Paintball: The Yuman Way

Felt bad about no images in my last post...so I thought I'd make up with it by showcasing the 2nd annual Yuma paintball war. Tia and I thought we'd take the little boys out and let them run wild through the desert while the big boys (and our sister in law) played paintball. This was done over the Christmas break...and yes I'm that far behind :) So without further adieu, let us begin our peek into the scary world of paintball (note that most of the images were shot from inside my car...I had to crop the window out of a few of them :)

(I'm sure McLaren knew it wasn't a REAL gun...)
Courtland "gearing up" his wife (Tia and I made her stuff a blanket under a jacket for extra padding...she took if off later on 'cause she was hot...and then regretted it!)

Jace...posing??

They think they're soooo cool....(I just think the image is cool)
Courtland wins for all-around best action shots...he would dive and run and jump...I'm sure it has nothing to do with film school.

Rachel really got into it as well :)

When they'd finish plaing a round (border crossing...or whatever ridiculous name they would come up with...)they'd come in to refuel and let the little boys shoot the guns...
Yes Tim is blonde...but anyone else wondering why they've birthed 2 red-headed kids????
Why you should wear a helmet...

Taylor and Matt were pronounced the "cleanest"...wonder why.

Had to show one of my husband in good form...still clean.

And now for the grand finale...Just as we were loading up to go (and Tim had already shot the window of my car)...Matt and he decide to do a "shoot out" and use up the rest of their CO2 canisters. 20 pace shoot out began...not going to call a winner....I'll let you decide. Tim starts out on the right and Matt comes in from the left...

Random thoughts...

Totally random thought post...and there are no pictures to accompany.

I went down to see my newest niece today and dropped Laina off at a friends' so they could do a little "girl shopping". (I know...I have to talk my friends and family into filling that "empty space" for her.) My idea of shopping is a $3 necklace from Claire's...Elizabeth's is a dress from Nordstroms...although she did put her foot down when Laina spotted the "Juicy Couture" store :) I'll have to post an image of the ballgown that was purchased...sure to put a smile on anyone's face.

I went and visited Bree LaNae. I had no idea that I was about to have a namesake on this earth (middle namesake of course). She was adorable and looks just like her older sister and father-we're thinking more strawberry blonde this time. I'm telling you all of this instead of showing you with pictures since I took a ton of images without a memory card in....really really glad I put my best professional foot forward. Our family will have to do with the camera phone image my mom took for right now. But not to worry she'll have her full portfolio done in a week.

We came home and started to go through some maternity clothes. I say "we" because Laina caught sight of the bucket and insisted "we" go through them....and not just throught..but try EVERYTHING on.

Allow me to paint this picture for you:
Laina (5 years old) pulls out pieces and "oohs and aaahs". "Try this one on mom"..."WOW! that is gorgeous" (she's dead serious). "Let me see it with this"..."Oh, I love it"...(intake of breath) "These are beautiful"

Picture me...trying not to burst out laughing as I look at my 5 year old daughter, who is dressing me, and she is studying my outfits intently. My sister and I share maternity clothes but she hails from the land of the short people so a lot of things do not fit and therefore get thrown into the "Tia" pile...after awhile Laina would just hold something up and say "definitely a 'Tia' pile" and toss it, with a very serious look on her face. Clothes are serious business with this one...

I have Elizabeth to blame for my 30 minute maternity dress-up session tonight...she encouraged her far too much today.

38 weeks.

I'd like to start off with...its not fair...wow...and a whole other myriad of thoughts...how about "this is me at 20 weeks" :) BUT this is not about me...its about a soon-to-be new mother...who is gorgeous. I tried to start early labor with some jumping and hopping...we'll see if it worked!

We shot these at 1 o'clock and I loved playing with the different light...not mention the warm sun :)

This was a very different shot for me, but was fun trying something new...creative use of full-on sunlight...not to mention a tank top in Prescott at the end of January :)

Okay...you can go and have your baby now :)

Soccer Cat

Thank you for your humble submission ;)

Here's our soccer stud in all of her glory. I could hear my father and brother-in-law saying "I told you so" when I thought I could use just a little more "zoom power"...soccer fields (a.k.a. football fields) are really really big and I got the biggest kick of people taking pictures with their point and shoots from the stands! They'll be needing a magnifying glass to figure out the players. I loved capturing her in "the moment"...note the last picture...she figured out who I was...

(this image definitely needs some sound effects...looking forward to another re-inactment)

These next 2 were my favorite series...

Another favorite CAT moment...I don't even see the ball in this one :)

And here's a word from our sponsor....(check out the line of water...way cool :)

K-Hoops

Sticking with the basketball theme (there's a soccer post waiting on the sidelines...I'm just waiting for a prom dinner commitment before I can legally post them.)

