August is coming!!

Is August really tomorrow? What the...? When did that happen?

Man, I think this month has flown by because I've been HARD at work on something behind the scenes that I am really excited about. It is taking up most of the time that I am not spending cleaning the house, doing the laundry, visiting the library, watching E swim, trying to keep up with dusting (YUCK), editing photos, reading everyone's blogs, etc.

So, yeah, I've been busy and I haven't been blogging all that much. Just bear with me. :)

And no, I'm not going to tell you what it is.

Yet.

But trust me, it's going to be worth the wait. So keep checking back here in the next little while and you may be pleasantly surprised (especially if you live in southern California or are planning on visiting here in the next month)!

And since I don't really like posting without pictures, here's a little something of my kiddos. Since I know that's exactly what you came here to see, lol. :)

I love to watch him because

(Click to enlarge)

Gotta keep it even...

Okay, since I posted some solo shots of W yesterday, I thought in all fairness I should add some of E, especially since he is our first-born child and a very important member of this family.

So here you go, these are from today and/or yesterday. I can't remember which, haha. We've been shooting like crazy lately, in case you can't tell. :)

Here's the little silly. He doesn't like to pose for me at all, so when I can get normal smiles (or as normal as can be, lol) from him, it's a good day!



See what I mean? This is more our 'normal'. That's E dancing. Love it.



And, of course, E using all that energy to jump around. Usually he does this to make W laugh. It's so fun to watch that interaction between the two of them!

Having Fun!

I got out my light system today and had some fun with W and E. Take a look!

For those of you who are curious, I have an Alien Bees B800 and a B400, and I used my 50mm lens for these photos.

Oh, and don't forget to go and vote for me over on www.emilymurdockphotography.wordpress.com! I'm in a photo contest there as one of the finalists. You can read more about it here. :)

Please Help! :)

Hey my friends, I need your help!

I entered a photo contest over at www.emilymurdockphotography.wordpress.com and I am one of the finalists! Would you please take just a second to head on over there and vote for me? Purdy please??

Here is the link: FINALIST!

You can only vote once, so don't forget to vote for "Cool Bug"!

Thanks, I will love you forever!

::kisskiss::

For my family

I forgot to post this earlier -- when we were on the way home from shooting Renee and Lewis' engagement photos, we saw this off the freeway. And because we were in STOPPED traffic for, like, 2 hours, I had enough chance to take a picture from the passenger seat of the car. :)


I do hope they do a better job at pest control than their name suggests.

::wink::

Enjoy, mi familia! :)

Doctors and multi-tasking and PB&J, oh my!

W at the doctor this morning, waiting to be seen.

I realize I haven't posted too many of our family photos as of late (besides the last post, of course). Well, that's because of two things: 1) I'm a busy mama with lots of chores, errands, work, and other 'stuff' going on, and 2) I'm a lazy mama that would rather sit and watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix than upload pictures to my blog. "What?" you say -- "You could do both!" Well, yes, I've tried that before. But then I wouldn't be able to fully enjoy either. I have a hard time with multi-tasking, you see. It's because I can't give my full attention to one or the other, my mind just keeps jumping back and forth and I lose my train of thought. I hate that.

So I'm following Ro on her challenge and I'm going to try and do ONE thing at a time. I'm not sure what the result is going to be, but I'm going to try. First step? Turning off my Google email notifier that pops up a window every time an email comes in. It's way too distracting.

Second step? Start on one task and finish it. So that means that I'm going to work on this post, edit some photos to put in here, finish it and hit Publish Post. No more of this Save Now junk. Because, really, I hate having posts that are old that when I go to publish them everything in them is not relevant anymore. Boring.
So here goes. If you are reading this post, then I was successful. If not, then you will never know anyway. :)

This is W before his shots.

This is the poor little monkey after his shots.

I really hate watching him be in pain. But it's definitely one of those things that you have to do to keep him safe. So we do it. And luckily, he was a good sport after some warm cuddles. E was a good helper, distracting W with a some silly words which helped him smile and feel better. Love that. He really is a great big brother.

Enjoying some great 'brother' time. :)

Speaking of E, he is completely in his "I can do everything by myself" phase of life. This, of course, means that his favorite thing to do is to pull chairs over to the pantry, climb up to get out the bread and peanut butter, then pull the chair over to the fridge to get out the jelly. Then he makes his own PB&J sandwich. And yes, I have to actually help him in the end, but he's pretty good at it so far.

Oh, and did I mention that I get to stare at THIS adorable face all day long? Geez, I'm a lucky woman. :)

Okay, seeing as how this took me far longer than I would have hoped (I have to be honest, I had to stop and put the kids down for a nap, talk to my sister, and check Facebook while writing this....so much for single-tasking!) I am now going to enjoy the rest of my kid-napping time by watching some Harry Potter. :) See you soon!

PS: I'm really excited to go and see the NEW Harry Potter movie, hopefully today. If not, definitely this weekend or I will be whiny. And the hubby hates that. So he'll take me. :)

I Wonder: What is his happy thought?

Gettin' Hitched!

The hubby's younger sister, Renee, is getting married to a lucky guy named Lewis. They met while working together up at the University of Utah, and now they're going to be husband and wife in just over 4 weeks! I'm so happy for Renee and I'm glad that she has found Lewis. They're going to have lots of fun together!

I was lucky enough to be asked to take some engagement photos for them, which I happily agreed to do, at the gorgeous Getty Villa. Here are some of my favorites:

And my very favorite...



Enjoy! :)

Have you heard this?

I just love this song that is on the previews for this new movie with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. I'm sure it's in the movie as well. But I just love the song so I bought it off iTunes. I don't even know why I like it so much.

Sometimes I'm so crazy when it comes to songs like that -- I'll text myself song lyrics I hear while in an elevator or during movie previews or things like that, just so I can go find it on iTunes and buy it later. :) Anyone else do that? I think music just really impacts me a lot. Or maybe everyone feels that way? I'm just glad to have a way to buy one song at a time without wasting money on a whole album.

Anyway, that was a nice little tangent, but just thought I'd share. Someone else may like it just as much as I do. :)

I love this...

What a babe! (And Ian wasn't looking too shabby himself.)

Remember this sneak peek? Well, your patience is about to be rewarded! Here are some of my favorite shots from the first half of the session. (Yes, I know, can you even believe there are more where this came from??)

I seriously had the best time shooting this bride/groom session and I hope you like them!

And my very favorite....






Don't you just love the pure joy illuminating her face?

I do. :)

Want a sweet new memory card?

My sister Emily (who is a photographer in the Dallas area) is having a photo contest on her blog and the winner will get a brand-spanking new 4GB Lexar memory card!



It's really easy to enter, just go to her blog, read the details, and choose your best 3 summer images to submit. Then sit back, relax and wait to win!

And make sure to tell her that I sent you so she knows what a great little sister I am.

::wink::

Hilarious

Okay, this is too funny. Awhile ago, Peter Facinelli (who plays Dr. Carlisle Cullen in the Twilight movies) and his friend, Rob DeFranco, had a bet going that Peter couldn't get 500,000 new followers on his Twitter account within a week.

If Peter couldn't get the amount of people in time, then he would have to give Rob his Twilight chairback that he got to keep from the movie (it's that fabric thing that gets put on the backs of the stars' chairs during a movie). If he did get the 500,00 followers, then Rob would have to dance, in a bikini, to Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies" out on Hollywood and Vine in LA.

So who won?

And the coolest part? Peter ended up donating his chairback to a really lucky fan (and Twitter follower). Now that's nice. :)