chubby=cutie

This is Kaitlin. She is our Halloween baby, born on October 31st of last year. She is super cute! And very huggable. She already has quite a personality and she loves to suck on her bottom lip (notice the top and bottom picture....the middle one is really what her bottom lip looks like).

I love being an Auntie.

Aaaand STRETCH!!!

So, as I was taking pictures of a great group of women Saturday morning, and they kept looking to the right of me and I realized that they were completely distracted by this:

I was trying to be discrete, so I didn't get the "one leg in the air" stretch move, but then again, kinda grateful I didn't!

This is for you, Jeni. Enjoy.

Laughing

Karl's Senior Pictures

This was a quick photo shoot that turned out really well. Here are a few from the shoot...

(love those blue eyes!)

Disney Princesses

Just a little reminder for a friend that this is just the beginning of what your little girl's walls will look like. Besides the little princess dresses they will want to wear every Sunday to church, to Target with Mom, to big brother's soccer game and to bed at night.

Be a man!!! Leave the pens there!! (oh. oh. I just thought of another angle!!) Maybe you should leave it because it will make YOU look a prince!!! Yeeeaaaaaah! That's a gooood one!!

The Office -- Playing Dwight Schrute is...Jim Halpert?

HOLY CRAP! HILAR-IOUS! This makes up for the fact that The Office was a rerun yesterday.

Freedom is Never Free.

Fourth of July last year a boy scout was earning his Eagle, which is the highest rank you can achieve as a boy scout.

He collected the names of soilders that had lost their lives in the war in Iraq and placed their names on tags. He also told how they lost their lives while defending ours and others rights and freedoms as well. Then attached it to these flags. He called the memorial "Freedom is Never Free". I can't remember the exact number of flags that he had flying that day in the park but it was just rows and rows. It was at least 3-6 names per flag that was honored. It was amazing.

I can't even begin to describe the peace and quite that was on top of that hill that day in the park. I felt like I was stepping on sacred ground. The only noise you heard was the flags flipping back and forth in the wind. I had a moment when I walked pretty far away from everyone to take pictures of the whole memorial and I just remember watching those flags waving back and forth. I was overcome with gratitude for the priviledge that I am blessed with to live in this country and how often I take it for granted.

I was there at 6:30am taking pictures. It was cloudy most that day unfortunately, but that did not stop people from coming. Anyone that came that day was respectful and walked quietly through the flags. I was told later that many family members came and that boy scout gave them that flag that their son, daughter, brother, sister, mother or father's name hung.

I was thinking about this because of the recent decision to deploy soilders for a longer tour. How hard it must be for family members and the soilders themselves, of course, to be away even longer from their loved ones.

Freedom IS Never Free.

the face of facebook.

So have you heard of facebook.com? It is apparently the new myspace, or friendster, but it's not. It's something else altogether.

Well this is the kid behind facebook. And I say kid because he is only 22. Mark Zuckerberg. A Harvard drop out and CEO of facebook.com and apparent smarty pants (and I'm not talking about wit).

He walks or rides a bike to his office in Palo Alto and his two (almost three) building office holds over 200 employees that love their job, which includes three catered meals a day, and laundry/dry cleaning services too. Not to mention competitive salaries and benefit packages that are worth, I'm sure, the often long days at the office.

So here is the kicker. Zuckerberg, still sleeps on a matress that is on the floor in a barely furnished rented apartment. He still lives like a 22 year old college student but he is changing the world of website "connecting" that is nothing close to being parallel to anything that wants to be up against him. The internet and business world are buzzing because along with his partners (also 20-somethings that are friends from Harvard) just turned down an alleged $1 billion dollar deal to have his website bought by Yahoo. Not to mention the other not as big deals that have been thrown on the table. People are starting to wonder if Zuckerberg is just being greeding and holding out for more money. "I'm here to build something for the long term," he says. "Anything else is a distraction."

I don't know why I was so impressed with this kid and his story, but I found it so interesting. He just wanted Harvard to come out with a "face book" so students could put a face to a name to their information, ie. phone, email etc. But Harvard said "nope. sorry." So Zuckerberg took matters into his own hands, hacked into the student's records and made one up himself.

Here is the article and more of the story if you want to read more.

it's a keeper.

I had a photo shoot a few weeks ago and I was taking random pictures of the family members, especially the kids.



I had some favorites, but I gotta say, this one was my ultimate favorite.





It's a keeper. That one is going in the portfolio.

Drag Racing.

