RockinLifeMyWay

Just blowing through...

2011-04-17T13:31:00.002-04:00

I know its been awhile since I've blogged. College sucks every last minute out of your day. I would say that I will be coming back, blogging more often but I would more than likely be wrong. I of course hope that's the case and will at least try to swing by more often but I'm already giving up sleep time to do homework, I'm not sure I can pull time from anywhere else. If only the days were longer...but I bet if they were, they would make school longer to and I wouldn't win in that scenario either. Well anyways, I want to enter a photo into this weeks IheartFaces contest. The theme is wind: the photo must convey wind in some way. Here is my entry:

I did a photoshoot for Whittney on a pretty windy day. I got lots of good shots of her but this candid one is certainly one of my favorites.

Well I hope you enjoy my entry: I'm now going to procrastinate a little bit more by looking though some of the other entries (which you can see by clicking on the IheartFaces button at the beginning of this post!) and catching up a little bit on my blogger friends. Then, well, homework beckons.

Hope you are all having a great week!

Love, Dea

2010-12-30T21:31:00.000-05:00

I'm not even sure how to start this post off, I'm so far behind on my blogging I don't even know where to start.

But lets start here. I'm home! I've actually been home since the 10Th and I couldn't be happier about that. I'm already dreading going back. I'm fine once I'm there but leaving is always so hard. It's so nice to have real food, to get sleep, and to not always have some kind of homework assignment haunting me.

There is a lot I hadn't had the time to blog about so here is a recap for you:

Well, my apartment mate and I put together a team for intramural flag football. It only consisted of 4 games (given there was only 2 other girls teams) and we didn't end up doing very well, but it was fun. I ended up getting quite the beating when I ripped my fingernail off, landed on my head and possibly got a concussion, and pulled a muscle in my leg that hurt so bad I couldn't run the entire game and it hurt for days afterward. I was quite the hobbler for a few days after that one.

I started working at a local elementary school during the hours my classes allow. I work in a first grade classroom and I love the kids I work with. They are all so sweet! This job has really made me look forward to my career in teaching because I really do just love spending time with those kids and helping them out. When I go through my "I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing with my life" thoughts, I just try to think of how much I love them kids. Sometimes it helps and sometimes I don't feel much better about things, but one day I'll realize if what I'm doing is right.

When I went to the eye doctor for an eye exam to get more contacts I got news I was expecting. Apparently I had spots on my right eye. I was told to cut back on contact wear so he could see if that was the problem. So, I did and when I went back I was told that they had gotten worse. I was then not allowed to wear contacts at all. Apparently my eye had gotten a virus. It wasn't contagious or anything but it couldn't heal with contacts and if it didn't heal it could get way worse. Last time I went to see how it was he said he could barely see it and I would be allowed to go back to contacts in January.

That's really all I got as far as the big things. For the little ones, well I really struggled with biology class but some how I managed to pass it. My little sister turned 13 and I surprised her by being home for her birthday. Whittneys little brother turned 7 and had a party at the zoo which was a lot of fun even for us older folk. Working on the yearbook staff has been harder to manage then I thought it would be but overall it still has been pretty fun.

Oh! Another kinda big thing that I just thought of would be that I volunteered to take pictures of sporting events for the college and now my photos have been used for the recap articles and one even got used on a bigger athletic website.

Well, now Christmas is over, which saddens me. I love giving gifts and shopping is way more fun for me when I have a reason to just go out and buy things for people. Despite the fact that I'm a poor college student who hates spending money, I love buying things for family and friends and seeing them open the gifts I give them. I also love the spirit people have around Christmas, the happiness and extra kindness that people carry around with them. It should last all year but it fades with the season. I wish it would stay.

A new year is not very far away and as excited as I am I can also say honestly that I'm a little scared. I'll be turning 20 here soon and that's a little scary for me. They really are right when they tell you that when your younger you really don't wanna grow up. I didn't really believe it but I do now. I don't want to get any older!

I also don't want to go back to school- but it's something I have to do and it's really not as bad when I get there, it's just the leaving part that's I hate so much.

Speaking of leaving, I'll have to end this post here. I really don't have much else to say and I need to go to bed here soon to- I'm getting up early to go to the sportsmens den with Whittney! I'm excited, I've been wanting to go there and it has been awhile since Whittney and I have hung out. So it will be a good day.

Hope you all are doing well!!!

Love,

Abandoned.

2010-11-30T22:11:00.004-05:00

Pretty sure this picture represents how my blog feels right about now. Between all my school responsibilities, I've had barely any time for anything outside of school stuff. I haven't even changed the background to be something other than fall themed. But I found a few moments tonight to share a picture with you though and a few days ago when I was on break, I started a new blog to document things I have accomplished on my bucket list. I have one post on it so far, but it needs to be updated with the other things I have fulfilled before I started the blog. So now, I will need to find the time to not only update this, but catch up on that as well.

Good thing next week is finals week and then I get a nice long winter break.

I'm so ready.

But right now, it's back to studying for Biology. I hope you are all doing well!

Love,

If you want to check out my bucket list blog you can by clicking here. It's still a work in progress though!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

2010-10-10T19:05:00.003-04:00

Last week I stumbled across the blog that hosts Scavenger Hunt Sunday. Despite my current lack of time to blog, I decided I wanted to participate and throughout the week caught myself thinking about how I wish I had my camera to get pictures of different things I saw that I wanted to enter. So, I found that I must try it. So here it goes.
Pink:
Books: (Something I know all too well these days....)
Fall colors: (I wish I could have gotten a better one for this, but thats all I got...)

Leaf: ( Okay, leaves...)

Orange:

I hope you like them! Now I must get back to studying biology... hopefully I'll find time again soon! Hope you are all well!

Love,

Love that shot.

2010-10-05T10:02:00.004-04:00

As I was procrastinating homework this morning and browsing facebook and blogs instead, I noticed that Angie and Amy from i♥faces are guest judging on another cool photo contest blog. It looked like fun, so I decided to enter. Here is my entry, its supposed to be turned the other way but for some reason no matter which way I have it rotated when I upload it on blogger, blogger doesn't want it any other way than this. *sigh* but anyway, here it is:

This is my cousin Jessica- isn't she beautiful! I took this photo in natural light sometime in the early morning. When I processed it I used picnik: I used the eye bright (which is my favorite feature!) and then I turned it to black and white.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to enter!

Love,

Where homesickness bumps frustration and they both trip over overwhelmed and land on emotion.

2010-09-30T21:41:00.001-04:00

Thats where you can find me.

I have so much to say, so many things that I want to put up here so that I will have these stories on my blog so that I can come back and reflect on these moments of my life.
The things that I have neglected to blog but should be up here, like
My cousins coming to stay with me for a week,
Me moving on campus,
Me being moved my first week on campus,
Adjusting to the campus life and the crazy feelings that went with it,
My campus job, that I'm pretty proud of,
How my photography is growing- through sessions and campus opportunities,
What I have learned about my true friends since I've left,

and how I don't at all feel prepared to face life some days.

As well as so much more but time never allows me any of that. I already keep pushing back my bedtime. I cut out activities to do homework. I haven't got to see my family in almost two weeks because if I stay here I think I can get more done. I miss out on friendship building fun activities because I don't feel that I will ever get it all done if I take any time away from it.

I don't know how other college students find the time to watch movies or take naps. I can't seem to find the time to eat some days.

But life goes on and all this frustration may just be the mood I'm in. Which seems to follow all to closely way to often.

I'll share a picture with you since that's all time has left me to offer:

A flower on the bush outside my apartment. Kinda pretty, huh.

Well I better return to homework...

Do you know its been only short one day of a month since I've blogged?

Sad huh.

Well about that homework...I'll be back when it's done.

See you in...June?!

Love,

Excuse me sir, but you smell wonderful!

2010-09-01T23:05:00.001-04:00

Not to long ago I wrote a post about my excitement over my first concert. (to visit it, click here) If you read the post you would know how totally excited I was over getting to go to my first concert and having my first celebrity encounter. If you didn't read that post, let me tell you- I was pumped, like super excited. And that's an understatement!

Who knew it would get even better not even two weeks later.

I went to another concert.

A Chuck Wicks concert to be exact. (He is extremely hott. Just sayin')

At a seemly forgotten fair, where we paid only 5 bucks to watch and could get right up to the stage, if we so had chose.

With only about 40 other people in attendance, it was laid back and well worth the two hour trip.

I didn't think it could get better.
But then it did. Check this out:

An amazingly sexy picture of him? Yes, it is. But look a little closer:

He signed it. Personally.

Then it got even better:

We got to get pictures with him.

I may have been trying not to drool in this picture.

He got close. I touched the man, he had his arm on me, and mine was on him.

I was in heaven. I just got to see Craig Morgan and attend my first concert. Now I was at another one, where I actually got to meet a famous man, get his autograph, and get a picture with him.

I was in heaven. He is such a good looking man.

And let me tell you- not only did he look good but he smelled good to!!

Love,

Goin' out with my shades on.

2010-08-16T08:55:00.001-04:00

This week at i♥faces the theme is "Got to wear shades" and the photo must have sunglasses and a face (of course!) in it. Here is my entry:

Mr. Gavin was sporting his shades at the forth of July parade we went to. What a serious look he has as he studies something over his shades. Aw, he is too cute.

I hope you have went to i♥faces and entered your own photo and if not you should! Or at least go check out the other entries- you won't be disappointed!

Love,

Hogging up the road with my PPPPP-Plower!

2010-08-06T21:41:00.000-04:00

One week ago, I got to go to my first concert. I was so dang excited, I was like a kid in a candy store. All day I waited impatiently to go, then when I got there I couldn't sit still. I was being so silly..pointing to his semi and saying "I wonder if he is in there, right now" and "do you think that is his camper?" I couldn't contain my excitement. Whittney kept on making fun of me for being so excited. I'm nineteen years old and this was my first concert- I couldn't help but be excited even if it was just a county fair concert. I had never been to one or laid eyes on anyone more famous than the local weather people. To say I was pumped was an understatement.

One week ago I got to see Craig Morgan in concert. I was only nine rows away. I wasn't behind any super tall people who blocked my view the whole time (just some of the time). It was loud enough that I could sing and not be heard. He sang the songs I knew and I managed to make it seem like I knew the words to the few songs I really didn't know. He did a few very uhm amazing dance moves that made the concert way more than worth it. I got to experience my first concert with my closest friend. And I got a T-shirt from my first concert. (granted, it was over-priced and not the one I really wanted but hey, it was my first concert,okay. lol.)

And now, for the pictures:

His semi! It looks so cool.
Me and Whittney in our seats waiting (me, not so patiently) for the show to start.

And there he is! He really put on a good show. He was lots of fun. In the middle of one song he started laughing a little. Turns out all he could see was a sign for elephant ears and it reminded him of one of his crew members! lol.

Him again.

The front of my shirt!

The back of my shirt!

Overall, I could say my first concert was way past amazing. It was perfect. I loved it and wouldn't trade it for the world. I had a blast and will remember it for the rest of my life. What a perfect first concert: I am excited to go to more in my lifetime but no matter how awesome the rest of them are none could be as special as this.

Thank you Whittney for buying me the ticket, allowing me to go, and giving me the gift of my first concert: definitely a life moment here. Thank you so much.

Love,

I walked for Dave.

2010-07-26T10:47:00.005-04:00

The clock hit 2:30 am and Whittney and I were still working. This was the second or third night in a row of late night working, although we hadn't surpassed 12:30 the other nights. We were both tired, the sounds of our work were the only sounds filling the room, our conversation swallowed up by the tiredness and the determination to get as much done as we could. Around 3 we made it to bed, vowing to make it up early to finish the rest.

Later that morning we made it out of bed and packed all our hard work into the car. We got it to the track and returned back to my house to finish the last details on the banner. Banner complete we walked back to the track- grumpy from lack of sleep and hot and muggy from the nasty hot weather we had. The tent was set up and in mid-decoration when the rain hit. Everything got shoved in the tent to wait it out, except someone left our banner on the grass and most of our hard work got taken with the rain. Once the rain quit it was another hour or so of redecorating and setting things up. It turned out wonderful. Then a couple laps around the track, rain pouring again but helping very little with the heat and humidity.

The storms came back later and all the hard work we had put into this was pretty much wasted since the event was canceled.

But it wasn't wasted at all. We did it all for him. We worked hard for him. We walked for him.

And thats all that mattered.

I was able to participate in the Relay for Life this year. It was so nice to feel that maybe I could help make a difference to people fighting cancer. It was so touching to see all these people out there working towards helping.

The most touching thing were the people with purple shirts. The ones with SURVIVOR written on the back. The people who fought it, or may still be fighting it. The ones we were doing this for.

I walked for Dave. His purple shirt was missing from the crowd of survivors on Saturday because he was in the hospital due to problems related to his cancer. But he is at home now, and doing much better.

I expect to see his purple survivor shirt at the relay next year where I hope the rain doesn't cancel it and where our decorated tent will be even better than this year. And where I will walk for him again.

I want a world with more birthdays. And if participating in the relay is one way I can help, I will. For Dave as well as anyone else who is battling or has battled cancer. I'll do this for you.

Love,

Over my head

2010-07-19T13:57:00.000-04:00

This weeks theme is "Over my head" and it leaves it pretty much wide open as far as entries go as long as it incorporates something over the head.

After Taylors last ball game all the girls had a water balloon fight. They were laughing and squealing and having a blast hitting each other with the balloons. Taylor ended up getting one of the last balloons. Instead of throwing it at someone she....

...popped it right over her head. And I got the picture just in time.

Have you entered into i♥faces this week yet? If not, you should! And don't forget to check out the other entries! Just click on the logo at the top of the page.

Thanks for viewing!

Love,

Teen Week Entry

2010-07-07T23:20:00.001-04:00

Love,

I'm a teen,

2010-07-07T19:42:00.002-04:00

and i♥faces is having a special just for teens week. Where only teens can enter. I was so pumped.

But because I am a teen, and teens like to hang out with their friends- I missed the deadline and didn't get to enter this week.

I'm so very sad. Next time I shouldn't assume the deadline is at midnight like it usually is. I should've read it and then I would have known that the deadline was at noon. That way I did not come home expecting to enter only to realize that it is over.

So very sad. =[

I had more than one of you tell me that you were looking forward to my entry or thinking of me since its teen week and I am very sorry that I let you down. I didn't mean to, really.

