You Are a Retro Swimsuit

You are a confident and flirtatious person. You love your body as is. You believe sexy is a state of mind. You are truly glamourous. You take good care of yourself. You are the type most likely to stay out of the sun.

What Kind of Swimsuit Are You?

Your Gift is Intellect

You are a big thinker, and you’re always playing with new ideas. You are curious about the world. You enjoy learning and developing new theories. You enjoy researching, analyzing, and solving problems. Thinking hard feels good! You’re the type of person who finds most mental tasks to be easy. You love to stretch your brain.

What’s Your Gift?

You Are Salty

There’s something about you that makes the world a better place. You make life more colorful, more flavorful, and more vibrant. You get along well with others. You always have something to add. Without realizing it, people can become very addicted to you.

What Taste Are You?

Clickin’ Moms is having a huge affiliate contest from now until July 31st for new members who purchase a forum subscription. You can join by the month ($6/mo), 6 months ($30) or yearly ($50). I’ve been a member since February I think and have learned SO much from the helpful ladies over there, just click on the link above if you are interested in joining. Here are some of the prizes that can be earned:

5 new members – $10 Starbucks Gift Card
15 new members – $15 iTunes Gift Card (and prize above!)
25 new members – $25 Gymboree Gift Card (and prizes above!)
50 new members – $50 Gap/Banana/Old Navy Gift Card (and prizes above!)
75 new members – $75 Home Depot Gift Card (and prizes above!)
100 new members – $100 Sephora Gift Card (and prizes above!)
125 new members – $125 Lettuce Entertain You Gift Card (and prizes above!)
150 new members – $150 Jcrew/Crewcuts Gift Card (and prizes above!)
175 new members – $175 Restoration Hardware Gift Card (and prizes above!)
200 new members – $200 Amazon Gift Card (and prizes above!)
300 new members – $300 American Airlines Gift Card (and prizes above!)
400 new members – $400 Hyatt Hotels Gift Card (and prizes above!)
500 new members – Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital Camera Body (and prizes above!)

Coupon ~ use coupon code FRIEND at checkout to get 10% off any subscription. This coupon is for new members only and good through June 30, 2009.

Tracy @ SSD wants to know about our favorite zoo animal for this FOBTY, and we are really lucky to have a wonderful zoo right here in our city and since we always get a yearly membership pass we visit quite often. In May alone we went four times I think! One of our favorite animals that we always have to see when there is the giraffes, they have four or five adults and a really cute baby that we’ve loved watching grow bigger each time we visit! There’s just something about those long necks and long gangly legs that is so cool! Here are a few fun photos from our trip to the zoo back in March!

 

I just bought my tickets to see David Cook in concert!!! My 31st birthday is coming up June 17th and Rob has been asking me what I wanted and I really had no idea what to tell him. There are a few things that I would like to have (like an iPod Touch and a new LG Xenon cell phone) but they are not realistic wants $$ wise right now, but then this past weekend I got an email from the local concert venue we go to announcing that tickets were going on sale today so that immediately solved that! I am so excited to see him in concert, he’s been one of my favorite artists ever since he was on American Idol last season! Good thing I have my little Kodak P&S now since this is the venue that doesn’t allow dSLR cameras, but hopefully I can get some decent photos anyway!

I’m also excited about this – the first official poster for the New Moon movie was released earlier this week! November 20th is still months and months away but I am really looking forward to the movie, I know it’s going to be even better than Twilight so I can’t wait!

Our local zoo just finished building a brand new Tiger exhibit and this past weekend was the special preview for zoo members so of course we just had to go out on Sunday afternoon. The lines were SO long but it was neat being able to finally see the tigers after we’ve been watching them build the habitat for the last year or so. They have four tigers total, two males and two females and they are Amur and Malaysian tigers. I took my camera along hoping to get some good photos and was happy that I was able to even with the huge crowds and the fact that it was really hot and sunny out. The official opening to the general public is this weekend so we may go back with my parents so we can see the tigers again.

I have a TON more photos that I need to edit – Kyle’s birthday, my new niece Aleigha, three more trips to the zoo (end of the year Parents as Teachers and preK and 1st grade field trips), several of Kaylie’s Daisy Girl Scout events and her Bridging to Brownies ceremony and end of the year/last day of school stuff for the girls, etc etc….

