A New Year

The past few Januarys, I have resoluted to be a better blogger.  Well, 2012 is going to be no different!  Hopefully, this time I will keep it up.  In this post, I want to do a little recap on our little family. 

Clayton is seven and in second grade this year.  He is such a smart kid.  He loves learning, especially math.  He has asked me a few times if he can just do math for fun in his spare time.  He also loves video and computer games.  He will complain of boredom if his mind isn't continually being challenged.

Jack turned four this past year and started his first year of preschool.  He loves being with his little buddies and tends to sometimes get into mischief.  He's learned how to use his big blue eyes and sweet smile to his advantage.  His favorite toy would have to be paper and envelopes.  Give him a stack of copier paper and scissors and he'll be entertained for hours.  Your house on the other hand...   

Lincoln is almost 19 months old and is full of personality.  He will make some of the funniest faces and has a smile that will melt your heart.  He loves to follow around his big brothers and mimmick everything they do. 

 Mike graduated with his bachelors degree in Geology last year.  In August, he took a job as a mudlogger for an oil company.  He is very happy to finally be doing something he loves.  This past year, I have kept busy being a mom, the occasional hairdresser, and squeezing in as many photoshoots as I can.  The downside of Mike's job is that he travels a lot, which leaves me to be a single mom about 50% of the time.  We all love it when he is home and try to make the most of the time we have together.  

Here are our Christmas cards this year. 

The Beach

Way back in April, Lincoln and I took a quick trip to Utah to see Britney come home from her mission. The morning after we got home, Mike had a geology convention to go to in Houston. We thought that it would make a fun little family vacation and hoped to spend some time on the beach in Galveston. The beach was a first for the boys. 

Naturally, we had to build a sand castle.  With a moat (which Lincoln fell into literally a second after taking this picture).

Clay surprised us all and had no problem jumping into the ocean. On several occasions, I had to call for him to come closer to the shore.

Jack on the other hand, was not too sure about the ocean and didn't dare touch the water...

Which was surprising, considering what a little fish he usually is and how he definitely looked the part (with his way-too-long surfer dude hair).

(sheesh... it was long)

He became much braver when holding Dad's hand.

Now Lincoln... he was a big fan of the beach.  That kid had sand e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.  He also liked to crawl after seagulls. 

 

Our beach trip was so much fun and is still a great memory to us. 

Sea World

I thought it probably would be a good idea to catch up on my blogging as much as possible before this baby gets here. Here are some pictures of our trip to Sea World from over spring break. It was our first "real" family vacation ever and we had so much fun together.

1. The front entry of the park 2. The penguin exhibit. Clay was really excited to see the penguins because he recently learned all about them at school. 3. Shamu! The killer whale show was probably our favorite! It was amazing how an animal so massive could do the flips and tricks that they did. 4. My beautiful boys taking a break on the grass. Well, the break was mainly for me! We did a lot of walking that day for a pregnant lady!
5. Clay braving it out in the splash zone! I think that he moved as soon as the show started and sat by the rest of us! 6. The sea lion show. It was the most entertaining in my opinion. 7. What Jack thought of the sea lions 8. The dolphin cove.
9. Waiting in line early on day #2... maybe a little too early for those of us who stayed up late watching the Disney Channel and jumping on the hotel beds. 10. The Shamu Express. Clay is somewhere in there... 11. On the second day we were able to re-watch all of our favorite shows. Jack still will chant "Shamu, Shamu, Shamu...". 12. Yeah, we get that "stink eye" look a lot from him. It was a long day.

spring break... part one

A few weeks ago, Clay & Mike had spring break. It also happened to be Clay's birthday (which also lasted the whole week!). The beginning of the week, we had all of the cousins over to play in the cul-de-sac with their bikes and scooters. We thought that it was the perfect time to give Clay his birthday present- his first bike. The kids had such a great time playing together!

Quick side note... I've finally posted again on my photography blog! Go check out my newest baby niece!

Catching up... big time!

