Honeysuckle & Memories

Our property is lined with honeysuckle. Oh that fragrance!!! Anytime I smell Honeysuckle it makes me think of Grandma Emma. Her fence row had honeysuckle on it and I can remember going out to the vines, picking the blooms off, and sucking the nectar out. Something I will have to teach Josie when she gets older!

Random Fact

A quick random fact: Coca-cola was originally green. Ha. Who would have thought?

And it wouldn't stop me from drinking it all day long. (Diet anyway)

Wonder

Sometimes I wonder what is running through her mind. Can't wait until she can tell me! In words I can understand anyway.

Little Catch Up

I have been taking a class over at jessicasprague.com in photography. It has made me want to start taking photos again of people. So I started a blog and am going to start my photography back up. You can visit the blog at http://dreamsdocometruephotography.blogspot.com/.

My plan is to keep this blog separate from their so that I can find what I need when I scrapbook for Josie.

I'm going to catch us up in photos and memories from last night back to the last posting. So here goes:

Last night, while I was giving Josie a bath, I wanted to spike her hair up and get a photo. Doesn't every child have one of those. She let me get the photo but then it was time to dump water on her head. I'm so glad this girl doesn't mind water in her face. It will make it funner with swimming.

Then she was playing with her "Ariel" mermaid and was flipping her hair, which in turn was drenching Mommy. So I started making a big deal about it and she was just laughing as hard as she could. Stood up, got that "Josie" expression and says, "You're Crazy Mommy". I about lost it. She is too funny!!!

The child didn't want to get out of the bath last night. She was in it for over an hour and everytime I would try to get her to get out, she would tell me, "I swimmin Mommy!" She was quite the raisin when we finally got her out.

The the little stinkpot, climbed up on the couch with me, sat there for a few minutes and says:

Josie: Mommy

Me: What?

Josie: I Wuv U

Me: I love you too

Josie: I want gummies

Oh my Lord! I called my Mom to see if I was this comical when I was little. She said I was just funny with all of my dancing.

Which leads us to our next fact about Josie. That kid loves dancing. In the car we have to listen to "Celebrate" over and over again. If it's not on, she tells you to "push it". That is the first thing she asks for when she gets in the car.

She has to sleep with her Teddy and Tiggers. Now that she hasn't been having the "winterly" sicknesses, she has access to both Tiggers and she has to sleep with them both. If there is a baby in reach that goes in the bed as well. She loves her babies. They go shopping alot.

If she's not playing with her babies, then she is at her kitchen, making us "cacakes" (cupcakes)

Mikey took Riley turkey hunting on youth weekend. He was excited the whole week leading up to it and counted down the days every morning that I got to their house to drop Josie off. He stayed the night with us and Mikey took him Saturday night and Sunday morning. Then he went with Mikey Sunday afternoon to the Hudoff's to take down their tree stands before Mikey took him home.

While the boys were turkey hunting, Josie & I went and picked up Kayla. Then we met Aunt Emily at upper Cascades to play at the park. The girls had a lot of fun. There was even a little boy there between their ages and he ended up buddying up with us.

Josie was quite the dare devil for her first park experience. She didn't seem to mind any of it and was trying to keep up with all of the "big" kids.

On April 16th we set up Josie's big girl bed. The first night I laid her down in it was a little depressing. She's not my little girl anymore! :-( But she is all excited about having a "Big Girl Bed" and she has slept in it nightly. Some nights she is ending up in our bed about midway through the night but she's doing pretty good in it.

Right now her favorite toys are her Snap N Style Dolls, Babies, the phone and her Little People. I would say her favorite clothing is still her shoes. I got her a new pair of Real Crocs and she loves them things.

With Easter, Josie would find the eggs, get all excited, open it up, eat the candy, Then and only Then would she move onto the next egg. Needless to say, she had plenty of candy to last her the whole month.

We had to dye Easter Eggs at the water office while I was working. With everything going on, we simply ran out of time and everyone was busy and had stuff to do. I don't really think the kids minded and we didn't have to worry too much about messes cause it would clean up really easy up here. This was Josie's first real experience dying Easter Eggs. She never tried to eat them either, but she didn't last long doing it and Riley & Kayla actually dyed the majority of them. I think Josie only really did one.

Well I think I have got myself caught up now. Hopefully I can get a schedule and do this better.

