San Francisco

Since we're working over our supposed 'vacation' this christmas, I figured I would take a break in between editing weddings and post some images I should have put up a long time ago. These are a few pictures from a wedding we did in San Francisco this summer. I've needed to post them for ages - it was such an amazing event. Ben and Lela were married in the botanical gardens at Berkley, surrounded by huge Redwood trees. WOW. It was absolutely gorgeous!

Pregnancy Update

For the few of you who actually read this... I thought I would give an update on the baking of baby #2. We have decided to name her Leighton Michelle, if you were wondering. And yes, there is method to our madness at picking out such a different name! As you can see with Kylan, we like names that stand out. Leighton is actually the last name of the grandfather that Matt grew up with. We both come from multi-generational homes, and I have to say that growing up with a grandparent living in your home is VERY cool as a kid. Papa was the one that got matt hooked on cars and cooking... they were extremely close, so when the opportunity came up to use the name, we jumped at it. Plus, it is the only girls name that we could agree on! :) Michelle is actually after my mom, who passed away when I was little, so of course that one was a no-brainer. 

I am feeling pretty good, VERY tired, but good. You forget how much energy it takes just to be pregnant, not even doing anything like working, school, chasing a toddler..... Plus, this kid is doing ballet already, which is nothing short of uncomfortable and downright terrifying! I am so worried I am going to be in a lot of pain from her pirouettes in another month! My youngest brother actually broke my step-mom's rib, so that doesn't comfort me much!

I am getting bigger by the day and I think I look like I swallowed a pumpkin. Matt is really great about my deteriorating self-image and has made it a point to get me new shirts several times over the last few weeks. It is amazing what a new shirt can do!!

We are still crazy busy as we try to finish up all of our loose ends before we take off for christmas, I am hoping I don't have to work while we attempt to take a vacation. Unfortunately I don't think I'm that lucky. :)

Randall Family

Once again it is Christmas Card season... I thought fall would be slower for us with the end of wedding season since we really don't advertise for family shoots. But we have been just as crazy as ever, and have had a blast doing it! The Randalls were so much fun to photograph. I love Rachael because she wanted us to capture her kids as they really are, and we got some really fun shots!! We also had puppies at the time we did their pictures, and they made for GREAT bribery for a smile from Eli...

Instead of managing to choose less than 20 favorites to post I thought I would put up the Christmas Cards I designed for them instead. The last one was the one they chose. 

Indian Wedding

We had the opportunity recently to do an Indian wedding! WOW. That really sums it up. I can't even begin to tell you how much I wish ALL my brides could wear RED! Simmi was absolultely gorgeous. Her huge brown eyes and to-die-for full lips really showcased the color and gave her a dramatic effect that was nothing shy of STUNNING. The details of the jewelry, the henna and the embroidery on her dress were just breathtaking. We took a lot of extra time just to do more bridal pictures of her in-suite when she was done getting ready. She was so beautiful and such a unique bride that I just couldn't stop taking pictures! I was a little dissapointed that she and her husband changed in to "regular" clothes for their bride and groom pictures and their reception at the Venetian, but on the other hand I completely understand. It was hard enough for her to walk down the aisle in all that, can you even imagine walking down the strip?!  

CRAZY weekend!

Matt has two cousins, brothers actually, that both just happened to fall for girls from vegas - and got married ON THE SAME WEEKEND! Their poor mother! The friday wedding we not only photographed, but coordinated as well. Boy am I glad I have done a few of these in the last 8 years! :) Matt's parents and brother stayed with us, which is always fun. Kylan got a bunch of new toys and a temperature of 103. Never fun having a sick kid. AND, we found out that Kylan will be getting a little SISTER in february! Her name will be Leighton Michelle, and we are just thrilled. 

I really need to post some pics of the many shoots we have been doing. We have just been so busy I haven't gotten around to it. *sigh* well, this will probably NOT be the week for it anyway, with tests and moving it is going to be a little nuts....

