boo!

Happy Halloween!  Hope you are having a spooktacular day. :)

This weekend I took some pictures of little miss Lexi in her costume – she made a darling little farmer, I must say. 

Here are a couple sneak peeks…

Stay tuned for the rest…

and you may have noticed…I updated my little signature stamp…thought it was time for a new look :) let me know what you think!

some family photos

so I went out on a limb this year, and decided to attempt to get some “family photos” of us…….myself.  You know, like a self-family-portrait (or something like that).

I wasn’t sure how it would go…but it seemed like a fun idea, so why not!  The husband was oh so excited.

I am actually pretty impressed with how they came out.  It only took 2 afternoons, a tripod, and a lot of running back and forth while trying not to look like I just ran back and forth (don’t have a remote for the camera just yet…) Although there were several poses that would have come out really awesome, but instead came out as a beautifully focused tree with two blurry people in front of them, I did manage to get a few good ones (you know, where we were actually in focus).  We even threw Daisy in for a couple of them!

I’m only showing you a few for now…I do have to save something for the holiday card you know. :)

 

I also ended up with some pretty stinkin’ cute shots of Matt and Daisy, which came out of the bazillion “setup” shots I took (while attempting to get the camera positioned, the settings changed, the timer set…)

These two do make a pretty cute couple………

I’ll post all the pictures from this “session” one of these days…if I don’t forget. :)

woof

A few weeks ago, I organized a bake sale at work which benefitted a great charity, Wayside Waifs.  If you haven’t heard of Wayside (you probably live under a rock.  or you just aren’t from Kansas City), they are a wonderful animal rescue group.  And who doesn’t love animal rescue groups.

Anyway, I decided I would also contribute to the bake sale, so I whipped up some sugar cookies with paw prints on them (cute, right?).

I know I’ve posted about my attempts at baking before, and shared the recipes before, but I’m sharing again.  Because I can.  I am slowly mastering the art of this baking thing…although it is still quite an ordeal.  I end up spending more than a couple hours on it each time.  But it’s actually pretty calming to me, and, well, the end result is delicious!

I started with this sugar cookie recipe.  The dough is amazing.  Not that I would eat it or anything.  But it’s delicious.

This is the recipe I use for my Royal Icing (and here is a little “how-to” that I use as well). 

From there, I just let the creative juices flow.  This time it came out in the form of paw prints, just perfect for a bake sale benefitting an animal shelter.

I think this batch turned out pretty well – every last one of them sold at the bake sale, and I didn’t hear any complaints. :)

football and a flyover

A few weekends ago, we rang in the official start of fall with the first Chiefs game (ok, it wasn't technically the first game, but it was the home opener.)

That day was also the 10th anniversary of a day most of us will never forget. 

It's one of those days where everyone remembers where they were, what they were doing, who they were talking to...every detail about when they heard of the terrorist attacks.  I know I remember it like it was yesterday. 

You see a lot of different ways to memorialize and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives that day - of course the NFL and the Chiefs were no different, so we got to see some pretty neat things at this game.

But lets start at the beginining.  As always, the day starts with some good old fashioned tailgating.

Look!  That's me!  I have been told that my face doesn't show up enough around here...

Well you know it's a little tricky when I am the one behind the camera most of the time, but I'm working on making an effort to hand the camera over every now and then. 

(Just ignore the fact that I look like I just rolled out of bed and am still half asleep.  That's because I did, and I was.  It was a Sunday afterall.)

See, I did it again. :)

Once we had consumed enough free beer good tailgaiting food, we made our way inside.

The first cool thing we saw was the unveiling of this larger-than-life American Flag.  I'm not kidding when I say larger than life.  The thing covered the entire football field!  And if I remember correctly, everyone holding the flag were first responders on the day of the attacks.

Since it's hard to capture this type of thing in photos, I attempted to animate it to give you a better idea of what it was like to see it unfold.  Pretty cool.  (if the image below isn't moving, click on it to see the animation)

After the unveiling of the awesome flag, a moment of silence, and the national anthem (sung by our hometown American Idol David Cook...) we were also treated to a flyover.

And who doesn't love a flyover.  I get goosebumps every time.

Then the game finally started...

...and, I promptly stopped taking pictures.  The Touchtown photo above, was pretty much the one and only good moment by the Chiefs the entire game.  It was quite sad really how badly the Bills stomped on us. 

And the 2 games after that were no better. 

But this past weekend we finally brought home a win! 

I guess we're just getting off to a slow start this season...or something.

old settlers

 
A couple weeks ago we walked over to the Johnson County Old Settler’s festivities, which just happens to set up every year about 2 blocks from our house.

There are lots of fun events – a parade, vendors, a carnival.  For some reason, we always end up not making it out until the last evening they are there… I’m sure once we have a little one we will probably have more motivation to get out and enjoy the daytime activities.

But since we’re still young and kid-less, we like to gather a few friends and walk down to enjoy the carnival, some awesome (in a really-bad-for-you sort of way) food, and some serious people-watching.  What, you don’t go to carnivals to people-watch? psh.