This is when I would say there is always next year..but there isn't. Unless they do another by March, I will be too old to enter. It's quite sad.

But oh well. I guess it made the decision on which to enter easier. lol.

Since I can't not show you some pictures, here are the three I was debating between for the challenge.
I did a photoshoot for my neighbors about a month ago. It was a lot of fun. I was nervous though because Randi is big into photography and very good as well. I wanted to do a good enough job that she would be happy with them. The good news is- she was. And I was to. The above and below shot were from that shoot. They are my two favorites I think. Aren't they just the cutest family?
And then I have this one of Mikayla I took. I love her expression and the way it looks like she has quite the secret. It is an all natural shot to- no posing. And I love the colors as well.
Well anyways, there ya go! I am still pretty sad that I missed the challenge this week but Oh well- I was out having fun with my best friend. And in fifty years I'm pretty sure I'll be thinking back on those memories instead of wishing I would have been at home to enter the contest.

Good luck to all the teens!

Love,

Pet Week!

2010-06-29T22:09:00.003-04:00

Over at i♥faces they are still celebrating teens with a special pet photographer as the guest judge and so they made the theme for this week be pets! Thankfully they allow any type of animal picture because my dog is really not into getting her photo taken. I merely pick up the camera and she runs. Good thing I spotted this little guy the other day. He just let me do my thing. Granted he may have been slightly frozen in place due to the huge person pointing a big black thing at him but either way I got a good shot for this week:

Say hello to Mr. Toad! I found him on our back patio and bolted upstairs to my camera so I could get his picture before my dog scared him off. Thankfully the dog did not capture him but I did with my camera instead.

Well, I hope you like my entry! Comments are much appreciated and I will try and return the favor! Want to see other great entries? Check out i♥faces by clicking the logo at the beginning of this post!

Love,

PS: My blog is back under construction for another revamping- just on the layout and header though. Have you noticed a change? Yes indeed, the pictures and posts are bigger! Yay! Thanks to Tracy from The Journey (visit her HERE) for helping me make that happen! But my old layout did not look good with the new sizes of my posts so I found a new one but now need to redo my header and everything. So bear with me- I hope to have it done soon! But what do you think??

This is my 100th post

2010-06-22T23:07:00.003-04:00

and I'm celebrating teens with i♥faces!

This week is teen week and I happen to be very happy with that- since I'm a teen myself. So you can say I can easily relate to these exciting three weeks celebrating teens. Picking a picture though..not so easy. Given I am a teen and so are all my friends I happen to have a good amount of pictures featuring teens. But I only had a few that I thought considerable. All in all I chose this one even though Whittney might not be too happy with my selection because she hates this picture but I like it: I think it shows what being a teen is all about. Having fun, being crazy, living for the weekends- enjoying the moment and putting homework worries behind you.

Whittney thinks this picture makes her look silly but I think it shows her fun personality and the way she just enjoys life. This would be a way I would want to be thought of and I love how this picture captures that live out loud side of her.

What do you think? Comments are always appreciated and I will even try to return the favor! Oh and don't forget to go over to i♥faces and check out the other entries! To do so click on the i♥faces logo at the top!

Love,

Small update and some changes!

2010-06-18T12:45:00.001-04:00

Wow, it seems like it's been forever since I've sat down and wrote a post for my little corner of cyberspace here, and for bloggy world that may ring true since the more "famous" bloggers seem to pull time out of their butts and update their blogs almost everyday. But since my blog is not struggling against the demands of thousands of readers nor have I mastered the art of pulling time out of my butt, my blog has been slightly shoved aside so that I could accommodate the ever increasing demands that summer has brought along.

I can see that I'm not the only one that summer has kept busy though as I've noticed maybe one new post a day come through my feed reader. Hopefully this means all is going well for you all out there, I can say its been well for me, just really busy. I've got a bunch of little jobs I'm working as of right now: 2-3 babysitting jobs, weeding and cleaning for my aunt and uncle, and working in a shop downtown although unfortunately that will be shut down soon due to the economy and lack of business. So at the end of the month I will lose that job and will have to try and find another to make up for what I'm missing there. Ah, the whole summer job thing is stressful, especially since my small town and the downfall of the economy has left me with very little to work with, o well.

Moving on from the not so fun part of summer- the fun part of my summer has been doing very well! Whittney and I have been out and about doing fun stuff every chance we get. We even made a list of fun things we want to accomplish this summer, some of which are very funny! I'll have to share that list with all you and update you all on it as well- it's promising some fun times and I'm sure some great stories and memories! I have also got to spend some time with Kelley, as well as with Jodi and the girls, all of which I haven't gotten to see much of lately due to the clash of work schedules and free time as well as just being busy. But they all seem to be doing pretty well themselves, which is good news for me to hear.

Now that you've gotten an update I would like to tell you about a few changes coming to my blog. It's nothing major and actually, if you clicked on over here to read this you may have already noticed some of them- first of all I redesigned my blog! Yay for a new background and header! So far I'm really liking the new look- what do you think? I also wanted to expand the size of my blog posts so that I could enlarge pictures but with the new google blogger tool I can't seem to figure out how to do that without changing to one of their templates- Does anyone know how I can go about that? Also, I have a new about me section in route and about a month ago I changed the title and tag line of my blog although I have decided the URL will stay.

Then for the "biggest" change. I have been debating on this for a long time and have finally decided thanks to a article I read (Click HERE to see it and the link in the article is good to read to). I have decided that I am not longer going to watermark my images. I think that article had very good points and I have come to agree mostly with it. I still don't want people stealing my pictures- the very few worth stealing- but I would rather them present them in a nice way if they did instead of botching them up with the clone tool or cropping them funny to get rid of the watermark. I also find that blogging will be much more enjoyable without the added stress of having to watermark them all. Plus, my photos will be better presented on my blog without that distracting them. So that's my decision. I might change my mind again down the road but right now, I think that not watermarking them will be better.

What do you think? I would like to know your well thought opinions and what you prefer to do. So let me know! But for now here is an unwatermarked picture of one of my favorite summer things:

Hope you are all doing well!

Love,

i♥faces photowalk!

2010-06-09T09:31:00.003-04:00

This past Saturday I was one of the lucky people who got to attend the i♥faces photowalk across America! I was pretty pumped- I have never done a photowalk or met up with other photographers before and was excited to give it a shot. Although I have a bit of a confession to make... I never would have had the guts to go if it wasn't for my wonderful neighbor and photographer buddy Randi. When I found out about the walk and that it was in a city that is close to me, I thought it would be cool but that was as far as my wishes went. I did not want to go alone...then it dawned on me..maybe Randi would want to go? Lucky for me she did and we bought the tickets the next day.

The photowalk itself was a really cool experience- getting to be around a huge group of people who love taking photos as much as I do, having a beautiful, new place to take these photos and three beautiful models who had the modeling thing down perfect...It was amazing! And despite the nervousness I had the entire time...I would do it again!

Here are some of the photos I took. I took over four hundred photos, but I will just share some of my favorites with you:
That girl was an awesome model. She knew exactly what she was doing and really gave me some wonderful shots. Plus she was gorgeous!

I probably took the most photos of her because most of the other photographers kinda flocked more around the two littler girls and I wanted to get the shots lesser people were getting which lucky for me was this amazing model!

I mostly stuck with the people because that's what I like shooting most but I did get some good shots of the flowers to.

She really was just so much fun.

I like this imperfect flower- sometimes imperfection is beauty!

Of course- being in Ohio it had to rain..... Do you recognize this little girl? =]

This is my absolute favorite shot of the day..I just love everything about it! The lighting was just perfect for pictures despite the rain..I barely edited most of these!

The other model..isn't she just adorable as well!

The prop basket..they had brought plenty of little props for the girls to use!

Have you figured out who this beauty is yet? How about the founders daughter..that's right..

We got to meet and take pictures with Angie! The co-founder of i♥faces! It was so cool to be able to have her lead our walk and meeting her was even cooler! I have met my own blogging celebrity..*big smiles* Living in Ohio that's probably the biggest celebrity I will ever meet (well, I did meet the lady who is on channel 10 news, that was pretty cool) and so I can die happy knowing I met a pretty famous person ;)

Even though the lovely Ohio humidity frizzed and poofed my hair which I had spent the time on to make look nice, I still got a pretty nice photo of the three of us as well as a wonderful experience at the photowalk!

Thank you i♥faces for hosting a wonderful photowalk!

And thank you Randi for being willing to go with me- without you I would have never went!

Love,

PS- I did not watermark my photos so that if the models wanted them they could have them..that doesn't mean anyone is free to take them, so please don't! thanks!

I♥faces - play

2010-06-08T13:24:00.002-04:00

This week at i♥faces the theme is play! This theme leaves so many options open for entries and I have so many I wanted to enter but in the end I chose this one:

I went with my neighbor and her kids to the park the other day. Gavin was having so much fun swinging. It was about time we got a big ol goofy grin out of Mr. Serious. I love how happy he looks!

Have you entered your photo yet? Do you want to see other entries? Go check out i♥faces - you won't be disappointed!

Love,

Good Friends, Sunshine & Summertime ♥

2010-06-02T21:37:00.003-04:00

So, about a week and half ago, right after I finished up that 8am math final, summer officially started for me. Boy was I ready, this year was great, but it was pretty rough and I was certainly ready for summer.

And so far it has proven to be a great one. The weather has been wonderfully warm just as it should be in the summer months. I have kept busy mostly with fun things to do which is a must have for summer. The only problem I have had is the whole job situation- I just found out that the job I was planning to have isn't going to really exist anymore because of economic decline..ohhh great. So, I need to find another one but for now I'll enjoy the freedom and keep working on finding one.

Like I said, a lot has been going on so far. Less than two weeks in and I'm thinking picture highlights are in order: how bout it? =]
The start of my summer was on fire.. well with a van fire anyway, it went up in flames right down the road. It was the biggest event my county has had in awhile! lol. The guy was talking on his cell phone and didn't realize the back end was on fire. My neighbors saw him driving by and yelled at him to stop and they also called it in. He stopped and got a gas can he had in there out and then we all settled in to watch. No one got hurt, luckily. Unfortunately though, my Nikon was in for cleaning! That's when the good picture opportunities come of course, when your good camera is gone. But I did have my trusty rusty Kodak and I think it did pretty well.

Next was my cookout/bonfire. I had it for my college friends and the best friends to celebrate the wrapping up of school. It wasn't as big as expected and only a few college buddies showed up but it was still a good time. Kelley and Whittney came and stayed well into the night and we had good conversations. Best friends and a bonfire is all I need.

After two weeks, I finally got my Nikon back- nice and clean! I was so excited, I had missed it so very much! It stayed with me and I took so many pictures! Including one of this little guy who decided to chill on our back patio thing.

Remember these little ladies? It has been a long time since they have been on my blog- maybe because its been so long since I have seen them myself. I got to spend a little bit of time visiting with each one of them during the other ones softball games. I am hoping I'll be seeing them much for often over the summer, I have missed them so very much.

Whittney and I have pretty much been attached at the hip so far this summer. We have gone and done so much and it's been a complete and utter blast. I think we can make almost anything fun and even the boring stuff is so much better when you got your best friend by your side.

Okay, we can make almost everything fun. Except sunburn (which we are showing off in this picture although you can not really see it lol). That's not fun. Even if we were the stupid idiots who decided to lay out for like an hour an a half..twice..in oh, almost ninety degree weather because when we looked it did not look like it did any good the first time. But we were wrong and three days later we can still feel how stupid we are with every movement. But its okay, at least we weren't stupid alone I guess. lol.

Well that's all I have for now but I'm sure I will get more to post up here really soon. In the meantime- How is your summer going?

I know mine has been great- after all - all I need to be happy is Good Friends, Sunshine, & Summertime =]

Love,

PS:

I'm going- are you? ;)

And I still have dirt in my sunglasses.

2010-05-26T17:32:00.000-04:00

Like I've told you, I'm a little behind in blogging. Now that it's summer, I was hoping to get caught up and stay caught up. And then I realized that the chances of that are still pretty slim. Nice weather, no schoolwork, friends, and the ever going list of fun activities that I could be doing has kept me away from the chunk of cyberspace that is my blog. And despite the fact that I now own a laptop (yay!) my blog has remained silent- mobility didn't necessarily bring time.

But anyways back to being behind. Last month I got the chance to go with Whittney and her family on a road trip. They planned to leave Friday morning and come back late Sunday. They were going to spend all day Saturday riding quads in the mountains. It was hard for me to decide - skipping school, the cost, the homework- I even made a should and shouldn't list- (sorry, its a cell phone picture)

writing it all out made the choice obvious. (not really, but for this stories sake, that's what we will go with) and so I packed my bags and headed off to the mountains. It was a long drive, but after about oh, 7 hours (and a detour) we finally made it.

Whittney and I got a picture together at the firework store we stopped at before going to the cabin. We matched, haha.
The next day was the special day. We got up really early. You could say we were excited, because we were, but Jeff's snoring was mostly the reason we were up so early. About nine we went down to get the quads- we rented every one they had- and to head off.

We loved the oh so stylish helmets they had- okay we didn't because we are bad kids and usually don't wear them but they were pretty cool and a very good idea when your riding in the mountains.

After getting our helmets we hopped on the quads and spent all day- or about eight hours- riding them in the mountains. I wish I could have gotten more pictures but I wasn't going to risk my cameras life or mine trying to take care of it while I was riding, but believe me, it was awesome and so beautiful.

It had also rained that morning so it was muddy! And we were pretty excited about that! What makes quad riding better? Mud!! There were mud holes everywhere and it did not take us long to hunt them out and ride on through them.

Here is a picture of our lovely muddy quads:

One lesson I learned though was to not wear your good jeans...dust and mud do not come out and it isn't quite the fashion staple either. But I wear them anyways and if anyone asks why my jeans look muddy, I have a good story all ready for them!

Here is a picture of Whittney and I after our epic day of quad riding. And no, we aren't that tan, its dry mud. We had a bit of a mud fight in addition to the mud flying from riding through puddles.

I had an absolute blast on this trip- it was a trip I'll never forget and memories I'll always hold dear. It's so nice to be able to do these sorts of things with people who have turned into family. That's a wonderful feeling to have and I am so glad they think of me well enough to allow me to join them on things like this.

