Briannes turns Eight!!!!

I can't believe I have another girl old enough to get baptized. Brianne turned 8 this December, we had a fun friends birthday party for her a few days before her birthday. She wanted to go to a place called Jump on it for her party. So I let her invite a few of her friends and we all had fun jumping in a room full of trampolines.

For her birthday party I decided to make a doughnut cake. My girls love doughnuts and I hardly ever buy them so it's always a fun treat. Here she is ready to blow out her candles:

Here is the whole group of friends ready to go to Jump on it and have some fun:

Here is Brianne opening her prestents:

We were in Idaho on her Birthday so she got to have a party at Grandma Thorntons house with her cousins. I made a snowman cake for her. I'm not very good at decorating cakes but this one wasn't too hard:

Blowing out her candles:

Opening her presents Kaylee is always jealous because Brianne is around family over her birthday and gets more prestents. I guess having a birthday so close to Christmas isn't all bad.

Lu Lu's Puppies

Lu Lu decided to go and get herself pregnant at the worst possible time. I ended up spending thanksgiving alone while Shaun and the kids went to Idaho for Thanksgiving. And then Lu Lu had the nerve to not even have her puppies while they were gone. So I could have gone after all. I guess hind site is always 20/20. She finally did have her puppies about 5 days later. We were all getting very worried. She was over due and even when she finally did go into labor she waited until the very last hour to have them. If she would have even waited a little bit longer we would have had to bring her into the vet for a c-section. Kaylee came upstairs very worried at 3 in the morning. I guess her worry and tears had an effect on Lu Lu, because after the whole night of staying up and worrying she finally started to have the puppies. Kaylee stayed and watched the first 2 being born and we woke up Brianne for the 3rd. We didn't know if she was done after the 3rd so we sent the girls to bed so they could at least get a little bit of sleep before school. Lu Lu had one more puppy about an hour later. They all were great little puppies, so cute, and we had no trouble selling all of them. We miss them but know they went to good homes. The girls were pretty sad when they had to leave, but now they are asking when we are going to breed Lu Lu again and have more.

Lu Lu with her first born holding it in her arms:

The first three and a very exhausted mother:

All four getting a drink a few hours after being born:

Brother and sister sleeping in each others arms:

Here are some cute photos I got of them that I used for my stock photos:

Reflections 2011

This year the theme for reflections art contest was "Diversity Means..." My girls came up with some good ideas and did really well. In the local level meaning our school Kaylee won first place in Photography and 3-D art. Brianne won first place in Visual Arts and 3-d art.

I was in charge of the program this year on our local level so I go to hand the trophies to my girls.

Kaylee getting her award:

Brianne Getting her award

The whole group of winners:

Both Kaylee and Brianne were excited to find out they had won on district level. Kaylee won for her photography and Brianne won for her painting. Here is the whole group of kids who won on district level.

And then just a few days before Kaylee's Birthday we found out that she had won on Regional level for her photograph. She got to go on to represent our whole region at state level. She didn't end up winning on state level but we were really excited to have gotten that far. The only draw back was the awards ceremony was on her Birthday. Not a very fun birthday party sitting at a boring awards ceremony.

Kaylee getting her award:

Family Photos 2011

We finally got out and did some new family photos. We waited until the last part of October so I was worried the weather was going to be bad. But we have had such a mild year the weather was perfect. I went with my friend Tineka and her family, she took photos of my family and I took photos of hers. They all turned out great.

Sydnie age 4 2011

Brianne age 7 2011

Kaylee age 10 2011

Halloween 2011

This year for Halloween my girls had a hard time deciding what to be, all except for Sydnie. She knew she wanted to be Rapunzel months in advance. She has this purple play dress she wears just about everyday anyway. So really all she needed was a wig and a crown. My girls are growing up they all wanted to go trick or treating alone with their friends this year, I barely had time to snap a few photos of them in their costumes before they rushed out the door.

Sydnie was the only one that went trick or treating with me this year. She and her little friend tia went with me to quite a few houses. It was so warm this year that they were able to go to quite a few houses. Here is Sydnie in her Rapunzel outfit.

