fun running everywhere else with the kids.

My cute niece, Lucie Loo

One of the cutest boys, ever.. Max. He's full energy all the time.

Love this one!

The whole fam.. I love Summer's hair just blowin' in the wind.. like a sexy superstar.. So did the guys who were just hanging out in their van.. watching us take pictures. That's always great.

Hunter is the most grown up kindergartner you have ever met. He speaks more eloquently than most adults. He's such a stud. Sometimes I think Bauer is starting to look a lot like him.

So a huge thanks to Jon and Summer for having us at their beautiful house and another thanks to Jon, who checked Jesse and my eyes and we can now see much better thanks to our contacts (whew.. run on sentence??)

So that's a taste of some of the stuff I've been up to while I've been MIA on the whole blog thing.
And also.. I've been having some computer issues.. some kind of bug that always pulls up a "playsushi" game. It's been causing me headaches and then I made the genius move to organize my photobucket.. which broke many of my links. I don't know if I can commit to fixing it, but I might. So, that's why you see no pictures below and only photobucket stuff.

bradfords

This shoot turned out so well regardless of the cold. Poor Dax started shivering the second he got out of the car! His dad, Todd, is pretty frail so maybe he got a little bit of that. j/K Dax could take Todd in a fight any day. anyway.. such a cute fam!!
They really do like each other! They're not fakin it.
Once I handed him a punkin, he was happy again.

Love this! Paris with newbie, Brody.. remember Paris's maternities from not that long ago?

My Fav! El lovo fantistico!

don't you wear your tutu to salt air?

How cute are these girls? All of my friends seriously have the cutest kids! We decided to round up whoever wanted to come and ventured on out to SaltAir. I haven't been there since I was little.. and all I can remember about that is my mom took us there to ride elephants? I'm not making it up. I have pics to prove it.

Here's one of my favs.. Brooklyn with her balloons...

Both Miley and Bauer were not too excited about being there. But I got cute pics of Miley... Bauer not so much.

Anna was our little star! I had been warned beforehand about her lack of enthusiasm for picture taking, but she did so well!

The girls got spunk..

I love the old west feel..

Help me out! I love this picture of Bentley, and I can't decide how I love it most. Let me know what you think...

B&W



Color..

Color crop

The stinky trip out there was worth it!