I was able to shoot one of the tournament games for one of my young women. Sports shooting isn't very easy for me - Basketball is a bit tricky, but not as hard as soccer :) I was just happy to get the smiles and the nice rebound positioning.

ANT...B? (Americas Next Top...Ball-er)

So in high school there was a rap song performed by this "small" guy and he would sing "I wish I was a little bit taller...I wish I was a BALLER...I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her..." just typing it makes me laugh...we sang it alot...and it came on the tv one day in the kitchen when my mom was home and she started freakin' out, which of course made us laugh harder. We asked her what was so bad about the song - and she would just say..."you know..." (the word "baller" really got to her) so we began to tease her. She of course didn't know that we had seen the video on "Pop up video" and they had defined "baller" as: (n) 1. a successful person. Typically used to refer to men, and often implies an abundance of money, women, nice clothes, expensive cars, etc. OR 2. someone who is really good at a ball game, especially basketball (taken directly from the "slang online dictionary").

I have no idea what meaning she had dreamt up...BUT when I was taking these images before I went on "holiday break", all I could think of was that song. I was able to shoot the girls basketball team and we did some nice team and individual images, but then I hauled out the mini-tramp (been dying to try it out) and we came up with these:

Varsity girls...













soooo cool. sooooo stinkin' fun.

2009 Sessions

I was wondering after taking 2 months off if it would be difficult to get going...the answer is: yes and no.

I was out of breath when we finished and wanted to pass out (and the session was less than 30 minutes with one child) but when I got my shots my heart lept...so although I will be doing VERY FEW sessions this year a beautiful image still makes me jump for joy...or in this case hear a choir of angels sing ;)

I'm not a huge fan of antique/textures but I knew this one had to be processed this way the mintue I took it.

**Less sessions = more images of my own children = happy grandparents = scoring points for year of the mother :) now I'm off to address the uproar of the June birthdays!

2009 - Year of the MOTHER

So I set one goal last year...to do a pull-up. And although I went to the gym regularly I think I gave up knowing I would be gaining about 30 pounds (lets cross our fingers that its only 30 pounds) over the upcoming 9 months. End result - no pull-up...

Fast forward to this year. One goal. Expand on mothering.

That might seem odd, but while I am a "stay at home" mom...I really struggle in doing fun things at home with my kids. Laina will ask me to color with her and I'll say something clever like "oh but you do it so well...why don't you go and color me a picture"...instead of saying "sure...what would you like us to color?".

"No" is usually the first thing out of my mouth...sometimes before they even finish asking the question. We do fun things, but I'm not a very crafty person and my goal is to do ONE craft/play-type thing a month. (must start out slow now...) I've already done mine for this month (played card games for almost 2 hours...impressive...I know), and since it is early...maybe I'll have time to squeeze in another...who knows...this is the year of the "Mother".
Oh and it will turn into the mother of FOUR in.....(anticipation building? can't possible guess?? when will the new arrival be here????) how does June sound? We couldn't go and leave this one all by its lonesome in some other month...so it will be joining the other three...its actually due on Indy's birthday :)

An Heirloom (part 2)

In an attempt to bring this blog up to date - I must first skip back a few weeks to finish a little pre-Christmas storytelling. I had the heirloom book out and attempted to create a little tradition with my own children. While accompanying myself I began singing songs out of the book. The kids got excited. McLaren wanted to help my play. When he began to really interfere with the song I had to set him down. Not wanting to be stopped, he climbed back up and this time sat right down on my hands, renderring them incapable of playing. He began to play his own songs. Lucky for us it was his nap-time. Since it was nap-time and not wanting to wake the rascal up Laina and I sat at the table and began going through the songs. We'd turn the page and she'd say "mom...sing this one", so I'd start to sing. She'd then stop me and say "I think I need to sing a song about (fill in the blank depending on whatever the song was that I just sang)". Then she'd sing a very nice original song about sleighs, bells, Jesus, Mary, Christmas trees, stockings, santa etc. She would even incorporate bits and pieces of Christmas stories that we had been reading all month. Quite clever...very impressive...incredibly hard to keep a straight face! Indy was to busy at that point playing video games to be bothered with singing songs...but his turn came later that night when he would not allow me to sing at all. He would put his hand over my mouth and inform me that he was trying to memorize the song so he could sing it himself (it is very hard to memorize all those reindeers in order :).

We had a wonderfully simple Christmas. Indy was sure the orange in his stocking was coal. We made it down to Yuma and were treated to a wonderfully stuffing week filled with gourmet breakfasts and dinners. I gained 10 pounds. Gpa Wade/Father Christmas insisted the grandkids all help make breakfast every morning--clad in aprons and aging from 2 - 7 years old--they tried...of course their parents hid out in a room far away.

The only pictures I managed to take were of the annual paint ball fight. Too lazy to get them out so you'll have to wait...but don't hold any breath!