i ♥ faces

Update: Woo-hoo! I'm so excited!... my photo actually made the top ten (#8). How fun is that?




Also... to check out more of my i ♥ faces entries, check out our J&R Photo Blog . We started posting them there.

*Edited below
I really love this picture of Ethan because it makes me realize how much he is growing up. He's not a little boy anymore. I loved the original, but I knew it could be better by cropping out some of the distractions in the background so all you focus on is that beautiful face and those amazing eyes.

**I found this fun blog, www.iheartfaces.com, that has weekly photo contests, and I thought it would be fun to try some of them and maybe get some new inspiration and new fun ideas for taking pictures, especially since my favorite thing to take pictures of are people! I was originally going to post it here on our family blog, but have now decided that I am going to just post these on our photography blog instead, so I actually entered using our photo blog url... Anyway, maybe some of you other photography lovers would like to try it out too.

James & Jamie's Family Pics

I was very excited when James & Jamie called me up and wanted me to take some family pictures of them and I was even more excited when they showed up looking as cute is they did! Ryan and Emily were so good... I wish all little kids were this agreeable! I posted some of them on our J&R Photo Blog. Check out how cute their little family is.

Snoqualmie Falls

This weekend we hiked down to Snoqualmie Falls. I love going here because it's only about 25 minutes from our place and it's less than a two mile hike up & down. It was such a beautiful day too. The kids loved it and have the most fun climbing all over the rocks. My favorite comment of the day came from Audrey as she was scaling up a huge rock. I kept telling her to take it easy and not hurry, because I didn't want her to fall, and she turned around and said... "Mom, you need to stop worrying so much... it's totally embarrasing!"

Here are my favorite shots from the day. Again... lots of pics... I think I need help in editing down my number of "favorite shots"!

The Cage --

After having a week of warmer temps and beautiful sunshine, it's a bit depressing to see the cold and wet drift back in... but I guess it is only February!

The Tunnel

One of David's favorite days of the week is when he gets to hang out with his favorite cousin, Blake, for the day. We try to get them together at least once a week because they genuinley love hanging out together! Today was especially fun because it was such a beautiful, sunny day and we got to play outside. We took them on a walk... well, okay, we walked and they rode in the jeep. We went up the street to the tunnel that goes under the road at the golf course. David loves to go there and so we decided to show it to Blake, who thought it was pretty cool too.


Watching the ducks at the golf course pond.

They also had fun playing at the park in the sand box with their tractors. (This is obviously one of David's new favorite places as of recently.)

David pretending he was "swimming" in the rocks.
Brody's very first time in the swing. He seemed to quite enjoy it and after a while, even looked like he might nod off.
Oh my goodness... how stinkin' cute is he?
Maria and I laughed when we heard Blake say to David... "Let's go maniac!"

After a day like today, I am counting down the weeks until Spring!

Audrey's first real haircut

Audrey and I had a fun day on Saturday. She has being dying to get her hair cut shorter for a looooong time now and so I decided to bite the bullet and just let her do it. She has never had a real haircut before. I have always just trimmed it myself, but since we were going to do a big change I knew I was not up for the task so I took her to the gal who does my hair.

Audrey was so excited to get to go to a real "beauty parlor" for the first time.... she was giddy all morning. We also decided afterwards to stop by the store and let her pick out a new shirt to go with her new look. We had so much fun... Audrey is such a goofball and always fun to be around.

Ready to SHOP!

FYI... for those interested, I just now noticed that apparently Fred Meyer is having a sale on brassieres... 40% off clearance marked prices. heehee.

Should I be worried that Audrey wanted me to take a picture of her hugging the boy mannequin?

She loves her new short locks and loves swinging her hair around. She didn't like that after it dried it curled up a little (I thought it looked adorable), so before we showed off her new look to her dad and brothers, we ran upstairs and put the flat iron through it first.

So here it is... here is Audrey's new look... new sweatshirt and all! Well... at least the straight version anyway! (and forgive me for including way too many pics, but I was just having so much fun with my camera and got a little carried away. Just be thankful I didn't upload all 86 of them!)







And... Of course, Audrey wanted her best friend, Aubrey, to come along to take some fun pictures and they are just so crazy. It was so funny listening to them on the ride over to the school... Aubrey asked Audrey... "Don't you wish we were sisters and that our dad was the president of the United States? Then we could go to a private school!"... and then Audrey added, "... and we could live in a big house and when we went to the park people would ask us what it was like to be the president's kids." Those two crack me up!



And how totally cute is Aubrey with her new frames?

Family Portrait Photoshoot

We did some family pics for some friends a few weekends ago and it was a lot of fun! It was a really quick photo shoot because we just wanted to capture a few cute pictures for the holiday because they are expecting a new addition to their family and wanted to wait and do more pictures after the baby is here. We were so thankful the weather held out. It started to drizzle as we were driving to the lake and it drizzled on and off while we were there, but nothing bad enough to call it quits. The kids were so cute and we got some fun pics of the kids just playing around. Check out more of the family pictures we did for them at J&R Photography.

Thanks again Tracie for letting us do them and we're excited to do more once your new addition to your family is here.

Taylor's one year old pics

Last week I got to take pictures of the cutest little girl for her one year old pictures. It was so much fun because she was just all smiles and so epxressive. What a little beauty. Thanks Bekki for letting me do them! (I'm gonna be sad when all of these beautiful fall colors are gone!)

I posted more of them on our photography blog!