it counts.

today me and lucy played a game.
it was called guess what animal I am


I'll start...
j: i start with b, i'm black, and i'm blind
l: A BAT!


ok you go...


l: I start with j
j: jackrabbit?
l: nope
j: giraffe (she's only 5)
l: noooooo (but smarter than i thought)
j: jack russel terrier?
l: ok its jrrr


completely. impossibly. stumped.


j: i dont know, what are you?
l: A JRAGON!


ah, mystery solved.

Where I like to be

It's no secret, my kids dress themselves.

Sunday is no exception.

I can't deny I was a little surprised upon exiting the vehicle when I discovered lucy's Sunday shoe of choice...


oh yeah. We wear combats boots to church AAAAAALLLLLLLLLL the time. haha! Sometimes I think Chad gets bugged at how little I care what my kids wear. He tells me like it's a travesty and I just kinda shrug and move on with life.

It's really of no consequence.

But I should have known then that lucy was in firecracker mode.

chitter-chatter, snicker sniff laugh... getting louder and louder and LOUDER.

Finally about half way through I leaned over to Lu and first gave her the look... followed by a little hey, you can play as long as you don't make noise. You think you can do that?

to which she responded by leaning forward, pulling her arms back in tight fists, closed her eyes and wrinkled her nose up then squeezed out a smelly little blast of gas which echoed off those dang metal chairs we were cursed to sit on for an hour.

Uh gee thanks.

haha. Not gonna lie. We probably laughed for a good five minutes after that. Not super reverent if you ask me.

What's not to love????...



I rest my case.

p.s.- it's my sister's birthday. Happy birthday Lolo!!!! love you :) !!!

A good little citizen of the United States of America!

As I was loading these pictures up I was eating cheesecake. I was like cheese... cheese... something about cheese.

and then I remembered what I had planned to post today. Plans change. Cheese will have to wait.

Unless you want me to tell you about how I once made a cheesecake that tasted exactly like cheese.

It was gross. Thats all there really is to that story.

...


Lucy finally got to start school today! She looks pretty excited don't you think?

no?

Um yeah no. BUT she did admit to having fun after the fact. We have been having some motivational issues with Lucy lately. Her main goal for every day is to stay home and play on the computer as much as possible.

She's an addict.


Perhaps it's time to move the computer out of her bedroom??


Do you think i dressed her patriotic enough for voting day? Total coincidence. I promise. I'm really not that nerdy.

Did you vote today?! I did.

If you live south of Guadalupe Rd. you probably didn't get to fully enjoy the monsoon taking place north of Guadalupe Rd. about dinner time. (it was a doozey) I got all excited to take my kids out in the rain and get some fun photos...

Pulled into my neighborhood... dry as a bone. What does dry as a bone mean anyway? I don't get it and yet I freely use it. Hmm.


conditions not being what I had hoped for I sat around and WAITED for the rain... that never arrived.

hence the flowing golden locks.

and the sky was moody, so even though the sun was up, it was hiding behind the dark clouds in the west.

Hence the graininess.

I saved this one for last.


I think because I love it most. It looks like an old photo I've seen before. I edited this photo three other ways and in the end boring old black and white is what stuck. With all the tricky B&W actions these days you'd think... but no.

Now i shall have to look through all my old photos to see why this is sticking out as familiar to me.

just a side note: my mom surprised me today. It was so sweet an unexpected. She must have read my recent blog post where I had posted some pretty things from Anthropologie... remember those pretty little vases?

They showed upon my doorstep today!!! Haha!! my mom is amazing.

love you ma! <3

(just goes to show what putting it out there can do for you!!)

Bad Idea Jeans.

Do you ever have those days that are just full of bad ideas?

and did you know that bad ideas can be caused by wearing the wrong jeans?

It's true.

They're called bad idea jeans. Everyone owns a pair. You should stay far away from them.

I wore mine yesterday { by mistake of course }

Early in the day (about shower time) I carelessly left a pile of clothes on the tile floor that would later cause lucy to split her chin wide open...

bad idea jeans!


