Ashton photoshoot

I took pictures of this cutie before we came to Oregon. She was fun. Kept wandering off. She was just too cute though.You can see more at my photography blog.

 

Wild flowers

We made it to Oregon, and during my most favorite time of year. I love spring in Oregon. I grew up in the "forest", like Dallin calls it. I don't love being so far outside of city limits, but I DO love wildflowers. I think I will take the kids for a nature walk and photograph some flowers soon. They are only around for about 2 months. I took Aslyn out on the hillside and took some pictures of her in them.These purple shooting stars are probably most abundant where my parents live.

 

Some cuties

I know, a lot of photography posts lately. It's what I have been up to. Doing one more tomorrow before I hit the road, I mean sky. I am flying with the kids to Oregon on Wednesday. Nate is doing a clinical affiliation at Providence Hospital. He will come a week after us after finals are over. I am looking forward to a little break from Idaho. I get to hang out with family and oh yeah, I haven't mentioned, I am going to do the "Insanity Challenge" (the infomercial is cheezy, but you get the idea). Basically it is a 60 day workout program that is INSANE interval training. There is a nutritional plan that goes with it that I will follow loosely. Nate will do it too. I am hoping my cousin, Chawna, and sister-in-law, Paula will join me. ;)

Anyway, I got to take pictures of these dolls this weekend. Such cute girls. I have to say girls are my favorite to photograph.

 I was a little nervous to take these girls' pictures because the one below was the very first I took. When you tell her to smile, this is what you get. Adorable in it's own way, and definitely should be remembered, but not something you necessarily want to hang on a wall. Luckily we got "Rapunzel" smiles out of her later.

Pettingill's pictures

These are some of our best friends here in Pocatello, and they finally let me take their family pictures. It stinks that I am leaving before it gets pretty in Idaho. We went to this park that is beautiful in the Spring (hey wait it is spring. Idaho get with it!) and Summer, but all we got were dead branches. Oh well. They are a beautiful family so they made it work.

I am so happy this little guys knows me. I don't think he would give these smiles to just any photographer. Oh, well, I guess it was his best bud, Tanner, who was helping get those smiles. I bring Tanner sometimes when I think he can help kids smile. He can either help or hinder.
You can see my photography blog for a few more.

Still on a Dallin kick

I love the way little kids speak. In this video he is telling me what he wants for breakfast.

 

Hurry bunchies bunchies of boats.

Dallin these days

What a silly kid. Look at these faces. See these eyebrows? He has more expression that any kid I know. He has been a very independent 2 year old and he wanted to take his shirt of by himself. He got a bit tangled up though.

 I told the boys to get dressed and this is what Dallin came up with.

See this box he is sitting on? It is our "Bummer Box". We got the idea at our Parenting with Love and Logic class. If the kids misbehave and need a toy or anything really taken away it goes in the "Bummer Box", They will have to earn them back with chores.We have a few in there. Guess we will see which toys mean something to them.

Boys will be boys?

Ok, I know that boys are crazy, but this crazy???

Seems like all of the sudden Tanner and Dallin are misbehaving more than usual and it doesn't make any sense because Nate and I have been taking a Love and Logic parenting class for the past month and implementing what we are learning. I feel like we have been parenting better and a lot of it has been working. They did say in the class that it gets worse before it gets better.

I know it is silly to photograph your children's bad behavior, but sometimes you just want to be able to show them later the kinds of things they would do. Hey, maybe they just love getting their picture taken and know that doing something dumb will bring out the camera? ha ha

Anyway, Tanner and Dallin needed to take separate baths because Dallin has Strep on his bottom (for a second time), I know, too much information. We didn't want him to pass it to Tanner. Dallin wanted to be in the bathroom with Tanner while he took his bath and eventually ended up in the tub clothes and all.

  Then, I had just finished the laundry but it still needed to be put away. My boys had some friends over and they thought it would be fun to throw all the clean clothes down the stairs. In addition to those clothes they emptied their dressers onto the stairs as well as some dirty laundry. I know, I said I just finished laundry, but we dirty clothes very quickly around here. Took hours to put away because I made them do most of it.

 And Dallin likes to beat up his sister now. The other day in the car he had a toy gun and he shoved it in her mouth and made her gag and then cry for a really long time. She isn't very forgiving I am finding. I know, I am horrible for not stopping Dallin from pushing on Ashlyn's head. At first he was just pretending to give her a blessing.

And about an hour ago, Tanner told me that Dallin just colored on his wall with a crayon. This is their nap time, so I said I will take care of it after their naps. I go upstairs to check on them and Tanner was coloring on his wall with the crayon he took from Dallin.

 I made Tanner and Dallin handwash the floor for coloring on walls. I had to paint over the crayon and that would have been too much fun for Tanner.

Ashlyn video and other stuff

Has anyone else noticed that you video your younger kids much less than you did your first? I have significantly less videos of Dallin as I do Tanner and this is my first of Ashlyn, I think. She does this cute thing with her tongue.

 Babies are so angelic when they sleep.

 I love these blue eyes. I could look into them all day.

Nate caught Dallin copying Ashlyn sucking on her feet. Pretty silly.

First maternity shoot

I asked my sister-in-law, Michaela,  if I could take her pictures. I haven't taken maternity pictures before. She is gorgeous so it was easy. Never had to pose her or anything she is a natural model. She is about 27 weeks pregnant. I played around a lot with my editing. You may or may not like them, but I had fun.

See the rest at my photography blog.

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.