Oh and by the way, I really do still have dirt in my sunglasses, but a little dirt never hurt so it can just stay there and remind me of the awesome time I had.

Love,

I think I need a dustrag...

2010-05-14T23:10:00.001-04:00

to dust off my little corner of cyberspace with. My poor lil blog has been collecting dust these past few weeks and honestly it might end up collecting a little more before I whip that dust rag out. I have been so busy with school but finals are next week then I'm out for the summer and hopefully that's when I can dust this sucker off and get y'all caught up, because trust me I have a lot to tell.

But I do feel the need to blog now and I just can't leave you with that little blip. So this will be a little random post that will fulfill my blogging need and still leave me with time. So here we go.

10 complete random things about me.

Because I have nothing else better to blog about. (actually that's not true but I am trying to post quickly and all the other posts would have a lot of pics, and that's not quick.)

PS: If you don't want to know 10 random things about me then feel free to click the red button on the top right corner of your browser. It won't hurt my feelings, trust me I am not that exciting so that may be your best bet anyways unless you need a nap.

1. I keep a planner but I don't actually use it to write down my future plans. Instead its more like a mini diary and I write what I did that day.

2. I overthink things way too much. It may be the reason I worry way too much. Sometimes those sorts of things make me hard to deal with but I am working on getting better and my friends are managing to deal with it somehow.

3. It kinda goes along with the last one but when I am worried or upset, I have to vent. And I talk about it and think about it and worry about it until I feel okay about it. Once again this trait makes me surprised to think I still manage to have friends because I know they get tired of hearing it but I guess that proves how great of friends I have.

4. I don't like cats. I just don't. You can be a cat person just keep your cat away from me.

5. I am not good at answering yes or no questions because they usually end up as sometimes or maybes. I tend to think outside the box.

6. I'm a country girl and always have been although I'm not sure people seen it as much before I became friends with Whittney. Although Whittney has certainly brought out my more country side it isn't a part of me that I fake, or just try and do because she does.

7. I'm not a very confident individual, and that shows. People can easily tell, I think.

8. I like writing in pen but don't like when I mess up and it looks sloppy.

9. My camera is getting cleaned right now. I miss it so much, I don't know if ill survive. lol.

10. I tend to attach myself to people and when I care enough about somebody (family, friend, boyfriend) I give all of myself to them. That can turn out badly.

And there ya go folks!

Wasn't that exciting! No? Well, I am sorry that you read through it, why didn't you heed my advice and close out this window? I told you I wasn't exciting! Did you at least enjoy your nap?

Well don't miss me too much but I am guessing finals will keep me from posting again real soon but no worries, I'll be back! ;)

Love,

Makaylas Prom

2010-05-02T11:56:00.002-04:00

Last weekend I was asked to take pictures of Makayla for her junior prom and of course, I agreed ;) Makayla looked beautiful- as most of her family and friends said..wow! I have never seen her in a dress! Shes always in sweatpants or in her softball gear! Well she can easily pull off both looks..look how beautiful she looked! Here are a few of my favorites..

Although it was raining, I think most of the shots turned out pretty well. I did the best I could none the less. Thank you for letting me be apart of this milestone- I hope you enjoy your pictures!!

Love,

Dear Puma,

2010-04-27T10:15:00.000-04:00

Thank you for letting me know that I should expect 2 shoes in my shoebox.

I sure wasn't expecting that. ;)

Love,

I got featured!!!

2010-04-09T20:54:00.000-04:00

You all know about i♥faces right? Well, I have been entering their contests for awhile now and just a few days ago I decided to join their community network. I mostly joined because I was curious and because I wanted to add pictures to the flowers theme. So I took a few minutes out of my homework time (no worries, I got it done. Although it doesn't ever really end...) and I joined and then added a few photos. I didn't really have enough time to tinker with it and learn the ropes of it, so I settled with adding my two cents and then I logged out.

I checked a few times after I added my pictures, seeing if I had any comments or anything like that. I didn't, so I went on my merry way, thinking that eventually I could figure it all out and then I could get traffic going through it.

But then today, I got an email. It said I'd been featured on i♥faces photography community. Huh, I thought to myself. Lets check this out before I get to excited maybe its not what I think.

But much to my surprise, it was what I thought and my wish finally came true! Okay, that's a little dramatic but I have wanted to get one of my photos featured. My ultimate goal is to place in one of the contests but for now, this is great!

Here is the lucky photo:

I find it funny they featured this one- it was one of the first ones I ever took with my new camera and I have never edited it at all! This is straight out of the camera! But I am just beyond excited that they thought it worthy to feature.

If you would like to see for yourself you can click on the picture and it will take you straight to the i♥faces post where it was featured.

Wow. I am just so excited. I know its not like a challenge winner or anything, but for me this is a win in my book!

Love,

Spring Break 2010!

2010-04-02T14:16:00.000-04:00

I know I am a little behind with this post but I still want to post about my spring break! It was amazing. Let me show you how amazing it was: Brittanys spring break happened to be at the same time! So she was back for that week and getting to see her after this long was wonderful! She had a get together so that everyone could come to see her as well as to celebrate her birthday.

Another day, Whittney and I went shopping. We have a tendency to try on weird sunglasses then take pictures. It makes for a good time.

The next day we went to the st. park. I got to take pictures which of course was wonderful. I took this shot of Whittney and I just really like it! When we were there we thought we saw a dead guy across the lake. He was really close to the water and not moving. We yelled but he still didn't move. We were not sure what do but then luckily he did move.

While we were at the park, we sat down to talk and decided we wanted to go on a road trip. We debated many places but finally decided that going to stay with my aunt and uncle would be the best (and most affordable) option. I was very excited, not only because I would get to see them but because Whittney was going and she hasn't ever gone up there with us. Plus, I'd never gone with just a friend either.

So the next day we got up and drove three hours straight. We made good time and had to wait for my cousins to come home from school. While we waited we played an intense game of Mario Kart on the Wii which was crazy! Then they finally got home and we got to spend time with them-

Brooke had to leave to take the dog to the vet and while she was gone we took pictures with Jessica. Peace out dudes!

Haha. Elephant faces with Jessica in the middle!

The next day my cousins had school again, so we settled for some shopping. We went into abercrombie for the first time. The mall there was so big we spend a good few hours in there!

After we went to the mall, we found our way to the lake. It was too cold to swim. There were still ice chunks in the water but we told people we did swim and they believed us! crazy! But we did take our shoes off and enjoy the sand beneath our toes. And we did dip our feet in but it was so cold!

It was Whittneys first time at the lake! So she wrote her name in the sand and got the traditional vacation memorabilia picture.

Of course I got to practice my photography skills, my camera did not leave my side! Here is my beautiful cousin Brooke.

And the beautiful cousin Jessica!

Whittney took over the camera for a little while- so I got a picture with Brooke!

The next day we woke up and had to head home so that we could make it back for Whittneys dads surprise party. We took a group picture before we left which included my cousins new puppy Bandit! He is one crazy dog!

I really did have the most awesome spring break. It was certainly better than I thought it was going to be. I just had such a great time, I am hoping that Whittney did too and that we will get to take a trip like this again- when its warmer and we can swim!!

Love,

I♥faces - Dramatic Black and White

2010-03-29T08:52:00.001-04:00

This weeks theme over at i♥faces is dramatic black and white. They are looking for a photo that speaks to the viewer, that conveys emotion and that is obviously- dramatic. They say that editing is key and they do not want to see a typical black and white portrait. I had so many pictures I wanted to enter and have been thinking about which one to choose for a long time. I love black and white pictures. I love using light and expressions to convey a mood. And I absolutely love pictures that are just so powerful that as soon as I see them I can feel the emotions pouring from the picture. Although it was a hard choice I ultimately choose this one: I don't know about you, but as soon as I see this picture I am caught up in it. I felt that way the first time I saw it- unedited on my LCD. It was a random one I took of my best friend while I was doing a photo shoot of her cousin. As soon as I saw it, I saw the mood it seemed to portray and I couldn't wait to edit it. I edited it right away- changing it to black and white and adding the words that I think pair well with the sadness and hurt it seems to show and the feeling of loneliness that you can think she may be feeling. It makes me wonder what she was thinking when I took this. It speaks volumes to me- maybe because some days, I know exactly how this picture feels to me.

Thank you for viewing I hope you found it worth the look! Comments are always appreciated and I usually comment back!

Have you entered your own photo yet? You better do that! Click on over to i♥faces to enter and don't forget to check out the other entries!

Love,

Bundled up!

2010-03-15T20:33:00.002-04:00

This week over at i♥faces the theme is bundled up! We have plenty reason to get bundled up around here this year due to the 3-4 huge snowstorms we got hit with! And so we did- and I took pictures of course.

Love,

PS- don't forget to head on over to i♥faces to check out the other entries and to enter your own!

Remote Controlled!

2010-03-09T09:36:00.000-05:00

I got a remote control for my camera, see!

It's gotta be one of the coolest things ever. Ok there are a lot of other cool things but still, having a camera that runs with a remote, pretty cool.

Whittney and I had to, of course, test it out.

We had to make sure it worked when I pointed it at her head,
Or when we were not paying attention (This picture cracks me up. Although it is a very unflattering picture of the both of us, I love how we are both laughing in it. I wonder what we were laughing at?)

We had to test it to make sure it could find peace,

and then when we knew without a doubt that this remote was the coolest thing ever, we let it capture us in a non normal state- looking normal. ;)

Love,

Highlights from my 18th year

2010-03-04T22:20:00.008-05:00

As of today, I am 19. Its pretty crazy for me to think about- maybe that I've made it 19 years or maybe that it just doesn't feel as if I am that old.

Either way I am glad to see 19 come but at the same time 18 really was a great year. It had its not so good times as well but with the good comes the bad. In no particular order here are some (aka the ones I could think of right now) highlights of my 18th year: -The end of Senior year. This included senior prom, which was such a great time.

-Getting Invisaligns to straighten my teeth. I had the actual invisaligns from a little bit before my 18th birthday until about October. Now I wear a "retainer" constantly but will get to gradually wean off of it here soon.
-Graduation!! Seniors 2009 baby!! I graduated high school finishing 8th in my class. I got a couple good scholarships from the college and a couple outside ones as well.

-My graduation party! It was so much fun. I would go back to high school just to do it again! Ok, maybe not but it was pretty fun!

-Getting my Nikon DSLR camera. Its my baby ;) I love having it and eventually I plan to get off the P setting and unto the Manual one.

-Having my photography grow. Somewhat because of my Nikon but somewhat because of my talent as well. Having people ask me to take portraits for them and doing a number of photo shoots. My photography has really advanced lately and for that I am excited and hope it continues to grow.

-Regaining Whittney back as my closest friend. There was a short period of absence with our friendship, we kind of drifted apart, but towards the beginning of my 18th year we started to come back together and now I think we are closer than ever. And for that, I am grateful. She really is the greatest friend, scratch that, sister a girl could have.

-I started college and have found that it isn't really what I expected. It has its good and its bad, some days I like it and some days I don't. I have been doing pretty well and have passed all my courses with A's or B's. We will see with spring semester but I hope that holds true.

-I made the Deans list for fall semester. Barely. but it still counts =]

-I got to be in the live audience at one of Jack Hanna's specials. It was exciting. Living where I do that is probably the only opportunity I will ever have for something like this and the closest I will ever get to a celebrity. I got his autograph to ;)

- I did my first field through school. I was in a second grade classroom. I got very good feedback so despite my nervousness and all things like that I obviously did well enough to be commended on my efforts. I really hope I am making the right choice with teaching.

I know there is so much more that has happened this last year that is noteworthy but I can't think of anything else at the moment and I am running short on time. College has kept me on a short leash so far this semester, I haven't had the time for much other than homework.

Oh, I forgot to include the fact that I got this blog and I enjoy everything about it- so thank you all who read it- you have helped make my 18th year all the better!!!

Love,

Really?? They said that???

2010-02-27T17:09:00.000-05:00

Last week, Whittneys cousin called me up and asked me to take some pictures of her daughter, Rachel. She was going to give modeling a shot and needed some recent pictures of her. They think very highly of my photography (and of course they think I'm pretty cool as well, lol.) and so they wanted me to take them.

And so, I did. I wasn't sure I liked the turn out- the ones outside were ok but we were limited cause of the fading light and the 20 ft of snow that kept us from going anywhere quickly. Ok, it wasnt 20 ft but you get the point, lol. And then inside I wanted to not use flash, I don't like flash I like natural light, but the light in there was bad.

I took them anyways making promises to take better ones on a brighter day when I could use natural light. I edited them, hoping I could get them to look better. They didn't look so bad after that -there was a few I did really like but overall, I just wasn't satisfied. I knew I could do better.

But I guess they were good enough. According to Tracy (Rachel's mom) the modeling agent asked who took those pictures. She of course, told him that I did. And I guess he said that they were really good and that I should be doing it for a living.

Appalling. Certainly wasn't expecting that. Makes me feel good that he thought my photographs were that good though, especially when I thought they were very far from it.

Now, I have yet to be filled in on how Rachel did with the whole modeling thing so I will get back to you on that but I bet she did great, I mean look at her! Shes beautiful, a perfect model. See for yourself with a few of the pictures that I actually liked, although I am not sure which ones the agent liked because I don't know which ones they brought:

Thank you Rachel for bein such a great model, and thank you to whomever the agent was who actually liked my pictures!

Love,

Put your hands in the AYer!

2010-02-22T20:46:00.000-05:00

This week over at i♥faces the theme is "Hands on fun" They figured after featuring feet and tooshies, it was time for the hands to get their chance in the spotlight! In my photography adventures, I find ideas on the internet that inspire me, so then I go out and use that idea to do my own thing. Also, I love getting messages across in an artistic photograph and so I do that as well. I've gotten some neat photographs that way and that leads me to my entry:

[[Click to view larger]]

Well, what do you think? I enjoy comments- so feel free to leave me one and I will return the favor!

Have you entered your own hands photo this week? Do you want to enter your own or just go and check out the other entries? No problem, just click on the i♥faces logo at the top of this post!

Thanks for looking!!!!

