A Giveaway Every Day!

I just signed up to follow this new blog and I wanted to share with all of you! Today's Giveaway is $25 in free vinyl! I am excited about this, since we're building a house and I have vinyl picked out for every room. Even if I don't win, I am totally going to get a bunch of vinyl from Inspire Your Walls for my house!

Yay! for Springtime!

We are sooo happy to be playing outside lately. I can't believe how much my little guy likes his sandbox this year. Every day he goes out and tells me, "Mommy, I makin' a HOLE!" as he's digging. It's getting to be pretty deep, and he likes to sit in it now. I love that he's having fun, but sandbox season also means my house is full of sand. He is covered in it when he comes inside.

His other favorite backyard activity is driving his cars around. He loves to fill them up with all of his toys, rocks, dirt, pinecones, sticks, etc.

In addition to the sandbox, he has also discovered how great the dirt in the garden is. It is fun to watch him play. He begs to go outside as soon as he wakes up in the morning and I have to fight him to get him to come inside at bedtime.

Also, this is a little random, but we have 2 young willow trees in our backyard that the ladybugs love! It's so cool to watch, so I snapped a picture of one of them.

I should have posted this months ago, but it happened so close to my father's passing that I just wasn't very excited about blogging. This is my husband's wonderful grandpa. He unexpectedly passed away on January 3, 2009. He had a caring personality, and he loved his family very much. We all miss him.

Also... we now have a headstone. Since it was so cold outside when my dad died, the headstone was placed just a few weeks ago. It's really pretty - this photo doesn't do it justice. (The splotchy areas are because it was wet from the rain.)

Anyway, I do intend to start posting much more often here. Now that it's warm outside, we've been spending lots of time in the yard - which means LOTS of pictures of my little guy. I seriously can't believe how much he loves the dirt. I will post some photos of him soon.

My Heart is Full

These are photos of my wonderful father with my son when he was 7 months old. They are especially precious images to me now, as my dad passed away last Thursday, December 11, 2008. He went in for open heart surgery, and although the surgery itself went well, my father was not able to recover.

My father was an incredible man. He was quiet in public, and very humble, but he was also tremendously charitable and courageous. Almost 20 years ago, he was diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease. The disease eventually took both his kidneys, and he was required to use dialysis to survive. Then, in 1998, he was blessed with a kidney transplant, which went into rejection about a year later. So, it was necessary for him to go on dialysis again. He also had heart problems (many of which were related to his kidney disease.) His health problems were very taxing on his body, and he told my mother numerous times that if it weren't for "her and the kids" he would give up. He loved us so very much that he was willing to suffer with patience for much of his life so that we could keep him with us for so long. I am often amazed at his great selflessness and love. He rarely complained, and whenever anyone would ask him about his health or how he was feeling, he would say that he was fine or doing well, and he would turn the focus and compassion to those around him.

I am heartbroken, but I am also filled with gratitude. I am so thankful that I was one of the three lucky people that were blessed to call him "dad." My dad loved my mother more than I can tell you. He was such a wonderful example and I have learned so very much from him throughout my life about character and faith. As I have reflected on my life and the character of my father, I have found that I still can learn so very much from him. I cannot find words to express how I really feel about the quality of his character, his courage, or his faithfulness. My family is LDS, or Mormon. Although many people thought that he was just "inactive" because he rarely attended church due to his health, he absolutely knew without a doubt that his Father in Heaven was there for him, that he was real, that he loved him, and that he would support him through his trials. He knew the love of the Savior, and he had such a deep understanding of the true meaning of the Gospel. Throughout my life, he wanted me to also know Heavenly Father and the Savior. I fondly remember as a child sitting on his lap in the rocking chair in the front room and singing, "Jesus Once Was a Little Child" with him. I have been so blessed to be able to know him and love him my entire life.

I am so thankful for the father that he was to myself and my two brothers, and the sweet husband he was to my mother. He was never too busy for us, and was always willing to stop whatever he was doing if any one of us needed to talk. He was a wonderful listener. I always knew how much he loved me. Always. He was a very creative problem solver, and I feel so blessed to have part of that with me.

I will always miss him tremendously, but over the past several days, I have felt his presence with me. I know that he is still here with us, but is free from the body that brought him so much pain. Although I wish that I could still have the same conversations with him, I feel such happiness for him in the knowledge that he is happy and free now. I am sad for me, and I probably will be a little sad for me for the rest of my life, but I will always be grateful to my Father in Heaven for the wonderful time I had with him, and also for the peace and joy that I know he is feeling now.

My dad truly loved this song. It is called "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," and he would often play (5 times in a row) the Mormon Tabernacle Choir version as loud as his stereo would go. It was sung beautifully as a solo at his funeral yesterday. I love the depth of this song. I posted the lyrics below:




1. Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.

3. Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.

4. O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Some Recent Photos of My Little Man

It's been too long since I last posted! September was a busy month! Anyhow, here are some recent favorites of my little man! I can't believe how time flies and how much he has grown! The first set was taken as part of his (late) 2 year old shoot, and the last image was taken just one week later after his first haircut *sniff, sniff*

Fun Photo Session and Projects

Since the beginning of the year, I have been teaching photography, photoshop, and lightroom at the local community college. All of the classes have been tons of fun, but I have truly loved teaching the photography class. For each of our main topics, we go on a field trip. Last night, we went on our lighting/portraits field trip. These ladies were willing to model for us, and they ere so much fun! I wanted to post one of my favorites from the evening.




Also, I have been working on an ABC book for my little man. I am almost finished (hopefully later today I will be done!) I wanted to share a peek at a few of the pages that are complete. I am going to have it printed at ArtsCow. I have had 6 books printed there so far, and have been very satisfied with the final product. I would not say they are high enough quality to sell to photography clients, but for personal projects, I think that they're pretty good.

I would love to have some feedback (good or bad!) on the pages for the book. Some of them have been challenging to come up with the words for!

One Year Older...

My little man turned two over the weekend! I can't believe how quickly the past two years have flown by! I recently made a newborn book for him, and it's truly amazing how much he has grown. Anyhow, we had some parties, and he got lots and lots of fun stuff. His favorites were the trucks and tractors, but he also loved the Spiderman Mr. Potato Head, the new engine for his newly acquired Geotrax train, and the friends that Mommy and Grandma made of his favorite T.V. characters. Happy Birthday, little man! Mommy loves you!

Playing in the Sand

It's been another busy (fun) few weeks, but I wanted to make a post about the sandbox. When we first got it in April, he wasn't all that interested in it. Now, however, he loves it. He loves to take his toys out and fill them with sand. I love the first photo - his curls are so easy to see in that picture. In the second photo, he is totally concentrating filling his toy with sand.