Finding Time

(BTW I wrote this several months ago ha I'm just now finding time to post it)
Yes, I’m still alive!! I know it has been WAY too long since I’ve been able to update y’all on what we’ve been up to and I know you are all heartbroken ;) Sadly I have no time to get anything done, let alone blog. I’m actually writing this while I have some downtime at work! In the past when I do write a post, I normally keep it pretty short and sweet and let my photos tell the story. But that’s mainly because I’ve never had time. I thought I was busy before baby #2 but since having her I’ve gone back to work fulltime at Cyprus. I get up get myself ready, on school days I get brooks bathed and get him a quick breakfast, take the baby to the sitters around 8:30 take Brooks to school, get to work then I have to pick him up on my lunch hour and take him to the sitters. Get off work around 6:15 or so pick up the kids, and get home around 7, figure out what to eat for dinner (Brandon helps out a lot with dinner. Thank God he likes to cook) We usually don’t get around to eating until 8 or 9:00 once dinner’s ready. Talk about our days and go over what Brooks’ favorite part of his day was and what he learned about. Help him with his homework if he has any (I can do this yes, maybe up until 3rd grade ha) get Brooks to brush his teeth, go potty (which can be an ordeal, he insists most nights that he doesn’t need to go and cries when we make him try. But if he doesn’t he will without a doubt wet the bed!) and get him into his jammies. All the while feeding Paisley and getting her ready for bed so I can put her to sleep by 9:30. We try to read Brooks a bedtime story, and luckily he’s pretty good at getting into bed and going to sleep without a fight by 10:30 after exchanging our kisses and sweet dream wishes! (Don’t judge me ha I know this is late but I don’t get to see him all day!) Catch up on our tivo’d shows that I enjoy watching (CSI, Cougar Town, Tosh.O, jersey shore, Teen Mom you know the really good ones haha) watch a redbox or Brandon watches his shows (Anything on “How it’s made”, Discovery or the History channel, Blah) while I edit some photo’s. Then get myself ready for bed and hopefully dose off before midnight. On top of that I’ve been booking up to 6 shoots on the weekends with my photography. So I have very little down time! I’m lucky if I have enough energy to lie on the trampoline while Brooks tries to bounce me around. As you can imagine my husband doesn’t enjoy that I’m either gone or on the computer all the time! (Yet he won’t let me quit my day job, I say “he” but really we need the insurance) I don’t get nearly enough time with my kids and our house is always a mess!! I wouldn’t call myself a clean person by any means but I would love for my house to stay organized. It just doesn’t happen. Any time I try to pick up Brooks re-discovers all his toys and as soon as I can put them away he gets them back out again! It’s like he follows me around and gets out every little thing I just put away. So I gave up on that and now he just has giant toy boxes that everything gets thrown into. Who wants to walk the extra 10 feet to the bedroom to take off their shoes and coat or put their things down? . Don’t take this as complaining!! I’m just giving you a little insight as to why it’s taken me so long to make a post , if I could only quit my day job I would be SO happy! I just need to find affordable health insurance first so if anyone has some suggestions PLEASE comment or let me know! It is super scary to dive into your own business but that’s what I want to do and you don’t get the reward without the risk. I have so many things I want to do with my photography business but since I don’t have the time I have to put it aside and it’s depressing! Not to mention all the fun things I want to do with my family!!

Paisley's blessing

Our Uncles and Grandfathers had the honor of giving Paisley her blessing. It was nice to get the family together and have some good eatins! She looked so beautiful in her blessing dress and was so sweet the whole time! She didn't' make a fuss the whole day :) What a sweet baby girl!

My Baby boy is 4!!

Wow! It's been 4 years since I brought home my baby boy and I love him just that much more :) He is still the light of my life and can always make me laugh! I thank God every day for him and all the joy he has brought to my life! He is so bright and always so happy and full of energy and curiousity. He loves to perform and be the center of attention. He is also so sensitive and careful about every one's feelings, he always makes sure that everyone is included and having fun.He helps me be a better person and I thank him for that. He had a great birthday party with his friends. He wanted it to be a rainbow dinosaur party, so my uncle made him a rainbow dinosaur cake. It was really cute! He made away like a bandit with a bunch of really cool gifts! Including a new bike! He really wanted a trampoline, every time he made a wish it was for a trampoline, so his grandpa brought his tramp they got him last year and put it up for him, He was very excited! :) Happy Birthday Baby, I hope it was as fun as you hoped!

More projects...