Love,

I Can’t Stop Time But I Can Capture It

2010-02-20T16:01:00.000-05:00

My Opinion Essay for my writing class. I hope you like it- The professor did ;)
I love photography; it’s one of my greatest passions and my most favorite things to do. I love the way the strap grazes my neck, the way the grip fits perfectly in my hand like it was made just for me, the way the autofocus whirrs as it gets ready to take the picture, and then the soft but audible click as the camera captures a moment that would otherwise be lost and quickly forgotten. I love how photography can capture an instant, a moment in time that individuals will want to remember but could never recapture. How it freezes that moment so that it can be looked upon for years to come.

Photography also allows me to change something ordinary into something extraordinary. With a camera in hand the possibilities are endless. With the right view and level of creativity I can turn an everyday scene into something phenomenal and breathtaking. It’s almost magical which makes it so much more enjoyable for me. Another thing I love is how a simple photograph can tell the viewer so much. It can portray almost any emotion; from devastation to extreme joy. It can entrance the viewer allowing them to feel as if they were there in the millisecond of time reliving all the emotions and activities that were captured. In this world I can’t stop time or go back to a time and relive it but with photography I can capture it and that’s good enough for me.

I've been experimenting more with different editing actions. The last two are examples of a couple new actions I like, what do you think? Do they work?

Love,

On my calendar,

2010-02-11T10:13:00.000-05:00

On todays date there are two words written followed by a few exclamation points. These words are important and not to be ignored. They are not lightly taken and after you read them you should start thinking about celebrating, which is what I plan to do because those words read: Kelleys Birthday!!!!! And that's an event that commends celebration in my book!

Kelley,

Happy 19th Birthday my dear friend! I am so glad you and I are such good friends you are a great best friend and I am ever so grateful to have you in my life. I love how open minded and how you fight for what you want no matter what you have to do to get there. Your determination and strong will are just a couple qualities that I admire in you and through that I am learning to be a better person. I love the way you think outside the box and you make me realize things that I wouldn't have thought of before. Your filled to the brim with great advice and you always help me no matter what my situation. You encourage me to shoot for the stars and never give up and that's just the thing I need to hear sometimes. Your always there for me and whenever I need something I know I can count on you. The best thing is- you always have the greatest stories. I love getting text messages from you they always brighten my day no matter how sad I may have been feeling. (Dea, I just sucked a hamster into the vacuum. Dea, I am wearing fat people shorts, you know the kind that are supposed to sweat fat off your legs?) Oh, Kelley. I'm so glad your one of my best friends. What would I do without you??

Happy Birthday Kelley!!!! Love ya girly!!!

Love,

Smoochie smoochie!

2010-02-08T18:24:00.005-05:00

Its i♥faces time and since valentines day is Sunday, the theme this week is "We heart kisses!" I was limited in my options but I thought this one would be a good one for this week:

[[Click to view larger]]

Awww, sisterly love. I look this of the girls awhile ago, I whispered to Mikayla to plant a big ol kiss on Taylor and she did! Slobbery kid kisses, too cute!

Thank you for viewing my entry! Comments are always appreciated and I will return the favor!! Want to enter your own photo or see the other entries?? Click on the i♥faces logo at the top of this page!

Love,

Insert sigh of relief here

2010-01-29T21:10:00.003-05:00

This is all I've seen the last few days....

and I won't even subject to you to what I've had to listen to....

Oh finals, how I love thee. (This is sarcasm, in case you didn't know)

But I love thee even more now that your over. Which also means Music in the Western world is over to. (Unless I failed....lets not go there.) And Principles of Health and Fitness is over as well, you know the class I completely blew off so I could pass the other one? Yeah, that one. lol.

Now I can have my life back!!!!!!!!!!!!! =]

Until next semester..... =[

But, I doubt anything could be worse than having to listen to ridiculous music from long dead composers and having to identify it...or learning about other old music stuff that I have no need to know.

We will see I guess but until then, I am going to enjoy the much needed and deserved five day break. Its not much but I will sure enjoy every minute of it!

Love,

Don't worry, I'm still alive.

2010-01-24T17:11:00.001-05:00

Although, I'm not sure how much longer that statement will hold true. Something is eating me slowly from the inside out taking every inch of life I have. Okay okay, so its not that bad but some days I do believe it will be the death of me. What is it? Well its simply:

Ah ha. Yup, that's a music appreciation book for my Music in the Western World class. Now your probably thinking "Seriously Dea. Now why the heck would you be saying such drastic things about this class? Its just music, it can't be that hard I mean, don't you like music?" And the answer would be that yes, I do indeed like music- music of my time that I can turn up loud and rock out to. Not music like I have to learn about in that class. And its not just listening to music, your actually supposed to know things about music.

Which, I don't. At all. I mean I was the kid in choir who just pretended to sing. And although I played an instrument (and not well, if you want to know) I still know not one thing about the way music is written or anything like that. I am not musically inclined and I am pretty close to the music failure category. I can't even stand to hear myself sing so the music always has to be louder than my voice.

Is this becoming clearer to you now? Does it make sense why this class will be the death of me? Or do I have to tell you about the 65% I received on my last test? Well, I'll spare you that because I think you got the point.

And just so you know, that class is also mostly the reason I have not found the time to blog. Instead I am spending that time listening to clips of Bach, Mozart, Handel and all the other dead musicians whose music I have to identify. As well as making flash cards, reading over notes, and freaking out about the next tests.

Thank God I only have a week left in that class. (If I pass it anyways....)

Moving on, would you like to know whats been going on besides ridiculous music classes and boring school stuff? No? Then go nicely to the top of this page and click the little red X. Yes? Then good, you can keep reading because that's whats coming next.

So, two weeks ago - cringe, I know I am very behind - I took on a project that made my knees knock together and my teeth chatter because after I said I'd do it I realized that I have a tendency to have to much confidence in my wanna be abilities and sometimes I find out those abilities are non existent. Turned out pretty well, didn't it? I surprised even myself! I made it for my neighbors boys 4Th and 1st birthday party and I am pretty sure they loved it! One thing I didn't know what how much time and effort these sort of things take..wow! Props to the people who do this sort of stuff often!

That same weekend Whittney, Kelley, Me, and Whitts cousin Rachel went to a hotel to celebrate Whittneys Birthday. It had an indoor pool with a slide and other cool water things. We had a blast!

She might kill me for putting that picture up but its my favorite one from the trip- Whittney was being goofy and acting like a cat and Kelley was laughing hysterically in the background. I love how it shows that even though we are all adults its nice to be silly and act like kids once in awhile (and boy do we do that! Keeps us young lol)

All of us together!

Despite my classes taking up all of my free time I've managed to squeeze in a little time to whip out my camera and take a few shots. I've been itching to get out there and spend some quality time with my camera but that hasn't happened.

I love the way the sun glints off the icicles. Its so pretty!

I got this cylinder of gumballs in a gift exchange and as soon as I opened them I couldn't wait to take pictures of them! I've been saving them for a day that was bright enough for me to use natural light and its been so cloudy here lately..and that's why there is only about half left. haha.

Friday night I had an epic movie night with six, yes six! of my friends. Its the biggest movie night I'd ever had. Whittney and Kelley came, as did four of my friends from college. Luckily we were all able to find a seat. I haven't asked permission to show pictures of my college friends on here so here is a picture of Kelley, Whittney and I from that night:

aw, my best friends =] We had another movie night last night at Whittneys, but I don't have pictures from that one.

And that pretty much wraps up whats been going on around here. I hope that once Jterm ends I will have the time to start blogging more, but I also realize I've said that before and it didn't work out to well. I guess we will have to wait and see!

Love,

I♥faces Birthday Celebration Continues!

2010-01-11T16:37:00.004-05:00

i♥faces is celebrating their first birthday with many special activities! This week its the special Best Face Photo and i♥faces is bringing back 18..yes 18! Of their previous guest judges.

Its going to be an exciting week and I am going to get started by entering my photo. The stipulation for this weeks theme is that is has to be a photo taken in December or January- no digging around for older photos that meets the theme this time. This was pretty good news to me since I did just do a photoshoot with the girls right before Christmas: I set up a black sheet and borrowed my neighbors flash and got my Nikon ready and went snap happy that day so.. it was hard to choose from all my favorite shots but of course I wasn't going to miss out on the celebration, so here's my entry: (Click to see larger)

I love this picture of Mikayla. I love the way she is laughing in it and just how relaxed and natural this shot turned out to be. No fake smiles or awkward poses. Its simply Mikayla, and I love it!

Now that I've entered mine I am going to go and check out the other entries- I am sure they are going to be amazing this week!

Do you want to join in on the fun? Be sure to head on over by clicking the button at the top of this page and entering your own photo!

Thanks for viewing!

Love,

The celebrating can't stop yet!

2010-01-07T18:31:00.001-05:00

As you know, the holidays are over- the tree has been taken down, all that's left of the cookies are empty containers and crumbs, the presents have been unwrapped and safely tucked away in their own corner, Christmas specials no longer play on T.V., decorations are packed away until next year, schools are starting back up and people have put away their party pants and slickly slid back into the sluggish winter routine.

But that's not how it is in my neck of the woods. The celebrating can't stop yet!! Because why? Its my best friend Whittneys birthday and that, of course, deserves celebrating!

And what better way to start the celebration than writing a nice, heartfelt post to the best friend I speak of? Well, I can think of better ways but...someone so near and dear to my heart deserves a special post for her birthday just as the others I have posted for.

But once again I'm stuck. Its hard for me to express through words how truly special Whittney is and how much I appreciate her as a friend. And once again I will say how I will never be able to express those such things in their full context.

But I still try, so here I go:
Whittney,

First things first- Thank you for being such a great best friend. You are always there when I need you -no matter how big or small- I know I can count on you. Your humor makes even my worst days great and my bad mood disappears almost instantly when you start with the funny things you say. The crazy things you do makes every time we hang out an adventure and if the more you laugh the longer you live then thanks to you I will live forever! Your like an older sister to me and not only that but an inspiration to: Your tough skin and it doesn't matter what they think of me attitude makes me rethink and do things I normally wouldn't do because your right: it shouldn't matter what they think. Your way of thinking outside the box and your strong will inspire me as well. Keeping these things in mind you have helped me not only by being there for me when I needed you but my inspiring me to be a better person so that I have started working towards the things you have taught me which in turn has helped me out in more ways than you know- even when you are not around you are still affecting my life in so many ways.

I am so thankful to have you as my best friend and I don't think you have any idea how truly thankful I really am because words can't express the amount of gratefulness I feel. You really are the best friend a girl could ask for and I hope we stay the best of friends for a long time because I want a huge selection of ugly purses for when I grow old because then I can sell them on ebay as a vintage ugly purse collection =] Well okay maybe the real reason is because I like having someone around who always understands and someone who I can tell anything to and who is just the greatest person ever....but if anyone asks its because I have a knack for receiving ugly purses as gifts ;)

Here is a quote because I couldn't put thoughts into words as well as this person could:

"I don't know what I would do without you.
You are the most incredible person I've ever met
& I just want to thank you for everything you've done for me.
From the littlest things to the bigger things.
You are the most amazing friend a person could ever have
& I know I can talk to you whenever anything is bothering me.
You are reliable & trustworthy & so much more.
Having a person like you around brightens my day.
You always check up on me & see how I'm doing.
You always seem to make me feel better
& let me know that you care.
I know no matter what,
you won't walk out on me,
& all I can really do is thank you
& return the favor.
You mean the world to me
& whatever it is that you need, I'm here.
I'm gonna be here to talk to if you ever need me;
I'll try my best to give you advice,
or just be the person to lend a shoulder to you.
You are my best friend
& I just wanted you let you know how special of a person you are.
Thanks for everything."

Hope this year is all that you wish it to be and filled with many great memories!

Happy Birthday Whittney! Love ya girl!

Love,

Happy birthday i♥faces!

2010-01-05T18:11:00.001-05:00

i♥faces is turning one and they have some special stuff going on to celebrate! The first is a special contest where the theme is..drum roll please.... i♥faces of course! You are allowed to enter five photos but they have to have the logo somewhere in them! You can put it there naturally or by editing but it must look somewhat natural.

To be completely honest with you I was very hesitant to enter this weeks challenge. I had no idea what to do. The only thoughts I had were mediocre and already used. I planned to be original and try to put the logo on there without editing it in because unless you count picnik premium I do not really have any sort of mega photo editing program. But that didn't work because I couldn't think of anything to do that didn't require nice weather..and nice weather we do not have here.

So I then decided I will pass on this weeks challenge. But then I got bored and decided to try editing in the logo some how...and then I saved some photos..then I decided that I might as well try- just for fun and maybe the judges will like my effort =]

Place or not at least I can say I tried! So here they are....

How bout an i♥faces band aid? Better than a finding Nemo or Barbie one I'd think ;) Or an i♥faces inter tube- makes for a wonderful flotation device in the summer (and you could use it for sledding in the winter) Or if your tball team was endorsed by i♥faces? How cool would that be? Talk about good luck and with that brings wins!
Or you can just leave it to the crazy kids that write on park benches..at least they picked something cool to write on it! The cuss words will have to come off but i♥faces can certainly stay!
I have no witty caption for this next one but FYI: not having good editing software did not make this one fun to create...it took forever to do the heart like that!

“I am submitting this photo into the I Heart Faces logo photo contest. By entering, I am granting I Heart Faces LLC permission to consider my photo for use in the marketing and promotion of their website.”

Well, I tried and thats all that counts right! lol. Make sure you check out the other entries by clicking on the i♥faces logo at the top of this post!

Love,

Christmas Part Three: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

2010-01-02T13:21:00.000-05:00

Christmas Eve day started out pretty normal, we all just kinda hung around- baked, cleaned and just enjoyed the spirit of Christmas.

Christmas activities started by Jodi coming over. I gave her the rest of her gifts which I hope she loved! I didn't get any pictures of her opening them that night nor one of us together (although she promised me one at a later date, because she said she didn't like her hair that night lol) but I can show you what one the gifts looked like, it was a picture frame with three openings and the pictures in it were these:

How cool is that!! I am pretty certain she loved it, or at least I hope she did! I was so proud of myself for pulling it off without her knowledge ;)

After that, Jodi curled my hair for church then we said our goodbyes. My family and I then went to church and enjoyed a really cool candle lit service. It was really pretty, except for when the hot wax went through the wax catcher and burnt my hand, that wasn't so cool, lol.