We did some arcade-game-playing, some who’s-the-toughest-guy competition (aka who-can-win-brooke-a-prize…and just for the record it was not Matt who won that one…just sayin’…), some eating, and of course as I already mentioned, some people-watching.  What more could you ask for in a Saturday evening?!

run for rhonda …again!

Well, I did it again.  Yes, I was up and out of the house BEFORE 8AM ON A SUNDAY.  Of course there must be a good reason for such craziness...

And there is!  Last weekend the family all got out and walked in the Head for the Cure 5k (just like we did last year) in honor of Aunt Rhonda.

We had a great time, and of course it supported a great cause.

Enjoy some photos of the event...



As you can see, Rhonda is doing great - and looking fabulous!

Lexi ~ summer fun

Like I said last week, it had been quite a while since the last photo session I did with Lexi…I think it was all the way back at her first birthday!  Now, she is a whole 20 months old! That’s almost 2 years!  Where has the time gone?!?

It’s a whole different ballgame taking pictures of an almost-2-year-old… it now involves a lot of running, chasing, screaming, laughing, clapping, jumping, and some photo snapping in there somewhere too.  I love it though – I am lucky to get some experience photographing kids of all ages, just by watching this cutie-pie grow up :)

But I digress.  Please enjoy more photos from our session:

(so, I’m trying the whole images-in-a-collage-blog-post thing.  I see a lot of other blogs post pictures in this format, so I thought I’d try it too.  It was sort of a pain in the you-know-what though, so I’m sure I’m doing it wrong.  just call me Photoshop rookie...)

fun in the sun

it had been waaaaay too long since I did an actual photo session with Lexi… so we took care of that.

I’m working on editing the rest of the photos now, but here’s a few to hold you (Sarah) over. :)

 

 

This kid just keeps getting cuter… stay tuned for more!

everything’s bigger…

…in Texas!

For the 4th of July, we took a little trip down to Texas to visit some family.  And by little trip, I mean 12 hours in the car each way.  (Although that’s nothin’ compared to our Vegas trip last year.) 

The first day of our trip was spent on the water…one of my favorite places to be. :)

 

Matt and I enjoyed some tubing with my cousins (who you may remember as the flower girls from our wedding)…

And as you can see Sarah is a super star at knee-boarding!

I was not interested in embarrassing myself, so I left the knee-boarding to the professional.  I did attempt to water ski, but thankfully there aren’t any pictures of that adventure.

That evening, we did some family pictures.  In our coordinating Red, White & Blue, no less. ;)

First up were the 5 grandkids (my second cousins? I think? they are my cousin’s kids, so whatever that makes them…)

And of course a picture of our little family…

  

And apparently we have a thing for silly pictures in my family…

(that last picture courtesy of my cousin Jen:)

(can we all take a moment to notice that my mom is the one person not sticking out her tongue…ha)

Then, on the 4th we decided to be adventurous.

And by we, I mean my aunt Janet.  She had the grand idea that we should all go and ride a zip line.  As in, jump off a giant tower and then fly down this cord and feel like you’re going to slam into a tree and die.  But it will be fun!!

 

Do I look scared?  Yeah.

  

When I looked up and saw how tall (and wobbly!) that tower was I was cursing Aunt Janet.

And then when I got to the top I wanted to turn around and go back to the ground.

But the crazy lady hooking us up (as in, RESPONSIBLE FOR MY LIFE) talked me into doing it.  So I jumped.

And it was SO FUN!!  It was only scary until about 2 seconds after I jumped and then it was pure awesomeness.

I even managed to snap a picture of Matt mid-ride.

See? I wasn’t scared a bit. Ha.

(By the way, of COURSE I had to be the first one to go because I was the only idiot one with a camera)

Although it was fun snapping pictures of everyone else as they flew by. :)

 

How cute is my mom :)

After our adventurous day, we headed home and got ready for our big night out to watch the fireworks over the lake. 

We watched fireworks at the Ski Lodge, which according to my Aunt Janet makes a killer margarita.

And I happen to agree.  If you can’t tell.

The next day was the last day of our vacation, and after a long day of shopping we headed to San Antonio for dinner and a visit to the Riverwalk.

 

We stopped to eat dinner at this 24 hour Mexican place (can you say HEAVEN), which had some crazy decor…

(that’s the ceiling!)

And on the way there we saw the Alamo.

We didn’t actually go see the Alamo, we just drove by.  But I still took a picture out the window :)

And then I tried to turn it into a slightly less taken-out-the-car-window picture.

Not bad, eh?

After dinner, we made it to the river walk

 

My parents.  Aren’t they cute. :)

This looked like the coolest store ever (although it wasn’t open).  And clever marketing to put their website on the window in front of the cool sculpture everyone takes a picture in front of…

Aww…

After the Riverwalk, we came home, packed up, and then bright and early the next morning we hopped  back on the road for the 12 hour drive home.  Thankfully this road trip wasn’t *quite* as eventful as our Colorado trip last fall…  I haven’t sworn of road trips all together, so I think that is a plus.