CURED! The fever is gone

That baby fever of which I spoke yesterday? GONE!

This kid is the cure:



Brielle insisted on wearing her socks on her *hands* this morning, and then went around getting mad when she couldn't open doors or play with toys. She'd stand at a door SCREAMING "I can't open it---it's too slippery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"   Ya think?!

Then we were 10 minutes late to gymnastics because she was in the bathroom having a meltdown and rolling around on the floor by the toilet...b/c everyone time I tried to pull her pants up she said she had more pee. She didn't, but she was fucking with my mind. After at least 4 attempts to sufficiently empty her bladder I put her in timeout in the bathroom ---the public bathroom at gymnastics. Yeah, awesome parenting moment there haha.

So needless to say, Lee is getting a vasectomy when he gets home from work today :-P

In other news, we had Raya's conferences last night...she's doing great! She's a good friend and the teacher said she was one of only 5ish kids in the class who knows letter sounds. Raya knows her upper and lower case letters and a majority of letter sounds (she doesn't know all the vowel sounds etc.)....but the teacher said she only bothered testing about 5 kids in the class on the sounds b/c the others don't know them at all (and they aren't expected to know them either). The teacher said she thinks Raya will do great in kindergarten and is the type of kid who takes pride in her work and she is excited to do "homework" and anything school related. A people pleaser. Responsible. Etc. etc.

WAY TO GO RAYA!

She also said Raya is definitely BFFs with her friend Lilly. The other day Lilly's mom posted this picture on my facebook page


She said she went into Lilly's room and Lilly had taped Raya's Valentine under her lightswitch HAHAHA...isn't that the cutest thing ever? And Raya was just recently invited to Lilly's birthday party next month---her first friend birthday party---she is over the moon excited.


Random pic---this is the girls from Tuesday---isn't Harper looking so much older than Brielle lately? She's only 4 month's older! Brielle has such baby thin hair and is so short compared to Harper



Lastly, thanks for all the sweet comments on my pics I posted yesterday! I can't believe how much my photography has improved in the last two years. I got my camera two years ago this spring.

This was one of the very first pictures I took with it and I was so proud of how "good" it was! haha


This one too haha


And two years later after lots of practice my pictures look like this!

I wish I could tell ya all some magic tip about my photos---the photography for dummies post I did awhile back is one of my most pinned and viewed posts of all time so I know many people are interested in it! But honestly, the best thing to do, beside investing in a DSLR camera, is to simply practice practice practice! Shoot in manual mode (don't do auto---just take the plunge and switch that bad boy over to manual mode right away!) and then take pictures every day. Slowly but surely you'll see improvement. I've never taken a single photography class---not even in school. And I didn't have anyone in my family showing me how to do it or anything either. Just decided it was something I liked doing and started doing it. YOU CAN DO IT TOO!!! :-)


Happy Friday everyone---hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend!

Baby Fever

Had an adorable newborn in my studio today---he may have given me a little baby fever! lol. Pretty happy with how these turned out! :-)  His name was August---how cute

Beating the cold weather blues!

FREEZING here today. School was delayed due to the cold weather, but Raya already didn't have preschool today due to an inservice.

We are going to try beating the cold weather blues though by dressing cute, and going into town to hunt for some new photography props! The girls are going to be my adorable little assistants. I have 3 sessions scheduled this week and I'm wanting some new things!

Aren't they cute?



I found Brielle's dress at Kohls on the 85% off rack for like $2 ....its only a 2T but she's so tiny it works! Chaps brand I think....super soft knit and reminded me a little of Matilda Jane so I thought she could wear it with ruffle pants or something. But then I found these Gymboree footless tights we already had, and a Walmart plain shirt, and suddenly we had an adorable outfit!

Sorry Kovu, you can't come hehe



Raya is wearing a Naartjie top and hat, old navy skirt, and kohls footless tights. I'd definitely prefer this top with jeggings or something, but since she won't wear jeans we'll go with the next best thing haha






Happy hump day! Warm weather, please come sooon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cat Convert

You may remember that back around Thanksgiving we adopted two adolescent cats. Up until that point neither Lee or I had ever had an indoor cat in our lives! In general I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of cats---the litter box and especially the cat hair---turned me off. We have always been more dog people.

But the girls LOVE cats and we decided to give them a shot mostly for that reason. And guess what?

I am a cat convert!!

Seriously, they are soooo easy....and I'm all about easy lol.

My favorite is the boy, Kovu. He's got the personality of a dog and is completely attached to me. He follows me around and must be cuddling me at all times if I'm sitting down. He's playful and not at all stand off-ish like you think of when you think of cats. He's well behaved and really the only trouble I've ever had with him is if we leave dirty dishes on the counter and he's hungry then he'll jump up there. Can't really fault him that haha. And he doesn't shed! I swear, like an occasional stray hair is all. The litter box I change every 2 days or so, which is much less annoying than a dog that needs to be let out multiple times a day. All in all Kovu is just the coolest! :-)

The girl, Kiara, is tolerable haha. She's  very friendly and well behaved with the girls, but doesn't have quite the personality of Kovu....and she *does* shed like a typical cat. Still not as annoying as I thought by any means though. From a work standpoint I'd take multiple cats over one dog any day lol.

So there you go---if you've been on the fence about owning a cat I would say take the plunge! For some reason they intimidated me since I'd never had one but they've definitely been great for our family--I'm a lazy pet owner so cats fit the bill :-)

On another note, Brielle dressed herself yesterday lol

 

She went through multiple headbands...the girl loves to accessorize :-P

Happy Tuesday!

Spring Fever---Fashion edition!

Spring fever has hit me---big time! I am about 2 days away from angrily packing up all the girls' winter clothes haha. I want pastels and short sleeves and sandals!!

Here are a few places where I'm loving spring fashions this year.

First, NEXT direct

 Cute little mouse set (sorry these pics are so small, can't figure out why. Head over to the website to look around and see more cuteness though!)
 Love yellow....this ruffle yellow skirt is calling Raya's name
 Pastel pink and peplum style? Yes please!



Also loving Matilda Jane lately. You'll be seeing a lot more of this brand in our spring/summer wardrobe! Here are just a few things I love from them!  (I continued to buy most of my Matilda Jane used---check out the facebook boards!)








I'm also loving another boutique brand, KPea ---they have fun "themed" dresses.  (I buy this brand used on facebook as well!)


This is one dress I actually bought---can you say CUTE?! Going to do a photoshoot with it and use it for my photography business, since the dress has cameras all over it :-)



Still like Gymboree too of course! Here are some things from their spring lines







And also Naartjie---lots of cute spring stuff over there right now!

 

  I'll do a part 2 another day---still have lots more brands I love haha  :-)

Sister Saturday, Week 8

(Grandma is taking the girls today and keeping them overnight---she requested that they be dressed especially cute. Check!)  <3