Oh!!! And starting Monday, May 3rd, I get to start taking Mondays off. I'm excited and scared all at the same time. We are going to have to cut back on spending but so far it's been okay. I guess time will tell.

Long Live Love

While taking photos of my brother with my Dad's pride & joy, his Model A, I took some of my parents as well.
They have been married for 35 years. I hope to have a marriage as strong as theirs. That through the trials and tribulations, Mike & I will stay strong to each other.
I hope that we raise Josie in a way that they will be proud. To believe in Jesus, love their parents, and treat others with respect and caring. The way that they taught us Three to be.
I hope that I have made them proud in my 33 (almost 34, eek!) years.
Anyway, here are Two great photos! Enjoy!!!

Awww! New Love

My baby brother is finally getting married. He has been dating a wonderful gal for several years now. They are going to tie the knot this October.
She & I went to the bridal show here in Bloomington and we found some awesome guest books that were made out of photos of the couples. We got together this past weekend for a little photo shoot. Which there will be more to come. We didn't get everything taken she wanted.
Anyway, here is a small preview from that photo shoot.

Introducing Colby David Brown

Meet Colby David Brown. Born April 1st and weighing in at 8 pounds and 21 inches. First son of my wonderful cousin Becky & her husband, Jerome. This little guy was so cute! I'm very thankful to Becky to have me come to her home and take his photo. He was a little under two weeks at this time and done very well.

I'm ready to take some more newborn photos now! She gave me the bug!!!

Hope you enjoy!

Hello There! and Welcome!!!

I get really excited when I learn a new skill. For those of you that know me, photography has always been an obsession of mine. Mike & I went to DC in 1998 and I came back with about 15 rolls of film to develop. Seriously! And we weren't even there a whole week. That is how I have been for as long as I can remember.
Then I started scrapbooking in 2001. At the time, Mike raced and that was all of his free time, working on the car. I felt the need to be crafty and was looking for a new hobby. Introduce, scrapbooking! I quickly became obsessed with it. Had to have all the new stuff. Any book I could get my hands on. And of course MORE PHOTOS!
But scrapbooking did do one thing. It made me take different kinds of photos. I paid more attention to details. Things you wouldn't think of taking a photo of. If I'd been scrapbooking when we went to DC, I would have taken photos of all of the signs under the statues so that when I got back I would remember what they were!
But taking all of these photos and different types of photos, led me to a new venture in 2002. My first ever, real paid, photo shoot! Then that progressed  into doing weddings. {Which, forewarning!!! This time around I am not doing weddings. Portraiture only!!!}
Then the miracle that Mike & I had been waiting for since the day we got married!!! I finally became pregnant in November 2007. I continued to do a few shoots here and there at the beginning. With all of the things that I had to do to maintain the pregnancy, taking photos became just too much. So I quit.
Enter Emmalynne Josephine, August 3, 2008. The camera came back out! Now I had my own child to make those scrapbook pages about.
Slowly but surely I started getting the hang of this new parenting thing. And after about 15 months!!! :-) I think I became somewhat comfortable. I started to get the urge and obsession of all things photo and scrapbooking again. I switched over to doing scrapbooking digitally, because I could do it here at my full time job, while I was working. {You know what it's like to try and do any crafts with a 15 month very active toddler!} Then Christmas, 2009, my parents and my husband got me what I had been asking for. A NEW LAPTOP! And that has prove to be the best present I have ever gotten. I carry it daily with me to work. Having this new computer has allowed me to scrapbook here at work and if I don't get something finished then I can work on it after Josie goes to bed. This has allowed me to have all of 2009 done!!!
Digitally scrapbooking led me to start taking some online classes, which got me wanting to learn more. I needed a refresher course on photography so I found a class and am now back into taking portraits again!
My "DREAMS DO COME TRUE", is first and foremost my precious Josie, but my second dream would be for my passion of all things photo to come full circle and provide me with the desire to create and capture and pay for my little family to live!
This is where this blog will come in. I plan on posting favorites from photo shoots to share with you my reader along with little excerpts of my daily life. Please stay and enjoy and leave me many many comments. Love to get comments! So grab a can of Diet Coke and enjoy!!!

This is a test

Not of the emergency broadcast service! But of me, myself & I!

More 2010 Scrap pages