Mara.

This girl had me in stitches with her silly antics yesterday afternoon during her photo shoot. Having clients like her totally make my job fun! We had a lot of "silly" poses, laughter, pretending to be sad and some semi-serious ones too. There are so many good shots of Mara, that it was really difficult to find just 3 to post.

Prost!

We went to Oktoberfest out at Mountain Lake last Saturday. Man, it was so much fun! The photo collage is a compilation of images taken from that evening of our rowdy group. :) 8 adults crammed into our 7-passenger Tahoe (one of those times that I wish that we had actually gotten the bench seat for the middle row instead of the captain's seats, yes Rob, I'm admitting that you were right!). Rob drove. All you can eat food that was mighty tasty. Plenty of beer (or cider/coffee/water) for all. Fun times all around. Some of my favorite quotes of the night were when Jan kept insisting that he was Swedish, and when Horst was telling everyone about why the cows wore the cow bells--still laughing over that one.

One of the women in the band came up to me afterwards and asked how I became so lucky to be the only girl amongst all of those dashing young men in our party...It was a hard job, but someone had to do it. ;-) Thanks guys for a great time. Ready to go again next year? I know that I am!

Learning and growing.

That's something we're all doing right now--learning and growing. The boys are learning more each day about how the world works, more about God, his creation, academic related things. They are growing like weeds physically (well, Aidan is a slow-growing one), and above are a couple of pictures to show how big they have gotten. I'm learning and growing more as a parent, as a wife, as a friend, as God's daughter and whatnot. I'm growing more in Him (and am trying not to grow bigger physically). :)

I had a MOPS meeting this morning, and let me tell you, it was awesome! My friend, Jennifer, posted a little bit about what our speaker talked about (as well as someone the 3 of us had listened to at the Extraordinary Women's Conference in early September). During the meeting and while reading Jenn's blog, God gave me a little nudge, or maybe it was more of a swift kick in the pants, and made me realize that I'm not ministering to others the way He wants me to. I'm holding back in fear. Fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. Fear of rejection. Fear that I will inadvertently turn things around to what is going on in my own life. Just plain fear of being stretched or made uncomfortable. Some of this fear is definitely due to my trying to stay somewhat guarded and protect myself from being hurt. Really, I should be handing that over to Jesus and be walking in his strength, compassion and power.

Jesus, train me how to live today. Teach me to be there for others. Help me to be a better friend and to not be afraid to reach out and befriend others. Thank you that we do not have to fear because you are with us, you are our God and will strengthen us and help us and uphold us with your righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10). Train me to be more like you Jesus--I am giving my fear to you Lord. Mold me into the woman you want me to be and may people see you shining through me in everything. Amen.

Punker.

That's the name David bestowed upon a beautiful Monarch butterfly when we were up at Pandapas Pond this morning. I was playing fetch with Sydney, allowing her to swim and retrieve--two things she does quite well, and all of a sudden David comes up to me, ready to show me his prize catch. He was holding it gingerly by the wings and had this look of sheer bliss and delight upon his face. The butterfly was given the name of Punker because she was orange like a pumpkin (and I call him punkin) and he likes to have an 'er' sound be at the end of a lot of his made-up words.

My boy cried when Punker finally decided to fly away. It was hard seeing him so heartbroken. Maybe we will find more when we walk to the park later? This time we will come prepared with butterfly net in hand. :)

Photo Monday.

I was a busy girl Monday afternoon/early evening. :) Vicki and Jeff came over to have their photos taken--they just got married last week!!! And, Rob needed to have a picture for his webpage, so we got his done too. David had me take a few of him in his Halloween costume too, but I decided not to post any of those. He does make a pretty cute storm trooper though!

The sessions went really well overall; however, I had to do more editing than I had hoped since my lighting was a little bit off. Thank goodness for photoshop though! The proofs will be in tomorrow, so I can see if any color corrections need to be made, or if I'm good to go. Since Rob calibrated my monitor, I haven't been having too many problems though--unless it happened to be by user error. :) Like that would ever happen?!?! (ha ha ha)

Fall is in the air.

The air is beginning to get cooler, crisper. I can almost smell the change of season in the air. Leaves are beginning to change color. Signs of fall are showing up everywhere I look. Soon the mountain sides will be painted in beautiful orange, red and yellow. Leaves, as they begin to fall, will crunch underneath feet (and will make for lots of autumn fun!). Fall...one of my favorite seasons.

Getting in the groove.

This past week, David and I started doing preschool at home. After the 2nd day, as we are trying to get our lessons done before bedtime, I was thinking to myself, "why in the world did we decide to start this week since I had other things planned?" Then I thought, "well...this is a good test to show that we can do school when we get the time!" I found this curriculum online called ABC, I Believe. Each week we learn a memory verse (this week it is Proverbs 6:6 as we are studying about ants), and we have different craft ideas, math, reading, and penmanship ideas (as well as some other things too). David loves having school. Well, he loves everything except penmanship. I think he would truly prefer to just write the letters whatever way he chose and however big he thinks they should be. Stay between the lines? I don't think he thinks that he should have to do that. :)

Well, school work is calling to us. I'd better not keep my little man waiting. We've got some new sounds to learn for reading and more penmanship practice.