After church we returned home and exchanged gifts from each other. We do that every Christmas eve and its so hard to wait until after church because we are just ready to open something!

My brother and I picked some cool things out for Dana, but she really loved the bracelet we got her!

I tricked my brother: he wrote no clothes on his Christmas list so I taped the gift card to the box lid and put clothes in the box. He was appalled- Are you kidding me??? He said.

But then he got a good laugh when he finally found the gift card, after putting the lid back on, mind you ;)

Then it was time to go to bed so "Santa" could come....

Our tree Christmas morning.

Us in front of the tree Christmas morning, even the dog got in on it.

Dana got very excited about her new chair!!!

Denae loves to open gifts, even more so when they are treats for her!

Tony got what he wanted!

My mom opening one of her gifts!

haha, look at her face. Got to love an excited kid on Christmas!

My dad very excited about his new...jeans? lol.

My mom got a beautiful ring from my dad, and I zoomed up on it with my new camera lens!!! ;)

This Christmas was certainly filled to the brim with wonderful activities, happiness and love..and the gifts were a plus to. I really had a great holiday and I hope you did as well!

Love,

Christmas Part Two: Thats Ugly!

2009-12-31T18:12:00.000-05:00

Later that night, Whittney (one of my best friends, in case you didn't know) came over so we could exchange gifts. Whittney is a very hard person to shop for because she won't give you any clue as to what she wants and if she says she wants something she tends to get it sooner rather than later so buying her something that she won't buy before Christmas is hard.

But there is always one thing that I know exactly what to get for her, and the UGLIER, the better. We have our own tradition: we buy each other ugly purses for Christmas and birthdays.

It certainly saves on gift wrap because you can stick everything in it, they aren't hard to find (I mean seriously you think manufacturers could make nicer looking purses), and its always something I can get her.

The tradition started two Christmas' ago when she and her mom bought this gift pack that came with an ugly cheetah purse. I was there when they got it and we joked about it. A few days later, I got it as a Christmas gift. We laughed and joked about it again and an idea formed in my head. Since I felt bad for having such a ravishing purse, I went out and bought her one for her birthday which happens to be a couple weeks later. It was hideous. Then for my birthday she went out and found an even uglier one...and so the tradition goes. We have now dubbed it our special tradition and two times a year we trek out looking for the most ugly purse we can find.

I can't imagine someone hearing us talk about it and not having a clue...

"OMG the purse you got me is so ugly!!!"
"I know I spent forever looking for the perfect one!!"

"I have to find her the most ugly purse for Christmas..."

"Is this ugly enough??? Or is this one more ugly???"

haha. And the looks we get from the cashiers.......

We figure by the time we are eighty we will have to have our own special closets for our collection of ugly purses, ;)

Here is the first ugly purse to start things off:

The second:
Oh, and we now have a tendency to put goofy socks in the purses to. I can see a trend..it may end up part of the tradition:
And here is this years, ain't it ugly!!!

And here we are, ugly purses in hand with the rest of our gifts neatly inside, well except I am wearing the most awesome hoodie that she got me:

Keep a lookout for the final Christmas post, which I should have up in the next couple days!

Love,

Christmas Part One: With the girls.

2009-12-30T16:38:00.000-05:00

I have so many pictures to share with you all from all the Christmas festivities I decided to break the posts up some and spread the love, joy, and pictures out so that they last longer... instead of cramming them all into one post so that the excitement is only temporary. lol. Cheesy, I know, but hey it leaves each festivity to its own special post instead of being lost in the whirlwind of everything together.

The first group of pictures I will share is the Christmas I had with the girls. They came over on the 23rd, which is also Taylors birthday. This is where I will let the pictures tell the story....
The tree was ready, gifts underneath for family and friends. (Santa gifts don't show up until Christmas of course) the stockings were hung...
...including the one that Mikayla decided to hang up for herself ;)

The first gift to be opened was Taylors birthday gift. She was so excited!! I got her one of those cupcake makers that she wanted!

and now comes the Christmas gifts. As you can see, Mikayla was so excited! She opened her gifts so quickly because she just couldn't wait to see what was inside

Taylor, on the other hand, took her time and savored the moment.

I love how excited she got when she was opening this one, what was it?

A tie blanket I made her! They both had asked for one. Mikaylas had ponies on the other side

and Taylors looked like this.

They quickly became surrounded with gifts, with no more left to open. Now it was time to enjoy what they got!

Mikayla immediately went to put on her new pajamas and loved them! They look so adorable on her!

I love her pajamas to, its unfortunate they didn't come in my size! Lol.

Somehow, I did not manage to get a picture of the both of them in their new pajamas, but I noticed this in another picture so I cropped it and Wha-la! There they both are in the pajamas!

Before Taylor put on her pajamas, she decided to get right to work on the crafty thing I got for them. They were cute little magnets you could paint.

While Jodi was here, I let her open one of her presents early (she was coming back the next day so I was saving the others for then) and I am pretty sure she liked it!

Then of course I had to get a picture with the birthday girl.....

and then one with the both of them- which I completely adore this picture! They both look so happy...I love them so much!!!

And that ends this post...but watch for the next one that I plan to post as soon as I get the pictures ready!!!

Love,

Thats just too funny!

2009-12-29T12:07:00.002-05:00

The I♥faces theme for this week is hilarious outtakes and its extra special because we can enter up to five photos this week! I was able to dig out four to share with you and here they are:

This is my cousin Brooke. We were taking really cool pictures with the big lollipop. She turned to the side so we could try another idea and right when I snapped the picture she sneezed or something, I am not really sure but we laughed about it for hours!!

With the next three photos you may see a common theme, yes they are all of the girls and yes in all of them Mikayla is the one with the crazy expression. I think she is the queen of making goofy faces right as I take a picture. And usually, she doesn't even mean to she just does because she is mad or pouting or something, lol.

She did not want to get her picture taken when I took this picture- notice angry goofy face.

She was whining that her arm felt funny in this picture: notice whiny goofy face.

As for this one I am not really sure what to say except it cracks me up every time I see it. Her facial expression and the way the flash made her eyes look, how can you not laugh?

Those are just a few of Mikayla at her finest..poor Taylor looks so cute and normal in everyone of them but we had to take more because of Mikaylas goofy faces! But they are still wonderful photos to have to look back on for the memories and the laughs!

I hope you enjoyed looking and got a laugh while you were here! Thanks for visiting and do not forget to go and check out the other hilarious outtakes over at i♥faces!

Love,

Merry Christmas!!!

2009-12-24T18:58:00.000-05:00

I was asked to take the girls pictures this year in place of their school pictures. Since we I took them so close to Christmas, I did some Christmas shots as well. I want to share them all with you but since tomorrow is Christmas I will share a few of the Christmas shots I took:

I hope you all have a safe and blessed Christmas. I cant wait to see all the Christmas pictures that will flood the posts of the blogs in my reader- I know I already have some that I am preparing to share.

Have a great holiday and don't forget to remember how blessed you are: I know I wont!

Merry Christmas,

Love,

A very special girl

2009-12-23T11:41:00.001-05:00

celebrates her birthday today! Her softball teammates call her Shorty but most call her Taylor and today she turns 8!

I personally can't believe she is 8 already. This kid needs to stop growing! She has grown up so much in the past year. As I look at the pictures from a year ago its crazy to me exactly how much she has grown. I wish she could stay this little forever but I know from wishing the same wish on almost every kid I know, Its a wish that doesn't come true. I will be okay with it though because its amazing to watch her grow and change as she becomes older.

Here are a few photos from the past year:
January:
February:
March:

May:

June:

August:

September:

October:

November:

Just a few days ago:

Taylor,

First things first- I adore you. You are such an amazing girl. You have such a kind heart and you posses wisdom and maturity way beyond your years. You never cease to amaze me with the things you are capable of- the way you know exactly what to say or do when someone is feeling down, the way you adapt to make the best of any situation, the way your always there to lend a helping hand, your positive way of thinking and the wonderful way you can lift my spirits just by flashing me a smile. Your an inspiration to me and sometimes when I am feeling down all I need to do is think of you and that gives me the strength to keep going.

You are very special to me. We share a special bond and I hope that as you get older that bond between you and I strengthens. I hope you that you know I am here for you. Whatever you may need and however old you are, for anything I can help with- I will be here. Forever and always you will remain my little buddy, my best friend and in most ways your like my sister to.

Hope you have a happy birthday and that your eighth year is everything you could've asked for and more.

and don't forget how much I LOVE YOU! forever and always.

Love,

This ones for Amanda!

2009-12-16T19:58:00.007-05:00

Who is Amanda might you ask?? Well...I think you should know.. but some of you unlucky (and more than likely hungry) souls may not have come across her blog yet, so I will fill you in. Amanda is one of my amazing blog friends who has a crazy TALENT for making delicious goodies like this and this. And that's not at all even close what she can do!! I mean look at these and these and look at these! Isn't she simply amazing!!! But there is a bad side to the talent she has....she makes it look easy...and she makes you think you can do it to!

And I, being a creative individual who is up for any sort of creative task - fell into the trap. I thought I could be an expert cookie maker to. And to tell you what you may have already figured out, I was wrong. I cannot make stunning cookies like Amanda.

But I tried. And will probably continue to try thinking that maybe one of these days I will get it. I mean it is fun after all. I am just not very good at it and that's why I took so long to post the results of my tries..didn't want to embarrass my self. But then I came to the conclusion that maybe it will make you laugh and maybe it will make another untalented cookie maker like myself feel better about the fact that they also cannot make pretty cookies. Anyways here are the pictures...my first try was in July (I told you it was awhile ago lol) and the second try was in October (for a Halloween party, they liked them)

My first attempt at Amanda's Amazing cookies: When I realized that I shouldn't automatically think I can do something-
I skipped the pictures of making the dough, o well you get the point. But here are the cookies ready to go into the oven!

Then they were done, so I outlined them...which took forever!!!! My hand hurt so bad!!!

Then I filled them in which was not to bad. They looked eh, sorta OK at this point.

Haha. My first attempts at decorating them. Could you tell this was supposed to say Mom??? I think I made the frosting too runny...nope I am sure I made the frosting too runny..

But I tried again the next day and did a little better. I mean you can actually read them this time!

And of course I made some for my best friends and my favorite kids.

The girls helped me decorate..Taylor made this one for her dad...and did better than I did with writing it on there!

Although the whole decorating of the cookies did not turn out how I wanted it to, Jodi and the girls still enjoyed eating their special cookies ;)

My cookie attempt number two: A little bit better I suppose-

The girls helped me make the dough this time..of course Mikayla was in her unicorn costume..I told you she wore it around every chance she got.

They greatly enjoyed liking the dough off the utensils.

The end product, because I forgot to take pictures during the other steps. Not near as good as Amanda's but not near as bad as...well, I don't know...

Well at least Randi seemed excited about the ones I made for her boys... ;)

And there ya go. That's my experience with Amanda's amazing cookies. I plan to give it another go eventually but right now I am making a rainbow cake.....

can you guess who I got that idea from? And can you guess how its turning out...yeah pretty sure you guessed right on that one. lol.

Love,

Want to visit Amanda? Click HERE. And don't forget to leave her a nice comment =]

Its i♥faces time again!

2009-12-14T11:03:00.003-05:00

This weeks theme is pets, which branches out to include any sort of animal. I went to the zoo last weekend so as you may have guessed I got plenty of pictures from that trip to chose from, so I chose this one:

this little lizard was just chilling on the glass- I thought it made for a good picture! What do you think??

Would you like to see the other entries or enter a picture of your own? Head on over to i♥faces by clicking the logo at the top of this post!

Thanks for viewing!

Love,

Catching up on my ZZzzz's

2009-12-08T20:14:00.003-05:00

Its iheartfaces time again and this weeks theme is Sweet Dreams! I have so many photos to chose from for this weeks theme, the girls look so cute when they sleep and I frequently finding myself snapping a picture when they slip into their peaceful slumber (maybe to make into a collage for their graduation parties?! I think so =]). I have many sweetly sleeping photos of them but since those types of photos seem to be the norm I decided to veer a little and differ my entry. I went for the funny side of this theme because the girls can fall asleep so easy- which is a trait they get honestly from their mother who I have seen fall asleep texting (which is the photo I wanted to enter but I think my life may come to a quicker end had I done so, lol.) and I have also been talking to her when she fell asleep mid sentence. So I decided to enter this picture : Taylor was so tired she fell asleep eating her cheeseburger, just like that. We were on our way back from shopping when we picked up some lunch. A little while later I looked over to see Taylor sleeping, with her arm resting on the window and her cheeseburger still in her hand.

Ah, to be able to fall asleep so easily. It has never been that easy for me and even more so since I have three finals tomorrow (UGH!)

By the way, the finals are also the reason why blogging has slipped on my priority list, but no worries finals are almost over and I will have a big break with lots of free time which means I do plan to blog more!!!

Thank you for viewing my photo, I love comments so please leave me one!! If you would like to enter your own photo or check out the other entries just click on the iheartfaces button at the beginning of this post!
Thanks!

Love,

I am thankful

2009-11-26T17:39:00.001-05:00

for so many things not just on thanksgiving but everyday. Since its Thanksgiving though, I want to share with you some things I am thankful for:
My family of course. I am so lucky to have such a great family. I know I can count on them for anything because they are always there. I am also lucky to have such a loving family as well. I am also thankful for all my extended family but I don't have permission to put all their pictures up on here so I will have to settle for just saying it.

My dog. I love my dog, shes such a good and faithful dog and things wouldn't be the same without her around!

The girls. They have helped me grow as a person so much. They love me unconditionally as I love them unconditionally right back. They are just a light in my life, always shining and helping me in ways they don't even realize.

My amazing best friends. I couldn't ask for better best friends, they are like sisters to me. They are always there for me when I need them, when its convenient and even when its not. They make me a better person in so many ways. I know I am never alone and can always count on them. These girls are also very important to me and also part of my closest friends group they just were not in the other picture. They also mean the world to me and help me in many ways.

My neighbors. I am so glad that I have such awesome neighbors, we used to have some pretty crazy ones (and still do, but at least we have one set of cool ones to make up for it) its so cool to have such amazing people living next to you. Landon and Gavin are so cute and so fun to be around and by being around them I learn so much. Brian and Randi are awesome role models and they are always so helpful and great to talk to.

