Thoughts of my heart

I'm not an eloquent speaker or writer.

I've always known this and acknowledged it. I don't claim to say the right thing at the right time. I struggle to explain myself sometimes and to do it in a positive, uplifting way ... But I do try to be respectful and honest in my daily life and on this blog, and hope that you, our readers/loved ones, are understanding and forgiving of any imperfections you may find.

The point of having this blog and keeping it updated is two-fold:

1) To motivate me to keep an accurate and real record of our family and my thoughts as we go through experiences together.

2) To keep our loved ones informed on our lives since we don't live near them.

I don't write it to compare my life to anyone else's.

I don't write it to "make statements" about others or to belittle.

I don't write it to show off.

If I have said anything on this blog that has hurt your feelings or offended you, PLEASE forgive me. Please understand my heart and my humility in this and know that I never meant for anything to be taken in a negative way. I may not have worded something just right, or I may have said something I didn't realize could offend. I'm truly sorry.

I will continue to be honest in my journaling on this blog, because that is the only way I know how to keep an accurate journal. But I will make sure to be more aware of how my words can effect others.

Thank you for reading, and feel free to continue to do so as our family makes memories and records them here.

Nana & Bompa

Last weekend my parents flew into town for my dad's convention. They came a couple days early so they could spend that time with us before going to their hotel in Vegas. We had the entire Saturday with them and Grace was beyond excited when they got to our house at 8am! She ran right up to them, screaming their names, and stayed in their arms for several minutes each. It was sweet. :)

Even though my dad, and Grace and I were battling coughs and colds, we still made it a fun day. We visited the pumpkin patch/carnival up the street so Grace could ride the swing ride again and see all the pumpkins (which she points out everywhere we see one!).

She even scored her own little pumpkin this time around. Thanks Daddy.

We tried to visit the Carousel at The District, but (like most things I plan when my parents are in town) it was closed for some reason. :( We made the most of it by walking around the District and seeing all the dogs that were available for adoption, and my mom and I stopped off in DownEast for a little retail therapy. I hope they bring back their maternity line someday!

On sunday, we went to church and I got some updated photos afterwards. We enjoyed relaxing the rest of the day, with plenty of time for Grace to play and enjoy being with Nana and Bompa before nap time. We ate dinner together and then took them to their hotel where they were to stay for a few days, next-door to the convention center.

Grace was LOVING this one-on-one play time with Nana.

We were able to see them one more evening before they left so we went to dinner at Chipotle and then for ice cream at Coldstone. Mmmm. There were a couple hours before Grace needed to be in bed, so they came back to our apartment and we simply sat back and let Grace entertain us! She must have been FULL of sugar by that point, or just excited to have her grandparents around for the evening, because she was quite literally bouncing off of the walls (and doors), spinning, dancing, and running in circles. It was hilarious!

Thanks for spending some time with us, Mom and Dad! We had a really great time with you here and wish it could have been longer. Love you!

Friends!

Last week, while Ryan was out of town for his Ohio interviews, Grace and I were able to do lots of fun things with our friends. One of the mornings, we met up with several of our buddies at a neat kid's place called "Child's Play". It's a great little indoor playground, with padded floors, some fun toys to play with, and an area for the parents to sit and relax while still being able to see the kids. We had all bought a Groupon for $5 entrance a few weeks ago so it was nice and cheap! I just wish it wasn't so far away. Next time I'll pack us lunches and go without nap time interfering. Grace would have stayed and played for hours if I'd let her!

She especially loved the smaller of the slides, and how easily she could "mogley-crawl" up the ramp and go down all by herself... (I love this bum shot)

The slide was EXTRA slippery and they even had a little pad at the bottom of the slide. Grace would fly down so fast that she'd end up practically on her face each time, until she figured out how to slow herself down with her hands on the sides. She probably went up and down that thing 15 times!

Playing with the velcro shapes and sticking them to the wall.

"Too too tains" with her buddy Jaren.

Brig, Addie, Jaren,

Beckham & Gavin, Grace, Leila, Greydon

Recently I was able to reconnect with a friend from high school. She and her husband and baby moved here to Henderson for his job several months ago, and we had been trying to hook up for the last few months. Without my own car in the day it has made it hard to work out a good time to get together. We had them over for a play date a couple weeks ago, and the girls seemed to get along pretty well, even though Grace is a year older than Navy. Last week we met them with plans to ride the free Carousel at the District Shopping Center, but didn't realize that it doesn't start up until later in the afternoon. :( Luckily Christina and I had packed picnics and decided to just hang out on the grass there and eat lunch together. It was great to be outside, let the girls roam the grass, and enjoy the shade!

