Happy Day!

So my friend and I rented this amazing camera lens last week and I feel in love. The day I sent it back was so sad! Then my dear hubby surprised me on Mother's day when he told me to order it!!! So I was like a child yesterday when the brown truck dropped it off! The feeling of excitement overtook me. It was like Christmas morning at age 6 again. Thanks honey! Your the best. So as Rees played with his play doh this morning

I played with my new favorite toy...

This lens is super wonderful. The pictures are amazing. It is so crisp. I ventured out to take some pictures with my new toy.

Rees wasn't that into it. LOL- to say the least. He did want to model his boots though.

That he put on by his self **in case you couldn't tell**
So I headed out back to take pictures of some more cooperative subjects!

Spring has sprung

First of all thank you so much for all the well wishes and prayers that have been shared with me for my father. His surgery went well and he's coming home tomorrow!!! I am so happy that this chapter in his/our life is coming to a close and hopefully life will be much happier/easier/more enjoyable for him after a really tough year!

After work today Rees and I went out and played in the yard. I decided to take some snapshots of my blooming flowers. This is the 5th year for my pond and the flowers (perennials) are very mature and bloom really early every spring. I have several different varieties planted so that it blooms all summer long. The purple phlox is five years old. I purchased it at the end of summer at Walmart for $1 because it was 95% dead and I was being cheap and thought that I might be able to save it and guess what...it's gorgeous. So keep that in mind when your shopping for new flowers, don't be afraid of the clearance section.

This is one of my new favorite pictures. Isn't this flower so unique? I don't know what it's called but it spreads like wild flower around the pond every year and it looks like a pondish (remember when you add -ish to any word it makes it a better word LOL) flower.

close up of this flower

Pond waterfall with it's water irises and lily pads which the frogs are taking full advantage of right now. And one of my favorite plants the Hosta. Love this flower (the green one with white tipped leaves)

Phlox that I paid $1 for at Walmart in the flower clearance section.

My right hand man trying to fill the pond with water from the hose. I wouldn't let him and this was his reaction.

Bernie is starting to show his age

This is Bernie the 8 year old Shetland Sheepdog that Mat and I purchased a month after we got married.

Isn't he beautiful? Please overlook the dreadful hair cut he got from our new Petland store in town. We will not be going back there! We were laying on the couch the other day and I was petting him and I just suddenly noticed how he is starting to show his age. He is and always has been severely overweight (by about 40lbs) but now I see grey starting to come out in his beautiful coat. He is such a phenomenal dog. Bernie has truly been our best buddy. Rees can do anything to Bernie and we never have to worry about Bernie biting or anything of that nature. Sad to say after Bernie we will be a pet free household.  I never thought I would feel that way,but Rees keeps me busy enough animals require so much time and I just don't have that to spare! But Bernie is such a great dog and he is a huge part of our family!

Where does the time go?

Is it the middle of April already? I'm in total disbelief that summer is here already. The flowers are blooming, people are wearing shorts and my son has suntan marks? What happen to spring? Kinda like we bypassed it all together but I'm really not complaining I just can't understand how my to do list is just getting longer and longer and time is passing by so fast. I have been out in my flowers a lot this week. Rees never wants to come inside so unless it's nap time we're outside, which works for me!

My dear friend and I went to Columbus for a Kelby training seminar on Photoshop CS4 on Monday and we learned so much. It was a computer class but I already feel that my photos are so much better from my new found knowledge not to mention we shopped too so it was a great day. We're already looking for another one to go to.

Since it's spring/summer and all my mind is just over flowing with new projects I want to do. I have already tackled painting my patio tables and they turned out so cute. I bought them from Hobby Lobby 3-4 years ago and they were rusted and the paint had worn off so I bought a pretty color of light green and painted them and I love how they turned out. And since I purchased multiple colors of paint from the clearance rack I decided to go on a painting spree. I even painted one of my flower pots LOL! Who knew terracotta was a paint color? Probably everyone but me! I even found 2 perfect chairs at the flea market last weekend to spray paint. I am over the moon about one of them. It is the perfect chair for pictures so I can't wait to drag it outside and get Rees' pictures on it!  That's it that's all folks! Have a great week.