Die Hard Twilight Fan

I am not ashamed to admit, I am a huge Twilight fan. Matt is not as much of a fan, as soon as I pick up a good book I don't resurface for hours - or more often days at a time. But, for the most part, he supports my little reading addiction. :) I hope to one day write a book myself, but with life as crazy as it is that dream has been put on the shelf and is readily collecting dust. It irks me to no end that a 'friend' of hers would post an unfinished copy of her next book online. Rough ideas are just that - rough, unrefined, and a bad representation of what her work really is. It would be like posting pictures where we were checking lighting or in the middle of adjusting settings that would eventually lead to getting a really cool effect - it just doesn't work. While the end result is usually awesome, the stuff in between is often not. Personally, I hope Stephanie will eventually get back on the horse, shake off those that made her miserable, and see how many people there are out there that adore her and her work. It's hard to have people tell you your work isn't good enough, or exploit your ideas. But, I won't read the book online. I will wait until I have my hard-bound copy with its pretty black and red dust jacket to join the rest before I open it. As an artist (in a different genre, obviously) I just won't do that to her. I just hope she doesn't keep us waiting too long!

Walking, Stairs and Laundry

Kylan LOVES laundry, of all things. Lately I have gone into his room in the morning to this: He has managed to get the laundry out of his hamper, into his crib, and then throws it on the floor. He LOVES to throw things...


Somehow he got ahold of a sheet and did his very first Superman impression! Since he couldn't quite tie it around his neck, well, I guess his head would do!



This is what happens when I do laundry if Kylan is awake. He ends up INSIDE the basket, and somehow the clothes end up on the OUTSIDE. He is great at UNfolding clothes... I wish we could teach him the other way around!

This was funny... He managed to het himself inside his hamper and then couldn't figure out how to get out!!





Other Updates: Kylan is officially WALKING! He has taken a step here or there, but in the last few days has really gotten the hang of it! His favorite thing: take a toy from the toybox, walk as far as he can toward the top of our stairs (fall if needed depending on how big the toy is and crawl the rest of the way) and throw the toy down the stairs. If the baby gate is up, which is extra high, he somehow manages to stand on his tip-toes and throw the toy over. When he is done, walk as far as he can toward the toybox and repeat the process... He gets a real kick out of it. It's kind of funny. It's not so funny when he throws his bottle over the gate and it leaks all over the stairs.

Kylan LOVES our dogs. The other day he spent the entire day playing with Chloe, our big weimerauner. He has figured out that I freak out when he plays in the dogs water dish. So he will very slyly crawl over to it and then laugh uncontrollably as he slaps his hands in the water waiting for me to come roaring after him and rush him to the sink and scrub his hands. I don't know if it's the water or me freaking out that he finds funner!

He is such a cute kid. We are really having a blast with him! He does the funniest things and definitely keeps us on our toes. Especially now that he has discovered the stairs!

Busted....

I had my 15 week appointment today and was totally busted my my doctor!! I have lost 5 pounds since my last visit, 13 pounds total... There's not much I can do about the morning sickness, which is finally subsiding, but I was definitely in trouble! It was kind of funny. Next visit we get to find out what we're having!

Happy Birthday Kylan!!

Kylan's birthday was on the 9th. I can't believe my little boy is already "the big 1"! It is amazing how big they get so fast. I just love him to pieces and think he is the cutest thing on earth... of course. :) For his birthday we just kept it small. I love making cakes (I actually made my wedding cake for our second reception in Denver). It is something I have loved doing for ages, and I have made more than my share... I had big plans for Kylan's cake, of course. It was a football field, and I was going to make the Bronco's logo out of Marzipan to put in the middle, and do all kinds of cool piping. But, life gets crazy, and not only could I not find my piping stuff, we had a much busier weekend than anticipated. So, here is the end result. Unfortunately.

Luckily Matt convinced me to make it a small family thing. Since I am still doing dishes from it I am very glad he talked me into that. He made Fajitas, which were amazing, and during dinner, of course, I ended up loosing everything I had eaten... Again - VERY glad we just made it a family thing!! My sister, who has been trying to have a baby for quite some time, looked at her husband and said "We've been praying for THAT for 10 years?!" :) VERY embarrassing.... But, all in all the party went well. We just hung out and watched the olympics. Here are a few pics from the evening.

Our family that came to celebrate
 
 
He wasn't sure what to think of the cake at first, but he enjoyed it once I helped him get started!


Kylan loves to clap, so when we clapped after singing to him, he joined in!


Kylan and Aunt Candace, after a BATH! It is amazing - even after the bath he was still sticky!


My dad always sings the "who let the dogs out" song to Kylan. Well, now Ky does the "who, who, who" part. It is SO funny. Here he is singing with grandpa.