I have so much and so many more people to be thankful for but if i kept going this could go on forever, plus I can only share the pictures of people who have given permission for me to do so.

I am so blessed and ever so thankful for all the blessings in my life even if I don't show it all the time. I have it good and to everyone who has helped make it that way, all my gratitude goes out to you.

And to all my readers- thank you for reading and being some awesome blog friends, blogging wouldn't be as fun without you!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Love,

Some flare on my blog,

2009-11-23T21:03:00.001-05:00

for IheartFaces! This weeks theme is sun flare. I actually have quite a few pictures with sun flare but none that are particularly IheartFaces material. Aand of course, its been raining where I am so there has not been any sun for me to make flare with. None the less, I didn't want to be left out so I found this one...

Who can go wrong with such a cute kid? Oh, and I got the flare in there to ;)

Thank you for viewing, would you like to share your flare or do you want to just check out some more flare? Well then head on over to IheartFaces! Oh, and don't forget to leave me a comment because I love comments!

Love,

Give thanks,

2009-11-16T21:22:00.000-05:00

for IHeartFaces and the beautiful picture opportunities autumn brings! Mix them together and what do you have? Another week at IHeartFaces with an awesome theme! Have you guessed the theme yet? Just in case you haven't, I will tell you. Its autumn beauty! And this is my entry:

I did this lil guys photos a few weeks back and I thought they turned out great! It was hard to pick one but I decided on this one for the bright colors, the blueness of his eyes, and the silly little half grin on his cute little face!

I hope you liked my pick, feel free to leave a comment- they are always appreciated! Would you like to enter your own or check out the other entries? Well then what are you waiting for?! Head on over to IHeartFaces and get in on the action!

Love,

So I have this sister,

2009-11-15T13:35:00.002-05:00

who celebrated her 12th birthday on the 12th! That means its her lucky year, and hopefully that turns out to be very true! She was so excited talking about how she is a preteen now! lol.

Dana,

Happy Birthday! I am very sorry I didn't get this up on your actual birthday, blame college- its not my fault! Lol. I just need you to know that I love you very much. I remember when I was little I would tell Mom all the time that I wanted a little sister. She said I was stuck there was not gonna be anymore kids for her but then I got my wish! I was ecstatic and still continue to be, even though you take my clothes despite how they do not fit you at all! I love all the notes you leave me. Its wonderful coming home and finding a note from you. And of course having my own personal model around is pretty awesome to. I am really glad that your my sister and I look forward to the many more fun moments that we will have together.

I love you very much and hope you had a great birthday...
and I am not just saying that because you seemed to like my present the best ;)

Love,

Halloween festivities!

2009-11-03T20:20:00.002-05:00

I have to tell you, usually not much happens around my house for Halloween. We simply observe the holiday by wandering around with my sister and a few other small children to receive candy, then call it a night. This year was different though, and it was a very wonderful change to celebrate and enjoy the holiday more in its entirety. Having the girls living closer has certainly made a difference because having children around to enjoy holidays with makes them much more enjoyable, especially the little holidays where if they were not around it would not be as big of a deal. Its so nice that they are closer, not just in distance but in heart to. They have been permanently embedded into my heart and my family, along with my actual family (of course) as well as the other people that are near and dear to me. I am so blessed to have the people I have in my life and more so to be able to spend even the littler holidays like Halloween with them.

Here are some pictures of my wonderful Halloween:
The night before we carved a pumpkin! And then cooked the seeds. And just so you know, Mikayla wore that costume every chance she got, she really liked it! Just a new picture of me and the girls after the pumpkin carving!
Kelley and Me! She is one of my best friends. She took the pictures and helped bake the seeds.
TRICK OR TREAT! The girls all dressed up for trick or treat!
Taylor was a kangaroo. Here she was holding up her candy bag, signaling that she wants to go get candy and not stop for a picture lol.
Mikayla was a unicorn, and boy did she love that costume!One of my favorite boys! My neighbor boy Landon who made the cutest cop in the universe! The other of my favorite boys! Gavin who is also my neighbor makes the cutest koala bear!Dana did not allow me the chance for an individual picture of her so here is my lovely sister with Taylor.

Then comes the big kid fun!

Here is me, Jodi, and Whittney all ready for a Halloween party we attended. Don't you just adore our costumes? We wanted to do a group thing so we went as a cheerleader, football player and a Ref. We were the most awesome themed group there! I must say, I was so very filled with pride and thankfulness as we trouped up for that party together. Most of my life I have struggled with friendships and have never had a true friend I could could count on, the ones I did have decided I wasn't good enough for them. I hadn't had a friend who would do the things a real best friend would do (like coordinating Halloween costumes) until these lovely ladies came around and I am ever so thankful to call them my best friends. It was the greatest feeling in the world to be able to enter that party feeling apart of a tight group of friends- to feel accepted, loved, and knowing that I have two best friends who will stick by me no matter what. I have realized these things quite often but walking in as a group was just another bittersweet moment when I realized how truly blessed I am.
Because Jodi has problems with getting her picture taken (yeah, I don't know either. I mean I don't like getting my picture taken either (despite how it looks the opposite with all the pictures of myself on my blog) but i love the memories pictures give me so as long as i am in the picture with people i love i don't mind it as much) well she ran off after we took the one of all three of us. So I asked Randi (my lovely neighbor) to get in a picture with us and so she did. Which made my night ever so more the wonderful because Randi is another person I am so very thankful for- another great influence on my life and i am so very glad she is my neighbor!

Boy am I blessed and even a Holiday deemed Satan's holiday couldn't make me think otherwise! I have terrific family and friends and I had a great Halloween as well. I hope yours was spooky and wonderful!

Love,

Top 10: Goofy pictures with Whittney edition!

2009-10-28T20:20:00.004-04:00

So, my best friend Whittney, well shes a goofy kid. I am also a slightly goofy kid. When we hang out, our goofiness is very evident because we both act pretty crazy. Well, sometimes though, boredom comes into the picture. And me being the crazy camera girl that I am gets the idea that "Hey, lets take some pictures" and so the story goes. So I want to share with you 10 of my favorite goofy pictures of Whittney and I. Yes, we look pretty dumb and yes she might kill me for putting some of these on here but when I asked for permission to use photos of her she did say yes.... ;)

#10

I think this one is funny because we were trying to do the whole charlies angels thing but I could only use one hand because I had the camera in the other. Then Dave after seeing it asked why Whittney had to use two fingers to pick her nose!

This one is only really funny because of our costumes. What costume? Exactly. haha. Well we did use the face stuff to put circles around our eyes.... yeah, I do not know either. lol.

#8Childrens hats that we managed to get on our heads. We thought we were pretty cool.
#7
Haha. Grape Faygo is the best pop ever, and even better when you can stick the wrapper to your head!

Because cups and boredom just don't go together. Can you hear me now?

Caught off guard- We were both making the motions to an inside joke although I have to say..What the heck Whittney?

Do you see our faces? Could you tell that we were laughing really hard but trying to smile and look normal for the camera? Thats because about 3 seconds before this picture the dog tried to hump my leg. I kicked it off, we laughed, this picture was taken!

#3
We wrapped a lot of gifts that day. After wrapping gifts all day we thought it would be funny to make ourselves look retarded by putting the empty roles in our sleeves. And then there is that creepy santa behind Whittney...

Because the fact that Whittney has her nose in a sheeps butt is funny, the facial expression she has fits perfect and this picture just makes me laugh!

And #1 is....

Its shows our friendships true colors. Ha, not really but it does look like I am gonna whack her a good one! I was actually gonna smear more mud on her face but that's not how it looks. And then there is the duck coming out of my head. This day was so much fun, we had a crazy mud fight! We both were completely covered in mud, it was great!

Well, there you have it. My favorite crazy pictures of me and my best friend. I guarantee you that there will be many more I will have to add to this list within a short amount of time because we are pretty crazy and I always have my camera!

"You can tell when two people are best friends because they are having way more fun than it makes sense for them to be having"

Love,

Just a little peak!

2009-10-20T20:34:00.000-04:00

At this cute lil guys pictures! I took Hunters pictures on Sunday. It was such a beautiful day for pictures and luckily wasn't to cold! Hunter was fun to photograph, Whittney was very good at making him smile! The only thing was he was not for sitting still! He wanted to eat the foliage instead so he crawled around trying to get the best leaf, lol.

Well, I do not want you to wait any longer, so here are a few of my favorites:

After we were all said and done I ended up with 166 pictures! I think I had a very productive day ;)

Love,

Excitement!

2009-10-12T21:01:00.004-04:00

is the theme over at IheartFaces this week! Once again I am very excited ;) to participate! I thought I would have a hard time finding a picture for this theme but after searching for a short time I found this one and deemed it perfect:

I got the girls Pjs this last year as part of their Christmas gifts. I thought the clothes would be the gift they would be least excited about amid the toys and such things. But Mikayla opened her Pjs,squealed with delight, and hugged them. I am so glad I caught that moment in a picture. Her excitement is authentic. Her face tells it all, she loves her new jammies.

I love those sorts of reactions. When they get so excited and your heart is filled with that warm fuzzy feeling because you know you picked the perfect gift and truly made someone happy. I love gift giving and try to do it often not just for holidays. I love the feeling of surprising someone with a gift and knowing I made them feel special. And I want them to know they are special to me. I just love making people happy =]

Well, Thank you for viewing! Comments are always welcome ;)

Would you like to see more Exciting photos or enter your own? If so click on the button below:

Love,

Girls day out!

2009-10-10T21:47:00.001-04:00

Last Saturday Whittney and I took Taylor for a girls day out. We promised her awhile back that we would take her shopping- just her and us. Taylor was so excited when we came to pick her up, we couldn't talk much because she kept asking when we were leaving! I think it made her feel very special to hang out with us and I love having her hang with us. She is truly an awesome little girl! I call her my mini best friend because she really is! We certainly had a blast, we rocked out to a couple of Taylor's favorite songs during the ride (Waking up in Vegas, Joey, One in the Same, and Party in the USA) and then had a blast in the stores being crazy, but not too crazy ;) Of course I brought my camera for this special day, and i will share some pictures with you- Taylor with Whittney in the first store of the day. And yes, Whittney was talking. lol.
Me and my mini best friend!

Then we got into head gear. First Whittney and I donned some princess crowns. Taylor said we looked goofy and would not get into the picture with us, haha.Then Taylor got in the spirit and found a witch hat!Then Taylor picked out this cute blue winter hat and wanted it, so I bought it for her. And of course got matching gloves to! Doesn't she look adorable!
Then to McDonald's for some dinner! It was very good! And Taylor looks like she agrees!
When we got back, Taylor anxiously showed off the stuff we bought her. And of course I couldn't go without bringing something back for Mikayla. We bought her some cool stuff but she was loving the gloves and was showing them off in this picture!And this one, only i put my hands up to! (So we put our hands up their playing our song .... haha.)I had an awesome day, and I am pretty sure Taylor did to ;) (and yes, this is a cell phone picture. The genius that I am thought to take one with her phone but not with her real camera.)

Love,

Oh brother.

2009-10-08T09:18:00.003-04:00

its your birthday, its your birthday!

As you may have figured out today is my brothers birthday. Hes turning the big 'ol 16! Its pretty crazy to think my little brother (and yes Tony, you will always be my little brother no matter how much taller you are) is 16 already. Its been a crazy 16 years having him around but i wouldn't trade them for anything.

The picture I decided on I chose because of lack of choice- my brother does not corporate when someone has a camera pointed at him. Could you tell by the goofy smiling face he is making in this picture? The only reason we even got one is because of moms first day of school picture ritual, so this is Tony and Dana before their first day of school. So Tony, If you don't like it too bad, its your own fault anyway =]

Tony,

You are a great brother. I know I don't always show that I believe that statement is true and you don't always prove that statement to be true, you are the greatest brother for Dana and I and I would not trade you for any other brother. I remember when we were little and you got in trouble. You were not allowed to go outside and play with me but I really wanted you to. Mom gave you a choice, and you got spanked (because back then that was ok lol) a few times so that you could come outside with me. I also remember you firmly telling the lunch lady that I should not have to eat all my food if I did not want to. You've stood up and protected me so many times, just what brothers are for, and for that I thank you. Your quite the funny guy to, remember chewy chewy chewbacca? Hows frank and Timmy the talking toilet? And the time you bit me on the butt (who knows why) and I got in trouble for it? And don't forget about the day we played outside in the rain- what a crappy situation! Those were some very good times and I know we have many more good memories to come, I mean after all, we are sorta stuck with each other! =]
Just never forget that I love you. Despite the fights we get into, the times were I tease you and you get mad, when I scare you (Duh-duh-duh-duh- D-E-A!!!!, that was a good one you gotta admit!) and all the times I just can't even stand having you around, know that I love you and will always be here for you no matter how mad I am. Whether that's helping you avoid moms wrath by diverting her attention or scaring off a bully at school- I'm here for ya bro. Forever and always.

Have a great birthday, I Love You!

Love,

I'm a little blue.....

2009-09-29T21:25:00.002-04:00

And so is the rest of the IheartFaces participants because this weeks challenge is blue! You must enter a photo with lots of blue in it. I have plenty of photos with some major blue eyes but not too many with overwhelming amounts of blue throughout the photo. None the less, I did not want to be left out this week so i searched and found this photo:
This would be my sister swimming in a blue inter tube. Ah, makes me want those summer days back so badly!

Would you like to see more entries, or enter your own photo? Check out IheartFaces by clicking HERE

Thanks for viewing!

Love,

At 9 o'clock tonight

2009-09-27T16:14:00.008-04:00

Do you know where you will be? I know exactly where I will be, the same place you will find me every Sunday at nine during the season....in front of the closest tv watching desperate housewives! I adore this show. Its the only show I loyally watch. For real. And i cannot wait to see the premiere tonight.

Are you a fan? Lets chat =]

Well on a different note and a different passion, i have pictures- of course. And since I really do not have much to tell you about my life other than college and homework have taken it over, i will share my pictures with you now.
Straight out of the camera. I went to leave for school and thought this was so pretty, so i ran back inside and upstairs and back out so i could take a picture of it. And i am very glad i did. Do you see the moon? It shows up better bigger but I need to work on getting my pictures bigger on here still.
I took this of Taylor as she was sitting in the backseat, unaware (or ignoring?) me taking pictures of her. I love the colors in this picture, the soft glow of light on her face and the way she is looking out.
My sister has the most beautiful, multicolored eyes i have ever seen, so jealous. I love to bring them out in pictures of her. Mikayla let me take a close up of her eyes, but closed the one, lol. I was editing it and accidentally hit the wrong tool but loved the look i ended up with.