Talk about a scary wake up call

Around midnight lastnight it sounded like our house was going to blow away we jumped up out of bed and ran to the door to see quarter sized hail bouncing off the patio. It was really freaky. Our windows sounded like they were going to brake and we were sure our cars would be dented up, but luckily ours weren't but our neighbors didn't get so lucky.

New blog design!

Well, sadly Rees' birthday month has come and gone so I had to give my blog another makeover. I am loving this color scheme. It just makes me happy. These pictures are from one of the 3 Easter sessions I had with Rees!

Urgent Care

This weekend hasn't been all that I had hoped. My sister and I got to spend the whole day out shopping yesterday, which was a lot of fun, but my baby boy was feeling really rough so I had that in the back of my mind all day. Then when I got home things went from bad to worse. He lost his voice (sounds like a little frog) he was up most of the night with a fever and the yucky snot just keeps pouring out. It is the most heart wrenching feeling when your baby is sick and there is nothing you can do. So we were at Urgent Care as soon as they opened up which apparently everyone else in the county had the same idea because we had to wait what felt like forever. Poor Rees was burning up and just wanting to sleep so after all that was over we came home and took a two hour nap. We had a bday party to go to at the bowling alley today and Rees actually remembered it and asked me about Conner later in the evening :( So hopefully we'll have more pretty days to come because we didn't get to take advantage of them this weekend. Better luck next week I guess.

SPRING!!!

So last night we were up all night with Rees man vomiting and coughing his head off. I felt so sorry for him. This morning I didn't go to work because he just wanted his momma :) And when I called my mom to tell her Rees wasn't coming over to her house she said she had been up all night with the pukes too. So long story short I think Rees is okay,  he just has a terrible cough that after so long causes him to throw up. Today has been such a gorgeous weather day that we couldn't resist going out to get a little sunshine! It perked Rees right up (made me happy too). He fed the donkeys, then he watered them then they fell over from too much grain lol, not really but he made sure they had more than enough! Then we had to dig in the dirt and clean up some debris just anything that gave us more time outside. So it finally hit 1:30 and Rees looked as if he was going to fall over of exhaustion so I took him in for a nap and he's still asleep 3 hours later. This picture just made me happy for some unknown reason.

Exhausted

I am so tired. My eyes are crossing as I'm typing. March has been such a busy month with work/family/birthdays/photography I'm really not a good "no sleep" person. I love to be busy and have a lot of project going on, but I need my sleep. I hear people talking about getting 4-5 hours of sleep and it being fine...what??? No way that just doesn't work well for me. Rees has been sick and not sleeping well at night, my mind has been going in 20 different directions and I haven't been feeling the greatest either so sleep has been hard to come by this week. On the up side of things Rees' party was a lot of fun. We had a great turn out and the decorations turned out just how I had hoped. Rees had an amazing time and that's all that matters! I am so thankful to all of our family and friends that came to party with us! We love you all so much and we're very lucky to have such wonderful people in our life. After his party he lost his voice and sounded like a little frog it was so cute **and sad** but he's feeling better today. I haven't even looked at my pictures yet. I'm so stinkin tired that I'm hoping to sleep 8 hours solid tonight so I can start my Monday out right! Pictures to follow this week!

My first attempt at Easter pictures

Rees and I went shopping this week in Huntington. I found the cutest Easter outfit and Crazy 8 (love that store) so I said to myself "Self you better get started on pictures early cause you know how Rees is"  LOL - I love when I address myself as self is anyone else laughing? Ha! Anyways I certainly want good pictures this year, last years were thoroughly disappointing and it's still bothering me so I have to do good this year! Our first attempt lasted almost an hour and ended with Rees having blue sucker all over his face. Thank goodness none got on his outfit I really didn't think that bribe through very well. Yes you heard me correctly BRIBE! I have been waiting on Rees to reach the age that he could understand what a bribe is, well maybe not exactly what it is but rather how it will benefit him LOL.  We're almost there it worked for like 5 minutes then he started to say no bribe no bribe momma and it made me sad so I gave him the sucker. I can't wait until he will be good for like 30 minutes awaiting his bribe! Is that bad parenting? Nah! So here is a really cute one that I love except for the slobber oozing out of his mouth. Why God? Why? Well there's always next week to attempt it again. So stayed tuned for a lot more Easter pictures.

