Yay! More pictures!

Here are some of the things we have done lately. Last week, we got to hang out with some good friends of mine. I seriously LOVE getting together with them and their kids. Luckily all of our kids are roughly the same age group, so they get along pretty well! But we went to Thanksgiving Point for their 2$ Tuesdays. That place was NUTS! There was a 2 hour wait to get into the Dinosaur museum. Wowza. So we went to Farm County. Bubba LOVES animals, and loves petting them, and trying to make their noises. They had a pony ride, and the wait wasn't TOO long, and we were in good company, so we decided to go for it. Bubba enjoyed it! He kept wanting to go back, but by then, the line was forever long, so we didn't dare. Haha. Here are a couple of pictures of him riding the pony, with Sam helping.

And I don't think that I have shown this picture before (I need to organize my pictures better. haha) But whenever we go to the store, Bubba looks for these carts. IF he sees one, and he doesn't get to ride in it, he throws a fit. He likes pretending to drive them, and honking their horns. Silly boy. Although, he is smart. Once he gets in, he makes sure that his seatbelt is on. He won't let us move until he gets it done up.

And this picture is from a while ago, but I love it, and wanted to post it. This is my grandma. I lived with her for a year after I graduated from High School, so they are like a second set of parents to me. I love them to death, and I feel like I owe them SOOO much! But we enjoy going up to visit them, and Bubba knows just where things are in their house. And he loves Grandma, and knows she will give him raisens, and M&M's, using the toy truck they have. He's too smart.

That's all I have time for today. We are leaving for vacation in ONE WEEK, and 1 DAY. I can not tell you how EXCITED I am!! Oregon, be prepared, for we will be there soon!! And we are going to have a BLAST. YAAAAAY!!!! I can't wait.

Confessions have found me

Sitting here on a Friday night, trying to decide what to confess. Let's see..

• I hate brushing my teeth. I have to force myself to do it. It makes me gag, and I just don't like having stuff sit in my mouth and, blech. I can't stand it! Unfortunately this has been known to make me miss brushing my teeth some days. But I am trying to get into a better habit of it, and try to not let it bug me.
  
• I am looking forward to a day tomorrow with no baby. I have felt SO overwhelmed by him lately, that tomorrow will be a nice break. I will be gone for more than 12 hours without him. I of course will miss him like crazy, but it will be nice to not have to worry about what he is getting into, and what he is about to break, and where he is, and what he is eating, etc.
  
• I watched "Seven Pounds" the other night. I cried. That is a very powerful movie, and really made me think. If you haven't seen it, and are ok to cry in movies. I highly recommend this one. It's along the lines of "Pursuit of Happiness", and I absolutely LOVE Will Smith as an actor.
  
• I am an awful wife. I don't like it when Sam is sick. And he says I treat him well, but I don't treat him as well as I could. Part of me wonders why he should get special treatment when he is sick, when I still have to do everything I have to do when I am sick. But I am working on it, and am trying to get better. I shouldn't be so worried about me, but more about him. Hopefully one day I will get to that point.
• I can sing most of the songs off of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Bubba loves that show, and I watch it with him. So I can now sing the songs. Haha
  

Enjoy!

Nap Time

Bubba used to sleep SOOOO well! And he even went to bed very well. We would take him into the room, he would point to the bed to sleep in, we would lay him down and he would slip blissfully away into dreamland, without so much as a peep.

Not anymore. I don't know what it is, but even if he is tired, he will just cry as soon as we put him into bed. I don't know if he hates going to bed now? Or what the deal is. But I feel SO bad just leaving him down there to cry himself to sleep. But I don't know what more I can do! If I try to snuggle him, he will just try to play around. And he usually falls asleep about 10-15 minutes later, but it's just hard to listen to him crying. Ugh.

Where are the days of easy napping/sleeping? Oh, and we've been down to 1 nap a day for the last few months. What am I going to do when there is NO nap? :-S

Random Pictures

This is going to be VERY random, with some pictures on it, since I can currently upload pictures. So here we go. This is what happened the other day with the tree in the backyard. There was NO wind or anything, part of it just broke off. And fell backwards. This is right after it happened.


Curtis standing in the middle of the pile we were making.