Today is the first full day of summer vacation for the girls so they are both home and are destroying my house already and the day has barely begun! Right now they have just about every Little People toy we own (which is a lot) out in the living room and are making a huge city. So much for being able to pick up in there and vacuuming! I also have tons of laundry and dishes to do so who knows when I’ll have time to edit photos or even scrap. Instead of slowing down for summer I suspect it’s about to get crazy busy around here! Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend

{Yikes I am such a bad blogger, it’s been over a month since my last post!}

So anyway the time finally came when my baby was in desperate need of his first official haircut, the poor kid couldn’t see cause his hair was getting so long in the front! So we decided it was time to say goodbye to the long haired “skater” look that he had going lol! You can see in these photos I took outside in the backyard awhile back how long it was getting! So last week we went over to get it cut and he didn’t want to let the lady anywhere near him with the scissors. I ended up having to hold him in my lap while he screamed the whole entire time! Of course as soon as she finished up and handed him a dumdum sucker he was happy as a clam lol! He looks like a totally different kid now too, so grown up! He likes it when I put a little hair gel in it after his bath and it looks and feels so much healthier now.

{Before}

{After}

And I have a couple of new layouts to share, I actually did both of these in one night last weekend! That puts me up to about 7 layouts for all of 2009 so far! Hopefully once I finish editing all the photos from the fashion show and get all the CD orders burned and taken care of I can find some time to do some more layouts. I also have a hybrid project I need to get to work on for Mother’s Day gifts for the grandma’s. Of course it’s the end of the school year so it’s busy busy around here with all the book reports, field trips to the zoo, field day, etc. going on. I think the girls are down to just 16.5 days of school and then it’s officially summer break!! Woot!

{Sweet Baby Girl}

This is my sweet lil niece that was born just a few weeks ago! Here’s the larger photo so you can see how cute & tiny she is! She is the first of three babies that are being added to our family this year, I have another niece and a nephew that should both be born sometime in May!!

{1st Birthday Boy}

It’s hard to believe this photo was taken almost a year ago when Kyle turned one and now this Sunday my baby will be TWO already!! His absolute favorite cartoon right now is Go Diego Go so we are planning a Diego birthday party for this weekend, I’ve already got his gifts bought so now I just need to wrap them and get his cake ordered and pick up some Diego plates and napkins. Here’s what I have for him so far (I bought everything at Walmart & Target and it was MUCH cheaper than the Amazon prices):

{Click the Talking Camera}

{Talking Rescue Pack}

{Safari Monkeys}

His favorite episodes are the ones with the monkeys so when I saw this pack I had to get it! I think he is going to love his gifts when he sees them. I also have a cute new outfit for him from Target and I want to pick up a Diego shirt for him to wear to his party too.

Last month my parents gave us my little brother’s old twin bed for Kyle so he would have his own big boy bed so I had to find bedding for it that would match his walls in there since we didn’t want to repaint. It’s mostly green with a small stripe of blue bordered by two smaller stripes of white and then above that is yellow. I had originally wanted to find Diego bedding but none of the stores around here carry it and the sets I found online were either out of stock or cost way too much. I ended up finding this cute set at Sears called “Mason” and it ended up being the perfect colors to match in there! Plus I was able to use my little brother’s employee discount to buy it since he was working there at the time. Of course now if we could just Kyle to actually sleep in there! I still have to go through a bunch of stuff that’s being stored in there like all his clothes he’s outgrown some other junk. Then I want to get him a cube storage unit from Target like the girls have in their room and then we’ll move his toys out of the living room and back in there and then we’ll see if he’ll start sleeping in his big boy bed!

 

 

Time for me to get back to editing fashion show photos and pick up the mess the kids just made in the living room!

I’m neglecting my poor lil bloggie! I’ve been busy playing with my new lens and flash, I’m LOVING my lens so far and still getting used to the flash! I need to download photos from my camera, I have a bunch on there right now from the last week or two. Maybe that will be a project for tomorrow! Other than that we’ve been vegging out around the house, reading lots of books, watching lots of movies and hiding from the housework that needs to be done lol! Spring was starting to peek out here some so we were able to go to the park and to the zoo when school was out last Friday, but now it’s gotten cold again and we also had a few severe weather scares over the weekend that required us to go to Grandma’s house and hang out in the basement! I am SO not ready for “tornado season” here in Kansas but it is already starting. At least my trees are starting to bloom in the front yard, hopefully this cold spell won’t do them any damage.

