A Colorado Christmas

He did it! Hooray! Jordan is officially a college graduate. Hallie and I are so proud of him. This last semester was one of his hardest yet, and he blew through it. He was working full time, school full time, daddy full time, and husband full time. Let's just say he was scraped pretty thin. He finished. We are so amazed at what he has accomplished. Although we have no formal plans now, I am sure things will work out the way they are supposed to.

Our original plan for driving to Colorado was to wake up super early on the 17th and drive all the way there. This plan was all contingent on Jordan actually walking in his ceremonies or not. All semester Jordan kept telling me that he didn't want to walk, and I believed him. Week of graduation Jordan and I are talking and he says to me that he has decided he does want to walk. OH man I was in a frenzy! We had to get tickets, call all of Jordan's family, figure out if kids are coming, etc, etc. So he ended up walking on the 17th at 9 in the morning. After that we drove home, packed up, and drove to Colorado. We got there about 11:30. Not too bad of a drive. We were just happy Jordan did indeed walk.

My family is so chaotic and crazy you can't help but love them. They are totally opposite of Jordan's family who are calm and collected. It's so crazy to see the difference, but we love them both:)

Colorado was filled with lots of fun activities: Seeing Santa Clause, the girls getting their nails done, swimming, bowling (x2), the Elves!!, 2 sacrament meetings on Christmas, meeting up with some close old friends, sledding, getting our family pictures taken, shopping, and running around to get everything done.

Hallie did so amazing with Santa. She just plopped right on his lap and gave the biggest grin she has.

Swimming was also very fun. I was a little mad because I forgot Hallie's adorable swimming suit, but she still had fun splashing around. It was Jordan's first time swimming with her. All the kids went minus Mary. We played Marco Polo and man, I don't know if it was the altitude, but I could hardly breathe! It might also have to do with the fact that I don't work out. Ever. lol.

Of course we decided to go swimming on the day that it snowed the most. So while we were inside swimming, everyone else in Colorado Springs was on the hill next to the pool sledding. We decided we wanted to get in on some of that action. So we decided to tie sleds to the back of the car and go up to the school parking lot and ride around. It was hilarious. And very dangerous. It made your bottom so cold we had to stop.

Christmas of course was fabulous. It was so fun to watch Hallie open gifts. Although she didn't really care for what she got, she LOVED the paper. haha. She only ripped the presents to get the paper off. It was kind of hilarious. I can't wait until she is old enough to actually get up and be excited for presents. Grandma Suzi got all the babies (which is only 3) Christmas jammies. We tried to take some pictures, but Tristan wasn't having it. Oh well. It was a fun day that we got to spend together. Both sacrament meetings were awesome, and it really centered the day on Christ. My dad read a story in his sacrament, which of course made us all cry. And my sister gave a talk in her sacrament that was very touching.

We had such a wonderful week in Colorado. I'm sad that we live so far away from my family, but it makes it even better when we get to go see them with all the family around. We had such a wonderful holiday.

at it again

I must go on a rant. I do not and probably will never proclaim myself as a "photographer". That is unless I decide to get my Masters in photography and open my own shop. I don't want to be pinned as one of those people that randomly bought an expensive camera and decided they could take pictures. I actually got my major in advertising (which I photographed a lot of campaign assignments-which is four years worth), and my minor in photography (which included: concept of design, color, digital imaging, studio, history, film, darkroom, portrait, etc...). Just wanted to clarify... moving on...

None the less, I have a wonderful hobby. I really enjoy doing it. I get to work with all types of people. Some of which are incredibly difficult to work with.. don't worry I'm probably not talking about you:) I've only had one session that was difficult and it was one of my very first shoots. Anyways, I have had a lot of families coming out of the woodworks the past couple months and asking me to do their family portraits. I LOVE to do them. I love seeing the families interact with each other. I love making little kids smile, while their parents are so hoping that their little ones are acting their best and smiling their brightest. I love when my husband comes along and holds my reflectors and just observes (while Hallie is strapped to his chest). I love taking my SD card out of the camera and plugging it into my computer. I love looking through all the photos on bridge and finding my very favorites. I love finding pictures that I took while metering when the family isn't paying attention and they have some of the most tender moments (it shows exactly how they feel toward each other at that very second). There are so many things I love I can't even count.

My studio photographer teacher taught me this- people who like art and things related like to create. They like to create because it is one of the few things a human can do that is something closely related to being like Heavenly Father and Christ. They created this world, and with my camera, I create also. I'm glad I read that from my school notes today. Gave me a good boost as I try to figure out what exactly my style is...

Oh and he taught me one other thing, photography is science first, art second. And if you don't understand that... it took me a good 14 weeks to get somewhat comfortable with the inverse square law.

