Maylee

I got to photography my niece Maylee this weekend. She is 2 weeks old and under 6 pounds. She was tiny! So fun to play with a newborn, although, Mickie and Michaela did most of the posing and I did the majority of the picture taking. It literally took 4 hours. I am new to photographing newborns and we were trying some new to us poses and props.

 See more at my photography blog.

New Family picture

 My sister-in-law took family pictures of us yesterday. We are not an easy bunch to photograph, so I am happy we got a good one.

Randomness

I was going through pictures and realizing that Nate isn't in very many, so I took one. Ashlyn really loves Nate. When I am holding her and Nate is near she is always looking in his direction. My boys are Mamma's boys. It looks like Ashlyn will be a Daddy's girl, and I would love that. I know, this is like the only picture you have seen of Ashlyn without a headband. Nate says she doesn't like them and spares her of wearing one whenever he is around.

 Ashlyn has been acting like she wants to eat food so I made her some rice cereal and we gave it a go. She liked it ok. I am not ready to do it everyday yet. She is only 5 months, no rush.

The boys went to the dentist today. No cavities. Their teeth look great. My boys seem to like to brush teeth and Tanner asks me to floss his. I hope that sticks. They got to pick out a prize and Tanner picked a stick on mustache. Silly kid. Oh, he has a girlfriend by the way. Calise is her name. I asked what he likes about her and he said she has pretty bows. :)  We register him for Kindergarten tomorrow! Exciting!

Speaking of Tanner, we were at Walmart at the checkout and Tanner said "Mom, Look! A man-girl!" He was pointing at the cashier. She was a bit masculine, but sheesh. How do you teach your kids to be quiet about stuff like that? He saw a 400 pound lady at the mall today and said, "Mom! That lady is big!" I was so happy he didn't say "FAT". That is harder to hear than big. Every time I see a fat person, or someone without a limb, or who has an oxygen tank or a cast or anything out of the ordinary, I worry he is going to point and loudly say something. He is just curious.  I hope people don't take offense.

One last thing, I have been raving about some recipes I have been trying lately to some of my friends wanted to share where I get them. My sister-in-law, Mickie, introduced me to Mel's Kitchen Cafe. I have been cooking almost solely from this website for weeks (about 4 recipes a week) and we have been loving every one. My favorite thing about this blog is it is a mother who is trying to do away with processed foods. Not all are, in fact today's post was about Ramen Noodles (she threw out the seasoning), but for the most part they are. She uses a variety of seasonings and ingredients, and lots of her recipes are healthy. You will find plenty of butter and cream in the richer recipes, but they are unprocessed ingredients, so don't call her out on that one. I didn't say it was a health food blog. Here is a list of ones we have tried. You can healthify some of these pretty easily and get good results. I almost always use whole grains in place of the all purpose flour and whole wheat tortillas and pasta.

• Andes mint brownies (I still prefer a box brownie mix to this, but still good)
• Super bean Burrito
• Bread Bowls (I haven't had success with these yet with whole wheat flour)
• Cheddar and Herb biscuits (don't attempt whole wheat flour on this one)
• Oatmeal pancake mix (whole wheat flour is great in this)
• Hot Fudge Pudding Cake (you could easily use whole grain flour)
• The Best Chicken Fajitas
• Hawaiian Haystacks (brown rice was good)
• Sweet and Sour Chicken
• Tuscan Garlic Chicken
• Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies (probably could use all or part whole grain flour)
• Sugar Cookies (make as is. These are AMAZING)
• Grasshopper Ice Cream pie
• Blueberry muffins
• Pizza (used part whole grain flour would work with all I think)
• Pudding
• BBQ Chicken Salad
• Romain Salad w/ Chicken, Cheddar, Apples, Pecans...
• Southwest Cobb Salad
• Marinara
• Cinnamon sugar almonds (I used an extra cup of almonds in this one)
• Broccoli Cheese soup
• Chicken and dumplings
• Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice soup
• Cream cheese chicken and vegetable soup (used low-fat cream cheese, I bet fat free would work)
• Creamy white chili
• Baked Taquitos

Nope, most of these are not meat or dairy free. I know what you are thinking  "Hey didn't she 'go vegan' a while ago?" I would say I am vegan-ISH. I still go very light on animal products, but I cook with small amounts of meat a couple times a week. And the rest of my family has dairy daily. It is easy to go light on the meat in these or take it completely off, like with salads.

Cannon

 I got to take pictures for another friend this week. This is Cannon. He is 8 days old in this picture.

 

Smiling already! Caught me off guard. Got it, but wish the picture was sharper.

See more here

Buddies

Tanner and Dallin have become really great friends. I often hear them in one of their bedrooms playing or talking or reading. They can be rivals too. It's a love/hate relationship, I guess. Here is a video I got through the crack in the door of Tanner singing "The Wheels on the Bus", well, trying to. He was struggling.

The boys got quiet for a while the other day and I found them in our coat closet, our very messy closet. I put away some of our books because we had too many out and they found them and read for a good half hour.

Who else hates markers? Even washable markers? Tanner and Dallin both like to draw on themselves more than paper. Tanner colored all over his face when I had gone upstairs for something. I come down and he is in the bathroom with the door locked. He never locks the door, so I knew he was in trouble. He opened it and was scrubbing black marker off his face. It didn't come off for 2 days. That was with good scrubbing and a bath.

Remember this marker incident when he was 2?

