Hot Hot HOT Springs...

Like, these springs would boil you alive! (Too graphic? Sorry.)

But dang are they stunning! The colors were absolutely breathtaking (and not just because of the muggy steam the springs were producing... which was kind of nasty sometimes.)

A lot of the springs at Yellowstone National Park were intimidating, actually. It made me nervous to think of all the damage it would cause if someone got careless (maybe that's just the paranoid mama side of me).

However, I'm so glad we took the detour to see them! Wow. Wow. Wow!

Big Choices & Beautiful Children

 

Remember back in December when I did the giveaway for a a free photo shoot?! Well, the Orr Family won it and here you see their darling children. They decided not to do family photos and instead wanted pictures of their Emily & Kieten! Totally worked for me!

Sweet Emily has decided to be baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and by the time this posts, she will have been! Her mom wanted some pictures of Emily for her baptism announcements and she even made that dress! (If you could actually see me, you would notice I'm a little green with envy... both because I wish I had that talent and I wish I had that DRESS!!! It's amazing!)

What a beautiful young girl she is growing into! It was so much fun to watch her twirl and giggle and get her perfectly styled hair a little messy (mostly it was wind blown, it happened to be one of those days, of course), but her faithful example shined in every one of her pictures! She is a doll.

And I think Kieten's images say it all. What. A. Stud! That momma has her hands full with such gorgeous kids!

Precious Eternity

My aunt was sealed in the LDS Temple to her husband and their son in July and wanted some pictures for the very special occasion.

It was a fun, easy going photo shoot at a beautiful park and what a beautiful time of year! Everything was so green and they are so happy it just radiates throughout all of their images!

AAAHHH I just love this family!

Can I PLEASE....

Can I PLEASE just go back and dive into that water and soak up the sun and watch my boys have the time of their lives?!?! Just for a day at least... (but preferably much, much longer!)

A lot of catching up to do...

I admit it, I have been neglecting this blog.

Actually, I have been neglecting all of my blogs.

I have many images to share, so be patient with me. I'm not going to post them all at once (your welcome). So in an effort to stay slightly organized around here, I will set up a series of posts to share throughout the next week or two... some are organized photo sessions, but most of them will be my favorite images of the summer. I am trying to branch out like that. We'll see how it goes.

We went to Kaua'i for 6 weeks back in May/June. It was heavenly (as it should be). My dad owns SNUBA Tours of Kaua'i, so of course we had to play with the fishies! This is my 5 year old. He was getting in touch with his "roots" while we were there (check out that shakka!).

Please excuse the interruption in our regular programming… {Angry Birds Birthday Party}

My oldest turned 5. FIVE, people! (Those of you who have multiple children over the age of 5 may go ahead and roll your eyes, or patronizingly grin at me).  Either way, it  kind of blow my mind (or “blows up my mind” as the said 5 year old would say.) I’m not super crafty or creative but since discovering Pinterest, my self-esteem and courage in these departments has gone up… like… a ton. So here are some ideas I found for the chosen theme of “Angry Birds” (it’s what he wanted, and I was blown away at  all the ideas I found!)

Disclaimer: Please do not judge my photography by these straight-out-of-the-crappy-phone-camera-pictures! I don’t even own a decent phone camera. Shameful. (ha.)

After the boys went to bed, Cam and I blew up all these balloons and put them in his room to wake up to (big hit!)

 

Using this template, I traced angry bird faces out, the boys colored them, I cut them out and they helped me tape them on. We hung these up with ribbon with the streamers (not pictured, so use your pretty imaginations!) No, that is NOT on his head, he is holding it in front of his face as if an angry bird (phew, glad I clarified!)

All of the angry bird balloons and a home made pinata on the left, ( I used this one for inspiration)

My budget wasn’t extensive so we got some stickers and let him make goodie bags for each of his friends. Peeeerfect!

 

And the cake pops. Oh, the cake pops! I’ve never  made them before. In fact, I have never worked with white almond bark, candy melts or fondant for that matter! It was pretty much Intricate Cake Pops for dummies. If you want to know what I now know, leave a comment with your email and I will personally send you the lessons learned (yes, I wrote them up because they were that extensive!) To sum it up, they were positively delicious. But only 4 of 17 were slightly cute or survived. Notice the green one in the back falling off the stick? Yeah…. and the blue ones were going to be birds… and I didn’t even bother taking any shots of the red ones…. LOL… I’m laughing to myself just thinking about the red ones… oh boy.

Anyway, these four pigs survived (ironically!) which was perfect because he had 4 friends over (we keep it simple around here) and each got to take one home. I didn’t get a shot of  the simple cake with a fondant pig  head on it… LOL… oh boy… that just sounds wrong!

Anyway! Cam bought some Angry Bird dog toys from Wal-Mart. The kids build structures with small boxes, placed the toy piggies and all threw their squeaky  angry bird at the structure. They did that most of the party, it was awesome entertainment for everyone! We even had a slingshot but it was broken during intensive practice before the  party…

Angry Birds Birthday Party gets a 5out of 5 stars from me! The guys and the girls had a blast!