Ok off of why I love to take pictures... I got to take some family pictures a couple weeks ago. I really enjoyed taking them and going through them. Awesome family. Love them so much. Here are a couple of my favorites...

I've gone a little nutty

I open my e-mail this morning and I find the most glorious thing. I entered Hallie into the "Kid of the Year" contest from Parents magazine online. I totally forgot that I had even entered her. So I open my email and almost delete this email when something inside of me says... 

"Stop" 

"Open that email"

It must have been the spirit.. haha. But anyways.. I open it. And low and behold my little girl has been chosen to be in the contest. Heck yeah! Fist pump! I was so ecstatic! And of course I'm dancing around the room by myself because Jordan is at school. Hallie is staring at me like I'm a mental person. I look at her and scream, 

"YOU'RE IN! YOU'RE THE CUTEST BABY!!"

She just gives me that huge smile of hers and then starts to laugh. It was almost as if she knew or something. Or at least understood what I was saying. Or thought I had gone crazy and she just thought it was funny.

So now I am an insane person. If you have gotten a random text from me with a link to her picture and pleading for you to vote, yes that was me, but mental me. If you didn't get a text from me it's because I don't have your phone number.

I plead temporary insanity.

So this is how it works... you enter your child and hope their photo gets picked from the thousands of entries to the top 100. But this is a weekly contest. You can enter your kid every week. If she gets the most votes from the 100 chosen this week we will receive 250 dollars. Then the winners from the 52 weeks of the year go into a big pool. Then all the editors of Parents magazine cast their vote for "Kid of the Year". If you win, you get 7,000 dollars!!! Holy cow. Jordan and I need this bad!! After having a baby this year, I stopped working, and all the car problems this year (2,500 just to be exact) we have accumulated some unwanted fundage on our credit of cards. So this will help a ton. 

So in conclusion to this post... 

PLEASE GO VOTE FOR MY BABY TO WIN

(yes I am going crazy. This is for Hallie. Vote for her)

You can vote everyday once a day from any device for the rest of the week. So I voted 4 times today.. my phone/husbands, my computer/husbands

Here is the link:

http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/1120363

Happy voting:) And if I haven't said it and you have voted already... Thank you!

finally finished

My very, very good friend Courtney has been so patient with me. I took her family pictures a couple weeks ago and finally finished them!

I have been super busy. I have become the maker of all invitations in our family. With Hillary's bridal shower coming up, I had to design, print, and help mail them. It was a daunting task, but the fact the Tiana did most of the work for the addresses was nice. Along with invitations, my sister decided to come into town for the weekend. So I had 3-4 days with my sister and her husband. I was so happy they came, and so sad to see them go.

After they left I knew I had to finish editing. I love taking family pictures. TAKING them. ha. Editing them is a whole other story. I know I learned in school that you should always meter correctly and make everything how you want it so you don't need to edit them later. But, I like mine to look a certain way that sometimes can not be achieved without the help of my dear friend photoshop.

So every night the past week after Hallie was in bed (she sleeps 8-7-so wonderful) I would get working on the photos. And if I have ever done your pictures, you know that I give you the best of every pose. Which is ALOT of work.

But finally they are completed. I love taking pictures of people that are photogenic. They basically pose themselves and look awesome with little direction from me. I sometimes get a little intimidated. haha. I'm no professional, but I think they came out pretty good.

Love you Courtney. You'll be getting your disc UPS sometime next week!

Escape From Bumbo

Many of you know, I love to take pictures of my little girl. For some reason I sometimes find I just walk around with the camera in my hand. Today, I realized why I do that. Hallie is hilarious. Every time I turn around she is doing something new, giving me a new face, or just plain being the cutest thing I have ever seen. Today was no exception. I turn around from the laundry to find Hallie 'caught in the act.'

Ladies and gentleman, I give you,

"Escape From Bumbo"

I had to share that story first. I laughed for a long time about it. But moving on, obviously we just had a holiday. Halloween!!! This year was probably one of the funnest Halloweens Jordan and I have had since we've been married. Obviously because now we have a little one to celebrate with. Of course, she can't eat any of the candy and she really has no clue what is going on, but it was fun to dress up and celebrate.

Hallie was a baby kitty, I was momma cat, and Jordan was a dude with dreadlocks. Jordan didn't want to wear cat ears with us. But it was still fun. On Saturday we went to Candace, Aaron, Brant and Macy's ward for the trunk or treat. We got a good haul. But the good candy came from the actual Halloween. Candace invited us to go trick or treating with their family in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Idaho Falls. Basically anyone who is a doctor or makes money lives in this neighborhood. We were making out with full sized candy bars, and one house was giving away toys. I don't mean rinky dinky dollar store toys. I mean they let all the kids into their house and pick from this toy store they have set up throughout the whole house. No parents are allowed in, but the lady let Jordan in (Hallie was strapped to his chest) and led him to where the baby toys were stashed. It was awesome. We will be going with Candace and her family every year from now on. To round out the night we watched Hocus Pocus and Season of the Witch. It was an awesome Halloween (even though I can't eat chocolate-stupid dairy diet).