You know how my friends and I are with our baby showers... I've posted them in the past and I love to include pics of the shower so I'll remember all the cute ideas for later. :) The most recent one for Alisha was of course extremely cute and well put together with the theme "Cute as a Button". It was a great shower and we always enjoy a night away from the kiddos to be just "the girls".

Rachele, Robyn, Alisha, Emily, Paige

me, Kirsten, Melanie, Marci

Busy Bag Exchange

Have you ever heard of a "busy bag"?

It's GENIUS. That's what it is. A busy bag is a homemade game or activity for a child, typically put inside a gallon-sized ziploc bag, and everything needed for the game is right there in the bag. My super organized friend, Emily, put together a busy bag exchange recently and coordinated with about 20+ friends so we could all do it together. (click here and here for her blog posts about organizing it) She put a list together of 50 or more activities we could choose from that could be homemade and exchanged easily with other ladies involved. There were two age groups: toddlers and preschool (and up), and most of the 20 ladies picked one activity from each age group to make. We then made enough busy bags for each person and then exchanged them with each other... which means every person got about 40 bags total out of the deal (sorry if I didn't explain that well)! The goal is to spend about $1 on each bag, depending on what materials were needed for the activity you chose, so that it's even for everyone. Unfortunately some bags ended up being more expensive to put together than one would think, so it didn't quite end up being even - but it sounds like everyone involved still felt it was worth all the 40 bags they received back!

The toddler-aged activity I made was the Bottle & Beads activity which only required a good handful of beads and an empty (somewhat sturdy) water bottle. The child simply drops the beads inside the bottle. Seems too simple to be fun, but the sound the beads make inside the bottle, and the fun Grace has looking at the beads' shapes and colors keeps her entertained for awhile. Just stick close to your kid to make sure they don't put them in their mouth. ;)

I chose this activity to make because a) I knew I had a bunch of expired bottles of water stored under my bed somewhere that I could just empty, and b) I could picture Grace doing this activity at her age (and even a little younger) and it keeping her busy for at least 10 whole minutes. :) That's the whole point! Even if it keeps the kid entertained for 5 or 10 minutes, they're still learning a new skill, learning colors/shapes, or developing their hand-eye coordination (which is what this particular activity does). I had my 20 bottles, empty and ready to go, and was able to buy 3 big containers of assorted beads from Hobby Lobby for half off with a sale going on! It was perfect, and ended up being less than $1 per bag. :)

The preschool-and-up-aged activity I chose to make was the Clothesline busy bag.

It has a long piece of rope/string, 8 clothes pins, and 8 felt cut-outs shaped as articles of clothing (shirt, dress, pants, shorts) in different colors. This bag cost me more than $1 per bag, but only slightly, and it was because of the clothes pins. They're hard to find in bulk and for a good price, so I used as many coupons as I could, wherever I could find them (Joann's, Hobby Lobby, and Walmart). This activity is for kids a bit older than Grace (at 2 years old). She didn't now how to hold the clothes pins correctly and open and close them herself. She had a good time and wanted to keep trying, with my help, but we'll try again in awhile.

When my friends and I got together to exchange, we were all literally giddy with excitement seeing all of the fun activities people made! It was like Christmas just for the moms, and they're not even for us! You can go here to look at the sign up sheet my friend created, and it has all of the activities listed (plus their websites) to see some ideas. Some of Grace's favorites so far:

Pipe Cleaner Color Can (a pringles can, with color-coordinated holes in the lid, with matching pipe cleaner to push through the holes)

Magnetic Pom Poms (pom poms with little magnets glued to them, and you simply stick them to a cookie sheet and let the kid play, move them around, make pictures, etc)
All of our busy bags we have now are ADORABLE, and so much fun. There are so many more that I wish I could take pictures of so I could show you how awesome they are - but you'll have to check out the list mentioned above in order to see them. I can't wait for Grace (and my other kid(s)) to get older so that I can introduce them to the more involved ones. I HIGHLY recommend organizing an exchange like this with your friends/family, even if there are a few of you. It's easy to make a few different bags each, and then you'll get that many back for your own use. So worth it!! Some of them are perfect, quiet activities for church too. :) Like I said: genius.

