Lizard?

I'm a magnet for animals (wait until the next post :) anyway...they brought the lizard along for a nice little distraction...and it worked!!! (except for when I tried to pull it by its tail and ripped it off...kept that bit of info to myself, even when someone pointed out the blood :) and I forgot that I had picked the lizard image to post (in honor of "maning" up my blog-increasing the male-ness :) and prepared another one...I just couldn't leave out one of my bronze wall images...they were waaayyyy too funky! so you lucky dogs...in light of my spacey brain...you get 2 images! Happy Thanksgiving!

In the closet...

So around here, the head of our household (a.k.a. Ebeneezer) likes to decree loud and clear that Christmas music should only be played during the month of December, WELL....whatever! I am proud to announce that as I hopped in the car tonight, by myself :), the thought occured to me, "XM has to have started their Christmas channels by now" and sure enough...I started off my "in the closet" music season with Wilson Phillips, "Silent Night"...can't get enough of "carne asada" wilson. You see, growing up...my father owned about 100 Christmas cds (NO EXAGGERATION--remember the grapefruit story?)...I'm sure that the collection is up to about 500...its one of his missions in life to own every Christmas cd out there...anyway, he would set up his cd player (no ipods back then) and stack the cds by it and just blast the puppy...the music also provided a nice background/drowning out noise for when he was yelling at everyone to hang the freakin' Christmas lights in a certain way (pardon the tangent).

I love Christmas music and only have to wait 2 more days before I can "come out", in the meantime I can settle for XM in the car.

Fire Ants!!

Yes...I have to say, I was hoppin' a lot more than usual during this session. My friend kept telling me there were bugs and bugs and ants...and I didn't really get what she was talking about until I stuck the family on top of an ant pile!!! How was I supposed to know the huge brown mound of dirt was an ant pile??? The ants here live in little sand mounds...anyway despite the ants, we rocked! I thought this blog needed a little masculinity...too many girls lately :) Thank you Natalie and Ryan for the wonderful family session :)

What the heck!!!

What happened to the past week???!!! Where did it go? How did it go so fast??? I'll tell you how (buckle up!) Friday night I went down to Phoenix to attend a funeral on Saturday morning. A friend of our family, Jack McLeod, passed away after battling cancer. It was my first funeral as an adult and I was really really glad that I went. I was able to see friends from long ago and be with my family. It got me thinking about my own funeral, and so I started telling my mom all of my funeral "wishes", to which she replied..."ummm, I really hope to not be there so save the info". Bottom line...I want laughter and the closing song to be "Scatter Sunshine".

Moving on from last wishes, I returned home Saturday evening, only to head back down to Phoenix Tuesday morning to fly out to visit my good friend Stacie. McLaren went with me and of course fussed the whole time. But that didn't seem to phase us...and we both took turns napping until noon and then staying up late. I squeezed in 4 photo sessions in 2 1/2 days (crazy...insane!) and then flew home Thursday night. On the flight home, we were jinxed by my cousing Sheri who experienced a similar situation the week before. The last 20 mintues of the flight McLaren BARFED all over me...over and over and over. Luckily for me (Sheri wasn't so lucky) I had a really nice dad sitting next to me who patted him and gathered barf bags and paper towels etc. It was disgusting. I wrapped him in an airline blanket and he immediately passed out. Lovely.

On Friday I had another family session (was incredible) and then headed BACK down to Phoenix (are you counting? that's 3 times in a week :), spent the night at Matt's brother's house, my mother-in-law watched our kids and we went to the temple. Then, I got to shoot a wedding at an incredible house in the Biltmore....loved it...loved it.

Obviously there are no pictures for this post because I'm behind 5 sessions and a wedding...so those will start to trickle out slowly, but rest assured tomorrow I'll be back on track...and I only have to go to Flagstaff this week for family turkey time!!!! Yea!

Crazy...energy...running...and a few spaz outs!

But you'd never ever ever know it from this would you? (Now Lisa...NOTHING else until Monday night...don't even think about camping out on my doorstep! I have to let the craziness fade away...trust me it will :) The little miss below reminded me sooooo much of my Laina...from the way her face scrunched up in front of the camera to the way she went into "laina land" and danced (oh wait...that would be "maggie land")...you only need a second to capture a timeless memory. (sniff sniff...tear tear :)

R&K sitting in a tree...

This rhyme kept running through my head while I was proofing their session....first comes love (did their engagement pictures) then comes marriage (did their wedding), then comes the baby...with the craziest red-hair mohawk...HA! It was killer!!

Creative Workshop

I went to this great workshop in Phoenix this past weekend. I loved meeting new photographers and hope to continue those newfound friendships. We took an hour and went and did a shoot at the Mesa Arts Center. Totally funky place...I had fun trying new things and working on creativity...anyway thought I'd share!

Just to give you an idea of what it took to get all those pictures.....