Saved by extenuating circumstances

My aunt and her kids are moving here from Texas this weekend. They got one of those moving pod thingys and I was supposed to be at my grandparent's house (where they will be staying) at noon to show the guy where the pod was supposed to go. Well, 6:30 this morning my phone rings and of course I'm not going to answer it. No sane person should ever be up that early. Then around 9 or so I get a call from my aunt. Apparently the random call I got was the pod people, they were delivering the thing and she ended up guiding them over the phone to where the pod was supposed to go.

It was a rough morning. I have finally figured out what I can and can't eat in the morning to keep things down. So I thought I was completely safe when I washed and cut up my peach. My mistake. Peach is NOT pleasant coming back up, especially after you've had to keep it down because you are waging war against the ants attacking your house. Not pleasant, to say the least. It always takes a lot out of me, so needless to say I felt like garbage.

At around 12:30 I was going to be doing a photoshoot at my grandparents house, where I was supposed to be helping put that pod thing in the right place. My friend Ashley is due in just a few weeks and we wanted to do some Maternity pictures of her. We were also going to do a few of her son, who just turned one a few months ago. We photographed her wedding, her son's 6 month pictures, and family pictures in the interim. We were supposed to do Maternity pictures for her first baby, but we were in Utah and they were here in Las Vegas so it just never worked out. I was so exited to finally do these for her! I have always wanted to put together an album that goes from engagements to wedding to maternity to family. But, back on subject.... I got a call from Ashley this morning. Her son got a black eye yesterday rough-housing with a cousin, so his pictures were out. And she was going into labor! Needless to say, we will be doing newborn pictures in a couple of days instead of maternity... 

Definitely a crazy morning.

When it rains it POURS!!

Our pest-control guy came and sprayed our house on Tuesday for our routine stuff. They come every couple months and we haven't had too many problems so far. But, by Wednesday afternoon the island in my kitchen where my sink is was being thronged by about 50 ants! I freaked out and called the exterminator. They had someone come out first thing Thursday morning to kill our little intruders. Well, instead of killing them (as I was hoping) he sprayed the baseboards and put his little ant bait goop here and there. Unfortunately for us he was no match for the ants! He said it would be better in a day or two, but they had to bring the bait back to the colony. Ok, now that part I get. But the guy wasn't smart enough to look in the cabinet and find the source. Where he sprayed and baited there weren't even ants!! I got home from class last night to find our counter completely swarmed with them! (we progressively kept cleaning them off and dousing our counter in ammonia) I decided to give it a night to let the bait do its job. Stupid move on my part. We got up this morning and I swear an entire colony of these things was ON TOP OF MY COUNTER! Hundreds, literally! I went to the store and bought some Raid. Hooray for Killing on Contact! I also bought and laid the bait traps that they have at the store. It's sad when a sick pregnant lady can do a better job than a 'trained expert'. *ugh* Anyone know a good exterminator? Looks like we will be switching ASAP!

The worst part about the ants? Kylan's birthday is tomorrow so we will be having family over on Sunday for dinner, cake and ice cream... And the ants aren't exactly helping with my morning sickness!! 

PIZZA!

Well, not-so-surprisingly enough, Kylan LOVES pizza! Considering we had pizza 3 times a week during my last trimester of pregnancy with him, it isn't exactly a shock. (He also likes pickles, another craving I had.) But boy was it cute when he was eating it! I was attempting to be a good parent, feeding him the veggie-filled baby food as we chowed down on the extra cheese and crazy bread. But then Matt gave him a bite of his pizza, and... well, Ky ate almost an entire piece all by himself! Call me crazy, but I think he liked it!

No thanks, Mom. I'll do it MYSELF.

Kylan is now in the wonderful world of exploration and realizing that he can do a lot of things for himself. In my opinion he gets a little carried away sometimes. Here are a few from the last few days that have kept me on my toes.

You wanted to feed me dinner mom? No thanks, I'll do it myself.
In fact, I don't want babyfood. I will just spit it out all over my onesie.

I'll just have bananas, thanks.

I want that thing in the bookshelf that I know you don't want me to get into. So I won't ask you to get it for me - I'll just GET INSIDE the bookshelf and get it myself.

Why would I need help getting out?!
I can do it myself!!

Kylan LOVES the window. I am sure he would love being outside if we actually had grass and it wasn't 200 degrees outside... But the back of the couch is his window-seat and he has a grand ol' time.