I made my other aunt a car seat canopy also, but this one was for a girl :) I like how it turned out it's really pretty material! and I finally finished Paisley's car seat cover. I was holding out for a certain material in pink but I found it in green and decided to just go with that. all our baby stuff is green anyhow ha. But I decided since I had made the cover for her car seat I didn't want to hide it with another canopy that laid over it, so I sewed buttons onto the front and just added a flap to it to cover her. I like it a lot, it's nice to have keeps the wind germs and sun off of her when I want it on and I can take it off if I need to. I know I am not good enough to sell these yet but when I get good enough I kind of want to look into etsy and custom make them for people. I think it would be fun, I enjoy sewing and the satisfaction of having a finished product that you're proud of!

My 1st sewing project

So I've always wanted to learn how to sew. My grandmother is an incredible seamstress, she is AMAZING! She made dresses for us when we were little and she makes dolls, and she makes all of the dolls clothes. She made me a bride doll for my wedding and the dress matches mine exactly with all the beading and everything. She really is so good! Well I got a sewing machine from my beautiful aunt and my best friend showed me how to use it so I decided I would just dive in and give it a shot and if I needed I could call grandma for help :) So I made some car seat covers. My aunt just had a baby so I made her one that matched her car seat and I picked out some other material that I thought would be cute for my friends baby. I just looked at the cover that I have and kind of made my own pattern from that. So here is how they turned out. Not perfect but I'm pretty proud of them I hope they like them!

Goodbye Grandpa Vet

Brandon's Granada; Daniel Kravet turned 90 this year. My mother in law had planned him the most extravagant birthday party. It was to be a Hollywood themed black tie event. Sadly the morning of his big party he passed on. He was found in his tuxedo ready for his big day, I guess he had a different party to attend that day. This was a little difficult for everyone, we all wished we had just gotten to spend that one more day celebrating his birthday. Fortunately he had family in town for the party and they had gotten to visit with him the day before! Brooks was named after his grandpa Vet (his middle name is Daniel) and he had a lot of fun with him! Brooks knows about heaven seeing as his grandpa and aunt are there, but this was the 1st time that he could really understand that going to heaven meant they were once here but now they're gone and we won't see them again until we too go to heaven. It's hard for a little one to grasp, he thought we could go visit him. I asked him how he thought we could do that and he said we could take the stairs in the sky :( At the funeral Brandon gave a beautiful talk about his grandpa. He was an Air Force Veteran so he had a 21 gun salute, it was very touching. Goodbye Grandpa Vet We will miss you!

My favorite holiday weekend

I love the 4th of July! It's been my favorite holiday ever since I was a little girl, I remember going to the fireworks with my family and sitting with my Daddy it seemed like they took up the whole sky and the sound of the booms and the smell of them. And going to the rodeos and BBQ's it all just makes me smile. I would like to say THANK YOU to all our soldiers who've fought to get us here and continue to fight to keep us free! With out their sacrifices we could not enjoy the things we do! so thank you. This year Mom and I took Brooks and Paisley to Cowabunga, it was a lot of fun. Brooks had been looking forward to this FOREVER, so it was fun to finally take him. He loved it and so did Paisley. I took her in the wading pool and she just smiled and kicked her little legs it was pretty cute! Brooks was playing with this little Hispanic girl and he came up to my Mom and said "I have a friend of a different color" My Mom said yeah and that's ok :) Then Brooks says "Yeah, she has a yellow bracelet and I have orange" Ha Mom totally thought he was talking about the color of her skin, but you have a colored wristband that shows how long you can be there since we only paid for 4 hours of play. It was just so cute. Then we went to the parade and Brooks made off with a big bucket full of candy. Paisley slept through the whole parade, sirens and all. We went up to the Brighton breakfast the next day, it was a lot of fun they had a little parade and lots of good candy. The breakfast was really yummy and we took a mini hike, it was so beautiful up there! Later that night we hit up the carnival, Brooks had tons of fun on the rides. He rode just about every ride he could. There was one ride that we went on together because it was a bigger kid ride, it gave you a lot of butterflies! Every time it went around Brooks would say ouch ouch ha I'm not sure he'd felt that. But then he wanted to go on it again and said I won't say ouch this time :) So he liked it. We had a little picnic in our backyard and did some little fireworks at home before heading over to the big fireworks show. They were really good they're definitely not the same as when I was little, they didn't seem to have the same kind of magic until I looked at Brooks and saw that same awe in his eyes. It was a good weekend and I loved spending it with my babies!

(I'll have to post the parade pictures later)