This is Hunter's first ice cream cone. He LOVED it, and was SO mad when it was gone and he couldn't get anymore ice cream out of it. Haha.

Drinking his favorite drink. Milk.

He just woke up from his nap. I LOVE his eyes!

He has a cowboy hat. This is it. He won't keep it on his head very long!

This is him MAD because he didn't have the ice cream cone in his hand.

Sly little smile. I love this little boy! The highlight of my life.

Ok, that is all I have time for for now, I need to head back home. Hopefully I can organize more and post more in a couple of days! Enjoy!

I have yet another confession...

Let's see what we have tonight...

• I am NOT a morning person. During High School I could survive off of about 3-4 hours of sleep a night. But now that I am growing up, I value my sleep a lot more. Some mornings I don't mind waking up early, and when I get up early and get all ready for the day and do some things, then I feel like I am accomplishing things, but most mornings, I want to sleep. And I feel onry if I don't get the sleep that I want. Of course I could solve a lot of this by going to bed earlier, but I love being awake at night. So now that Bubba is waking up at 7:30-8:00am. I beg him to go back to sleep. Used to work...what happened?
• I had a bad day today. And it has taken everything in me to not sit in my room and cry. I have been trying to find the positive, which as helped a little bit, but not enough. I think I need sleep to get rid of this bad mood.
  
• Starting a business is hard. Some days I hate it, because there are SO many things that would help my business run better, but I can't get them. Even though I know that by getting them, they would actually HELP my business and would pay themselves off pretty quick. I also don't like working the business end of it. I don't like making people pay when they need to pay. Even though business wise I am supposed to. Things I need to work on I guess.
  
• I love blankets. I like making blankets, and I like snuggling in blankets. We keep two in our car so I can wrap up in them when we are driving. I'm odd.
  
• Bubba screams. And when he isn't screaming he is yelling. We try and get him to "talk" quieter, but he still just screams. My eye is starting to twitch from it.
  

I think that's enough for tonight. Enjoy.

And another thing...

So...I have a fan page on Facebook for my photography, if you were not aware. If you want to become a fan, just click on the link on the right of my blog. Thanks!!

You know what time it is!

That's right! Confession time!! Are you excited? I can tell you are, you are just antsy in your seat waiting for them aren't you. OK, enough of that, let's get on with it!

• I turned 26 today. I could say that I was turning 25..again. But I guess I should admit it. It actually isn't too bad. But it's kind of odd to look back on your life and see that you are no where near where you thought you would be at this time. But life is still good.
• I found a new love. Twitter. Have you tried it yet? Haha, it's like one giant conversation between people. Luckily I am not addicted and updating my status every 5 minutes, but it's fun to participate with other people, and have conversations on there. I have gained a lot of followers this week, which is awesome. If you have a twitter account, you can follow me at www.twitter.com/winsorphoto (How's that for my plug in. They should so pay me...hehe)
• Sam and I have narrowed down when we are going to Oregon. YAY!! I am SOOO Excited to go! And luckily it is coming up quick! EEk!!!
• I love sleeping in the cold. I don't really like being FREEZING cold, but I like the air to be cool. I think it's because I like snuggling down into blankets. And I usually sleep better when it is colder.
• I listened to a new band today and I LOVE their music! The name is HASTEN, and they are coming out with their debut album this year. It consists of one guy who does everything. His music is right up my alley, and it's just amazing. Doesn't hurt that it's a guy I went to school with. But he has some SERIOUS talent! I am impressed. You can listen to his stuff here: http://www.purevolume.com/hasten

Ok, I think I am going to end there tonight. Enjoy!

Zombies...(Not for the faint of heart)

Alright, if any of you are my friends on Facebook, you have probable already seen these. But I wanted to put them here as well. So..you get to see them twice. Haha.
There are a TON of cities that actually host this, and this is Salt Lake's second year in doing so. What is it you ask? It is a Zombie Walk. People dress up like Zombies and walk down some streets in Salt Lake. It was a lot of fun to go and see. They had to ACT like zombies, although they weren't allowed to do anything to the onlookers. Haha. They were even allowed to attack each other, and turn others into Zombies...

They came in groups. Groups of friends, family, you name it. And a LOT of them went all out to live the part!

This guys kind of gave me the creeps...

