Home From CKC!

For the past four days, my friend Tracy and I, have been scrappin' it up at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Bellevue, Wa. We flew down from Alaska last Wednesday night and started classes on Thursday morning.

A special thank you goes out to my darling mom and pops, who generously loaned us the use of their home and car while we were there. We scrapped. We shopped. We ate at places not found in Alaska (ie: PF Changs and Jack in the Box) and we enjoyed every minute!

It was nice to come home to our sweet kids and hubbies, who also deserve a special thank you for allowing us to take this trip every year!

I didn't take a ton of pictures because everything was so fast paced, but I got some highlights...


Every year I try to get my picture taken with a "scralebrity" and this year I found Megan Hoeppner, the Creative Editor at CK magazine. Jealous?


Thursday night was dinner at PF Changs with some friends. A few girls from high school met up with us at the convention for the scrap-a-thon and we all went out to dinner. Lettuce wraps. Yum. This was our desert.


Here we all are in class. From left to right: Tracy, Me, Rachael and Jessica.


Starbucks. My life blood. I think I drank one for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day.


Apart from scrapping, we also did some shopping. HELLO! This is my mom and my sister in law, Kate. I did not get the puffy vest memo. But I wish I had, because they were super cute.


What is THIS GUY doing here? A dude (a DUDE? At a scrapbook convention?) from Alaska. Johnny Moyer. He hooked us up.


The parting shot. This was taken about five minutes before we all parted ways until next year.

Now we are all home safe. I'm inspired to do some creative things (my first challenge was getting all my new STUFF into my limited luggage situation. I really hate that airlines charge for all checked luggage!

Star Wars Halloween (Again)

Last year Obi Wan, R2D2 and Princess Leia went out for some trick or treating together. This year, in keeping with the theme that will NEVER END, it was Boba Fett, Yoda and Darth Vader. Jordan REALLY wanted to be Darth Vader. I think she was the cutest Darth Vader ever.


Darth Vader, aka Jordan


Yoda, aka Joshy


Boba Fett, aka Jaycob

As per our usual tradition, we all went tricking treating with our friends. There were about 15 kids in our group this year. Afterward, our friend Trinity had a birthday party. However, we didn't stay because Jordan had been very sick the previous night (threw up 14 times!) and we didn't want to spread our disease. So far everyone else is healthy though!

Pumpkin Craft

I was thumbing through a Better Homes and Garden magazine last fall and I stumbled upon a nifty craft idea with pumkins. I was so intrigued that I had to try it. The only problem was, I needed a corer and I didn't own one. Nor could I find one around town. A corer is one of those little gadgets that plunges the center out of an apple and what not. I finally just had to improvise and I ended up painting my pumkins instead.

Last year's effort

This gave me a decent result but I was really disappointed that I couldn't do it right. A few months later I found myself at a Pampered Chef party and right there in the catalog was a CORER. I bought it.

Today I was at the grocery store and I spotted all the pumpkins and the pretty little colorful squashes. I thought about my corer. I had purchased it all those months ago for this very reason. The time is now. I loaded my cart with an assortment of sizes and colors of pumpkins and squashes and brought them home.

And I cored the mess out of 'em.


Then I plugged all the little holes back up.


It was easier than I expected but my palm got really sore from forcing the corer through the skin. They turned out happy though.

I like.

On Turning 32

My 30th birthday really didn't bother me. I expected to be bothered; waited for the bothering to happen, but it wasn't so bad. I don't even remember my last birthday so I can't say how I felt then, but this year I'm 32. I'm 32 years old and THAT is sort of bothering me. 30 may have been more of a milestone, but turning 32 already, well that means I'm just trucking right on through my 30s at warp speed. Bother.

I'm not too concerned with aging well. My mom is gorgeous so I'm intending to follow in her footsteps. I did, however, take a moment recently to peer very closely at myself and noticed that the scowl lines between my eyebrows appear to be permanent. I really should have stopped scowling a long time ago. My husband once told me that my natural, relaxed, every day expression is a scowl. Not exactly a compliment, no, but true enough evidently.

But enough waxing philisophical about my age and onto the events. For my birthday my sweet hubby had flowers delivered. This is special because I never get flowers. EVER. I love flowers dearly but I consider them to be an enormous waste of money as they only last a few days. I'd rather you give me the cash and send me shopping. Every once in a while though, it's just so darn sweet.

