Freebies all full!

Thanks for the speedy responses! As soon as I have my lighting a little more figured out...(max 2 weeks?) I will call-

~OneHM and her 4

~Amy and her 4
~Misty and her 4

~Kim and Colter

SO actually that will be 13 free mini sessions, but I know all these kids, AND THEY ARE CUTE!!! (always good for the photographer!)

After I get these done and posted I will then decide on a price for regular mini-sessions and see what we can get going!

SO, in the next few weeks, OneHM, Amy, Misty, and Kim, be thinking about Darling COLORFUL clothes, Cute hairstyles and bows, and any cute props you might want to use! Also decide what color background you are going to want, because I am only going to do one color a day! (The rolls are 9 feet long and difficult to change without Dave's help!)

Work-in-progress-at-home studio!

Today Jaxon was my first subject in my "work-in-progress-at-home studio" ...and it went pretty well, although I did have to bribe his good behavior with being able to hold Bumble Bear. I am still working on some lighting issues... but anyway, once I get them figured out, I am going to do 10 FREE 15-minute mini-sessions to get a lot of examples and practice. If anyone is interested, I will use the first ten takers! I have blue, pink, and black backdrops at the moment. You can see a slight bulge in the backdrop in some of these... I didn't have a tool I needed to keep the backdrop from drooping down...but have not fear, I HAVE IT NOW!

Happy to have Bumble...

NOT wanting to give him up for a few shots...

WHAT? WHO?

There's the smile I love!

Those baby blues!

Okay, these are the eyes I get to gaze deeply into everyday! Seriously, are you so jealous? This picture is TOTALLY UNEDITED!!! (you can probably tell by the overexposure of light...) Anyway, how beautiful are those babies? They are the reason that a dark haired/skinned and EYED person like myself could have a light eyed baby. Thank you to Dave and his AWESOME GENES!!

(just as an FYI, Jaxon's eyes switch between blue, grey, and green depending on what he is wearing)

This might be it...

...But I make no promises. I just came across these pictures from one of the days at the beach at the family vacation. I just think they are funny because it just shows Jaxon's freakish flexibility and his inability to feel pain. Please note that Dave held him up by his arm for several seconds while the seaweed cleared away, and that Jaxon's arm turned all the way around in the process! Also note that Jaxon was not in the least bit phased.
I think I do the gymnastics world a great dis-service by not signing Jaxon up, he is small, light, ridiculously flexible, strong, and resistant to pain. I just knew some gymnists growing up, and I don't want it to run his life like it did theirs...sorry gymnastics, sorry.

Water and seaweed come in...

Jaxon has an aversion to seaweed, but not being held up by one arm...

All the seaweed sticks to Dad's legs, and Jaxon's arm turns all the way around!

It's the Law at Walmart!

This post is mostly about copyright and stupidity, but I couldn't resist using that catchy sentence that I just heard on the phone a few minutes ago.

Last weekend I took pictures for an awesome Samoan family that is here on vacation. They wanted to have all their pictures printed here before they went back to Samoa, because it's easier/faster/cheaper...(one of those...) anyway, Tala (The mom) calls me from Walmart and says they won't print the pictures because of copyright infringement. I told her, I sell the pictures, there is NO copyright, tell the photo person to check the METADATA (fancy word for info imbedded on the cd for every picture) and she will see that there is NO copyright info. Tala told the attendant that, who had no idea what she was talking about, and then got her manager. The manager came out and told Tala the same thing, no printing without a copyright release from the photographer. Tala called me back, and I was getting a little ticked.

I called the photolab at Walmart and got the ever-so-smart manager on the phone. I explained to her that I was the photographer, that there is no copyright on the pictures, and to CHECK THE METADATA!!!

She said, "I don't know about all this "megadata stuff" but I can't print these pictures without a copyright release."

I said, "LISTEN! THERE IS NO COPYRIGHT ON THE PICTURES! THEREFORE YOU DO NOT NEED A RELEASE! THERE IS NOTHING TO RELEASE!!! THIS IS REDICULOUS!!!!"

She said, (this is my favorite line...)"It's NOT rediculous! Its the law here at Walmart!"

Anyway, I could not make her understand anything, and Tala had to drive here and get a release! I am going over to Walmart to explain a thing or two to their genius photo department as soon as Jaxon wakes up!!! WISH ME (THEM!!!) LUCK!!!