Oh, the photo I posted today was one I took looking down Acorn Street in Boston. I had tried posting it with my entry about our trip, but was having problems posting photographs that day.

Sweet angel.

These photos were taken a couple of weeks ago--my first photo shoot done at the new house. Malik was very cooperative and truly was every bit of the angel that he looks like in these photos. I love looking at how peaceful he looks in these pictures. Peaceful and sweet.

Chaos.

That is the word that completely describes our house right now. Boxes are piled high throughout the house, waiting to be loaded onto and off of the moving truck this coming Monday morning. Thankfully, we have hired a company to move the boxes and furniture for us, so packing and unpacking is the only thing we will have to do this time around. The kitchen will definitely be the first thing I work toward unpacking. I always feel a sense of accomplishment (and organization) once that particular room is out of the way.

Our Boston trip was so much fun! I really enjoyed getting to tour the city, to learn even more about American history, and of course, getting to visit with my brother Dustin and his girlfriend, Melinda. The weather was hot while we were there, and we walked LOTS! The boys liked the Children's museum, the Tadpole Park and Frog Pond at the Boston Common, their excursion to the zoo with Nana and Uncle Dunny (especially the lion roaring at them--Aidan is continually giving us his impression) and getting to see the seals outside of the aquarium. Then again, David also enjoyed climbing onto the fire hydrant he saw when we walked onto Harvard's campus, they both enjoyed seeing the various painted cow statues peppered throughout the city and getting to ride on the busses and choo-choos. My favorite parts were when Mom and Dustin took the kids to the zoo leaving Rob and I to be able to walk The Freedom Trail together and our last full day in Boston--going to the Boston Public Library with Dustin and seeing all the different exhibits, walking down Marlborough Street and through the Public Garden and then going to Revere Beach to see the sand sculptures from the previous weekend's competition (and to play in the water, but only Melinda and I ventured to do that). After leaving Revere Beach, we took the subway back to the Prudential center to go on the skywalk. The skywalk is on the 50th floor of the Prudential Tower and gives you an amazing view of the city, granted that the audio tour is geared for the daylight hours and not the dark, but oh well. :) Dustin and Melinda lastly took us to Finale, a wine and dessert restaurant that was so good . We all enjoyed getting to visit with one another, and Rob and I enjoyed getting to see a different aspect of the city that we hadn't seen up until that point. We took the subway and bus back to the hotel and settled in for the night before driving all the way back home the following day.

Well, I had better get back to cleaning bathrooms, one down and one more to go for this evening.

Beautiful baby girl.

I had my first newborn photo shoot yesterday, and here is one of my favorite photographs. I saw this idea for a photograph on a photography studio supplies website and was anxious to try it. Newborn shoots bring with them their challenges, but babies are so adorable, I don't mind. :) Thankfully Heather was willing to let Gracie be my guinea pig (thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!). I learned so much yesterday. Truly, each session teaches me something new and different, and helps me to grow. This new adventure I'm embarking upon is so exciting--that inner artist is really emerging.

We're leaving for Boston tomorrow. Well, actually, we will be spending the day around Lancaster, PA at Dutch Wonderland and will drive the rest of the way to Boston on Saturday. I'm really excited to get to see the city, and am even more excited about getting to see my brother--the only thing that would be better is renting a house on the beach for a week and just getting to relax and be. Maybe next summer...

New do, movies and s'mores...

what can be better than that? :) This morning I had my hair cut and highlighted--had to try and hide all that gray hair that seems to be popping up all the time. My stylist was actually kind of surprised that I asked her really spontaneously to cut more than an inch off of my hair. Initially, we had agreed to cut maybe 1-1 1/2 inches off, but I think I had her take at least 2 or more inches off total. It's still just below shoulder length, so it's still long hair--I didn't do anything super drastic. :)

After I got home, we ran to farmer's market to check out the goods. Aidan helped me pick out some fresh garlic. David picked out some granola and we also got some cherry limeade and margarita/spritzer mix--yum! We ran into our friend Shannon at the lemonade stand (Aidan was trying to help himself to more, and he couldn't really reach the container--it was funny). I'm trying to plot a peach-picking adventure with my fellow peach loving friend so we can both have some to freeze/can to use until next year. After we get back from vacation, right? (I'm saying this here so neither of us can forget!) We also drove out to Crow's Nest to see what their hours were and to find out what they have available for picking right now. I need to get more blueberries and really want to get raspberries this year. David is finally eating jam with his sandwiches, so I can make some this year. Yeah!!! I don't know exactly what made him start liking jam, but he does now and that is a good thing.

