It's Been Awhile

Oh man! Is there anyone still out there. I would be surprised and wouldn't blame anyone for not checking this out here. It has definitely been WAY too long since I have posted. It's not for lack of things to put here, we have definitely been as busy as usual and I, of course, have taken WAY to many pictures so that's not the problem. So, here it is...

I'm not one to make excuses because, well, that's just what they are, excuses. When really the plain simple fact of the matter is, I just haven't been here to post things. I could tell you all about this and all about that, but what it all really boils down to is there have been no postings for quite some time.

Since, I don't have the pictures from all of our March activities ready to go yet, I am going to post something a little different until I can get them ready. See, that's the real problem - a photographer posting pictures on a family site. I can't seem to bring myself to put pics on until I have them truly ready to be presented to the world. So, please bear with me. And in the meantime, I hope you will enjoy this posting.

Every year I create a family calendar. It hit me some years ago . . . being a photographer (which quite honestly I had a hard time admitting I was one of those for many many years - and yes I do know that I have issues) I realized one day, why am I paying for art in my house when I should be displaying my own work. Kind of a duh! moment really. So, I started blowing up my own work and using it in my house. Well, again, I had another duh! moment and realized why am I paying for a calendar when I can make my own and have what I really would like to look at throughout the year on it. Ever since, I have created family calendars. I use the pictures from the year before and highlight different activities. I have a great time creating them and think that we really enjoy them throughout the year. This past year I had four printed - one for the kitchen, one for Ryan's room, one for Doug to take to work and one for my parents. I decided to share the pics with you. I will start with January.

2007

2008

2009

2010

More Music - guitars!!

In just two months time, we now have 3 guitars in our house. One electric and 2 acoustic. We do love music in our house. Here are the three of us, one evening after dinner and homework and showers and all the nightly things we have to do (including piano and French horn practice). We each had a guitar and learned three chords. It was fun, even if those strings really hurt your fingers!

Doug & Ryan tuning Ryan's electric guitar:

For my birthday, I was given a guitar. Of course it's purple! What other color would it be? I think it looks great with my black fingernails.
Ryan concentrating on the three chords we were working on that night:

Doug taking a break between chords:

Valentine's Day

This year's Valentine's Day was a fun one. Very relaxing. Doug & I decided to have a little fun with Ryan's gift and card this year. He has a really good sense of humor so we decided to get him some girly looking things. The card we bought was full of hearts and rainbows and featured a unicorn on the front. We gave him a gift card to Target and picked out the one that had flowers on it.

Ryan's two "girly" cards:

Here's a video of Ryan opening his gifts. He got a good laugh out of the girly items we got him.

Here he is checking out his gifts:

Ryan & Doug picked out some great gifts for me. First, I got this new box to put all of my manicure items in. I have a basket that I've been using for a long time. It is looking a little worn out and is a little too small. I keep everything that I need in that basket - cotton balls, remover, polish colors, file and so on. So now I've got one that's a little too big. I guess that means I get to go shopping for more colors!
Inside my new box were some goodies! I got a new shirt (the item on the bottom), some aloe socks (and if you haven't tried them - you are missing out!!!) and some Godiva chocolate mints - yum!

My wonderful friend Jill makes this totally yummy carmel corn, so I ordered some for Doug. It's one sweet treat that he really enjoys. He even shared it withe me. We ate it while we watched a movie later on that day!

For breakfast, Doug made heart shaped eggs and bacon. They were super yummy!

Then, later in the evening our doorbell rang. By the time we got to the door, all we could see was a car pulling away. We looked out the door and there sat this giant cookie for Ryan! His secret admirer strikes again! They sure do know how to bring some very yummy treats for him!

Ryan with his giant cookie!

Even the dogs got a special treat. I couldn't finish my dinner so they got to eat the rest of my pork roast. They sure felt the love!

New Nail Polish Inspired by Alice In Wonderland

I have really been enjoying some of the new, fun nail polish colors that have been coming out here lately. I've even been trying to plan a nail polish shopping trip with my friend Diana - well and lunch and some fun girl time! OPI, one of my favorite companies released a new collection based on the upcoming Alice in Wonderland movie set to come out real soon. I love the color names that OPI uses. And this collection does not disappoint there. Another thing that I really love that they have been offering - you can get each color in a regular sized nail polish bottle sold individually or you can purchase the entire collection as one in miniature bottles. I love the small bottles, they are cute and the cost is a little better, especially if you want to have tons of different colors.

The full color collection:
This color is called Absolutely Alice - very pretty on. One warning though, the glitter polishes are very difficult to remove. I had a hard time taking them both off. On the plus side - they seem to last much longer on my nails. I am very hard on a manicure and have to repaint every couple days. With both of the glitters in this pack, I could go almost twice as long. The glitter is a little chunky but doesn't feel that way at all on your nails. It's pretty cool!

Thanks so Muchness:

Off With Her Red:

Mad as a Hatter:

Here Today . . . Gone Tomorrow

Or in this case it should read Hair Today . . . Gone Tomorrow!

It finally happened. I have been so excited for this and I finally did it. Last Friday I cut off all my hair! This was the final part of my milestone birthday celebration. It's been in the works for a year and a half or so. I decided that I really wanted to donate my hair to Locks of Love and so the growing out began. This also meant I had to take it easy on the hair color. That was very tough. You see, I really like to have fun with my hair. I had a stylist once that used to keep an index card file box for all of her customers so that she could remember exactly what was done to their hair from one visit to the next. She kept teasing me that she was going to have to get one box just for me. We never did the same thing twice. I guess when your hair tends to grow pretty quickly you don't have to worry about "mistakes". So, I have fun with the cut and the color. Let me tell you, I am so sick of black right at the moment. I had my cut picked out since last summer.

Here is my hair two days before the cut. I have never had my hair this long before. It was kinda neat to get to this point:

Getting ready for the big moment. I'm not sure who was more excited me or Jennifer - my wonderful stylist:
The ponytail:
Just after losing the pony and before any styling and coloring began:
All done:

I absolutely love it! I am having so much fun doing different things with it already. This was such a great experience for me.