Anybody out there? :) I would be extremely surprised to find out that someone other than my mother checks my blog anymore! I have been terrible at this blogging thing ever since this pregnancy! Well, where do I begin?! I guess I'll start where I left off....Christmas! That's sad, isn't it?

Here are the boys in front of the tree before church one Sunday.

These are from Christmas morning. Jack with his little four wheeler he loves to drive around the house and Clay with his Zu Zu pets that he got from his grandma.

These next few are from our crazy snow storm that we had. It snowed nine inches that day!!

Mike and Clay had school canceled for the day so we decided to take the kids to the
park and go sledding.

Up next... spring break!

Merry Christmas!

Here is our Christmas card! Sadly, because of a tight Christmas budget this year, we won't be sending these out as much as I usually do! We hope you have a very merry Christmas this year!

the things I've learned...

from this photo shoot...

* I love my kids but they are THE hardest models EVER!
* shooting with the wrong white balance can totally ruin several good pictures
* even a happy meal at McDonald's isn't a big enough bribe
* if you bribe them with tic tacs, they will demand more and more until their cheeks are full and they will start spilling out (which does not make a very cute picture)

This picture below on the right show's Jack's latest facial expression. It says ,"You think that's cute? Well, we'll see about that!" And most of the time when he makes this face, he'll actually hiss at you! Which I think was a pretty good indicator that he was done with pictures!

And when he balled up one fist and had a handful of rocks in the other, I KNEW he was serious!

Better late...

than never, right?! Well, I thought that I'd share more pics from our trip to Utah & Idaho this summer. These pictures are from the St. Anthony Pioneer Day parade. We were able to sit out on my cousin's front lawn while the kids filled their bags with candy on the sidewalk.

Kissing cousins...



Also, I thought that I'd better share pictures from Clay's first day of Kindergarten. Poor Clay broke his glasses a few days before school started BUT he has a great teacher and has already made a lot of new friends! He is LOVING school!

Trip to Utah (part one)

The boys and I had a great time in Utah with my family. We also spent some time in Idaho for a family reunion, which was a lot of fun. It was SO beautiful up there! I was spoiled with all of the gorgeous sunsets and cool storm clouds...

This is the cabin that we stayed in this year...

It was a great cabin, especially for the kids! It had a large indoor basketball court where the kids enjoyed riding around on bikes and scooters. The cabin also had two indoor slides that would go from the second floor to the first floor, which Clay absolutely loved! In fact, I rarely ever saw Clay the whole time we were there, unless he got hungry from playing so hard! This is what Jack spent his whole time doing...



He would spend all day, throwing pebbles into the water if I let him! He couldn't get enough of it! There was even a pond on the property with a couple of canoes. One day, I talked Clay into going canoeing with his aunt (who happens to be a canoeing expert ☺) and uncle, thinking that he would love it...

but as soon as they were done, he asked if he "could get a treat for doing that?"

Funny kid.

**Well, I just wanted to let everyone know that I have opened up a photography blog where I will share pictures from my latest sessions. You can click on the "Photography" button under my header and it will take you there!**

Memorial Day Weekend

Monday morning we went out on the lake for our first boating trip of the year. Clay was more daring than ever before, swimming in the lake with Dad and tubing with his cousins. Jack on the other hand, started crying as soon as Grandpa started the engine, and spent most of his time clinging to me while drifting in and out of sleep. It was a fun boating trip and we even got somewhat of an air show from some F-16's.

I'm in love..

with the 85 mm 1.2 L lens I rented today. It is such a smooth and creamy lens. I really wish that I could of played around with it a little longer. It's too bad that it would cost me more than what I paid for my camera to have one of my own.

Speaking of love... don't I have the cutest little nephew?!

This morning, while Clay was at preschool, I got to take some pictures of my sweet nephew. And even though he looks happy in these pictures, he was quite the serious little boy! Most of the time, he would just suck on his bottom lip and stare at me with a concerned look on his face. I guess it could have been all of the crazy animal sounds I was making to get him to smile? Or maybe it was because I rudely woke him up from a lovely nap and stuck him in the dirt? I don't blame him one bit.