8 stitches later my 4 year old has blue whiskers :)

and of course I took a detailed shot to gross you all out!


I knew you'd look.

I made Lu hold a paper towel up to her chin even after the bleeding slowed down. Something i learned about myself yesterday...

I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to blood and gaping wounds. Who knew?

The bad ideas didn't stop there!

See this ball of moss?


it has a name.

I call it...
piece of stupid huck get off my fingers ow i burned myself smells like a swamp shoulda just bought it dang who do i think i am martha stewart dead lumpy ball of mossy horror

I had some time to think the name over a bit. Seemed fitting.


and it all started when i saw this odd ball vase. if you can call it that...

and in it sat a perfectly adorable styrofoam ball covered in something that appeared to be a moss type substance.

and the price of the moss ball was $8.

Who are they kidding? That is moss glued to a ball! I can totally make that!

problem #1:

styrofoam ball, $4
bag of moss, $4

Now anybody can see what just happened here. I paid the same as I would have for the perfectly pre-made ball of moss as I did for piece of stupid huck get off my fingers ow i burned myself smells like a swamp shoulda just bought it dang who do i think i am martha stewart dead lumpy ball of mossy horror

and normally this wouldn't be a problem except do you know what bagged moss smells like? and did you know its real moss? which I'm guessing is why it smells so divine. and did you know it comes with real dirt? and dead spots? and it ain't that easy to glue to a styrofoam ball?

Neither did I!

Upon showing Chad my lumpy creation he said... why didn't you just buy the mossy ball at the store?



THANK YOU! I think I shall next time :)

Lucy: Can I put this down now? it stinks.

haha!!! even Miss Stitches wants nothing to do with it!!

Super fabulous non-ugly lumpy ball of moss for sale... $8

:)

sales... and unicorns :)

I swore I'd never do this.

Buy Matilda Jane, that is.


Why on earth would I spent 4 times as much on something I am quite capable of making myself?!

Right?!!


Apparently "I brake for sales" or "I break for sales" ... you choose.



you gotta admit those socks make you giddy with delight don't they!

{ note to self: remember to sew pretty lace to delightfully fun knee socks }


The skirt is way too big, but she doesn't seem to mind it swiveling around her hips.

Ok fine... i love Matilda Jane. (even though I could totally make equally cute things for a quarter the price)

ME and SHE (so improper)

I think a good lot of people would look at this image and say wow that is not a great photo...


And they would be wrong.

This photo is the picture of perfection. There is nothing more beautiful...

I sometimes sit and stare at it. Happy tears well up. (just a little) She's looking at me with her ocean blue eyes. Our hands clasped together and she smiles. I am smiling back at her. She trusts me. Not that I deserve it, but oh how it means the world to me.

It's a story of love and second chances and a heart full to the brim with gratitude.

I'd like to say thank you for all the kind words sent my way. Not that I deserve that either... but still I am thankful. It's nice to think maybe people aren't hating me for such stupidity even if I still am. It's going to take a bit to shake this one off. Hopefully I won't shake it all the way off. Perhaps it's there for a reason.

So this was June 22nd. Two days after...









My mom let Kassidy and Natalie spend the night at her house (their dream come true) So we had Lucy all to ourselves. We took her to lunch at Jason Deli. She loves that place, mostly because of the complimentary ice cream :)

And then we took her to see Toy Story 3 in 3-D. It was really cute. She sat on my lap with her 3-D glasses looking like a little movie star the whole time.

After that I thought it would make me feel good to get out and shoot. We decided we must go check out Tempe Town Lake. There wasn't much sun left when we got there but kudos to Chad for grabbing the tripod!! Doing things feels better than not doing things. Just always remember that ok?!?!

There's something that's been bugging me for a while now. Since Sunday it's crossed my mind nearly a thousand times...

We don't have a family picture.

I know, it's really sad. Not to mention pathetic!

Jill's first things first list...

a. Soak in all the things that matter.

b. Family photo.

c. Doesn't matter.

Have a nice weekend!! :)

it's completely unbearable to think about. I wish I wasn't thinking of it right now.