PS- it's 8pm and I never made it to Walmart. Im my defense I was busy from the moment Jaxon woke up, until now...and...I am STILL busy...so, maybe I will just cuss them out a few more times in my head and be done with it!

No Dr. Pepper in the fridge?

We had quite the full day today, and Jaxon was cracking me up as usual. Here are a few of his recent antics...Yesterday at Quiznos, he accidently spilled a full cup of water right down the front of Dave's shorts. (Dave, by the way, was a real trooper and took the whole thing in stride!) Jaxon said to Dave,
"Dat water on your shorts...dats pretty funny!" And then started laughing hysterically!

This evening when we took the babysitter home (new babysitter who he LOVED LOVED LOVED) he invited her to come over after church tomorrow (he even included that she would have to come AFTER his nap) Then in his prayers I prompted him to say "Thank you for MaKenna"(babysitter) BUT he said, "Thank you for Makenna, please come over after church tomorrow after my nap!"

Also on the way home from dropping off the sitter he told me, "We don't have Dr. Pepper in the fridge. We need to stop at 'Donalds to get some more!" WHAT THE HECK??? Where did he get that? I was totally laughing!
We saw -Batman Dark Knight- tonight, I echo what everyone has already said...it was really good, and really dark.
Not much else going on here...Dave and I did an AWESOME project (actually still a work in progress) tonight. We are turning the loft into mostly an in-house studio for photography (I AM SOOOOOO EXCITED TO GET THIS BABY UP AND RUNNING!!!) So we:
1. Totally cleaned out the exercise room, AKA- JUNK ROOM
2. Went through all the stuff on 3 bookshelfs, trashed A LOT and moved the rest, along with the bookshelves, into the exercise room.
3. Started cleaning everything else out of the loft, and actually finding new places for it, and not just stuffing it somewhere else!

HURRAY FOR FINISHING PROJECTS!!!

Many are called, but few are Frozen!

(thank you Tyler for the catchy title!!!)

(Just an FYI- The story is funny, but this picture creeps me out!!!)

As many of you know, Dave is an auditor...this is basically a specialized kind of accountant, and I can practically hear through the computer your gasps of AWE at how exciting his work must be. (READ: dripping with sarcasm) Hey- my man likes what he does, and likes where he works, so I'm happy for him. But! He just recently got put on a brand new client, and it has actually been quite interesting/entertaining...at least for me! Dave is auditing a cryogenic freezing company. Yes, the people that do some fancy shmancy stuff to your body before freezing them in sub-zero temperatures in the hopes that one day they can be brought back to life! Aside from just crunching the numbers, Dave had to actually learn some things about the company (it's good PR) and watch a video about them. I am totally laughing (as if the idea of cryogenics isn't funny enough...) at one of the selling points on the video!

(here is my favorite part of the video)

VIDEO SECTION: MTYHS DEBUNKED

MYTH: Being Cryogenically frozen goes against major Christian religious beliefs

TRUTH: Being Cryogenically frozen DOES NOT go against the teachings of any Christian religions, and in fact, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have been frozen!

Is this funny to anyone else? First of all, who ever heard of using mormons as a selling point? Usually it's the opposite, and while we could use some positive PR- this is not quite what I had in mind. Second- what Mormon would actually do this? I'm pretty sure if you beleive what we believe, than this would just be a waste of a perfectly good $150,000.

LOVE IT!

This is a slightly different angle, and my Sis-in-law Sarah put it best when she said it looks like Dave is receiving a little Jaxon delivery from heaven! He definately is heaven-sent!

My goodness I just can't help it!

A few more that I love...

Why?

Why could I not go back to sleep when Dave left this morning? beats me, but that is WHY I was up at 6 and checking blogs. Ah well, we went to bed at 10, so it's still a solid 8 hours. One thing that was so annoying...I am REALLY trying to clean up the music that I listen to, and change the channel immediately if something inappropriate comes on. There is one song (that in my defense really is quite catchy) that the tun pops into my head and I can't get it to go away. It's

I kissed a Girl...not the little mermaid version...the version sang by Katy Perry, a girl! YIKES...anyway, for some reason it was in my head when I woke up this morning...ARG!!! I can't get any pictures to upload at the moment...maybe blogger doesn't believe in getting up at 6am!

