Christmas

Christmas was CRAZY this year! We had 5 get togethers not including Christmas morning at our house! Wowza!! The kids had a blast though and loved their new iPod touches!

Here are a couple of our family pictures for this year.

Thanksgiving

umm... it came and went. :)

Halloween

I know... I know... I am so far behind on blogging! So here are our Halloween pictures.

love that shot!

This picture is of my cousin's little girl Alex. She was soooo excited when her mommy came home with her new Halloween costume that I just had to take pictures of her in it.

I edited this photo with Florabella Ruby action from the Luxe collection!

around the corner and through Cottonwood.....

On our way back from Flagstaff and Sedona we stopped at this beautiful church so I could snap a few shots before heading home. I shot them just as the storm was coming in...

Sunday FuNdAy!

We took a stroll up north and had a blast!!


In Flagstaff....

Mr. Grumpy Pants

In Sedona

Old buffet....made new!

So I'm a nut about craigslist. I swear that site was made just for me. I have purchased about 8 cars (SERIOUSLY!), 3 dogs (2 which have loving new homes now), a couch, a desk, an armoire, patio furniture, a foyer table, and most recently a lovely old buffet table. I've been looking for one for what seems like forever!! We just got finished with it and now it has a new home in my formal dining room!!

Here are the before and after pics.

My amazing grandma and mY...cRaZy....KiDs!

My grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer about 2 months ago and just recently had to have her right breast removed. She's the most amazing, kind, and strongest woman I know. She was such a trooper! The nurse asked her right before she took her back to the OR if she hurt anywhere and my grandma said just hear heart. Right then and there we all started crying.... after being strong for her over the last 2 months it all came down to this. Would she be ok? Would they get it all?

Now 2 weeks later she is cancer free and going strong. She's still in pain from the 290 staples she has in but that's getting better with each day.

Tuesday was her birthday and I decided to make her a card and have the kids help. I took them outside and had them hold up a sign that I later photoshopped in "We Love Grandma!" I also took a couple pictures of them making crazy faces to give her. She loved it and we love her!!

My baby girl isn't a baby anymore!

I just recently bought some new textures and actions so I have been itching to use them. Its just been so hot here that I haven't really had the energy to take any. Last night Rylee asked me to take her picture. She's such a ham and loves to have her picture taken. So I grabbed mt camera and we hopped in the car for a short ride around the corner. The sky was amazing and so was she!

I was looking at these that I took last night and some from just a couple months ago and WOW how she matured. She's not my little baby anymore.

4th of JULY!

Every year I try to think of new places to go or new things to try for the 4th and it never works out! So this year it was my mission as a good mom to make sure we all had a blast. I googled 4th of July in AZ and the first thing that popped up was PAYSON! So Payson it was. I called my mom, my dad, and my sister and invited them to partake as I always do and as always they declined... :( So I packed up my hubby and baby chicks and Payson we were bound. We ate at a very yummy Mexican food restaurant and then had some super yummy ice cream. Then we drove down by the park and sat by the lake to watch the fireworks. We were about 100 yards aways and the kids loved every second of it!

and so it begins.... AGAIN!

My BFF who is getting married in April 2011 wanted to go out dress shopping this past weekend. Well all you who know me know I can never pass up an opportunity to go shopping and especially for anything to do with weddings!! This is Stacie's 3rd time buying a dress. The first one God bless her was a MESS!! Nothing like her, its was so over whelming and the PEARLS...oh my the PEARLS!!! The second dress was nice but again not really her and I knew it as soon as she tried it on. BFF's are like that, I know what she's thinking even when she doesn't LOL! So this time I was on a mission to find her the perfect dress. We went to 3 places before finally finding Almondtree which is a resale store with tons of higher end wedding dresses. Well after picking out about 6 dresses she tried on the first on and we both knew it was the one!! Its sooooo her. My BFF is all of 100lbs and is as I like to call her a "granola girl". She almost never does her hair or makeup.... crazy I know BUT that's why I love her so! The dress is a satin trumpet style dress with a small train. It has a deep V in the front and back and satin buttons all the way down the back. Very chic and timeless!!

So with all the trying on going on I decided to try on my bridesmaid dress.... hahahaha!! Well its beautiful, its actually the dress I am going to wear to renew my vows. The store only had a size 6 and 10 in stock so I grabbed the 6 and ran to the dressing room. I'm usually an 8 but though maybe God would be nice to me that day. :)Well I got in on and after a couple minutes of sucking and tucking Stacie finally got it zipped up for me. After about 3 minutes of not breathing and seeing my reflection I removed the dress.

And so the diet begins!!

1200 calories here I come!

planning to renew of vows

Dustin and I will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary on Sept 9th. Wow how time flies!! Well any of you who know me know that it was always a dream of mine to be an event planner. So planning I am a doin'....

Here is a picture of my dress (most important of course!!)