A HUGE THANK YOU goes to Emily for dealing with all of the organization and coordinating with everybody. And thank you to everybody who participated and made such wonderful busy bags! I know we will enjoy them in our house for years to come.

Funny Grace-isms

-When a commercial for a local attorney comes on, one of his lines is "... get your compensation now." It's on often enough (since law firm commercials are ALWAYS on) that Grace recognizes his face and will yell "NOW!" over and over, in anticipation of hearing him say it.

Grace has such a good memory when it comes to people she loves. A few examples:

-I was driving on the freeway with her today and there were two, red SUVs driving in the lanes in front of us. My parents have a red Trail Blazer and I guess Grace remembered that because she pointed to the cars in front of us and said "Nana Bompa car".

-If we're driving up the streets towards our friends the Redds' house (who have 2 kids), Grace knows EXACTLY where we are headed. She'll say over and over "Ah-ya. Baby. Ah-ya. Baby"... meaning "Anderson and Baby Grace"!

-We were listening to my brother's CD of him playing the guitar and singing. Whenever a song ends, Grace puts her hands up as if to say "where?" and says "Tom? Tom?" and then once another song started playing she says with relief "Tommmm!"

-While we stayed in Salt Lake, both of Grace's grandpas mowed their lawns and she watched them do it. In fact, the noise of the mowers scares her, so I think she remembers it strictly from being freaked out. Now when we see the lawn maintenance guys cutting the grass in our complex she says "Bompa!"

-Every time Grace toots she has to announce it by saying "Gace keekee" (meaning "Grace stinky"). She also tells us we're stinky sometimes when we haven't done anything!

-If she finds a hair somewhere, she'll show me and say "Ew. Mama hair". haha I keep trying to tell her that it's not necessarily ALWAYS my hair! I keep getting blamed but I'm sure it's hers or Ryan's sometimes. ;)

-We talk about Baby Brother a lot, getting her excited for what's coming. :) She pronounces it "Beebee Bugger" and it always makes me smile to hear it. Hopefully she won't always think he's a little "bugger".

-Two things she says all the time throughout the day, which reminds me of how clumsy her mom is and that she's totally learning it all from me... "Ow" and "Opes" (meaning Oops). Every bumped limb, or mess, or dropped item, or accident is an "ow" or an "opes".

-Grace already has a tiny little mole or freckle in the crease of her wrist. She points it out at least once a day and has to remind me it's there by saying "mole". If you don't watch out she'll point all yours out too! ;)

She sure keeps us laughing around here with her silly comments and reactions! I wish I could describe in writing all the different looks she gives us that make us think "How old are you again?!" We sure love our little girl and her attitude!!

Halloween Carnival

On monday night we met some of our friends and their kids up the street at the carnival. It's a fun little place for the kids, with a bounce house, inflatable slides/obstacle courses, petting zoo, and a couple small mechanical rides. It's free to get in and then all the attractions you want are super cheap (a couple dollars each), so it's perfect for us poor students! Plus, as we walked in, we saw that they were holding a coloring contest. If your child colored the pumpkin picture and turned it in, they got one free ride. That was right up our alley and luckily my friend Robyn just happened to have crayons in her purse!

We put all the kids on the mechanical swing (which was the video I posted a few days ago). Like I said, Grace had so much fun and it was great to see the excitement she had during the ride.

Afterwards we took the kids to the bounce house together and that was probably the highlight. It seemed like they were jumping and laughing in their forever, and luckily no other families were waiting in line so we weren't being rushed.

Next, we went to the petting zoo and let the kids walk around the pen with the goats, chickens, roosters, and bunnies. The goats were right up in their faces because they know that's who gives them the treats! Grace liked the idea of being close up to them, but when the goats got super close and at her eye-level, she would get nervous.

Photo op time!

Greydon, Anderson, Beckham,

Baby Grace, Leila, Abby, bigger Grace

Eliza

Just for fun... this was us last year in this same exact spot! :) My, how things change in a year.

The night must have been a success because this was Grace's reaction to us leaving. Very unhappy girl!

Videos!

It's been awhile since I posted a video, and I have several fun ones to share. :)

This first one was a video we made to wish Grace's cousin Layla a happy 2nd birthday.

Happy B-day Layla! from Jamie Turner on Vimeo.

A couple nights ago we met a bunch of friends at the Halloween carnival in the empty lot up the street from us. All the little 2, 3 and 4 year olds got on the mechanical swing ride together and the parents stood back to see whose kid would freak out first. haha, just kidding. But seriously they all did a great job! Grace had a total blast, as you can see in the video! She loves to "wee bum" (swing...) and this was the ultimate swing experience for her. :) I think we'll be going back very soon.