And this guy...I think he had some very tasty brains or somethin...

If you followed them, you would see this trailing the group of about 200-300 people down the road.

Creepy much? I think so...

And I seriously love this guys hair! Awesome.

Mmmm....foot...

I seriously think I might dress up and participate next year. Haha

Please don't touch me...

Not sure what happened to this zombie, but his girlfriend looks like she might leave..

Anyway, I had a lot of fun, I was able to meet up with my good friend Josh, and I also saw Scott Jarvie, and I took along my Aunt and brother. It was fun!! Enjoy..and you can't say I didn't warn you...

Haircut

Alright I am going to attempt to post a picture of my new haircut for you guys to see. Yay! I got it up, Of course, I had to go through a round about way of putting it up here...but alas, I still got it! Happy day! So this is my new haircut, it is kind of cut at an A-line, but not a too dramatic one. This is how I have styled it the most, other days I straighten it, spike it out a little, and yeah. I have bangs, but they are pulled up in this picture. I will try to post another one that shows them more.

So there you are! I LOVE IT, and can't believe I have waited over 10 years to have it this short! Holy cow what I difference! Hopefully I will get more pictures to show it off more. Haha. But for now, enjoy!

CoNfEsSiOnS...

Here we go again..it's so nice to say here we go again..

• I got my haircut this week. Yee haw it's short! It is quite a bit above my shoulders, and I LOVE IT! I have had long hair for over 10 years. Long meaning past my shoulders. But this time I just got it chopped. She cut it once, and asked me if I wanted it shorter. I looked in the mirror, held my breath and said "yes". And I couldn't be happier! It is too short to pull back into a ponytail, but I can pull it into to small ones. But it forces me into doing my hair every day, and I have done a different style every day! Can I say I love it again? Haha.
  
• I found out just how competitive I am this week. I used to not think of myself as much of a competitor, in fact I would get after Sam because he was so competitive. But for the last couple of weeks, I was competing in a contest and I was VERY competitive. I had to bei n first place. I couldn't leave it up to a drawing. And if I wasn't in first place, I would stress about it until I was. It was crazy! But then I realized with my mom's help that I am very competitive when it comes to things that I REALLY want. This has been a dream of mine, and I had the opportunity and I took it and RAN. So yeah..want to see me go all at it? Give me a competition for photography, with an AWESOME prize!
  
• I want to marry Cafe Rio. Yummy. Their Sweet Pork Salad is to die for! Sam and I went this week, and I told him I was going to marry it, and he was going to have to be ok with that relationship. He laughed at me. Silly man.
  
• I am not sure I want my birthday to come. I enjoy being 25. I don't really want to turn 26 yet. I only have 1 more week left. As I look back over the last year, I want it to continue for another year..maybe two. So I'm just going to say that I am turning 25 again k? k.
  
• I've been doing a lot of thinking. Which that in and of itself is an awesome feat I know. But I have been trying to discover me. I have been trying to modify things here or there, and I don't know how happy I am. Maybe I should just learn to be happy with myself, but then I feel like I am just falling into a rut. hmm..I guess this involves more thinking. Wish me luck.
  

Alright, I will end there. Enjoy!

Some happenings

So, as most of you have seen my last post, I would like to announce that I WON the top spot in the JaG competition that I was competing in! YAY!!! I could not tell you how excited I was!! I won a spot in an all day photography workshop with one of the coolest photographers out there Scott Jarvie. I am ECSTATIC! I only won by 2 points, so it was REALLY close, but I am glad that I was able to pull it off. There are about 5 other spots in the workshop and I am way excited to meet the other photographers that are coming along!

I also competed last night in the Utah Photo Editing Showdown put on by Jarvie and Pictureline in Draper. I was extremely nervous to compete, as my editing skills would be watched, critiqued and displayed. Eek!! But I pulled myself together, and edited to the best of my ability. In the end, out of 8 photographers, I pulled out of it with 2nd place! So I was the runner up, which to me is a BIG deal! That means that I can hold my own. Which made me pretty proud of myself. :-) So, if the 1st place spot can't defend his title at the next Showdown, I get to! Woo hoo! Although I might go and compete anyway, just to try and de-thrown him. Hehe. Watch out David!

