Picture Choirs of Angels Singing

Hallelujah! The bathtub faucet is in!!

Without going into too much detail about all the tub faucet stress...

humming and hawing about whether to pay the plumber a million dollars (almost) or try to install the thing ourselves.

Installing a faucet? .... "elementary" you say...

not even close - try Ivy League.

Try 21 solders to create a copper pipe contraption that will get all the pipes and water going to all the right places - including 4 solders inside the small hole squished next to the toilet that the plumber would have taken out. (And consequently, would have to rebuild because it is so old.

$$ Ka-Ching!)

At that moment, I wondered if we should have just paid the million dollars and called it good. Open flames make me a bit nervous.

But all is well, and the tub looks beautiful - minus the hole we need to patch up. Phew!

I realized that I never did an "after" picture of the girls' princess bathroom. I love how it turned out.

Sarah's fancy hair

We picked a weaved look online to try in Sarah's hair, but it was too frustrating, so I made this one up instead. I love the picture below. So cute...

Asparagus Appetizer Roll Ups

I LOVE cool appetizers. This is a fun and yummy way to make asparagus a little more snazzy (and fattening, but don't think about that).
Ingredients:
12 slices white bread - crusts removed
8 oz. softened cream cheese
2 Tbl chopped green onions
8 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
24 fresh asparagus spears
1/4 cup butter melted
3 Tbl grated parmesan cheese
Flatten bread with a rolling pin. In a small bowl, combine cream cheese, onions, and bacon. Spread mixture over bread slices. Cut asparagus to fit bread; place two spears on each bread slice. Roll up bread and place, seam side down, on a greased baking sheet. Brush with butter, then sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve immediately. Yield: 1 dozen.

Natalie is my only child who will eat asparagus - she loves it.

Yum!

Natalie's ABC's

Natalie wrote the cutest ABC book at school recently. Here are a few samples. The top one is my favorite. I was laughing so hard at all the things she came up with for each letter. The above one is my FAVORITE. As you can see it is Q for "Quit". Her picture is of the Krustie Krab from SpongeBob. You can see Squidward walking out because he "quits" and Mr. Crabs is inside crying. Isn't that hilarious? Do we watch too much SpongeBob? (o:
O is for On, P is for Pot

M is for Mine (I think that's a tiny picture of her IPod shuffle at the bottom - I know, spoiled - it was Santa!)

N is for Noodls

K is for Kot, L is for Lolepop

A is for Alugatr, B is for Bublebe

I love her drawings...

C is for Cat, D is for Dog

E is for Elufit (elephant), F is for Fan

G is for Grl, H is for Hors

I is for Ice (Icky) - see the girl stepping in gum?

J is for Jup (Jump)

Write On!

Angela's first time writing her name. So cute! I love the "G" (o:

Click Chicks Retreat!!

I have been so excited to blog about this!! About six weeks ago, I joined a group of women photographers - Click Chicks. We have a yahoo group and meet once a month to talk photography. I've only been to one get together, but after that first gathering I was hooked! A big group of awesome girls - all as obsessed with taking pictures (some more!) as I am! I felt right at home with all these amazing ladies - even though many/most/all! are much more accomplished than I. It was fun to laugh about funny experiences with clients, share stories, encourage each other and mostly just be with a group who share the same passion.

I learned so much and was so inspired by the things these women are doing I couldn't wait for the beach retreat at the end of April. I was so glad I got to go (Milton* (o: had an awful week at work, so it was up in the air until the last minute.)

I carpooled with Lorna http://carmanphoto.wordpress.com/

and we talked and talked the whole way. She was so much fun and we found so many things we have in common - the church, friends, family in Utah, etc. I was so surprised when I found out she is the grand daughter of the owner of Busath Photography in Utah. I know many family members out there are familiar with their amazing photography.

The best part of the drive to Pacific City was when we were almost there and we were oohing and ahhing at the gorgeous sunset. Then we decided to stop the car right where we were and run out with our cameras to try and catch it. As you can see, we weren't quite fast enough, but it was so much fun and so spontaneous. Something that's hard to do when your a busy mom. There are so many times when I see something beautiful or inspiring and I wish I could get a picture. There was something so liberating about jumping out of the car and running to get a picture. I told Lorna, one of these days I want to do that - just drive around and find things to jump out of the car and take pictures of. It was the perfect start to our photography retreat!

This beach house was the perfect place to hang out together and talk pics all day long. We spent hours looking at blogs and websites, talking about prices, where we each are professionally, where we want to go, what equipment is our favorite, what we like to shoot, etc. etc.

Melissa listening intently - she did a lot of work on her website over the weekend - I love her website, check it out... http://soulmatesphoto.com/

I loved looking through the wedding photo albums that some of the ladies brought. They were gorgeous!

There were lots of these all around. (o:

Some of Sara's "swag" (did I remember that word right??) from WPPI - (a wedding photographer tradeshow).

Deyla was such a riot - she is so fun to hang out with and an amazing photographer! http://www.deylahussphotography.com/

Good times, good times...
This was the only picture I got with Bunn - she rocks!

http://www.msbunn.com/

Hey, what do you know? I'm on the other side of the camera for once...

Christy and Melissa were Mac twins (o: working hard!

http://www.studiochristy.com/

"Deyla, the chewed up ones go in the YELLOW bowl!"

Missy's smokin' hot Poloroid camera she won! I didn't even know they made these anymore!

http://www.missy-cochran.com/

Missy's my hero. She's the one who brought Click Chicks all together. She's a good friend and an inspiration - and besides that, she's so much fun to hang out with!

Sara's parents' beach house was adorable!

Angela's cool shoes - I love red!

http://annierudenphotography.blogspot.com/

Annie is adorable, I love this action shot of her.

The paparazzi!

I loved getting to know Angela! She's so awesome...

http://monarchdigitalimaging.blogspot.com/

Lorna and Annie playing back some shots.

http://carmanphoto.wordpress.com/

I love these of Sara - she was our awesome host for the weekend...
http://www.saragrayphotography.com/

What a hottie - I wish I could pull of "hottie" pictures. I would look like such a nerd.

This captures Deyla's personality so well - you can't help but be happy around Deyla!

The whole group - at least on the day I was there . . .

More links...

Mel - Missy's sis and our honorary prego photographer who luckily felt (or pretended to feel) good during the retreat. http://www.melaniejadephotographer.com/

The most adorable Pocahontus ever - Dianne http://diannebentzphotography.blogspot.com/

and Kim http://www.kimoneilphotography.com/#

who came just a couple hours before Lorna and I had to leave. We all kind of came and went over the course of 4 days - so most everyone could come for at least part of the time.

Thanks to Sara - the most awesome hostess ever - look, she even cooked for us!

I had a blast. I loved staying up until 3:00 a.m. chatting, clicking away at the beach and just hanging out and laughing. I came home so inspired and excited to continue working toward a real live, actual amazing photography business.

I can't wait for our next get together in June.
Thanks Click Chicks!

Shoe Shopping Date

For Natalie's birthday Grandma T. sent her some money to go shoe shopping!

She was so excited and we finally got to go last week. We made it into a special date.
We went to Famous Footwear to find the lovely shoes you see below and had a lovely lunch at Wendy's. We also ran a quick errand to a craft store. It was so fun to have some one on one time together. And Natalie loved wearing her awesome new shoes to school that afternoon. You can't tell in the picture, but they light up in rainbow colors. Pretty S N A Z Z A Y. (o: Thanks mom!