when they came to visit

Finally, I'm blogging.  We had so much fun when Sean's brother and family came to visit.  I wish they lived next door.   Here's a little glimpse into their visit to our crazy house...

We ate good thanks to Nathan who stopped at Costco before coming.

Yep, that's 10 dozen eggs and there are 7 gallons of milk in the fridge.

Ella liked to play in Ava's seat.

The girls played a lot of playdoh.

Jonah and Collin played a lot of Hot Wheels.

 We drank some hot chocolate.  Why, you ask... because it rained almost the entire time they were here.  

They swung and swung and swung some more and always with Pirates Booty in hand. 

We went for a hike up Mt. Young and had a little picnic.

 We payed a visit to the park and guess what?  They swung on the swings.

They took the Harley out for a spin.

 We took some family photos and Sean even got a ticket on the way out to American camp.  Awesome.

Thanks for coming, Nathan and Rebecca.  Come again real soon.  xo

me

image credit: my nephew

Busy, busy me.  I'm sad I've been ignoring this blog and all of your cute blogs.  I hope to be back soon with a post full of photos of promised cute children.  For now, here's me taking photos from this weekend.  Prom night.

xo

missing

those piggy tails.

her little voice (which just so happens to sound like "Boo" from Monster's Inc.).

her brother and sisters.

and her mom and dad, too.

come back family, we miss you.

xx

looky looky

My new camera bag!!  She was a little stinky when I first got her out of the box, but it's starting to fade.  She's a beauty.  I couldn't be more happy to get rid of clunky-canon-bag.  This here Jo-Tote is much, much, MUCH easier on the eyes.

blue vs gray

Yesterday there were blue skies.

Today it's raining and oh-so-gray.

I'm rootin' for blue.  Go big blue!

hi. it's me.

Just in case you've forgotten all about me, well, here I am.  I'm back.  I have lots of photos to share.  We had some guests last week.  Sean's brother and family were here.  It was a busy house, 7 children, including our own, but it was so fun.  The weather pretty much stunk-it-up while they were here, but we made the best of it.  We told the kids the rain doesn't make you melt, it just makes your hair frizzy.  Kind of like in the photos above.  Haha.  I hope to have a blog post soon with photos of lots of cute kids.  Thanks for checking in.  

"I appreciate your friendship"  Randy Conover.

xo

Sara

this past weekend

Sean had class in Seattle.

I went along with him.

We left our children with their aunt, uncle and cousins.

Our children ended up getting bad colds and were kinda grumpy for their cousins.

Sorry about that, cousins.

Sean and I ate at Claim Jumper Friday night.

We split a salad and the best sandwich ever.  It's called the Grilled Cobb Sandwich if you're curious.

We shopped at Target and filled our cart with a lot of stuff.

Target is dangerous.  Danger with a capital d.  It's a good thing we don't have one of them Targets in F.H.

Sean left the hotel room for class early Saturday morning.

I took my sweet time leaving the hotel.

Then I went straight to Starbucks.

I had 3 grande, non-fat, extra hot, carmel macchiatos in one day.

It's a good thing we don't have one of them Starbucks in F.H.

I shopped at IKEA for a couple hours.

My new couch is at IKEA.

I will come back for you new couch.

Then I headed to the South Center Mall.

I made a bee-line for H&M.

It's a good thing we don't have a Mall or an H&M in F.H.

It was time to pick up Sean from class.

We were hungry.

We picked up some lunch from Chipotle.

I like Chipotle.  A lot.

It's a good thing we don't have one of them Chipotle's in F.H.

We made the 5:20pm ferry.

We took a little nap in the car while on the ferry.

We finally arrived Friday Harbor at 7:20pm.

We picked up our coughing, snorting, grumpy children from the cousins.

We emptied the car of our stuff.

We went to bed.

Sean woke up Sunday morning siiiiiick.  Real sick.

Stella coughed most of the night.

We missed church.

We're better now.

It's a good thing because Sean's brother and family are coming to visit!!!!!!!

Oh! and while off-island I had the opportunity to photograph a beautiful baby girl and one of her big brothers (the other two were at school).

It was my first traveling photography session.

You can see more of that session on my facebook fan page soon.

If you want to.

I would say check them out on my photography website, but that's not ready yet.

Anyway...

Here's a little sneak peek of the sweet baby.

She was cuuuute.

I wanted to take her home.

She is the baby that was inside the mom in this post.

It was a good weekend.

The end.

oh 50mm lens...

Last weekend I rented both the 50mm f1.2L lens and the 50mm 1.4.  The 50mm f1.2L lens is more than 10 times as much as the 50mm 1.4.  TEN TIMES!!  Crazy.  The 1.2 was built like a tank and was smooth and quiet and felt very nice on the camera, but seriously I couldn't get one sharp image from that beast.  I was greatly disappointed in it and I told Borrowed Lenses as much.  If I'm going to pay $1500 for a lens, it better work and it better focus.  Maybe I got a dud??  I don't know... all I know is I got better results with the 50mm 1.4 lens and that baby only costs around $350.  Now I'm wondering if there is a different lens I should be checking out, like the 35mm?  Anyway, sorry for all the camera talk, but it's on my brain right now.  I'm not sure I'm going to find a lens I like better than my 24-70mm f2.8L.

Here's some images I took with the 50's.  These are all SOOC (straight out of the camera).  Can you tell which photos are with the spendy lens??

ava's snow day in black and white

The big kids went to spend their snow day at a friends house.  

Little Ava was stuck at home with me, her mom.

First we played some Candy Land.

Then she watched a little Dora.

It was a pretty exciting episode by the looks of it.

Then she had honey nut cheerios for lunch.

Why not?  She loves them and I see that check mark on the box talking about whole grains.  Yep, I see it there.  

Then we got all bundled up and faced the storm.  

She told me Santa Claus was coming tomorrow.  That seems about right.   Snow is for Christmastime not spring.  This weather is so confusing.

Then one last photo before naptime.  

I'm thinking maybe after naps it'll be a good time to trim the ol'bangs.  That's an idea, as my sweet Ava would say.

As good as these snow days are, I would be OK if it all decided to melt...like yesterday. 

in love

I'm in love with soft curls, ruffles and this girl.  

I took away her crib yesterday.  She cried.  She watched me take it apart and saw it in pieces in her room and looked at me with the saddest eyes and said, "you broke my crib."  Then I cried and was *this* close to putting it all back together.  I have nothing against her staying in her crib, but we moved the extra twin bed in there yesterday, which makes for two twin beds in her room.  It was just too tight to try and keep the crib, too.  I put her down for her nap just now and she cried for her crib again.  It breaks my heart.  I asked her why she loves her crib so much and she said, "cause it's just so soft-tilly."  It's my goal to make her big girl bed as soft-tilly as her crib.