Well, I hope you all had a great weekend and have a great week as well.

And dont forget where you should be at nine o clock tonight, and who to chat with about it tomorrow =]

Love,

Completely Candid!

2009-09-21T20:50:00.003-04:00

Another week has come and gone which means its IheartFaces time again! This weeks theme is completely candid which means no posed pictures. Once again I had a hard time choosing but decided on this one:We were at the park one day, all sitting down taking a breather. I had my camera and of course was just snapping away. When I took a look at the pictures from that day i just fell in love with this one. I don't know what it is about it but I just really like it, and hope you do as well!

Thank you for viewing! If you want to see other entries or want to enter your own head over to IheartFaces by clicking HERE

Love,

PS: I do plan on getting back into blogging more but college has taken up all my free time! I apologize to you all and i will try and get back into the swing of blogging more often here soon!

Contemplative

2009-09-13T21:17:00.004-04:00

Its IheartFaces time once again and this week I am finally able to enter! The past few weeks I've had to pass either because I did not have the time or a picture but this week I am back in and ever so excited! The theme this week is Contemplative and I have been waiting anxiously for this theme! I immediately thought of the picture I was going to enter and although I have thought of some other good candidates for this theme I kept going back to the first one I thought of. So thats what I went with and here it is:
I have to tell you that I absolutly adore this photo. I took this picture when I was asked to take pictures of the girls for Mikaylas third birthday and it was quite the task, they really did not want to take the time away from playing to get there pictures taken! I'm not sure what her little three year old mind was trying to figure out, but i bet it had something to do with getting away from the camera!

Well, I hope you like my entry, please feel free to comment and I will do my best to return the favor!

Too see more entries or to enter your own click HERE

Thanks for viewing!

Love,

I've been behind

2009-09-12T19:34:00.004-04:00

on my blogging because I've spent most of my time behind these:
college has started for me and they sure do not start slowly! My life is slowly being consumed by school and I do not like that fact at all! I have had so very little free time and that drives me insane. I need time to work on the computer, take pictures, and hang out with my friends and I really do not like the lack of it. So far college has just been too overwhelming for me. So much to do and I do not even know if i am doing what i need to do correctly. I really do not have any friends there and that bothers me most of all. I hate feeling like I have no one and that I don't belong anywhere. Anyways, I do not want to continue to complain on here so I will share with you a couple of pictures of my two favorite girls:

All of them are edited. I did not post the originals. The second ones of each are cropped and slightly different than the one that precedes it. So what do ya think?Well, I wish I had more to say right now but I indeed do not. I will try and post again this week but given how busy I've been I really can't promise anything =[

Now I am off to prepare some notebooks.....

Love,

In a very short amount of time,

2009-09-03T23:04:00.004-04:00

another celebration has come upon us. This event is also marked down as important in my book because without it, well, I wouldn't be here! This time the attention is turned towards my dad because now, its his birthday! This picture of my dad is a couple years old but its my favorite of him that I could find, it shows his silly personality and I just adore it!

Dear Dad,

First of all, Thank you for being a great dad. You have always been there for me whatever I may need. Your a great person to look to for support and guidance. Although your approach to helping me out may not be what I expected sometimes, you always seem to manage to get me through whatever life throws at me. Your hard work and dedication in any task that you take on has taught me to work hard -no matter how impossible it seems- I can do it. Your an inspiration: your talent with woodworking amazes me and I hope that I can perfect my talent as well as you've perfected yours.Thank you so much for everything you do and continue to do for me, for all the sacrifices and hard work you put into making sure Tony, Dana, and I are provided for. Your the best Dad anyone could ever ask for.

I wish you the best on your birthday and hope this year brings with it everything you could ever imagine.

Happy Birthday Dad, I love you!

Love,

[[Jodi]]palloooza!

2009-08-31T22:31:00.005-04:00

A very important event has approached us, it only comes around once a year and we must be there to celebrate it in its entirety. This event has a significant meaning to me because its brought about a very important person in my life: my best friend.

What is this very important event that I speak of? Why, its Jodis birthday! Well, actually her birthday isn't until Wednesday but because she is so big into celebrating birthdays (not because she thinks she is more special than the average person, although she might be =]) she lets the celebration start today and go on for a week: a week that I have dubbed Jodipalloooza, just for entertainment purposes. And since I think shes special to I have decided to honor her birthday week by posting it at the start of it (but really because my dads birthday is Thursday and I wanted to spread out my posts a lil more, but don't tell Jodi that's why, lol.)

Now for the hard part. What do you write for your best friend on her birthday to let her know how truly special she is too you? How do you find a way with words to express how thankful you are when words could never do your gratefulness justice? The fact of the matter is, you try but you make sure that you don't just write it, but live it. And of course you just put a little memo at the end telling that person that words aren't enough. That works to ;) So here I go-
Dear Jodi,

First of all, I want to thank you for being such a great best friend. Your friendship was an unexpected blessing in my life, its unusual for two people with such an age gap between them to become as close as we are but in our case, its perfect. It has made our friendship all the more stronger. The age difference has given us both benefits and wisdom that is unlike any other friendship I've had and it helps us both in many ways, some of which I am sure we are still unaware of. I truly believe God meant for it to be this way.He made it work and gave us an indestructible bond that i know will last a lifetime. Your always there for me and with a kind heart and helping hand you help me even through my toughest times. I know I can go to you with anything and you wouldn't think twice about being there for me. And I hope you know the same goes for you: I am always here for you as well.

I never would've thought I would find some one who is so much like myself. It is such a wonderful feeling to know you have someone out there who always knows what your talking about and where your coming from. Someone who always understands and knows exactly what to do or say because they are the exact way themselves. It's great to share my dough with such a wonderful person (I'll have to tell y'all that story one of these days). And its great to know that no matter what happens I will always have a best friend in her (and she will always have a best friend in me) because first of all, she can't hate me because we are so much alike it would be horribly ironic because it would be like she disliked herself, and we also know we will always be best friends because nobody else likes us ;)

Like I said at the begginning, there will never be enough words to describe how thankful I am and how much her friendship means to me, but I found a quote in this book once that I think describes Jodi (and my other two best friends for that matter) really well.

"I think about how there are certain people who come into your life and leave a mark. I don’t mean the usual faint impression: He was cute, she was nice, they made me laugh, I wish id known her better, I remember the time she threw up in class. And I don’t just mean that they change you. A lot of people can change you- the first kid who called you a name, the first teacher who said you were smart, the first person who crowned you best friend. it’s the change you remember, the firsts and what they meant, not really the people. I am talking about the ones who, for whatever reason, are as much a part of you as your own soul. Their place in your heart is tender, a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless. If you had a lifetime to talk, there would still be things left unsaid."

Happy Birthday Jodi, Love ya lots!

Love,

Imagination is key.

2009-08-29T21:53:00.000-04:00

The new fun thing to do when the girls come over is play dress up. The two of them and my sister get all into it, creating cute lil outfits with scarves and whatever we have in our dress up drawer. Then they pretend they are princesses, ghosts, witches, or that they are in a wedding. Its very fun for me to watch and see what they come up with. A child's imagination is so amazing, I wish I still had the ability to think outside the box like kids do. But since I am "too old" for stuff like that, I enjoy their imagination by taking pictures of the things they come up with. Most of them were taken inside with flash so they aren't the greatest pictures but none the less they are great pictures to have and will be wonderful to look back on.Old lady?

Super hero?
beauty queen? The only picture i got of her before she told me to stop, lol. I really just love this one! How cute is she? =]and this one. what a cute witch she makes!The bride.She was just posing for pictures.All three!

Sorry I don't have to much more to tell you guys right now, but there is a special post coming up- its my best friends birthday here soon! Stay tuned ;)

Love,

Who forgets the bread?

2009-08-24T21:29:00.005-04:00

When you think of making a sandwich, the first ingredient you think of is the bread, correct? So who packs a sandwich, remembering the meat and even the condiments, but forgets the bread? That would be my best friend. Shes not normal. But then again, neither am I, and that's why we get along so well.

But that's not the point of this post here, I just wanted to tell you because I thought it was funny that she forgot the bread for her sandwich. I also wanted to document it so I can remember that and laugh about it for years to come. The point here is my computer is back! Its still on the mend but its working, its back in my room, and I can now post pictures. WHOOOOHOOO! So happy about that. I still got work to do in making it back to normal though, mostly figuring out what my screen resolution was because things still aren't looking normal in that area. Other than that a few more tweaks and I should be just about where I was a week ago.

So whats been happening since I've been gone? I'll show you:I got to watch my cousin Claire. Her and my sister are really close and play together all day. Its so funny because I will be sitting in my room and you can here the two of them singing across the hall. The bond they have is awesome and its so nice when they get to hang out with each other.

Of course I've gotten to hang out with my two favorite girls. Mikayla asked me the other day "Dea? Uhm, can't you just be my sister to?" =]

In my down time without my computer i wanted to practice my photography. I did not get much of a chance though due to my sister not wanting to let me practice with her. I did get the opportunity with the girls though. They both let me take a couple pictures of them by the window, which is what I wanted because I wanted to try and create the dramatic look with natural light and turn them to black and white. I need some more practice but this is what I got:

I used the holga-ish action on this one. I think it overdid it a little but it still turned out alright.I just used regular black and white action with vingette border on this one. I think I like the way it worked on this one better, its not overdone.

It was funny because my sister did get mad at me for taking pictures, so I asked Taylor if it was making her mad to. Her answer? "Nah, I'm used to it now" Think I take a lot of pictures of them? I think its obvious in her answer ;)

Well, I most certainly am excited to be up and running again and I have plenty more pictures to show you but for now its off to bed for me. Hope you have a great day tomorrow, and don't forget the bread ;)

Love,

Technical Difficulties.

2009-08-19T10:20:00.002-04:00

So, my personal computer isn't working correctly. And it's all my colleges fault (see, they are trying to ruin my life! lol.) What happened is this: My college recommended a virus protection that they give all students for free. I say, what the heck? its free, the college wants us to use it, and I don't have virus software..lets go for it!

Who knew my computer was better protected without this antivirus software? not me, but I do now! The antivirus software totally crashed my computer. As soon as I would log in, it would shut down. After trying to unsuccessfully remove the faulty software in safe mode, my dad decided we will have to restore the computer back to factory settings - which means erasing everything on it and basically starting all over. Luckily, the computer has a backup program we were able to access, backing up all my stuff with the price of 30 (yes, 30!) Cd's or 5 DVDs. So I took the DVD route and Five hours to back up all my stuff.

Now, its restoring everything and I am guessing its going to take another five or so hours given its been going for 45 minutes and is at..ah...two percent. =[ After that, I just have to hope to God I can get my computer back to the way it was before I decided to follow the colleges advice.

Case in point: I just wanted to let you know why I haven't posted (including missing IheartFaces this week, insert sad face here) and why this post will contain no pictures.

I hope very soon to be back on my own computer, instead of the ancient family computer, and to be able to blog like normal again. I hope that I will have all my pictures back and that everything will be back to normal.

But for now I have nothing else to say, I need to go see how my computer restoration is coming...

Love,
[[[[[ Pretend my normal signature is here ]]]]]

August 17th,

2009-08-17T16:06:00.006-04:00

Is another special day in my book. Today is my Moms birthday! She turns --- today. Ha, She would not want me to tell you how old she is and since today is her birthday, I will comply. My mom also doesn't like pictures, but I found this one of the two of us taken about two years ago. Mom,
First of all I want to wish you a Happy Birthday and I want you to know that I love you very much. Your a great role model and your always there for me and as your daughter I couldn't ask for more. Your the best there is. I thank you for everything you do for me and continue to do for me everyday. I hope that this year is everything you want it to be and that you find growing older isn't as bad as everyone seems to think but that you'll find things get better with age. But remember one thing: I love you!

Happy Birthday mom, I love you!
Love,

An introduction and a homecoming.

2009-08-16T20:41:00.000-04:00

I finally have the opportunity to introduce you to two special kids. I have been babysitting these cuties for about a month now, and I finally got up the courage to ask permission to post their photos on here. All that worry for nothing: their dad didn't mind at all! This was exciting for me because these kids are so cute and so photogenic and I have been itching to share some photos of them with you! So here they are:
This is Madison: She is so cute, and quite the talker! Shes very energetic and so much fun and when she laughs you can't help but laugh to. She has quite the imagination and is filled with curiosity, which leads to questions like "Why does a stop sign have eight sides?"

This is Jackson: He is a lil heart breaker! His cute lil face and those bright blue eyes- so adorable! He loves monster trucks (especially Jodi's) and he wants a pink motorcycle. Listening to him talk is so funny with his two year old hurried speech and mispronounced words.

Aren't they just too cute? I am looking forward to sharing many more pictures of them to come, especially Jackson- he loves having me take his picture!

Now that I took care of the introduction part of this blog title I have to tell you about the homecoming: Jodi and the girls finally returned! After not seeing them for over a week, I was extremely glad to see them return!

Me and Taylor!

Mikayla, Hector (a puppet), and Me!

Its so very nice to have them back, and that's why I've been such a bad lil blogger. I've been hanging out with them and that's why it took me three days to post this! And for that I'm sorry: but spending time with your best friend and your most favorite girls after they returned from an extended trip takes precedence in this case ;)

Love,

Crazy,Silly,Funny Face!

2009-08-10T13:38:00.004-04:00

This week over at IheartFaces the mission is to enter a picture with a crazy, silly, or funny face in it! I have plenty of those pictures, kids love to ham it up with a silly face! It was a hard choice for me but I ultimately decided on this photo. I love the goofy face Taylor is making as Mikayla hugs her and the expression on Mikaylas face that just says "haha! I got you!"

I think the theme this week is a lot of fun and I am very excited to go on over there and check out the other silly faces! Aren't you? That's what I thought, so just click HERE and go on over there to check out the silly faces or to enter one yourself!