This lovely Friday evening I will be having a sister night. We used to have sister night ever Friday and I have missed them so much. Rees will be hanging out with the guys this evening while Abby and I dine on Mexican food and watch Dear john at the theater. I'm so excited!!! I really do have the best sister in the whole world **luv ya sister**  I hope everyone enjoys your weekend!

I almost forgot this hilarious one...I thought he would like the fake rabbit but turns out it terrified him

Terrible two's... Really???

Could it be that my sweet little man is going to turn into a raging maniac that can cry one moment and be bossing me around the next? No, not my perfect little angel. HA! He will be 2 in a couple weeks, but just like everything else I think we're early on the terrible two's too. This last week has been trying to say the least. What is the best way to deal with this? He loves me...he doesn't want anything to do with me, he's kissing me...he's hitting me, I want momma... I want daddy I just can't believe how hard heading and opinionated my two year old is. Secretly I love the fact that there is no persuading him away from his original demand, but in the moment it sure is hard to try and reason with a toddler. I can see so much of me in him. I am such a hard head and a hot head that it's just tough for me to figure out how to handle it. He is really into movies right now so that is buying me an hour or two of down time during the day I might even get to cuddle every now and then, but otherwise we hard at it all day long. Puzzles are the "thing" right now. He is obsessed with them. We will do the same puzzle 10 times in  a row. I love watching the light bulb over his head when he gets all the pieces in the correct spots and then claps for himself. It doesn't get any better than that! Although I have enjoyed spending quality time with my baby boy I must say I can't wait for Spring so we can get out and about. It's too much work lugging a child around with winter clothing and then all the stuff you have to take and bundle him up then undress and do it all over again aghh I'm exhausted just talking about it! This weekend it's going to be in the 50's! I can't wait!

So here's a capture from this morning. He was so happy about a camera in his face first thing in the morning!

I suck

Well, I said it. I suck. I can't believe that I only made it two months out of 12 in the 365 challenge. I was so excited and motivated to document our year, but stuff happens and belive me there hasn't been much this past week that I want to document, more that I would rather forget about actually. It's been a tough week between the store, my hubby working 60+ hours a week, Rees not sleeping well (which means mommy doesn't either) and all of lifes other worries. Enough boo hooing, I need to suck it up and get back in the swing of life. I think I have kinda went into hiding or something LOL! I think I'm just going to go back to recreational blogging. I do much better with that.
A good friend and I are having a portrait event at a local business next weekend. We have worked really hard to prepare for it and we're both obsessed with being organized so I'm sure we're doing way more than we would actually have to, but I'm sure all the hard work will pay off and hopefully the event will go flawlessly, I can dream right? LOL! So I was in my studio today practicing with my lighting and a tripod. Well of course Rees wouldn't sit still for 5 seconds to help me so I had to try and be the test subject. Now I feel his pain, LOL! I didn't like it either. It took so long I had to put him down for his nap then go back over. I was trying out some new stuff and wanted to make sure I had a good handle on it before our event. I had to set the self timer and then run over to the seat, I did that like 50 times. This picture kinda sums up my mood. I was  little aggravated at this point, but I'm happy to report I figured my light settings out!

Day - 49 Laundry day

There are 2 adults and a toddler in our house. Where does all the laundry come from? I have done 4 loads today and have 3 more to do. I HATE laundry.

Special post for a "special" family

Let me introduce you to the Roe Family. They were kind enough to come over and let me take pictures of their beautiful family for an upcoming event I need to promote. We had a good time and we accomplished everything I needed too, but there was one "problem child" in the bunch. This boy was really hard to work with, didn't take direction well, and had something really funky going on with his eyes. Geez I feel sorry for Mrs.Roe.