Fire in the Sky

This is a little late but I just came across these pictures. We were in Santa Barbara when the big fire there started. It was only 20 miles away, but luckily we never had any issues except at night around 7, the ash would start to fall and the air would get terribly smokey. I guess being near the beach and the ocean tides, coastal winds, or the four powers of the earth converging (???) kept everything at bay until the evenings. THANK GOODNESS! These are totally unedited pictures of the sky that I took...YIKES!

Comin' across a few more...

This is Jaxon seeing the ocean for the first time ever...not the most flattering picture of Jaxon, but it is SO JAXON! All the wide-eyed wonder this picture shows is genuine...he was amazed!

I also thought I show what your feet look like after walking on a beach with natural tar deposits!

Buzzin' at the splash pad!

By Buzzin' I mean Jaxon was sporting his newly buzzed hair, which I think is pretty cute, and my sister Amber says he looks like Brad Pitt (at least his hair line) when good ol' brad has a close shave...Jaxon will take that as a compliment! We had great time and got a few cute shots. Jaxon and his cousins, Kalle and Oakley, are still a tad bit young to really love being splashed, so they mostly just played near the water with an occassional bout of bravery-induced "Accidentally on-purpose" putting their face/ head in.

This first one really typifies the relationship between Jaxon and Kalle - he loves her to death, and she is usually pretty peeved with him, to which he is totally oblivious.



I just love the way water shows up on a sunny day, plus Jaxon getting it full in the face is pretty funny too!



A good shot of his new summer Buzz!



Best buddies and Cousins, just chillin' at the pad!

I love the way the water in front of Jaxon blurred him out of this one!

Answered Prayers

Tonight just before we put Jaxon to bed we noticed it was raining! We talked about how Heavenly Father had answered Jaxon's prayer, then he and Dave went out to stand in the rain for a second. They came back in and we sat down for Jaxon's prayers. The first thing he said (totally unprompted)

"Dear Henny Fah-dur,
Thank you answer my prayer,
Thank you rain,"

Does it get any sweeter than that???

I love these conversations!

Mommy- "Jaxon it looks like it's going to rain!"
Jaxon- "Yeah mommy! Yeah let it rain!"
M- "I don't decide Jaxon, Heavenly Father decides. Should we say a prayer and ask H.F. to make it rain?"
J- "YES!"

(Short prayer said - I say, he repeats)
(short silence)
J- "HE SAID YES MOMMY! Heavenly Father said YES!"

Wouldn'tcha know it...

That the one day I turned over the camera quite often, I was wearing an orange bandana on my head, and trying to pop a balloon without using my hands. So, here is a post with pictures of yours truly...This last picture is purely for comic relief, laugh and enjoy!

Just get used to it...

A couple more vacation pictures...just uploading them all is a major project. I was photographer for all 25 family members and have over 1200 pictures (most fams did a family photo shoot) so as I come across cute ones, I am going to upload them...it's my sad way of not letting go...
(I know that the one of Jax and Dave has already been posted, but I loved this vintage look...I am going to get it printed big for our house, I just haven't decided quite how, so I'm playing with my options)
(and as for the hat...I have to wear it to keep my melasma (dark sun spots on my face) from getting any worse...I know, Im getting old, I recognize it and face it bravely.)

Home again...

There are too many good memories and fun times from the vacation to rehash much more in blog format, but being home from the vacation you look forward to for TWO YEARS is not so fun. Especially when your 2 year old misses their nap due to flying. I will leave with this hilarious and oh-so-sad anecdote-
Jaxon fell asleep on the way home from the airport and took a short nap when we got home. He was SO tired from missing his nap, and his week of fun in the sun with cousins, that when he woke up, he was honestly hysterical for the better part of 30 minutes. Anyway, we got him calmed down and went to the grocery store. All seemed to be going fairly well, until we drove back from the store and into view of our house- Jaxon starting screaming (I MEAN SCREAMING!!!) bloody-murder, hysterical sobs, giving orders like an army general, that went like this-
"NO GO TO THIS HOUSE!!!"
"DON'T GO IN THAT GARAGE!"
"DON'T GET OUT OF THIS CAR!"
"GET CAR OUT! GET CAR OUT OF THIS GARAGE!!!"
"DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR!!!"
"NO!! NO!! NO!! GO BACK! GO BACK TO VACATION HOUSE!!"
"I NOT LIKE THIS HOUSE!!! I NOT LIKE THIS HOUSE!!!"
"WANT MY UDDER (other) HOME-COUSINS VACATIONS HOME!!!!"