Anyway, so that is what has been happening lately. I can't wait for everything exciting coming up and all the things that I am going to learn! yay!!

What I've learned from JaG

Ok, so as most of you know, I have been participating in a game called JaG. It stands for Jarvie's Awesome Game. It started a couple of weeks ago on facebook. It is a chance to win a spot in a workshop that Jarvie Digital is going to hold. I have been BEGGING Sam to let me go to a workshop, but his response is always the same "I'm sorry, but it costs too much". Which is true most of the time. Especially the ones that I want to go to. Well, this was the perfect opportunity. I would EARN my way into the workshop, which is what he was doing. By doing various things on Facebook, Twitter, my blog, and everything I could earn points to go towards being in this workshop. HOOK ME UP! I was excited! FINALLY, something I might be able to do! So I have been trying to do everything to get points. What I wasn't expecting, was everything I was going to learn along the way...

- I was able to go through a lot of their old blog posts and see how he has changed over the years. How he has gone from no flash, to using flash in a very tasteful awesome way. And see that improvement happens. And it could happen for me. Haha.

- I was lucky enough to be able to go photograph a bride and groom with him one night during the weeks. I learned how to interact with people, how important it is to really connect to what you are photographing. And not just be the one there to take their pictures. How to get genuine smiles out of them, how to position them best for the lighting. How to create lighting on them while keeping everything else in the picture great. We shot in the sunset, something that I have NEVER done, unless I'm photographing the sunset! I learned a lot on what a simple flash could do.

- I swore when I started that I would NEVER use flash! I think I said this because I was afraid of it. It was something that I wasn't ready to tackle. Too technical, more equipment, and just plain harder to deal with. I didn't feel like I could ever pull it off without it looking really dumb, or not professional. I learned that sometimes, things call for it, and if it is done RIGHT, it turns out great, and if you know how to do it right, can increase your level of photography. It made me want to go out and buy a second flash and softbox. LOL.

- I have learned a lot about myself. I have been going back and forth for a while on if this is something that I wanted to pursue. I mean, I have been doing it for a couple of years and am NO WHERE NEAR where I wanted to be with this. SO I have been debating about just putting it on the backburner, and not doing anything with it. With doing this game, came my DESIRE to learn more, to do more, and to have fun again. I am happiest behind a camera. And this has put that fire back under my butt to push to be a photographer. It's what I want to do, I can make it happen. It makes me want to learn, it has made me want to go out and shoot, and not be afraid to try new things, which is why I want to get in this workshop so bad. What better way to learn than to spend a day learning from the best?

- I gained a friend. I love friends. There have only been a couple of photographers that I know that have opened their arms and have actually befriended me. Some of them don't want anything to do with you, and will actually push you away because they don't want to teach you anything, because they are afraid of competition. Scott actually has become like a friend. I think it's awesome.

Those are a few things that I have learned from doing this contest. And all we can do is hope that at the end of the day, I hopefully have a spot in it! Thanks Scott for the awesome game, and the awesome opportunity. And thank you for putting up with me. :o) I don't look at this as the end, I look at it as a fun beginning. LOL.

Bear Lake 2009

OK, so we went to Bear Lake like a week ago. We had SOOOO much fun and Bubba LOVED it. It has taken me TWO days to get these pictures uploaded, and there are more, but I am just too impatient to wait for them. Ugh. SO, enjoy these ones.
Bubba really loved the water. He got the biggest kick out of the waves that would come up and wash over him.

He liked playing in the sand. When we first got there, I tried putting sand on him and he threw a fit. But by the time we were done, he was putting it on himself. Silly boy.

He liked watching out over the water at the boats and everything.

Nothing like Momma's glasses!

This is Naomi and me. Theron married her back in May. Had to get a picture of the two of us!

Sam sure knows how to make Bubba smile! I love watching them interact like this. Makes my heart melt.

Aww...footprints in the sand. I love his little footprints.

Again, likes being in the water! He kept trying to lean his head down and drink the water. Haha

Sam made a Sand Castle, and Bubba destroyed it. Here is Bubba sitting in the middle of it. He sat there for about 20 minutes completely entertaining himself, and didn't care what we were doing. Loved it!

Loved being on the beach, digging in the sand.

There we are! Hopefully this goes through, or I will be REALLY mad! Enjoy!