The place
http://www.elencantorestaurant.com/specialevents.htm

The cake (minus the monogram, not diggin' it)


The flowers (still can't decide if I will even have any)

Coyotes Game!

Over the last couple months Dustin has had an opportunity to get tickets to the games from work. The kids love it and its fun to do as a family. Last night Bryson ate more than I have ever seen him eat. He had a hot dog, a pretzel, and a ice cream cookie sandwich, not to mention the soda. (I know great mom huh...)

Easter

Easter was fun and relaxing for once this year. We only had 2 places to go. The kids got up and we went to my dads where they had an Easter egg hunt and got more goodies than they knew what to do with. Ricki, the amazing cook that she is had so much food that she could have easily fed a small army. After a couple hours it was off to my moms

The scariest day of my life!!

On Saturday like most Saturdays we were a busy, busy family. My friend Kristin is expecting her 2nd baby and was having a shower since this was going to be her first boy! While getting ready our next door neighbors Sean and Tosha invited Dustin and the kids to go swimming at Tosha’s sisters. We had a pool at our house in Surprise and the kids have been dying to go especially since we’ve had such great weather lately! I thought nothing of it and was on my way. I had a great time at the shower but had to rush out since I had a photo shoot for a friend right after. At 3:30 I was about 40 minutes away from the house and got a frantic call from Dustin. He said something like “Bryson was in the pool and he isn’t breathing and they are going to airlift him to the hospital!” I said “I am turning around call me as soon as you know which hospital.” I was surprisingly calm until he hung up and I LOST IT!! Every horrible thought was going through my head. Is he going to be ok? Are we going to be ok? Is he asking for me? What the heck was Dustin doing? I called my sister and then my best friend both said they would meet me at the hospital. I then called Dustin again just as he was stepping onto the helicopter. He said they were taking him to Phoenix Children’s Hospital and that our neighbors had Rylee. So I called my sister again and had her send my brother in-law to pick up Rylee and drove as fast as I could to the hospital.
As soon as I got there I ran into the hospital trying to find him. I felt like I was in turbo mode and that everyone else was moving at the pace of a snail! I FINALLY found them and as soon as I walked into the room the tears came down. Bryson has always been a sick kid. He’s had asthma since he was a year and was hospitalized with the FLU, H1N1, Pneumonia, Broncular Infections etc… So to see him in the hospital is nothing new to us BUT this time was different!! My baby was strapped on a stretcher and was super pale. He looked scared and tired. I went over to him, grabbed his hand, kissed him on his head, and told him how much I loved him. I then looked over at Dustin and saw the fear in his eyes. He said Bryson was doing ok and just then the doctor walked in.
He asked us what happened and I looked at Dustin. I’m sure this was Dustin’s 87th time telling it but I wanted to know too!! He said that there were 8 adults in the pool and that he had walked over to the grill to check on the burgers. He said he heard Rylee scream and that he turned and saw the guys pulling him out of the pool. He said he was blue and that they did CPR. He then said Bryson threw up and was gasping for air. The tears just kept running down my face. I could only imagine how scared Bryson was and also how scared Dustin was. The tech came in to take Bryson to get an x-ray and make sure he didn’t have any broken ribs from the CPR. Dustin asked if he could go with and she said yes. As soon as he got up I gave him a kiss and a hug and I told him how much I loved him. No matter what I didn’t blame him! He’s such an amazing dad and I know he would never do anything to hurt our kids.
Well after watching him for 24 hours he was released and is back to his normal crazy self! I cannot thank God enough for saving him! We are so lucky and are truly grateful for every moment we have.

Rylee Ashtyn

Here a couple new ones of Rylee

Win a Free Kelly Moore Bag!!

I Love, LOve, LOVe, LOVE this bag!!


Win a Free Kelly Moore Bag!!

Week 5 - “My Story In Photos: Places I Love”

Sedona is by far my favorite place of all time. It's surrounded by such beautiful natural red rock and the people are amazing. Not to mention the food!!

Bryson

I had all of about 7 mins to take these picture. Little Bryson Christopher unlike his sister is not a fan of having his picture taken. After ever picture I get an "are we done yet?" and I have to sau "just a couple more, PLEASE"

My BFF had a baby!!

My best friend of forever ok not forever but for the last 13 years has FINALLY become a mommy!! I couldn’t be more excited for her. Unlike me (a control freak) my BFF Stacie wanted to wait to find out what she was having. OMG you are probably thinking what I'm thinking, she's CRAZY!! She's not she's just happy go lucky Stacie and that's why I love her sooooo much!

It happened super fast so fast actually I wasn't even there. :( This was one of the happiest and saddest days of my life I must say BUT I got over it. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Jakob Carson Bundy. He weighed in at 7lbs and 3oz.

Here are some pictures from the hospital...






Here are some from when they come home. Don't worry many, many more to come!