I knew of everyone involved, getting back to real life would be the hardest for the toddlers that just don't understand, but it really broke my heart. We had to call grandpa for an intervention...thank goodness for Grandpas! (REALLY- thank goodness for Grandpa AND Grandma who made this vacation possible, there's no place like with family.")
Oh yes, and when I say I won't rehash anymore...that is not to say that I won't be uploading cute pictures for the next long while!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the vacation of a lifetime!

Jaxon watching our airplane before we boarded


"The Originals"


Thus far, my favorite shot of the whole week!

Tennis Olympics

I can hardly believe that the vacation that we look forward to for two years is almost over! This morning we went to "tennis olympics" and played some fun tennis games...I was on "the good team" which has its ups and downs...the ups- we won! The downs, I stink and they were none to happy to have me on their team! YIKES! My ankle is only mildly hurting, so thats good. Then we went to the kids group shows were each age group gets up front and sings a song or does a skit. Jaxon looked dazed and confused as he was held my a singing counselor during Small Worlds performance, but after I picked him up from his group he was happy to sing their song loud and boisterously! Since lunch I have been working on a small gift for my parents- a FVC t-shirt with all the kids hand or footprint, with their name and age printed over it. We did it 2 years ago, and it is still my mom's pride and joy...It doesn't take much to make a grandma happy does it? I am now listening for Jaxon while he naps, while Dave and some of my brothers are at the Staff Vs. FVC softball game. Should be a good time for all! Last night we played speed uno, but had to quit as certain family members (maybe me included) kept making up new rules to suit the occasion. We then moved onto speed scrabble by the light of glow sticks, as we lost power again! Back to the real HOT world tomorrow!

Free Ice Cream!

Yesterday in Santa Barbara there was a pretty big fire and it was dropping ash everywhere. It knocked power out in the early evening and put quite a damper on a few of the evenings activities. We just sat around as a family talking laughing and telling stories, so we had a great time. At around 8:30 we went up front to see if there was any info about the power coming back on, and the front desk started unloading their freezer of ice cream bars to anyone who would take them...apparently they were melting. So we all enjoyed Big sticks, Drum sticks, Ice cream sandwiches etc! This morning Jax is in Small World and we are going back for another tennis lesson. (My ankle is wrapped nicely and also nicely greenish) This afternoon is lunch at the beach, and this evening is a show put on by the staff, then an ice cream social, then put the kids to bed, and Karaoke night...I haven't quite decided if I will be singing...because at my
non-bunko-playing bunko group on Friday, Cicily and I sang a fantastic rendition of Careless Whisper by George Michael, and I would hate to deprive anyone here of a repeat performance...the only sad this is that Cic and I won't be able to do our theatrics along with the fantastic singing!
I can't believe it's almost time to leave...poor Jaxon. He wakes up and goes to sleep every night here with the word "Cousins" on his lips, he has never been so happy and free in his whole life. What a shocker real life will be for all of us... boo hoo.

The Good News and the Bad News

The Good news is that our family won the innertube relay race.
The bad news is that during the race Dave lost not one, but BOTH of his contacts. ARG!!!
(he does have his glasses here...it's just that he wears hard contacts and they are expensive to replace!)

FVC morning update

It is 11:30 and we have 15 minutes before we pick Jaxon up from Small World and head to lunch. This morning we had to skip tennis lessons because of my ankle, so I wanted to take Massage 101- but Dave vetoed saying that he had a wrist injury from our spill yesterday...funny...I never heard anything about this wrist injury until now...?
We played a rousing game of pool before we got kicked out my the yoga class, so we did some laundry instead. I also went to the craft hut to continue working on the ceramic cookie tray I'm working on! Oh yeah baby, it's lookin' good (and Sarah- adult craft night DID rock!) so anyone who makes fun of me painting ceremics better not plan on getting a sweet tray of homemade goodies to enjoy and then RETURN the platter! :o)
Also on todays agenda, Adult night on the town (all of us adults are going out to a nice dinner while the kids play here at home) then to "Pub Trivia Night" where you know the Ferrell's will dominate simply because is SO DANG IMPORTANT to us to WIN EVERYTHING!
My ankle is still swollen and starting to turn a brilliant color of green, but I am going to make it through!
More to come...