Grandma

This is my Grandmother. My mom's mom. She's one of my favorite people. And one of the funniest people I know. My grandmother is known for saying hilarious things at completely unexpected moments. Here are two of my favorite Grandma quotes:

While watching the very end of Australia, as the native black man turns and walks away and you see his entire back side, my grandmother said "Whoa! He's black all over!"

Then this last trip I made to Utah, just after I assumed that I was drinking too much orange juice, my grandmother said "Too much of anything isn't good... except for sex."

Hahahaha, love her!

Flair-Tastic!

I love Sun Flair! I love that you can use sun flair in so many ways and that there are so many types of Sun Flair! I am working on becoming the master of Sun Flair. Then that will be what I ask Siri on my iPhone to call me; Sun Flair Master.

Megan and Kenneth were willing to chase the sun with me when I was in Las Vegas last week. There is only a small amount of Peak Sun Flair time in the evening, and we got a lot in! Although not all of our session were sun flair photos, I did warn Megan, that she will have a lot, even a majority, of Sun Flair Photos. She was ok with that.

Barbie's Make-over

I went to Vegas to visit my family recently, and I got to help my Mom get ready for Preschool starting in the Fall. She got the barbies out to get ready, and was just about to give up. They were a mess! Some of these barbie were 15 years old and some were only 2 years old, but they were all pretty nasty looking. I was up for the challenge though. I went online and found solutions to each of our problems. We washed each barbie and sewed their clothes on, but the Barbie Hair Spray I made was what saved the Barbies from going in the trash.

To Make Barbie Hair Spray, add 2 tablespoons of Fabric Softener (we used Downey) per 1 cup of Water, and combine in a Squirt Bottle.

Our Squirt Bottle could hold about a cup and a half of water, so we add 3 tablespoons of Softener.

A warning I would like to interject here before you run off and get started! Don't do this project over carpet, and don't spray too much on yourself. Fabric softener on Carpet attracts and holds on to anything dirty, and if you get a lot on yourself, you'll smell like downey for days! I have very sensitive skin and got hives from spraying way to much fabric softener on myself. I recommend using a towel and placing it anywhere but your lap for this project.

The Barbie Hair Spray works as both a detangle spray and a hair spray. Start by spraying barbies hair with the spray. Then use a barbie brush until it is combed out, then use a people comb to finish. Sit barbie up and let her dry.

After a good 3 hours or so of drying (I waited a full day) brush out barbies hair again to get that stiff look out. Then after her luscious hair is perfect, lightly spray her hair again with the Barbie hair and let Barbie dry. She will look great! And stay great! Kids messy powers have met their match!

Once Barbie is beautiful and dry, clean her plastic skin well. You can use an every day cleaner and a tooth brush for this, or just a clorox wipe if you wish. The fabric softener was sure to get on her plastic skin and this will attract dirt and gross stuff very easily!

Here are some of my Before and After pictures from other barbies that I groomed:

I didn't Do this on the barbies yet in these pictures, but once you're done, you can take a pair of hair scissors and cut off any loose frizzies.

Taking pictures of every day life

    I got to drive to my Grandpa’s house last week with just my mom. It was pretty perfect! (Except for the being sick part.) On our way back from Grandpa’s house, we talked about something that stuck with me. Grandpa has owned his land forever. My mom grew up in that house. He’s had to sell a little bit of his land, and the barns he has on his remaining land are getting old. My mom mentioned that she wished she had pictures of the land before its all gone. She also said that they don’t have any pictures of my Grandpa at work or in the farm, or pictures of my Grandma as a nurse. None. Those memories will never be documented in a picture ever. We have lots of pictures of the out-of-normal routine; vacation, millstones, funny moments, but we don’t typically take pictures of what is our normal day to day activity like the houses we lived in, what our bedroom looked like as a child, each vehicle we owned, our school or work. 

   Thats why I was so excited when Whitney asked if we could take a few pictures during their recent photo session, in Brayden’s nursery. What a great idea! These will be pictures they can go back and look at and remember back on! 

Florida's Wild Life

I moved from Las Vegas to Florida earlier this year. People always ask "Is it different?" Nope. Except for everything! I recently took a trip back to Vegas to visit family and realized that walking into Vegas heat is like walking right into a dry oven. However walking out my front door here in Florida, I walk directly into hot sweat. In Las Vegas when the weather forecast on the news calls for a 30% chance of rain, there is really just a 30% chance that you'll see a cloud that day. However in Florida if the weather forecast calls for a 30% chance of rain, it means that it will rain for at least 30% of the day. Now it is very rare to have a 30% chance of rain in Florida, it's usually closer to a 95% chance of rain. And when it rains, the wild life comes out! This morning I almost stepped on several snails! They were just tiny and looked like small pebbles or even dirt! These snails are just one more creature to add to my ever growing list. Since I've moved here, in my neighborhood alone, I have seen alligators, lizards, frogs, toads, turtles, bunnies, snakes, armadillos, coyotes, snails, many exotic looking birds, and so sooooo many bugs!!! Someone told me they saw a bear right outside our neighborhood, but I'm pretending that their just kidding.We sure aren't in Vegas anymore though.

These pictures were taken with my iPhone. Yep, I got that close to the alligator! But if I had to run for my life, I would rather he eat my phone than my camera.

Courtney and TJ's engagement pictures

This was my absolute favorite engagement session I have done ever! 

I may be a little bias since this is my brother and sister-in-law. I was so excited when TJ and Courtney asked me to take their engagement pictures! Courtney even had a great location picked out. The carousel at Green Valley Ranch! The carousel is no longer there, so I am super happy that we got these pictures while we still had the chance.

It was so great to capture these wonderful moments in their relationship. It didn’t take too long for them to forget I was there. Every once in a while I would ask them to do a different pose or look at the camera, and they would look up at me like “When did you get here?” It was completely obvious that they really love each other completely while I was taking their pictures, and I hope I was able to capture some of those feelings here.

Here are a few more pictures from their session in Las Vegas. I was also blessed with the opportunity to take engagement pictures of these two in Europe!!! I'll post more on that later :)

DisneyWorld

So I told my husband this morning about how EXCITED I am that my entire family is coming to visit and stay with us TOMORROW, BECAUSE we get to go to DISENY WORLD!

He laughed in my face.

But only because we live 5 minutes from Disney world... and I have a "Main Gate" card that lets me into the parks for free.

But still, I AM SO EXCITED for my family to come tomorrow and that we get to go to Disney World!!!

 I LOVE taking pictures during the parades!!!

These are all pictures I took during a parade at Animal Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World.