But it's all I can think about at the moment.

Lots of blank staring. and crying. headaches. I cancelled my photography group shoot that was supposed to be this morning. I hadn't slept all night.

This comes from the lowest of low places in my life. I never want to be here again.

somethings are so very personal I can't be sure if it's shareable. I'm not sure if this is one of those things or not. Keep reading and you will see why I choose to do so.

After the lights went out and the T.V. was shut off and it finally became very silent, I lay in bed just sobbing. I didn't want to say it out loud. I didn't want to say anything, but especially not this.

chad, We almost lost Lucy today.

*silence*

She's ok, he says

But she almost wasn't! It was close. Too close. Way too close.

Yesterday lucy fell asleep in the car on the way to wish chad's dad a happy father's day. She was left by accident in the hot car. I don't even know how long she was in there. I don't know what time it was when we got there, or when we left our house. Looking at the clock after discovering her didn't tell me anything, but it was a while.

Lucy must have some very devoted angles looking after her. I've ran this through my head a million times. I don't know how we escaped life altering misery. Only by the grace of God is all I can come up with.

If Lancee hadn't decided to leave when she did... or if Lucy hadn't been crying when she was... I can't bear to let my mind wander there even one more time. She'd be gone. I wouldn't have even wondered where she was, because in my mind she was playing with her cousins back in the toy room. There's nothing odd about that.

She said she wasn't crying in there very long, he tells me...

that makes me feel worse actually. To me that just means we were even closer than I thought. If she hadn't started crying yet... or if she gave up...

I was talking about this to my sister a couple of weeks ago. We said "it happens when schedules change, and things out of the ordinary take place."

it's true. We don't ordinarily visit Chad's parents on Sunday. And if we do there aren't ordinarily tons of people there, and Chad doesn't ordinarily grumble at me for parking too close to the wall, and Kassidy doesn't ordinarily bang the car door into the wall which makes it worse, and Tawna doesn't ordinarily pull up behind us and Razz us about not being able to leave until She decides to...

But one thing that does ordinarily happen is in the late afternoon if you put Lucy in the car she immediately falls asleep. And would you believe I was just telling Trevor that earlier that very day when he asked if she still takes naps?...

There is an amazing photographer who is an amazing person who lost an amazing little girl in a very similar way. I don't follow very many blogs, I would say there's about 3 total I look at all the time and all others I read only every so often. Sheye's is one blog I always read. I've been following her for years now. I love to look at her work and I love to read her words. She is very genuine. I often cry reading her posts. I cried the other day reading her most recent post in fact. I think of her loss, what she has to bear, and the circumstance surrounding her tragedy often. This is never far from my mind, so how did this happen to me?

I remember her describing how crystal clear the happenings of that day are to her. How she remembers every little detail she would have otherwise forgotten. And you know what? I think something similar happens when it comes so very close to you.

I see Lucy in daddy's arms and her head is sweaty and I see the braid, and like a haunting echo I remember leaning over to my sister who was blessing her baby in church that day, and saying sarcastically, who did Lucy's hair today? It looked terrible. It was me, I did it, though I didn't say so. So when she came close to ask me for some candy I snatched her up and pulled her hair out of the pony and put a little french braid in the front and then ponied it back up. It looked 100x's better. And When she came back for candy again she had the flower from Natalie's hair sitting right on top of her head. I thought it looked silly plopped right on top. it didn't go with her dress what-so-ever. But silly as it was I left it there, because in a way it was so adorable. And there it still sat, atop her sweaty little head. Glad to see it bobbling around.

and I thought of the video I took of her earlier that day at Stacey's house. She gave me the grumpiest look. And she held up one of Kallie's baby dolls and asked if she could please have one of those for her half birthday. And I lay there thinking that could have so easily been the last capture of my precious baby girl. And i think of the video I was taking minutes before she was discovered and I remember thinking how fun this would be to look at in a few years when the kids on it are a bit older, She was out in the car crying her eyes out and I was inside videoing what would have been the most painful footage ever to watch. And I would never have ever watched it.

little things kept popping in my mind.

