sneaky

here's a little treat for janae - some sneaky little photos i took of her darling daughter nicolette. one thing's for certain, janae sure makes cute girls. one of my favorites of the bunch is this blurry one. obviously my depth of field was way off, but it's so telling of her fun personality that i couldn't bare to delete it. it's no wonder that ethan loves her so much.we're so grateful for good friends in our lives.

we love you janae and nicolette!

another one of my favorite people

it's been so fun to have TWO birthdays to celebrate in our little thursday group - happy birthday to my sweet friend janae! we celebrated at the cheesecake factory last night - janae's fave.with cupcake wrapped gifts, yummy food and fabulous cheesecake for dessert, it was a great night! at one point an older lady walked by her table on her way out, she had been sitting at a table near us. she leaned over and said, "you ladies are having way too much over here". luckily she was smiling and i thought, and she was right! hopefully everyone around us felt the same way?! so happy birthday to janae, and of course, here's a list of ten things i love about her! (ps i have purposely not looked at any of the other thursday girl blogs because i didn't want to be influenced by their lists! sorry if we end up with duplicates!)

1. she is a great mother to FIVE darling GIRLS! and two of them, maybe three, are alpha females and still manages to keep her head on her shoulders! amazing!

2. the girl can cook - i mean, we are spoiled rotten every time it's her turn to be in charge of thursday lunch. we steal her recipes and try to make them our own but nothing is as good as when she cooks it! 3. she can cook an entire meal from scatch and only take up three feet of counter space AND have it done in two hours. i admire this because it takes me all day and my kitchen is a disaster once i'm done!

4. janae is definitely pinkalicious and has pinkalicious skills - you should see her cakes and cupcakes, beautiful! 5. ok, i'll choose something besides a cooking one - she loves to go over the top for her girls' birthdays making it a super special day for them, right down to flowers with breakfast.

6. she is so generous and always willing to help.

7. she gets up every morning EARLY to work out even though she is not a morning person. 8. she is sensitive to other's feelings and wants everyone to be happy and goes out of her way to make this happen.

9. she could possibly be ethan's future mother in law (and that would be GREAT with me!) 10. she's a wonderful friend and i LOVE her!

happy happy birthday janae - have a great weekend!

one of my favorite people

my girlfriend kristy celebrated her 39th birthday this weekend while i was under the weather. we celebrated early with a girlfriend lunch at happy sumo - which could've been MY birthday for how much i love that place! and thanks to my saintly husband for taking a half a day off of work to stay home with the sick toddler so his wife could get out of the house and save her sanity! just like any other time we get together, it was full of smiles, laughter and good times. i would be a lame friend i didn't do a birthday list for her, she ROCKS and here are ten things i love about her!

1. she is super friendly and easy to love 2. she is always willing to help - poor girl got sucked into the gift basket fundraiser TWO years in a row because of me (and her inability to say no to anyone who needs help!) 3. she cooks yummy japanese food for me.

4. she was my super early morning seat saver partner for the pioneer parade this year. this dreary job has never been so much fun! i hope we started a tradition! 5. she loves ethan and he loves her - she never seems to mind that he is always our tag along wherever we go. 6. she is very crafty even though she thinks she's not! everything she touches turns cute!

7. she is always smiling and has a great sense of humor

8. she is a good listener - when we talk on the phone it's always for a long time - i'm sure i do most of the talking!

9. she is a get 'r done girl - if it needs to be done, she just does it! i admire this so much!

10. she's one of my favorite people on the planet.

happy birthday kristy girl!

i love you!

whip it....whip it good

after theraputic thursday at my house this week....kristy just may be the kids new favorite blogger mom in the group. she brought the dessert - some fabulous sour lemon pie - but the kids really went for something else, like, the can of whipped cream she's holding in her hand.it was impossible to get a photo of them all with whipped cream in their mouth at the same time because they kept swallowing it. but, they were having a blast, and we were getting a couple of fun laughs. funny kristy.

the big break

girlfriend weekend get away

in a nut shell-

chick flicks

amazing food

gumballs

see's chocolate

hot tamales

amazing cabin

paper crafts

late nights

board games

no make up

pajamas

scenic walk

deer and wild turkeys

sleeping in

lounging around

best friends

plenty of laughter

much needed break

and a NO photo truce!

(until the last five minutes to take one self-portait)

i love these girls!!

SPT - because of a blogger - personal growth edition

this was the easiest of the five SPT posts for september's theme: because of a blogger - personal growth edition. i guess because i can think of many ways i have achieved personal growth in the past 15 months since i began posting. in the spirit of keeping things short and sweet, i made a list of things i've learned about me and ways i've grown because of blogging...

1. it's ok to post snap shots of my life. not every photograph has to be perfect - as a photographer worried about how every photo is a reflection of me and my work, this was hard to let go of, still is sometimes.

2. my blog is sort of like physical evidence for me, that i really am here on this planet, making a difference, and that i'm important, what i do is important. AND that we have FUN and life is wonderful. this was huge for me.

3. i have a connection, far more than just electronic, to so many women and their amazing life stories. i am not the only woman out there who feels lonely and worried and psychotic sometimes. and recognizing other's needs, and doing what i can to help, makes me forget about my own worries.4. i have good ideas and it's fun to share them.

5. everyone else has great ideas and i love to copy them!

6. it's ok to have a mix of "random" posts and "this is what i did today" posts (or blogumentary style - as jenny calls it!). for a while i was completely caught up in the guilt i was having over not documenting every minute of every day. i know now that it's ok to just have my own style which is a little bit of both.