A few days after my brother returned from his mission he serenaded us with some songs, which I think we ALL missed while he was gone for 2 years. He's very talented and shared a new song we'd never heard. Here is Thomas singing a Joshua Radin song, "I'd Rather Be With You". Cute, right? Some girl someday will be very lucky to find this kid.

And the last one was last week during one of our AWESOME rain and thunder storms here in Henderson. Grace hasn't really heard any loud thunder until the day I shot this, and it was so loud for a few minutes that even I was jumping in my seat and she was getting scared. I explained it the best I could to a 2 year old and she kind of got it. She still will hear something outside to this day, turn to me, and say "Sky... boom" thinking it's the sky making loud noises again. haha Anyway I took a video of the storm because it was SO noisy and intense, and there was so much water that I had to share. I wish it would do that everyday here! Or at least more often than pretty-much-never.

Random Thoughts

Grace is napping so I wanted to hurry and write about all the random things going on lately, instead of just "events".

-Ryan leaves on his first interview trip in a week from today and I'm so excited for him! I'm grateful that he'll check 3 interviews off in one trip, and that it's saving us SO MUCH money. He's a little nervous just because his very first interview of the season is his top choice pick (Columbus) so he's hoping he doesn't mess up since he won't have had an practice at that point. I know he'll do great. :) I'm also selfishly excited that I'll have my own car for the 4 days he's gone, hehe.

-I'm 22 weeks along right now and feeling pretty good! I am sleeping better at night (only waking up a couple times, not having to get up to use the bathroom very often, and usually able to fall back to sleep quickly), and Dr. Galin (our favorite OMT doc) spent 30 minutes fixing my sacrum pain the other day.

-Speaking of baby, though... Ryan and I met with a perinatologist (Dr. Masaki) last week who explained that my chances for going into preterm labor are 6 times higher than a typical pregnancy. They measured my cervix (sorry if that's TMI for anyone) with a super detailed image they can take, and apparently it's pretty thin (less than 3 cm thick). With that number as a guide, and my previous experience with having Grace at 36 weeks, the doctor is recommending I get a progesterone shot every week from now until 36 weeks. He says it's very safe and very commonly used these days with women who have preterm labor issues, and it's extremely successful. The progesterone is a "smooth muscle relaxant" which takes the stress off the cervix so it stops thinning and dilating so quickly. I have more research to do, another appointment with him next week where he'll measure again, and then we'll decide. But ultimately we both feel like if it will ensure a full-term baby (at least 37 weeks) and a HEALTHY one, with no time in the NICU, then it'll be worth a yucky shot in the bum for 14 weeks. :) If anybody who reads this knows anything about the progesterone shot, please let me know! I'd love to hear some personal experiences.

-Grace turns TWO YEARS OLD in a month from yesterday. That is just craziness - she is still my baby. And yet she's such a big girl in so many ways, and learning so much, that I guess I've considered her to be 2 for the last few months. I'm so excited for her birthday, and for the gift we got for her already, but I admit I'm really not excited about planning a birthday party. We might just do cake and ice cream with friends and not make it a huge deal... but then I think I'd feel guilty not doing something "fun". I know she won't remember, but she'll see pictures... and I'll feel bad. Maybe my major hang-up is that our wonderfully talented, party-planning friends here in Henderson always set a high bar with every party they put on (which is often, between birthdays, holidays, book clubs, and baby showers). I can't and don't want to plan anything so amazing and detailed, so I don't know yet what we'll do.

-If anybody is going through old baby boy clothes, blankets, etc please keep us in mind! :) We have had some wonderful hand-me-downs for Grace and we are always grateful for anything people offer. I did go through Grace's baby stuff today and found lots of burp clothes, a few light blankets, tons of onesies, and some bibs that can be used for baby boy, so that made me happy. :) I'm having a hard time deciding "the best way" to go about purchasing things for him though. I want to start now and buy things slowly so it's not a huge hit to the budget all at once, but I don't know where to start. I did buy our first package of diapers and it got me so excited! I honestly can't wait to have a little baby in the house again! I hope the next few months go by quickly.