like when I walked into the kitchen and saw her cup of milk sitting on the counter right where she placed it after asking for milk. I said no. It's because the cup already had milk in it from the first time she asked me for milk that morning. She wanted fresh milk because that milk was rotten... I didn't give her any.

and I remembered how she looked laying on the bed in Natalie's room early that morning. I woke the other girls up to make Chad breakfast at 6:25 am because thats about what time he gets home from work... but I let her sleep.

and how she came and asked me if she could sing "Happy Father's Day" to daddy... I said sure, never heard that song before. She plopped down right at chads feet and sang Happy Father's Day to the happy b-day tune. And it was the cutest thing ever. She had a very serious look on her face.

And how I came home from the blessing and declared to Chad "we need a new car!" he wondered why, and I said, "because our car is too hot!" It's true what they say, black cars really are hotter. It was the hottest day we've had I am pretty sure.

and the Father's day card she made for Grandpa. It was tucked in the pocket of the drivers seat right in front of where she sits in the car. We never made it to that Grandpa's house that night. I never did get to properly say happy Father's day to my dad. I knew I was just going to be a bumbling crying mess for the rest of the night. i didn't even call. Just a short email to my mom with essential details.

and how just the day before we went swimming and we were teaching her how to swim... you know because we don't want her to drown. She was catching on real quick.

I've felt sick all day. I couldn't be madder at myself. I thought maybe it would all feel better in the morning. But it didn't. I cried more. I laid in bed well past noon. I slept on and off. I had a dream. Sheye was in it. I was in Anthropologie, and she came in looking for earrings. i was standing right next to them, i called her over, she said thank you and I walked out so nonchalantly as if it didn't matter at all that I just ran into one of my fav. photogs ever...

Lucy would come in and wake me up every now and again. The one time she whispered to me, I'm sorry I didn't get myself out.

and thats when I decided I had better get out of bed. Perk up you know. For I was so so very blessed. My mom invited us over for a swim and a steak grill. It wasn't as fun as Saturday night but I wasn't laying in bed crying so it was good.

When my mind wanders back to the unbearable thought of what if, then I think... this is an amazing day.



This is an amazing girl!

Lucy Emma Jane. 3 day's after her 4th birthday. Getting ready for her first recital :)

Please be so aware of your babies! it's hot outside and even hotter in the car. Why isn't there something to prevent these things from happening??

Please take a moment to read "Ava's rule" for a larger image click here. Or for more info go here.

fun and fancy { free to dance your little heart out }

Feeling a bit melancholy tonight, I bring you what has been a huge part of our life for the last year.

a day in the life { of a dancer }


It was so awesome that Natalie had a chance to be a part of the Dynamite Express team at Dance Connection Too. I love watching her dance. That girl can move! Oh and Lucy too :)

The girls had their recital last week. That means its over. Finito.


I spent most of the previous day at dress rehearsal. I was so wiped afterwards! I think we got home at like 9:30 PM!! It was crazy insane!! But of course I took that opportunity to play with my camera ALOT! I love this one I got of these ballerina girls!


and of course I can't decide on which processing I prefer. I just really love them both for different reasons!




( notice how she's putting her all into this move... i love it! )


Ok I'm not gonna lie... I was not entirely sure how Lucy would do on stage. You know it can be a little iffy with the young ones. i mean thats hilarious and all, but oh the joy of seeing your 4 year old dancing her heart out on stage! I was giddy to see her up there doing all her moves! And with a smile on her face :)!! oh yes it was divine...


Natalie was a little harder to capture as she was ALWAYS in the back! ( see her clear at the back of the stage... nice form huh?!? )


Once again... nice form... way in the back. I just sayin is all...


These are the "firecrackers" of the team, performing their dance Bend and Snap.


We showered these girls with roses afterward. i am so proud of them. They did so so good.

and so it is now over. or is it...

We decided to let Natalie do dance camp again this summer... this is where it all started for us last year! What have I done?!?!?! I love her being a part of such a great team, I can see how she beams with pride every time she wears her Dynamite Express dance shirt to school, which is alot because lets face it she's a bit of a show-off!! Just ask her to do the splits for you, she will eat it up like candy :) !!