Tutus

I am not much of a tutu person myself, but I know that there are a lot of people that like them, so I thought I would make a few for props in pictures. They are super easy (tie strips of tulle onto elastic) and inexpensive; my kind of project.

I had to try them out on Ashlyn, of course. I know you are sick of seeing pictures of her. Except for grandparents, they can't get enough of their grandkids.
I love her pouty lips in this top right one.

 As you can see her smile is fading. She was happy for the first tutu, but with each one she humored me less and less.

 And she has about had enough. No more smiles. Still some cuteness though. I love how babies look like they have lip gloss on all the time because the slobber so much.

How to make the dress and bow

You can easily Google "pillowcase dress" and get a bunch of different variations. I didn't follow a specific pattern, but this site is pretty close to what I did. The only thing I might do differently with the pattern is sew the ribbon straps in place where they come out of the casing. It can be tricky tightening and tying them without pulling the ribbon out. I mean, it is doable, just a little annoying. 

I love these dresses because they can be a dress when they are little and a shirt when they are a little bigger. If I use them when Ashlyn is bigger I will just pull out the little seam that I used to hold the ribbon in place and adjust it to where I need it.

And for the flower.

 Cut square pieces of fabric or ribbon. I do about 8. These are 2 inch squares, about what I used on Ashlyn's green flower.

 Fold a square in half to make a triangle.

 Put a dot of hot glue on tip of the triangle, opposite of the fold..

 Fold the corners into the glue.

 

Turn it over. Here (below) I am holding the corner where two sides were folded down to. Put a line of glue left to right.

 Fold sides over into glue to the center.

 

Fold the sides that were just folded to the center, to the center.

 Glue closed. Towards the bottom. Make sure the point is glued closed too.

 It will look like this.

 Cut off the point. Not too much though. If it fans open a little, glue everything closed.

 

Open the petal. Repeat for all petals. Glue them together like this.

 This is what you will have. I usually do about 8 petals, it can be more or less as long as it makes a circle can close.

 I put felt on the back, or you can use a piece of the same fabric used to make the flower. You don't have to.

 And add a button or whatever on the front. I like the look of a sewn button so I just put thread through the holes and hot glued it on.

 Ta da! Just glue it on a clip/pin/headband, whatever.

I hope the steps aren't confusing. I tried to take plenty of pictures. I hope it works out for you.

Saint Patrick's day

Ashlyn didn't have anything green, so naturally I had to make her a dress. I LOVE pillowcase dresses. So easy. I made this and the bow to match in less than an hour.  I think I will switch out the ribbons for a cream color though.

 What did you do for St. Patrick's day? All we did was green eggs, shamrock pancakes, and orange juice. It was a busy day, otherwise I would have done more. Love these little holidays that provide an excuse to do something fun.

Halloween already?

My boys LOVE to dress up. These are their favorite costumes. For Tanner a transformer and Dallin, of course, Woody. It is a 12-18 month costume. He is nearly 3! We have to put it on and take it off in a very specific way for it to even fit, and he has a wedgie the whole time he is in it. And this other cutie, is one of their best buds, Mason. He is drawn to the Monkey costume, and sweats profusely when he's in it.

Tanner likes to pretend to pull on the pull string and Dallin says "Yee Ha!" I love my boys! They keep me smiling, and LOL-ing all day. I will tell you why I love my girl in another post.

A newborn photoshoot--Reese

A friend of mine, Kami, let me practice taking some newborn pictures of her little Reese. She is 2 weeks old and a doll. One thing I am learning is to be ready for anything, and be flexible. Not many of these recent photo shoots have gone as I'd planned, but all have produced decent, even some really great pictures. 

This little lady was awake most of the time, unless she was in her mom's arms. I went there wanting to try sleeping baby pictures, but it was ok, we made it work. I love her awake ones too.

See more at http://kellyspencephotography.blogspot.com/2011/03/reese.html

 Here is what Ashlyn was doing while I was taking pictures: discovering her hand.

My Kiddos

Ashlyn was doing all her own posing here, I promise. My little super model. 

Last 2 Affiliations

Nate just chose his last two clinical affiliations and we are excited about both. The first one, beginning January 2012 is here in Chubbuck about a half mile from where we live. The last one, beginning in March 2012 is at Therapeutic Associates in Medford, Oregon. So we will move everything back to Oregon at that time since he will be done after that. Graduation isn't that far off! It is pretty exciting. Therapeutic Associates is a big company that has clinics all up the west coast and in Idaho, so hopefully he can get on with them when he is done, if he likes them after his affiliations, that is.

I have a few more photo shoots coming up that I am excited about. Been practicing on my kiddos. I will post some of them soon.

Photography Blog

I've finally got my blog up and going! I am excited. My posts aren't in chronological order, but my photography from the past year and half is on there. I say on my blog that I charge $50, but if you are reading this blog you are friends and family and, I don't charge that. That is more for general public as I am starting out.

http://kellyspencephotography.blogspot.com/

Go check it out and give me any suggestions.
And go ahead, be a follower. ;)

My studio, if you can call it that

Here is what I have created as my studio. It is my dining room, which as you can see gets excellent lighting. I made the backdrop frame out of PVC pipe which cost about $10, and I use about 2 yards of fabric for my backdrops. I use a baseboard clamped to my backdrop to make a nice clean transition between my laminate flooring and backdrop. I want to get a collection of flooring and backdrops eventually.
So, it's nothing fancy, but it doesn't really need to be for what I am doing.

And this is what you get.