September of last year I went with a friend to a drag race at "The Strip" at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. They kept telling me how much they wished they were at the races this weekend. Well, here are some pictures of the one I went to.

It's loud and some times a little scary because of how dangerous the sport really is. But very cool and interesting for some one who doesn't really know anything about the sport.

You know the jet engines that are on fighter jets...well that is what is on the back of this car. Yeah. Crazy. It's just one, can you imagine if it had both! :o/

It's been a while, so I can't fully remember but I think this car had nitrous hooked up to it. It was REALLY loud. I was really happy we had ear mufflers on. But it was crazy fast, check out the picture below. That was it's time.

285.95 miles per hour in 5.35 seconds. Yeah. I know.

So...this is a "funny" joke right?

Title: Shaving, 1999.


I mean, it's not really funny, but the fact that he thought it was funny at the time is what makes it funny.

I think I sometimes forget that guys can be dumb funny when they are just with other guys. I wish they would be willing to be that way sometimes for us. We can sometimes find it just as stupid funny as you do.

iPod Playlist

I have decided to start sharing current playlists that I am rocking out on my iPod. This is the one that I am all about right now, I call it "The Goods", because it is. It is in serious rotation!

The Goods
Say it Right-Nelly Furtado
Good Idea at the time-Ok Go

Roll with Me-Del Amitri

Let Love In-Goo Goo Dolls
Fix You-Coldplay
Gravity-John Mayer
Landed-Ben Folds

The Difference-The Wallflowers
Trouble Sleeping-Corrine Bailey Rae
Slow Dance-John Legend
Banana Pancakes-Jack Johnson
Forever My Friend-Ray LaMontagne
Nothing Left to Lose-Mat Kearney
Under the Influence-James Morrison
Read My Mind-The Killers

Do You Want To-Franz FerdinandIf You Are Gone-Matchbox 20
In Repair-John Mayer



(the pictures don't mean I am loving some songs more than others, it was just to add pictures! a blog isn't a blog without pictures!)

a piggy back ride.

Saturday afternoon I was running around doing my errands and getting things done. I was driving down the street, nothing special, and I happen to glance towards the side walk to see an older couple walking hand in hand with each other. They kinda matched too. It was cute.

You could tell the wife was a bit hot and tired because she gave a big sigh and fanned her self with her hand a little. Her husband let go of her hand, which made her slow down to a stop and he took a step in front of her and stopped. He bend over putting his hands on his knees and you could tell he said "hop on!" to give her a piggy back ride. She lovely wacked him on the back and you could just tell she said something like "oh honey!" or something along those lines. It was so loving and sweet. I laughed to myself and was so grateful that I was able to witness that moment.

It made me happy.

who is that?

Who is that? oh wait...

it's ME!

Yeah, the hair I've had, forEVER really is gone AND I finally colored it! (I knew it would be the beginning of the end when I started to color my hair, so I held out a long time)

I am still getting use to it, but love it! It was a good decision that I really made on my own. No one knew about it. Not even anyone in my family. I surprised everyone. I was talking to one friend about it and I said that I didn't tell anyone and he said, "um...yeah! I had no clue! You surprised everyone!" Which wasn't my main purpose, I really just wanted to do this for me and totally make that decision alone and not be swayed either way as to what to really do with my hair. Actually, my main reason for doing it was to save money on shampoo and conditioner. :)

a good moment....

I was checking a voicemail I just got from a friend that called when I couldn't grab my phone. When it ended the lady that comes on to prompt me to do the next thing, ya know what/who I'm talking about, said "you have no more messages."

Do you know that what means?!?!?!

I don't have voicemails that I need to recheck to get something done. I don't have a voicemail that I am keeping for stupid reasons. I don't have voicemails I have to listen to because I can't remember why I saved them. And if I did have any voicemails that got deleted because I took too long to listen to them again, it must not have mattered that much!

WooHooo!!!

Just had to share!

It was a good moment.

Just driving down the street...

The sun was shining. I was able to sleep in a little. I had a photography appointment to check the location of a photo shoot that I can't wait to add to my portfolio. I was catching a bite to eat with a friend on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. It was just a good day. And then...I saw this beauty rollin' down the street, and I knew that my day was complete. No matter what else happened that day, it was not going to be ruined because of this jem of a moment.



It rolled up next to us and we were just plain shocked. But I was not shocked enough to not take a picture or two! :)



Hopefully my next car, or my current car...hmmm, didn't think of that before, can one day look this good.



Cross your fingers.