Just kidding Jason! You were great to work with this was too funny not to share :)

Day 47 - Meet my extended family

Did you know I have a petting zoo? Well not really, but close to it. I have 4 donkeys and 2 llamas right outside my back door. They are all really friendly and love attention. This cold weather is probably getting old to them too! Let me introduce you...

 

This is Momma Llama 

Original I know, but when I got her she had a baby and I thought it had a cute ring to it.

This is Baby Llama

I know, not original either, but she was my baby 7 years ago. 

This was Mat's first anniversary present to me and I love it.

 

This is Twiggy

She is the latest addition to our donkey collection. I think she's preggo!

 

This is Jersey

She's a little dirty right now, but when she's all cleaned up she is adorable.

 

This is Ruby (front) and Donkey trailing her

I couldn't isolate Donkey from her long enough to get his close up! He LOVES Ruby :)

So this is my petting zoo. Before I had Rees I had free time to take care of them and love on them and Ruby used to run around the yard with me when I was working in my flower beds. She never tried to run away, she knew she had it good :)

So thanks for taking time to meet all my furry buddies!

 

Have a great day!

Day 46 - Another big storm

Enough is enough already! Snow is beautiful and I love playing outside in it, but two weeks straight of it is too much. The weather is predicting another big one for us. This picture is untouched. The sky really looked like this and then about an hour later the snow came in with a vengeance.

Day 44 - Grocery trip on a Saturday night

We are livin' it up this weekend! I worked this morning, came home took a 3 hour nap with Rees then we loaded the family up and went to Walmart grocery shopping and it's around 10:00 and I'm headed to bed. I just can't get enough sleep this week??? Must be this snowy, dreary super cold weather we're having. This is our snack basket. This basket is the most important thing in our kitchen according to Rees. He would live off snacks if we would let him. Just recently he has learned that scooting the chair over to the counter and climbing up is much easier than begging mommy for 20 minutes until she gives in :) NOT A GOOD THING! He can now remove the baby gates what am I to do? Things were so easy when he could only crawl!

Day 38 - Super bowl Sunday

Okay, so I'm not gonna front, I don't like football, but I love a good excuse to get together, eat and have a good time. That's the true meaning of SBS to me. My sister had a great party tonight that was so much fun! The food was so yummy (all appetizers...my favorite!) I have a lady that I get all my cakes and cookies from and I had her make some super bowl cookies for my sista who is madly in love with the Colts take a look.

Day - 36 IKEA the greatest place on Earth

So the hubby and I ventured to Cincinnati for our first IKEA experience and believe me it is truly an experience. IKEA is gigantic. The entire top floor, which has the same amount (or possibly more) of floor space that Walmart has is set up as furnished rooms. They look exactly like someone lives there. Pull the kitchen drawers out and see all the kitchen tools you could ever dream of having and they all have price tags. Then just write down the item number with the pencil and pad they give you and they after your finished exploring the top floor head down stairs and shop! It was so fun. They have a great cafe to eat at. A nursery to babysit your children (we didn't have our little man, but he would have LOVED their playland) and they even sell groceries. Every detail of the IKEA experience is unique, even the shopping carts are amazing. I know this sounds silly, and originally I thought I had a broken cart but the wheels on the cart turn slide all over the floor. I can't think of words to describe it, but just know when you get your cart the first time it's going to be hilarious! So now that I have my love affair for IKEA out in the open I want to share one of my favorite finds. We bought Rees an awesome chair that hangs from the ceiling. It is so cool. and the best part, it was only $34. If you could see how cool this chair is in person you would be amazed. Here is Rees enjoying it.

Day - 34 Gloomy outside

It's that time of year for me. The time where the flowers are depressing, the yard is muddy and the trees all look like they are on their last leg. This is my koi pond. It is so "dead" looking. It still has ice chunks from our last snow fall and the forecast is saying we are going to get sleet/ice/snow tomorrow & Saturday so it looks like there is no end it sight. Hurry up Spring!