And so why not you ask? Do you really have to ask? it. is. so. expensive.

Try-outs are tomorrow. She will make the team, I am sure of it. Here's a little look at some of todays action...

note: She's' the one with the orange tu-tu on her dance shorts... makes her kinda easy to pick out :)



Oh yeah and I am totally loving the FLIP!

...excuse me while I head to B&N to bury my head in some magazines... chow!

The wonder of 4.

... she was very specific...

I want a doll.
that has a bathtub.
and a diaper.
and a duckie.


The good little angles that follower her around must have been paying extra attention to her every little wish.

We happened to be on our way to the mall and the very first store we came to was a toy store, and in the window was a baby doll sitting in a little pink bathtub wrapped in a towel, wearing a diaper with a little rubber duckie on the shelf...

that toy store was NOT there last time I was at the mall.

This is a true story.


and she is very loved :)

even though she obviously has no clue how to swing a bat!! haha!!!




It wasn't much. But it made her happy. and so I am also happy.


Happy Birthday my sweet darling Lucy!

xoxoxoxo love you :)

p.s.- i may as well add that she pulled the arm off her baby doll the very next day while we were driving around town. The doll is ok but I had a pretty creepy baby doll dream that night. or perhaps I should say nightmare! eeks.

p.s.s- I suppose i should also add that Kassidy and Natalie stayed up late with me and helped me decorate so Lucy would wake up feeling extra special. They did such a cute job and they even made all the birthday hats custom with feathers and a boa! Love you guys :) you're the best big sisters ever!!

The clock Struck one...

whirl to me

soft little faces | sweet little lips | rosey posey cheeks

Sometimes I have to sneak time to work on my own stuff.

Stolen time well spent :)

just one little moment.

moment captured | moment treasured

Tho cold and rainy she insisted on the "butterfly dress"

She dressed herself. Well in everything except the big blue cast. The doctor dressed her in that.

She fell off my bed Saturday night. You would never think a 3 foot drop onto carpet could result in such disaster. Apparently it can. After listening to the doctors explanation of what might have happened if she landed on her wrist instead of her elbow I guess I can only feel thankful. No hospital visits. No putting a baby under. No resetting. No pins...

yes very thankful!!

I was surprised she picked blue though.

blue? ... You're sure? ... not pink?

I suppose its good to switch it up since her last cast was pink. Yes, you heard me right. Broken arm #2, the first being when she was 7 months old.

Not very cat-like if you ask me :)

except for the cuddly part.


Mr. Sun,

If you're listening. Please come out and stay for a while. Cold and rainy just isn't my thing. I miss you desperately!

XOXO,

It' s all just so darn CHEEKY

Lucy looked adorable today. Just thought I'd share.

it is.

one day not too long ago my sister told me my kitchen table looked like something she had see at a city park. all graffitied up and whatnot. She's right you know. That is exactly what my kitchen table looks like. My kids are the tag team.

You can see what she means in this photo of Lucy enjoying a light mid-sunday snack.



Lucy radiates precious soul. the name lucy means { light }

it's true you know. She is a little light in the bleak.

also a while back I used to make cornbread alot. This went on for months. I do have the best recipe ever and well I'm not one to ignore food-like greatness. So we ate alot of cornbread and it was good.

except for that which stuck with me.

I said to my mama... mom, I think all this cornbread is making me chubby.

her gentle response... ever heard of corn fed?

yes!

haha. Thanks mom that's just what i needed to hear.

and cornbread was no more at my house... except for sometimes. but almost never.

And what was the point of this post?

nada, I was just bored!

p.s.~ Do you like Weezer?

Looking looking looking

In this photo you will see...

I have a thing for knee socks.

I have a thing for Anthropologie.



and I have a thing for this sweet young thang...



Her name is Lukee { in Hawaiian }

and I love her.

Just because.
xoxo

{ sorry Kell.... I did steal your cool song, don't be surprised if I steal all of them eventually... I think we jive musically :) }