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.

Happy Birthday Sydnie!!!

Well as usual I am behind on my posts. But this very long post will officially catch me up. Starting with most recent first. My little Sydnie turned 4! I can't believe my little baby is already 4.

Sydnie has been such a fun little girl that I get to call mine. She is so loving and full of smiles and laughter. Even when she gets in trouble, which she does her fair share of the time, she tries to soften things by laughing or smiling, truth is sometimes it works, certainly better than crying and throwing a fit would. She is so generous with her hugs and compliments. Of course I have to laugh when she tells me I look beautiful when I am dressed up in one of my crazy outfits for contest photos, but I'll take it anyway. When I brought the balloons home for her birthday party she ran up to me and said "Thanks Mom! You are the BEST" then she grabs my hand and and yanks on it and says "Mom, I need to give you a hug" It's times like that I wonder where this little girl comes from.

Some fun things about Sydnie at 4 years old is: She loves penguins, she has penguin stuffed animals penguin books, penguin figures, penguin movies and even has a special penguin walk she does. She wants to be a penguin for Halloween but I am trying to talk her out of it because I already bought a Rapunzel outfit. She also loves Rapunzel but not quite as much as penguins so we will see if I can change her mind. Sydnie also loves the color orange, she always has since the time she was little, she even had a special name for the color, wish I could remember it, I think I wrote it down somewhere but I can't find it. Anyway she loves anything orange and if she had her way she would wear the color orange everyday.

We had a family birthday party and went to Artic Circle to celebrate and play on the toys. When we got home we opened presents and she blew the candles out on her Penguin birthday cake.

Sydnie opening her presents

Yay! a Rapunzel doll

And a cute little dog from Grandma:

A few days earlier we had a friends birthday party for her. She invited 3 of her cute friends and we went to a place called Kangaroo Zoo. They have a bunch of blow up slides and bounce houses the girls had a great time running around for an hour.

When we got home we had pizza and blew out the candles on a donut cake made with Orange donuts.


Sydnie with her cute friends and two sisters


Josh and Jenny come to visit

We had a surprise visit from Shaun's brother Josh and his family. And as always we had a great time with them. We drove to Strawberry reservoir to take them cray fishing. The trout were biting that afternoon, each of the girls had a chance to reel one in.

The girls checking out their catch:

Sydnies turn to reel one in:

Thanksgiving Point

We have had some really pleasant weekend and have taken advantage of them by doing some fun things with the girls. One weekend we went to Thanksgiving points petting zoo.

Riding the horse drawn wagon:

Feeding the goats:

And of course riding the horses, here is Kaylee she chose the largest horse:

And Brianne, she might have chosen this one because his bridal matches her shirt:

And Sydnie chose the littlest horse and had a great time!

State Fair

The weekend before that we went to Utah's state fair. The girls had fun riding a ride and looking at the animals. One of the highlights was a mother pig that had just had babies. There is nothing cuter than a baby pig, and nothing uglier than a mother pig:

The girls at the fair they each got to chose one ride Sydnie chose the merry go round.

Sydnie Starts Preschool

I am still behind on posts. Sydnie actually started preschool a couple weeks ago, but I am still playing catch up. This is Sydnies first year of preschool. She is almost 4 but since she has a September birthday and won't go to kindergarten for 2 years I decided not to send her last year. So far she is loving preschool, she is learning to write her name and learning her numbers and ABC's.

Here is Sydnie all dressed up for her first day.

And a close-up of this cute face

Here she is with her friend Tia that goes to preschool with her. By this time they were pretty much done with posing and I couldn't get a cute one of them together. So this will have to do.

Wedding Visitors

My Nephew Sean got married a few weeks ago and we had family come in town for the reception. The reception was Friday night at my brother Mikes house. We had fun seeing everyone. My Mom and Dad and sisters Nancy and Laura were there and even my brother Greg and his family were there from Colorado. It was fun to visit everyone at the reception.

I had fun taking some pictures of my nephew and his wife during the reception, but before the reception started I practiced by taking some of my own kids. My brother Mikes fountain is always a temptation for the kids. My girls managed to stay dry for a little while. But once the rest of the cousins got there they gave up trying to stay dry and managed to get completely soaked.

Sydnie testing the waters, it all starts with just a toe right?

I just thought this was cute of Sydnie, even though she has purple lollipop all over her face:

Brianne getting a bit more daring in the water fall


I just loved this side view of Brianne.

Ah ha! That is where the purple stains all over her face came from!

Kaylee on Mike's swing set

And the happy couple:

My sister Nancy and her family stayed the weekend at our house. Saturday was a beautiful day. We got up and decided to do a little hike on a path by our neighborhood.

Shaun found a Horny Toad, he always manages to find things like this when we are hiking. Kaylee is the brave one that held him first

Then Hayden gave it a try:

Even Sydnie decided to hold it:

At first Brianne didn't want to hold him so we let him go. Then she decided she really did want to hold it so Shaun caught it again and I snapped a picture of her holding it.

Later that day we headed out to Strawberry Reservoir. Nancy and her family had never been crayfishing with us before so we thought it would be fun for her kids to try.

When Chloe saw the water she had to get right in. She spent most of her time at Strawberry in her diaper


Hayden and Kaylee looking for the crayfish

Brianne and Sydnie throwing their lines in:

Sydnie got daring toward the end and started trying to pick them up.

Hannah loved crayfishing, both her and Hayden wouldn't stop even after it started raining.