-Our ward trunk-or-treat is a huge deal every year. I've helped plan and put on the last 3 and it's always been a really fun activity to be a part of and to attend. This year, with the changes in how the activities are planned, the group in charge this year decided they aren't doing the chili cook-off. :( Huge bummer. There won't be any dinner at all, and I would think the majority of the ward is sad about that. Maybe we'll just have to host our own chili night before the trunk-or-treat and have our friends over just so it feels more normal. Then again wasn't I just saying I didn't want to plan a birthday party for Grace? hahaha Hm....

-Our garbage disposal cracked last week, which apparently happens pretty often when they are old. Every time we turned it on it would spray water out the bottom of the sink and was soaking everything underneath it with yucky, foody water. It smelled like rotten fish!! Ultimately it was how I found the problem, so that's good - but not a fun thing to have soaked into everything under your sink. Yuck! Ryan was good to me and cleaned most of it up, and the maintenance dude came to replace it the next day. HOWEVER... he must have done something to the pipes underneath the sink because now when we turn on our dishwasher there is a geyser of water shooting out of the extra faucet hole to the right of our cold water handle (make sense?). It took us a few days to figure out that's what kept happening, because we would turn on the dishwasher while we were asleep and come out in the morning to find everything absolutely soaked on our counter tops. It was driving me mad for days not knowing what was leaking or spilling, until I had the dishwasher running yesterday while I was cooking in the kitchen and the geyser started up again! haha It's funny to think about ... but we're still waiting for the maintenance guy to come back and fix it. Until then we're hand-washing all our dishes. I hope he comes soon!!

-Right now I'm making Slow Cooker Sweet & Spicy BBQ Pot Roast and, oh, does it smell good!

-We're also going tonight to the little Halloween activity fair up the street from us with some friends, and Ryan and I are both really excited! We went last year and Grace was so little she couldn't do anything. This year hopefully she'll do the swings ride and the bounce house, and I think she'll have a blast. On saturday night we went to the District at Green Valley for dinner at Lucille's Smokehouse BBQ (one of our favorite places) with a gift card we'd been given. Ryan and I got this deal for 2 which includes an appetizer, a huge platter of tri-tip, smoked chicken, 2 kinds of ribs, 2 sides, and then a big dessert to share. We were seriously in heaven. Even me, who doesn't love to just sit an eat lots of meat like that, I was totally keeping up with my man in the meat department. I guess baby boy needed some protein... Anyway afterwards we went to ride the carousel which is free and you can ride as many times as you want. I don't know why it's taken us so long to take Grace there, but we are totally going to go more now! It was so fun and Grace giggled, waved, pet her horse, and chose a couple other animals to ride on before we left. I absolutely love fun family times like that and am grateful that we can have another fun family activity tonight as well.

p.s. The last of our Salt Lake trip is posted below...

Salt Lake month: The End

On our very last weekend in Salt Lake, my little brother (who recently returned home and is now hitting the dating life again) asked if we would join him on a double date. We were excited to have that last friday evening to spend hanging out with Thomas and having a fun game night! Ryan and I both LOVE card and board games and love the chance to play anytime with a group (big or small). I made a bunch of homemade pizzas for us and we played Scum & Five Crowns for a couple hours. We had a GREAT time, and got to know Thomas' friend... who Ryan and I both think is a really great girl, just for the record. ;) My parents were so great to keep Grace entertained for us so we could focus on a fun evening, and they were able to get one last night with her as well. Thanks, Tom, for letting your old, married, pregnant siblings feel young and interesting for the night!

Us with Thomas & his date, Natalie Johnson

This is how it is when we're with my family... Ryan in BLUE and everyone else in RED. But we accept him for who he is anyway.

The next day, my sister and 2 of her 3 kids flew in from Wisconsin where they've been living for the past year. Our whole family is so happy to have her family move back to Salt Lake! While her husband and youngest son drove their stuff to Utah over the weekend, they flew ahead and at just the right time for us to see them before heading home to Nevada ourselves. It was great to chat and catch up for the evening and then hang out a little in the morning before the General Conference session started. I could tell Grace was loving every second of having her cousins Josh & Layla to play with. She loves cars and trucks these days, and Josh was nice enough to allow her to play with a few of the "Cars" movie characters while he had them out. :)

Playing in the backyard for a bit. Josh was so cute pushing Grace on the swing.