Don't worry, Mom! I can get out of the window by myself!

Oh, you wanted to take my picture?!?! I can do that by myself, too!!

Oh, the joys of parenthood!!!

Another Robbery Rant

So, we finally 'finished' cleaning up the remnants of the robbery yesterday. It is always so much fun attempting to put things back together again when they aren't yours and you don't know how they were supposed to be to begin with. (just a HINT of sarcasm....) I brought my dog along, even though my husband and my sister were there, and my dad for a little while, it still freaked me out a bit being in that big house with so many hiding places. On my other blog my friend Natalie posted a comment remembering one of our notorious games of hide-and-seek - it took us a good twenty minutes to find her one time, and everyone there was looking for her!! She finally started banging on the walls until we found her!

The house wasn't completely trashed. Just my grandparents room and their den. That clean up took us what seemed like forever. Can you imagine if they had trashed more?! The funniest part about it is the things they took and the things they left. They left probably $30 or more in stray bills and change, but they took the title to an old car my grandparents don't even have anymore. The entire thing was just strange. I am honestly surprised they didn't spend more time going through things more thoroughly. But when I had stopped by Monday to bring in the mail I noticed a closet was open and I thought I heard a toilet flush. Mind you, the house is really old and makes all kinds of noises so I wasn't TOO terrified, but I had a feeling I needed to get out of there fast... but Matt thinks I probably interrupted them. At this point I have to say I agree. The thought of it just makes me shiver! But now the entire neighborhood is aware and the house is being watched 'by professionals' so that gives me a little more peace of mind. There are several of us stopping by a few times a day, but honestly unless they plan on moving a grand piano out the front doors, by themselves, without being noticed by the entire neighborhood, there's not much to steal. Our family is so sentimental. Looking for valuables they will find pictures and journals, old dresses my grandmother hand-made for dances, weddings and plays over the last 30 years, cabbage patch dolls trashed with the same 30 years of kids and grand kids, and old report cards. I actually found my last Senior report card in the clean up! Even the furniture they have had since before I was born, out of pure nostalgia. 

Anyway - the entire thing baffles me. It is so funny that the things we prize the most are the things that are of no monetary value. I sincerely doubt that all of our wedding pictures hung in the dining room would get a good price at a pawn shop... 

Keeping the blog personal - AND TERRIFYING

I have been such a slacker on this blog lately, and I have been terrible about our family blog too, www.krystalyandmatt.blogspot.com, (but that's nothing new) and it just reminded me about the goal we had in the first place to keep this blog more personal. So, here is our little adventure from last night.... It was a doosey.

I stopped by my grandparent's house last night to pick up the mail only to find that their house had been broken into! I had taken the trash cans up from the curb and walked around the back and found the back door kicked in... *ugh* they are the most giving people I have ever met. That this would happen to them of all people is just heart breaking. I called my aunt/sister (it's complicated - but not wiered. Promise.) who is in charge of watching the house and I called the cops. I wasn't crazy enough to go in there by myself!! I was a kid in this house - I know that there are TONS of places to hide, some you would never be found in! Friends of mine from college will attest - we had many very crazy games of hide-and-go-seek there - even as adults!! The cops had to go and we had to wait for the processing unit to come. So, I called my dad! Having been in law enforcement for years and being a very large and scary looking man, who else would I call?! He and my brother and, of course, my darling husband all came to the rescue (baby in-tow might I add). We were there til about 2 am... (needless to say I have a very cranky child). It just breaks my heart to see that. It is such a scary thing. It scares me to be in that house alone even still, and i'm 25 - even when it hasn't been broken into! *sigh* but, so be it, and all we can do is go from here. And maybe buy them a pit-bull or two... :)

Greek Wedding

Jennie and Dan were a fantastic couple who came all the way from Chicago. We got to photograph Jennie in her suite at the Flamingo while she was getting ready, and her jitters were just darling. They had a traditional Greek Orthodox wedding, which was absolutely amazing. Their pictures and their party were at the Flamingo. I won't call it a reception because that word won't do it justice. If you have ever been to a Greek wedding you would know - those Greeks know how to PARTY! I would do a Greek wedding every weekend for a month! Bottom line, it was an amazing wedding with a ridiculously fun couple. We took over 4,000 pictures - I think that sums up what a fantastic wedding it was.