Kelsie’s birthday is coming up on Friday, my girl will be FIVE years old! I swear it is not possible that she is going to be five already and going to kindergarten in August, just yesterday she was my sweet lil baby girl! I think we are going out to dinner to celebrate on Friday evening (her choice) and we’ll get together with all the grandparents to open gifts and have cake & ice cream. Then cousin Audrey is possibly spending the night and then I plan on taking all the girls to see Hotel for Dogs on Saturday afternoon! So we have a fun little weekend planned to celebrate! Oh I also have to get (or make if I decide I’m feeling ambitious lol) cupcakes to take in to her preschool class on Friday morning too. I think she’ll be excited by her gifts we got her! Kaylie has a pink Barbie Girl mp3 player that she got last Christmas and the girls are constantly fighting over it. So I got Kelsie one of her very own but in a different color – green! So there will be no more fighting over the pink one – hopefully! I also got her the Spectacular movie soundtrack CD to load on it (along with all the HM, Miley Cyrus, Disney, Camp Rock CD’s etc. we already have) since she loves the movie so much and I have a couple of other small things for her – a couple of HSM3 t-shirts I found on clearance at Target and some fun Tinkerbell stickers from the Target $1 Spot.

It’s hard to believe that the month of February is almost over already! It really has flown by, soon it will be March which is a month of many birthdays in our family! It begins with my BIL, then Kelsie will be 5 on the 13th (eek!) and then Rob is at the end of the month. And we’ll also be adding a new March birthday to our family since I have a new niece due this month also, I think she’ll be arriving via c-section on the 24th unless she decides to make an appearance sooner! She’s the first of three new babies coming into our family in the next three months so I’m excited to have new babies to hold and cuddle and take photos of soon!!

Speaking of photos, I’m super excited cause I just got some fun new photography stuff since we got our tax refund this month! Here’s what I’ve added to my bag:
* Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens
* Canon 430EX II external flash
* Sto-fen Omni-Bounce flash diffuser
* Canon NB-2LH Battery Pack
* 2 Kingston 8GB CF cards
* Sanyo Eneloop Battery Charger and 8-AA Rechargeable batteries
* Western Digital Elements 640GB external hard drive

I’m wanting to order a new Wicked Stitch camera bag in this print or maybe this print, but it will just depend on how much cash we have left. We had to get Rob’s car fixed and pay some bills off and we have some things we need to do around the house and I need new glasses/contacts and we want to put some into savings too so we’ll see.

I recently signed up for a one year subscription to the Clickin’ Moms photography forum, so I’ve been reading through the forums and information there and have learned so much already! And I ordered myself a logo and I got my domain name for my web site (which was actually free since I bought my EHD through Buy.com and they were giving a code for a free domain through GoDaddy.com with every order) for when I’m ready to finally go forward with my photography business!

I’m taking photos in early April for the St. Therese teens group “Miss Modest Fashion Show” at my SIL’s church and they needed a logo for the program so I decided I might as well get some of that stuff out of the way. This will be my first BIG job and I’m really excited! I did a quick group photo after Mass for their entire group of girls a few months ago after their photographer canceled so I was really honored that they asked me to do the photos for their fashion show. It’s a pretty big event and people will be attending from several different churches in our area so I’m a little scared too lol! Their theme is a red carpet Hollywood event with a stage and everything so I’m going to be the “paparazzi” taking photos of the show! I know it will be awhile before I’m actually ready to take the plunge for other people but this will be fun for me and I’ll have some of that stuff already taken care of! At the very least I’m hoping to start portfolio building and this will be a good start to that.

And just a few layouts I haven’t shared yet:

{Mine}

{Value Every Moment}

{Our Typical Day}

iHeartFaces is a blog that is new to me that I found through the MCP Actions blog. It looks like a wonderful and inspiring blog! Here is a little about it:

The purpose of this blog is to provide a photography sharing forum that focuses on the art of capturing faces and their various emotions. Each week, people from across the world will have the opportunity to enter their favorite face photos into two different categories ~ kids and adults. A judge will pick a winning photo from each category that will then be displayed on our home page.

This week’s theme for the Kids & Adults categories is “The Eyes Have It” and the theme for the Pets category is “Anything Goes” and here are my entries for the three categories:

{Adults}

{Kids}

{Pets}