7. i learned how to take self portaits and now I'M in the photographs too.8. i see how important it is to me to keep in touch with family and friends. near and far. this might be one of my favorite things about blogging. i really wish everyone had a blog!

9. i feel like i was always a pretty good sender of thank you notes and random notes of kindness, but i am always thinking about it now. and, now i'm also the recipient of it and that's always a good thing.

10. i have four new girlfriends that i hold dear to my heart, who used to be more like aquaintences. we all live in the same small city, our kids even go to the same small schools. but the way we got to know each other was through our blogs and now, birthdays, thursdays and girl's day out will never be the same! (in a good way) i had no idea how much i would need their love and friendship in the last year and how much they would help me to grow as a mom and a woman and a friend.i am a blogger - and i love it! this may be one of my cheesiest posts ever...

**how has blogging my your life better?**

**will you check out lelly's blog and do an spt too?**

scary or fun, or fun because it's scary?

i thought after all the roller coaster excitement at lagoon a few weeks ago, that he would really enjoy something like this...but it was loud and fast and i think it scared him to death, at least at first. after a drive down the street and back he did actually smile and clap his hands, but no, "again, again!" like at lagoon. kristy sure had fun though!

filling a need

making time for what i need in my life...creativity and a scheduled opportunities to get through the things i want to do instead of have to do. to make this happen i invited lauri and the blogger moms over for such a day and we decided it needs to be a regular kind of thing. i teased that it was our "git 'r done" day since we all worked on projects that had been lying around our homes for too long and were finally getting them done. it sort of stuck i guess, so 'git 'r done day it is (until we think of something with a little more class!).and let me say, hanging out these girls is really more than half the fun of it, i'm so blessed to have such great women in my life. really, a great mother, great mother in law, fantastic sister in laws on both sides and friends. so blessed.the cute windows lauri and i are working on for our homes were just an added bonus to the girlfriend time. i'm looking forward to the next one already!

edit: it's so appropriate that ethan is peeking up through the bottom of this photograph. i could do a whole other post on this poor kid who is my sidekick whether it's fun for him or not! he was attached to kristy (gigi) the whole time who lovingly puts up with all his questions and requests for gum. funny kid.

i want candy...

kristy, lauri and i hauled all our kids to sweets candy factory in salt lake for a tour. i loved all the good smells and super soft taffy right off the assembly line. what i didn't love was not being able to take my camera inside! there were so many would-be great photos, like huge pallets of candy, giant bin of taffy, cinnamon bears and giant bags of sugar. i'll have to take mental photos (rich's phrase) i guess, but at least we got a group shot of all the hair-net lovers. we look like a bunch of lunch ladies! pretty sexy.

40 years - wow!

being a blogger mom is a blessing, unless you happen to be the blogger mom turning forty, then you may be the victim of a late-night ballooning and yard trashing, hypothetically speaking of course! karrie's fortieth birthday was so much fun to plan and execute, we all had such a fun day we keep wishing it was someone's birthday every week. lunch at the do-do was so fabulous, funny how i only remembered to take a photo of the dessert - oh my goodness! that whip cream was to die for! if you haven't seen mama mia you need to grab a few girlfriends and go see it, it wouldn't have been half as fun without the group of fun girls to go with though.part of the whole experience was all the laughing, i mean howling, that happened on our row! but can i just say, what's up with pierce brosnan's singing? oh man, that was painful and whoever cast him for that part should be FIRED! - everyone else was fantastic. (and just incase you think you recognize the cute short red-headed friend of meryl streeps, you do, she's mrs. weasley from harry potter!) after the movie we killed some time at bath and body works where i discovered my new favorite thing: this new cinnamint lipgloss from c.o.bigelow, it's so tasty and lovely and really nice for kissing....sorry, i got distracted....the blogger moms were in charge of having karrie home for her surprise birthday party hosted by her husband, she was totally fooled!of course the blogger moms and husbands ended up being the last ten people at the party because we always have such a fun time together, i see cruises in our future! so happy 40th birthday karrie, here's my way be-lated list (this seems to be a trent with me lately). ten things i love about karrie...

1. she is a tennis fan and so she plays all the time. i love this about her because i forget to prioritize myself and the things that i like to do sometimes and she is a great example of good balance to me.

2. she can water ski like a pro, wow, not bad for forty karrie! - who am i kidding? not bad for twenty karrie!

3. she is her kids' biggest fan. i love to hear her stories of mariah's swim team accomplishments, micah's "nerd herd" adventures and how brave and adventurous her two younger daughters are. she is a great mother! who else likes to take their kids on vacation so much? 4. she is a world-traveler, i was stunned to see so many around the world photos of her in the video that troy made for her birthday. i am so intimated by the idea of travelling out of the states that i really admire this about her!

5. she is a great sender of good mail! she mailed us all sand from mexico and had an adventure at the post office to show for it, girl scout cookies, nemo things for ethan and lots of other stuff. she is so thoughtful and always out of the blue surprising, i love this!

6. she is a fellow journey fan, and i think of her now every time i hear "stone in love".

7. she married her high school sweetheart. this takes guts, i don't even want to know how some of the guys that i dated in high school turned out, much less be married to them! and she made such a great choice, troy is so great!8. she made a great pta president and is an awesome volunteer! i love that volunteering is what all the blogger moms originally had in common that brought us all together. i love that karrie is such a get-it-done girl and made the most of a way difficult fundraising experience this year. she put out one fire after another without having a nervous breakdown! great job karrie!

9. she is always up for a last minute blogger lunch and so fun to have along because she tells the best stories and is always smiling.

10. she makes 40 look fabulous!

love you karrie, you a wonderful friend and i'm so lucky to know you! :) happy birthday!