We also carved pumpkins this year. I carved a cat, and Jordan carved the grim reaper. Hallie watched in amazement of her awesome parents.

Along with all the Halloween festivities, I got to take family pictures for a girl I used to work with and her family. They were so much fun. I'm so glad they let me take them!

Pumpkin Patch

Hallie and I have started something new this week called "nap time." Some of you may have heard of this before. It's this magical time where you put your baby down during the day and they sleep for a couple of hours while you get stuff done! Wow. I am sad I didn't start this sooner. It is FABULOUS! Yesterday I totally got to scrub my kitchen floor. And I mean scrub. Hands and knees with a tooth brush in the grout kind of scrub. My house felt so clean! Just like when I was nesting.

Anyways, with my new found time I decided to blog and catch you up on our exciting lives. Jordan is slaving away at school and work, doing them both full time. Bless his heart. He has been training chickens and rats so far this semester. It is very interesting. But it is close to midterms and we are still unsure of how to plan our lives. Grad school? Straight to work? Sit on our butts and try to last on savings? (This option of course would only allow us to last about a month. lol) He has a job interview on Friday for a job that he could actually use his major, but we'll see.

I am busy too. Lately I have had some friends of mine come out of the wood works and ask for family pictures. It makes me so excited to do them, I love more experience. My friend Mallory asked me to do her family (which consists of her and her husband), but I loved doing it. Here is just a sample.

I'm so excited to do my friend Courtney's on the 5th! Hopefully there are still leaves....

And of course the Hallie update. She is doing awesome. She goes to bed around 10 and wakes up between 7-8, takes at least one nap in her crib a day, has started sucking her thumb (only during nap time though. Very strange), smiles all the time. She is so fun to take pictures of. We are constantly shoving the camera in her face. Maybe she'll be really good for pictures when she is a toddler. Who knows.

Besides all of that, I need to share my new diet story. A couple of weeks ago, Hallie started having blood show up in her diapers. So we went to the doctor. We saw one of the other doctor's in the practice because it was a Saturday, but usually we see Doctor Moore. So this other doctor decided it was probably a stomach bug because she had had a slight fever, and if the blood continued to call them back. Well it continued. We went in a little more than a week later and saw the same doctor again. He was very puzzled. He sought out Doctor Moore. Doctor Moore told him it was probably a dairy allergy and that I needed to go without dairy for a week to see what resulted and then to come back. Well the blood in her diapers started going away. Relief. But think about it. A non-dairy diet. No milk, no cheese, no sour cream, no yogurt, no chocolate, no cream, no campbell's cream of chicken or mushroom, no ranch dressing, no anything!!! Basically everything that I like to eat is no longer available to me. Awesome. Besides being the hardest diet ever, add most inconvenient to the list. We had a family dinner on Sunday and Gail made everyone mushroom chicken, and had to make my own little BBQ chicken on the side. Sheesh. I am grateful for her to do that, but man it sucks. I love mushroom chicken! Hallie will be checked again at her 4 month appointment for red blood cells in her diaper to see if we need to see a specialist. If not, good bye dairy until Hallie is at least 6 moths old. Yay for me. At least I'll lose weight. :)


 On to the real reason of the post! The pumpkin patch! Jordan's brother Spencer was here with his family and they made the suggestion of going to the pumpkin patch. I was excited, for I am the expert pumpkin carver. Don't let Jordan tell you different! We're going to carve them on Saturday, so I will post them later. The pumpkin patch had a train ride, corn maze, and other little things for the kids. Hallie is still too little, so we just picked out pumpkins. I decided that was alright because the first round of kids had Brant and Macy's kids in the train, and the conductor lost all of them on the ride and didn't notice for a while so all the kiddos were left by themselves! Yeah we decided to pass.

We decided to go look for pumpkins, so we left Hallie with Grandpa Sautter to watch her. It took us 10-15 minutes. When we get back, Grandpa Sautter is missing and Hallie's stroller (with her inside, and my wallet and things) is sitting there alone! AH! Panic! I think he forgot he was watching her, or maybe told someone else to or something but he was with Gail in the car leaving. Haha. Just thought I put this part of the story to give him a hard time:)

But overall it was fun. Had a great weekend with everyone. Yay for family!