I know it's blurry, but it's too funny not to post... All the kids were playing legos together and Grace loved feeling so cool up at the table with them! Ever since we've been home, she will climb up on a kitchen chair and play with her toys while sitting at the table. :)

We had such an AWESOME time in Salt Lake during September. I feel like we were so spoiled by our parents and got to see so many people we love and miss while living away. I'm especially glad we were able to be there when Thomas got home from his mission, and that Ryan's work schedule with the pediatrician there was pretty laid back and predictable. Now that we're home, we're getting settled into normal life again and not hating the weather (which is a big deal for me especially). This last week has been WONDERFUL being only in the 60s and 70s with a few beautiful, rainy days.We're about to get into a full week of 80s again though which does not excite me, but I know it will continue to get cooler now. I know we just missed the Salt Lake snow by a couple days and I admit I'm grateful we did, haha. :)

Turner Time

Last week, before heading home, we spent our last several nights at the Turners' house. We're so grateful to have 2 comfortable places to stay in town to break up the trip and time with each family. :)

*** Insert a HUGE thank you to both sets of parents for letting us crash in your homes and making us so comfortable!! ***

Grace got to play with some of her cousins, but Ryan probably played harder and had more fun than anyone! Here they are playing Duck Duck Goose together. He's such a good uncle and daddy!

The Berger kids thought it was funny to put balls in their shirts and pretend to be Aunt Jamie... haha! Love those kids.

Ryan's schedule that last week was pretty easy with only a few half days and a couple days completely off. It was so nice!! We were able to go to an Endowment session at the Salt Lake Temple on thursday morning. It was so nice to go there together and enjoy the live session. All Temples are wonderful, of course, but I will always love attending a live session when I can!

On friday morning, we went with Gma and Gpa Turner downtown to walk around. We wanted to see if there wasn't anything new and cool to see with all the City Creek development. There wasn't much that we hadn't seen earlier this year, but I'm sure once it's completed next year there will be more things to see, including the new mall going in! It'll be so nice to have the mall back. We did spend quite awhile walking through the HUGE Deseret Book across from Temple Square. There is so much to see in there! Bob & Stacy had never been there so we took our time looking around.

You can't go downtown without walking around Temple Square and it was just as beautiful as always! Grace especially loved watching the fountains and seeing all the flowers.

We went inside the South Visitors Center and it has the NEATEST addition that we hadn't ever seen before! They have a replica/model of the Temple on display which let's you see inside all of the rooms: Creation room, Celestial room, Baptistry, Council room, etc. It's so incredible!! Everyone needs to go see it at least once. The pictures don't even do it justice - click on them to enlarge. (sorry about the underline... I can't figure out how to take it off)

See the white piano right at the very top middle of the photo below? I've sat at that very piano and played hymns while we "cleaned" the Solemn Assembly room. So neat to see all the little details!

We also visited the Joseph Smith Mem. Building which is having their 100 year Hotel Utah anniversary and had some historical pieces on display inside. Even the sweet hostess ladies that work there were all dressed up in dresses and big hats that fit the era. I just love that beautiful building!

Our sister-in-law, Katelyn, is the manager at the Nauvoo Cafe at the JSMB and was working that morning. We stopped in to have an early lunch and ate outside in the beautiful weather.

Photo Shoots

Well, we're back home in Henderson again. I miss Salt Lake so much, and always will, but it does feel good to be home. I've set so many goals to get my house and life back in order, since I feel like I haven't been present in my own life since before I got pregnant. Hopefully I can get things in order now - especially before the holidays, the baby comes, and we start packing to move away. So much to do in just 8 months and I feel like like that's hardly any time at all!!

While we were in Salt Lake, I was asked by some friends to do a couple photo shoots (besides the big family one I posted earlier). One of my bestest friends had her baby boy recently and didn't feel like she had just the right photo for the baby announcements. She already knew exactly what she wanted so it made my job super easy! Whitaker kept his eyes open for me so I could catch the light just right in them, and he was a great little subject. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Jen is such a good mama. :) I'm so happy she and Paul have this little man in their lives!

One evening last week, I met up with the Aaron & Heather Edwards family at Wheeler Farm and took their photos as well. We couldn't meet until 6:45pm so I knew I had very little time to get lots of good pictures of them before we lost the light. They were such good subjects and the girls both did a great job! At one point, while we were walking to our next spot, their 2 1/2 year old Nora stopped in her tracks and said, "Ok, take my picture now." :)

I am posting quite a few from this particular shoot because I feel it's my most successful one yet! I'm excited about how these turned out, although I still have issues getting everybody's face in focus sometimes. It's a work in progress, but I'm grateful for all the chances to practice.

Nora and Stella - Such sweethearts!!