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!