Love,

Boredom in its highest degree

2009-08-07T13:08:00.008-04:00

That would be my slogan these last couple days, as well as today. Tends to happen when everyone you know has something to do, and you don't. And it sucks, I hate being bored. I love to live every moment of my summer, and I tend to get restless and anxious when I don't have anything to do. I am sure your thinking that I could find something to do, and your right. I could find something to do by myself, but its not the same and not as fun as hanging out with your friends!

But my boredom has given me time to blog (yay!) and since I really don't have any good stories or anything to tell that means picture sharing time! (even bigger yay!) So here are a few I'd like to share that Ive taken recently that I really like....
After I got these pictures prepped to blog yesterday, I got lucky and found a couple friends who weren't busy- lucky me! We were able to hang out and I was relieved of my boredom for a few hours! Gotta love them goofy kids you call your best friends!

Kelley, Me, and Whittney!Now I am wondering if I can get so lucky to find a couple more bored souls today??? Its unfortunate to say but I doubt it. Kelley and Whittney are both working. Brittany and Jodi are three plus hours away. And anyone else I can think of? Well they are busy to. I guess I will have to suck it up until tomorrow when Whittney is off work and Jodi returns. Oh man I can't wait, I will finally be able to hang out with my friends and have fun again!

Love,

Today is a special day,

2009-08-03T12:02:00.009-04:00

because Mikayla turns 5 today! She has been very excited for this birthday and it's all everyone has heard about the last few days. She has showed us many things she wants for her birthday but the majority of it has been anything and everything pony!

Mikayla has certainly grown in the past year. Although I hate knowing that she won't be little much longer, I love seeing her grow and change and it amazes me how much happens in only a year.

Here are a few pictures from the past year:

August 2008
December 2008
January 2009May 2009

June 2009

Dearest Mikayla,
You are crazy,

And silly,But still oh so sweet. I love you dearly and I hope this birthday brings with it everything you hoped for. You are such a wonderful little girl that I am very glad to know and I thank you for letting me be apart of your life. As you grow, never forget how amazing you are and how loved you are and that I will always be here for you.

Happy 5th Birthday Mikayla, I love you!

Love,

Goodbyes

2009-07-31T23:48:00.005-04:00

I hate goodbyes. In any way, shape, or form I am not a fan. Whether for a few minutes, hours, weeks, or years I struggle with and try to avoid them. I hate the uncertainty they bring, the gap of time where anything could happen, the feeling of being left, and the questions that haunt my mind about the way the goodbye went and the terms that person and I were on when they said it (were they secretly annoyed,but pretending to be nice? Did I say something that may have made them mad and they couldn't wait to get rid of me? Did I sound dumb or act like a fool?)

Case in point: Goodbyes are a dreaded, hated thing for me. They are even worse when you have to say goodbye to your best friend.

Three days ago, I had to do just that. I had to say goodbye to Brittany, one of my best friends because she has decided to go to college about 6-7 states away.

I will miss her dearly. Her silly sense of humor even when she was making fun of how short I was. Her eagerness for anything and the way she made even the most mundane tasks fun. Her line of promises and bets about how she will read so many books that she never did find the time to read. Her talk of movies and the list she continuously added to for me to watch. Her encouragement and kind words, and how she always knew the right thing to say. How she always left a glass of water sitting in the same spot in my room. How hard it was to end a conversation to make time for sleeping when one of us slept over.

Most of all I am just going to miss having my best friend around - everything about her will be missed.
All of us at her surprise going away party: Rochelle,Katie,Brittany,Jamie,Me,Lizzy. Poor Britt got caked by Katie!
Lizzy, Me, and Brittany right after her party.
The last time I saw her, when I left her house from spending the night on her last day here.

Brittany I will miss you dearly. I hope that you keep in touch and that our friendship still continues to grow even with 6-7 states between us. I hope that you have an amazing time at college and that you don't forget about your friends here. I hope that you always know I am here for you and that I'll always be your best friend.

Thanks for everything you've done, I wish you the best.

I wish this was my last goodbye for this week, but its unfortunate to me that it's not. Jodi and the girls will be leaving here in a few days, for a few days. They will be four hours away. I have spent almost everyday with them this summer, and its going to be pretty hard to see them go. Even more so because that leaves me with 2 best friends gone, and the other one at work. What will I do? I hate being bored and lonely!

Oh how I hate goodbyes...saying goodbye to two best friends within a week and having all three of them busy? This stinks.

Love,

These summer days are flying by.

2009-07-26T13:22:00.004-04:00

I hate how fast summer goes. Another week has passed and that puts me another week closer to losing my freedom. Its really just very sad!

This week was a very good one, filled with fun activities and that's just the way I like it.

It started off with Mikaylas t-ball tournaments. Its double elimination and they lost the first two games they played so they were done pretty quick. But for them it was a good thing- they were ready to get their trophy and be done!

Mikayla is so little they usually put her as the catcher. Her wearing the gear is so funny, shes just swallowed up in it! She likes being the catcher because she actually gets to get the ball and throw it frequently, keeps her busy and happy!
Here she is posing with her bat- to cute! She loves posing for pictures and i love it that she does!
Later in the week we went to the park, the girls played and Jodi and I talked as they played. It was very nice, and of course I got some nice pictures!
Love this picture of them. They are showing off the sunglasses I bought for them. The funny thing about this picture is they look so happy and loving with one another but right after I took the picture they both shoved each other away and glared at one another! So funny, they are in that stage where sisters are not cool I guess!

The beautiful Taylor giving me a quick smile before she ran off to play.
Mikayla, striking a pose for me!
Taylor and IMikayla and me
Me and my favorite girls: I love them so very much!

Oh, and here's one more thing before you go:

Something else fun happened this week, but I don't have pictures, just a story. So here it is: Jodi and I went shopping. Now Jodi hates shopping. Hates it with a passion. So when we go, I try to make it as fun as possible, and it works. Both times we've went together we have had a blast! We act crazy and laugh about everything. And just so you know, our craziness in stores doesn't just help us have a better time: I am fairly certain I heard more than one person laugh at us as we walked down the isles. Some even made a joke or comment as we walked by. And I think the checkout lady may have peed herself. We even had the checkout lady next to us laughing. I certainly think shopping may be fun for Jodi now, and I also believe that we have officially put a visual to the following quote: "You can always tell when two people are best friends because they are always having way more fun then it makes sense for them to be having"

And on that note, I'll end here ;)

Love,

Hey there cutie!

2009-07-22T13:05:00.003-04:00

I have a confession to make: I never thought I would get into photo editing. I didn't think it would be fun and my view on it was "I should be able to take a good enough picture that it shouldn't need edited"

Well since then, my views have changed. I love turning on my itunes, rocking out, and editing pictures. I love changing a mediocre picture into an excellent one. I love tweaking an excellent picture to make it look even better. I love changing the look of a picture into something way different then it had looked before, I love looking in awe at what different effects can do to a picture. Either that or I just love the fact that it keeps me busy ;) My new view on editing "I can take good pictures but editing can make them look better!"

I have fallen in love with photo editing, and I like it almost as much as I like taking the pictures. It helps when I have the most adorable models who are used to me pointing the camera in there face.

So here are a few pictures, the originals and then one of the edits I did on them-

So, what do you think? Am I doing a good job? Any type of comment is much appreciated!

Love,

IheartFeet!

2009-07-20T21:48:00.003-04:00

No, I am not crazy (just don't ask my friends..) and no you did not read the title wrong. It does indeed say I heart Feet and it is indeed right. This week over at I heart Faces they are mixing it up a little and focusing on feet instead of faces. Here is what I decided to enter..

This is a picture of my cousin painting her toe nails. This happens a lot around my house due to the fact that I mostly babysit girls. Its also the reason why my carpet isn't all one color anymore (you think they could keep them over the box, lol.)

Thanks for checking out my entry, to see more or to enter your own head on over to IheartFaces by clicking HERE

Love,

My poor puppy.

2009-07-19T13:14:00.001-04:00

I think it's about time I introduce you to my dog,
This is Denae, our lively, crazy, jack russell terrier. Isn't she the cutest?? She's a funny dog though, and I do believe she does not like getting her picture taken. She always runs or turns her head when I have the camera pointed at her even when I bribe her with treats.

Oh, and her name it had to be a name that started with a D because all of our names stared with a D (Don,Donna,Deanna,Dea,Donald,Dana) and we could not leave her out!

And now that you know some random information about my dog here's what I really wanted to tell you about her, last night she met one of these...And it was not a nice meeting. The nasty thing sprayed her: right in the mouth! And she got a good lap or two around our house before we realized the smell was not coming from outside, but from her! And oh boy, it was worse than when you smell them outside! And the smell was everywhere and in every room! I think about how bad it was for us and then I realize my dog had to taste it! The poor thing.

You know, you read about these things in books and watch them in movies never thinking it will happen to you (especially when you live in town.?!) but then it does and all you can do is laugh and blog about it, but the good/bad news is we just realized the skunk is dead and rotting outside by our fence. So hopefully we don't ever have this kind of issue, ever again.

On a better note, I re-did my blog, what do you think? I really think I love the new layout, such fun, bright colors and a not to busy design. As for the header, I like it but somethings missing from it I think. But that's something I will do and redo when I find different pictures I like. And because its something fun for me to do. So I am sure you will be seeing that change frequently. But you should let me know what you think, I value your opinion ;)

Love,

Don't Blink

2009-07-15T14:53:00.001-04:00

I have a bright flash that causes people to blink. Usually when you tell them, they try harder not to the next time. But if you tell a four year old to try not to blink, she tries harder to do so. And then it quickly becomes a game with all the children in the room. They thought it was rather amusing...And I quickly saw it as amusing as well when I took a look at the turnout. Their expressions of laughter as they tried to blink, so cute.

Love,

Iheartfaces:Sports in action & Pets!

2009-07-13T10:06:00.005-04:00

This week over at IheartFaces the themes are Sports in action and Anything goes-Pets.
The only sport type pictures I have are from tball/coach pitch games. I love watching the kids play and trying to get good pictures of them playing. But its harder than I thought- my old camera had the zoom but not the clarity. My newer had the clarity but not the zoom. In the end it came down to one question: Do i enter the picture that qualifies as a good action shot but is missing the clarity or the picture that is clear but without nice action? In the end, I decided on this one-

I went with the less clear action shot because I adore this photo. This was taken last year, Taylors first year playing tball. I love the expression on her face as she concentrates really hard to catch that ball.

The pets category was an easier pick. This is a picture of my dog, Denae. I put it in high contrast black and white and liked the turn out.Thanks for checking out my photos please let me know what you think! To see more or to enter your own photos go on over to IheartFaces by clicking HERE

Love,

If you play with fire,

2009-07-08T08:28:00.002-04:00

you will get burned. Translation: If you try and take pictures of fireworks you will not get the wonderfully perfect picture you desired.

That would be what happened to me this fourth of July. I decided to try and get some awesome firework pictures with that new Nikon i got. I thought, how hard can it be? Then Stephanie posted some tips and how to set your Nikon on her blog, so i set up my camera using her recommended settings and set off with a big smile on my face.

Then we got to the place where we would be viewing them from. My first thought: its kindof far, but o well. So me and Randi set up our cameras and prepared for the show, both of us, still smiling ear to ear, expecting some great shots. Then the fireworks started and we started shooting, or should i say, we tried. Very quickly our sounds of cheer turned into "arghhhh" and "ughhhhs" and "ahhhhhs" and "OMG i missed it, its blurry, how come it wont take!!!!"

And when the fireworks came to their conclusion, you could see Randi and I watching, with our cameras nicely packed into the case, talking ourselves into thinking it was the distance that caused us so much trouble and not our skills. ;)

On that note, would you like to see some of the pictures i did get out of this not so great experience? ha ha, that's what I thought! So here you go- my attempt at fireworks, year one newly retitled- "It was my first try so its no big deal that I failed I mean the camera is new and all and I need to get used to it better so maybe next year I will get better ones...."

This first picture is not cropped at all so that you can see how far we were from them. My standard lens was zoomed in all the way and that's as close as I could get.
All the rest have been cropped in picnik.
My picture of the grand finale.Fireworks at the "after party" And i think i actually like this one, lol.

And last but certainly not least: My favorite picture of the night, the ever so cute, Landon!

This year was a pretty fun fourth of July, but next year when I play with fire I hope to be more prepared, as so I won't get burned ;)

Love,

RockinLifeMyWay

Just blowing through...

Abandoned.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Love that shot.

Where homesickness bumps frustration and they both trip over overwhelmed and land on emotion.

Excuse me sir, but you smell wonderful!

Goin' out with my shades on.

Hogging up the road with my PPPPP-Plower!

I walked for Dave.

Over my head

Teen Week Entry

I'm a teen,

Pet Week!

This is my 100th post

Small update and some changes!

i♥faces photowalk!

I♥faces - play

Good Friends, Sunshine & Summertime ♥

And I still have dirt in my sunglasses.

I think I need a dustrag...

Makaylas Prom

Dear Puma,

I got featured!!!

Spring Break 2010!

I♥faces - Dramatic Black and White

Bundled up!

Remote Controlled!

Highlights from my 18th year

Really?? They said that???

Put your hands in the AYer!

I Can’t Stop Time But I Can Capture It

On my calendar,

Smoochie smoochie!

*Insert sigh of relief here*

Don't worry, I'm still alive.

I♥faces Birthday Celebration Continues!

The celebrating can't stop yet!

Happy birthday i♥faces!

Christmas Part Three: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Christmas Part Two: Thats Ugly!

Christmas Part One: With the girls.

Thats just too funny!

Merry Christmas!!!

A very special girl

This ones for Amanda!

Its i♥faces time again!

Catching up on my ZZzzz's

I am thankful

Some flare on my blog,

Give thanks,

So I have this sister,

Halloween festivities!

Top 10: Goofy pictures with Whittney edition!

Just a little peak!

Excitement!

Girls day out!

Oh brother.

I'm a little blue.....

At 9 o'clock tonight

Completely Candid!

Contemplative

I've been behind

In a very short amount of time,

[[Jodi]]palloooza!

Imagination is key.

Who forgets the bread?

Technical Difficulties.

August 17th,

An introduction and a homecoming.

Crazy,Silly,Funny Face!

Boredom in its highest degree

Today is a special day,

Goodbyes

These summer days are flying by.

Hey there cutie!

IheartFeet!

My poor puppy.

Don't Blink

Iheartfaces:Sports in action & Pets!

Insert sigh of relief here