My kids gave me the all the equipment needed to make my own espresso every morning. An espresso maker, coffee grinder and a huge box of white chocolate mix. We are working out the kinks still on preparing the perfect cup, but it's coming along. Hubby made me one the other night that accidentally had five shots of espresso in it. I didn't realize it until later when I kept eyeballing the couch and wondering if I could jump over it.

A few days after my birthday, my business partner (I love saying that), Tracy, picked me up for a photo shoot and off we went to Lonestar restaurant to recreate some wedding reception photos for a couple celebrating their ten year anniversary.

NOT.

When we walked through the doors (me looking homeless and carrying a bunch of gear) all my favorite friends (in Alaska) jumped out and shouted SURPRISE (and other things) at me.

Wow. That was a...well, it was a surprise. That's for sure. We had dinner and a very crafty ninja/fruit snack decorated birthday cake. They gave me a box filled with my favorite things including a new camera bag, sour patch kids, ninja toys, movie tickets, Starbucks gift cards, jewelery, a scarf and hat AND mountains and mountains of assorted fruit snacks.

I must say, I have the greatest friends EVER. I heart them muchly.

So, aside from feeling a little older, turning 32 has been pretty freakin' awesome thus far.

The Great Pumpkin Hunt

In the drizzly early morning darkness that layered Anchorage last Friday, I met up with two other moms in the back parking lot of the building that houses our church as well as the school where Darrin works and Jaycob learns.

Our mission? To scatter hundreds of little pumpkins all along the greenbelt that separates the parking lot from the little creek that runs beside it. Days later, our pastor would begin his sermon by telling the story of driving into the parking lot and seeing pumpkins scattered far and wide, and then leaving an hour later and seeing nothing but empty grass.

This was the day of the annual SURPRISE pumpkin hunt and harvest party for the kindergarteners.

Jake was VERY excited for this.


This is the other half of PS Photography, my girl Tracy. She also has a kindergartener.


Yay! Pumpkins!


And then they feasted.

Lack of Posting

Sorry fort he lack. I'm SO busy with all this photography mumbo jumbo. Right now we are days away from launching our WEBSITE and I've been spending a lot of time trying to make it just right.

One of the things that is happening with this business of taking pictures professionally is that I don't seem to have much time to take photos of my own family. That is seriously not okay with me but I'm working on that.

I just so happen to be taking a photography class right now and that has forced me to take pictures of my kids for my assignments. So thank God for that! Here's a couple recent ones of Jordan. I was working on back lighting and other lighting angles. Just so we are clear, the girl poses on her own. I did NOT give her any direction othat than, "LOOK AT THE CAMERA!"

She's such a goof.

Munchkeroo

Last week I posted some pictures of the boys on their birthdays. Turns out I took Jordy's pictures that day too.




I know, right?

Introducing...

About a month ago, my friend Tracy and I started our photography business. It's something we'd both been throwing around for a year or so when suddenly, after posting a few pics of a friend's baby on Facebook, things just took off. Since the summer we have taken pictures of newborns, high school seniors, families and couples. We are slowly developing our business and enjoying the process right now. We're working out some kinks here and there and trying to find that balance with work and family. We have two photo shoots coming up this weekend and then we are taking a full week off to get caught up, work on our website and do some laundry.

Here are some examples from recent photo shoots we've done...

Senior pictures with Margaret


Senior pictures with Ryan


Family photos with the Scheeringas


Anchorage Christian School volleyball team photo


Newborn shoot with baby Makayla


Newborn shoot with baby Autumn

If you have a facebook account, we'd love it if you would visit our fan page and become a fan! Click here.

A "P" And An "O"

My little Doobie had his birthday celebration yesterday and that about wraps up the birthdays until mine later in October. Joshy still can't quite grasp the concept of birthdays and he was upset this morning when Jake told him it wasn't his birthday anymore. He took it to mean that he couldn't have his new toys. We tried our best to clear up that confusion and he seems better about things now.

This is his special "P" and "O" that he requested for his birthday. They don't mean anything, they are just his favorite letters. So, there you have it.

I've about lost my mind trying to load this picture correctly. I'm not sure what the issue is but it really wants to be a vertical picture so I'm just going to let it.


Gift time! A little overwhelming but he got the hang of it.










Mmmmm, P and O cake.

Joshy is THREE!

The birthdays are flying around here. Seems like we just finished up Jake's (because we did) and now Doobie is turning three. He wants a P and an O for his birthday. We weren't sure what to make of that but I finally decided to make cupcakes and arrange them on plates in the shapes of P and O. That should work. I hope.

Darrin is taking all the kids to go play on the bouncy toys at school while I bake and wrap.

Happy Birthday Doobie!