Brianne just didn't know what to be this year. It took a little convincing but I finally talked her into being a baby like Kaylee was a few years ago. She looked super cute and I was happy because it was an easy inexpensive costume:

Kaylee's first idea was to be the Queen of Hearts from Alice and Wonderland, I just couldn't figure out how to make a costume, well I probably could have but it would have taken a lot of work and money. So I talked her into being Alice instead. She made a really cute Alice:

And we can't forget about Lu Lu. The girls made her tu tu and I made her witches hat, the shirt was furnished by Build a Bear:

The school hold an annual Halloween parade so the parents can come and see the kids costumes. Here is Brianne with an embarrassed look on her face as usual:

And Kaylee as Alice:

Sydnie wasn't in the parade but insisted on putting on her costume for it anyway:

Shaun carved a few masterpieces this year as usual. This one is Chief Butternut Squash:

And here is "The Big Meanie"

A few weeks before Halloween we went to Idaho to visit family we had a fun Halloween party at Grandma Thorntons house. Here is Hayden, Kaylee, Hannah and Sydnie showing off the cake pop eyes they made. Poor Brianne was so sick that she just laid on the couch the whole time and didn't even feel good enough to carve pumpkins.

Kaylee scooping the guts out of her pumpkin:

Sydnie getting her hands a little messy:

The whole crew and their pumpkins lined up ready for pictures:

Kaylee Joined the Swim Team

Sept 2011

Kaylee has always been a good little swimmer but we were not sure if we were ready to commit to a swim team. I signed her up for the last class they offer for swim lessons and she passed with flying colors and was recommended by her teacher to try the swim team. I talked to the coaches and had her try out and we decided that it was time to give it a try. She has loved it, she doesn't even mind having to go to practice 3 times a week and even goes before or stays after some days just for fun. Her coaches say she has excellent form and her coach even pulled me aside one day and told me that her freestyle stroke was one of the best she has seen. She still needs to work on speed, but that will come after she builds up endurance and perfects her dives and flip turns. Recently she just got made captain of her team, she gets to lead the class in warm-ups and in their cheers at swim meets.

Kaylee at practice doing warm-ups with the kick board:

Kaylee at her very first swim meet, here she is taking the platform:

Take your mark:

Go! She did pretty well for her first meet, she was so nervous that she would get disqualified but she did just fine.

Sydnies first Swim Lessons

While Kaylee is at her swim meet practice Sydnie and Brianne get to take swim lessons. This was Sydnies first ever swim lesson. We lucked out because most of her class didn't show up the whole week and so pretty much had private lessons the whole time. She did really well and wasn't afraid of anything. She even advanced to the next class on her first try. She is already able to swim quite far underwater using arm movement. I think she is going to be our next little swimmer of the family.

Here she is cheesing it up for the camera:

Working on her front float:

And her back float:

Showing me how she can dip her head underwater, she is just coming up for air. She must have showed me about 20 times hoping I would take her picture:

This little girl isn't afraid of anything, even Kaylee was afraid to stick her head all the way in the water like this at her age.

The Exciting World of Micro Stock

Just a quick post today. I haven't posted in so long and I am so behind. I hope to get caught up soon. I have been really busy lately. I decided to start into stock photography, it has been really time consuming, I have been spending most of my free time away from being a mom into taking and editing photos for stock.

For those of you who don't know what stock is let me give a brief explaination. Companies who need photos for presentations, brochures, magazine articles and advertisements will use a stock company to find the image they need. They can search through millions of images to find the one that is just right for what they are doing. They pay the company to have limited use of the photo and that company pays me a portion. They don't own the photo but have the right to use it, so one photo can be used many times by many different companies. Even hundreds of times if it is a really popular photo.

I have reached my first two mile stones and thought I would share a link to my portfolio so you could see what I have been up to. My first two milestones reached are: #1: I have 100 photos approved in my portfolio (all photos must pass a review and be accepted, if they don't feel like the photo has commercial value or is of poor quality they won't accept it) #2 I have sold over 100 images so far, seems like a lot until you remember I only get between .25 and $25 per photo and I hardly ever get the $25 mostly just between .25 and 2.00 per image. My goal by the end of the year is to have around 1000 photos in my portfolio. It will be a lot of work but by then I should be able to slow down a bit and should be able to see a return of several $100 dollars per month. So wish me luck, here is the link to my portfolio you can see all the photos I have been working of for the past month and a half:

My shutterstock portfolio

I probably won't be posting my photos on here anymore, except just my family snapshots, people steal photos from blogs like this all the time and I don't want to have to take the time to watermark everything. So keep checking back I will post a link to my portfolio on my sidebar so you can see what I have been up to lately.