This afternoon, post-farmer's market, was nice and quiet. Aidan went down for his nap, David and I pounded through 3 reading lessons. Oh, he is doing so good with our reading lessons right now. We're going through Siegfried Engelmann's Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and are at about lesson 32 right now. I really like the method outlined in this book, but have had to modify it to help keep David interested in what we are doing. I don't think he really saw the point in the beginning exercises since he already knows the basic sounds of his letters (thanks to the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD!), but now that he is reading various words and short stories, the excitement is really starting to show. He is even starting to sound out words he sees on signs or around the house--it is so cool! Well, after reading, we watched a couple of movies that came today via Netflix, then we picked up dinner and headed out to France and Pierre's (the couple's home we are watching while they are out of town) to let the boys and Sydney burn some energy. They all love getting to play in the woods. I think the sticks, dirt and other treasures are what the boys like the most. Well, that and the fact that we got to roast marshmallows in the fire pit to make s'mores. While we were making s'mores, I was singing the VeggieTales "Marshmallow Song" to the boys. "Graham cracker, graham cracker, chocolate bar. Sitting by the campfire under the stars...Marshmallows, Marshmallows, sticky and sweet...put them all together and you've got a treat!" Aidan was giving me big smiles and was dancing along to the beat of the music. It's definitely a catchy tune.

Oh, but after giving Aidan his s'more, he wouldn't eat it! He got marshmallow goo on his mouth and hands and started saying "Mess! Mess! I make mess!" and was trying to clean off his hands. He doesn't like getting food on himself or spilling it on the table. He will literally stop eating whatever it is until you get him something that he can help clean it up with...he's funny, I know. David devoured his s'more though. Nothing stopped that one. :)

Yikes--it's getting late and we have to get up semi-early to go to church in the morning. Have a wonderful weekend!

The Puz family.

As I promised, here are some of the good photos from their session last night. It was hard to choose only 3 to post! Enjoy!

Today we're hoping to go blueberry picking after Rob is done administering the final exam to one of his classes. We had hoped to go Wednesday afternoon; however, we had a couple of really tired and cranky boys. The 4-year-old was in an especially funky mood that day. Today is going to be better though. I just know it! :)

Freaking hilarious!

Yep--that's what this picture is. Matt and Tasha came over with their kiddos to have family portraits done last night. Maya was starting to become restless here and Evan was gold mining. This picture just totally makes me laugh. I'll post some of the good ones from their session soon. Just thought you all needed a good chuckle.

My 2nd Maternity Photo Shoot!

Yesterday, Cassandra came over to have her maternity photos taken. Tifini had actually highly recommended my services and talked her into contacting me to have her photos done. Oh my goodness, I have literally almost been in tears over how beautiful Cassandra's photos have been turning out! The highlights and shadows created by the lights have been amazing. We tried a lot of new poses and repeated some from my other maternity session--overall, we ended up with art! This is only one of the photographs that I have tweaked (I was actually attempting to create a watermark for my images in PhotoShop. I am so PhotoShop challenged--the things that should be so simple, seem to take me FOREVER.) Also...I'm exposure challenged. What my exposure meter indicates is the proper exposure (even reflected off my gray card) is always underexposed to my camera. If I slow down the shutter like I'm supposed to to get my camera to be happy, if my subject moves, even slightly, blur is created on the image. Ugh!!! Think I'm going to go and talk to the guy at the camera store this afternoon when we go to the farmer's market and see what I should do.

Photography is so amazing--and it's really starting to keep me busy!!! I had one session yesterday, one on Monday and have another one tomorrow and part two of yesterday's session will be done over the weekend--this time Cassandra's boyfriend will be photographed with her. I can hardly wait!!! But back to photography being amazing...it's a venue for me to be creative. For me to feel like a true artist.

In the next couple of weeks, I am going to be creating a separate blog for my studio to post different photos there. That way, my personal and professional stuff will be kept separate to some extent. As soon as that happens, I will post a link here so y'all can see my work.

Today I'm hoping to get out and do something fun. Since it has been rainy, the boys are getting a little stir crazy. And frankly, they're driving me bananas!!! Right now they're having a lightsaber battle in the studio--better get 'em outta here and try to channel that energy in a more productive manner (and away from my equipment).

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Meet Pierce (and his Mommy too)

My boys both adore Ms. Churyl and her baby Pierce. They came over today for a photo shoot (so I could practice on a baby), and I had so much fun (I hope that they had a lot of fun too!). Here are just a few of my favorites from our session.

How does our garden grow?

In pots, of course!!!

Sydney, on guard duty in front of Tomato Row--4 pots of cherry tomatoes and 1 pot of Red Zebra heirloom slicing tomatoes.

I love to grow stuff, and when the first signs of spring started to appear, it was no surprise that I started getting that itch. The Gardening Itch. Gardening is in my blood. Both of my grandmothers have HUGE gardens, and my dad is a gardening kind of guy too. There is just something about growing your own fruits and veggies, flowers and other plants. David (and Aidan too) totally got into the process of gardening this year. We started some tomato plants from seed as well a few flowers, some cilantro and chives (although I also bought chive and cilantro plants from the local Farmer's market since my plants took their time starting). The bigger tomatoes are ones that we bought as starts at the Farmer's market. David even saw packets of pumpkin seeds that I had in my gardening box and insisted that he plant 2, which he really did plant himself. Well, what should happen is that both of the seeds took off and are now even getting blossoms!!! We had to transplant them into bigger pots last week since they were outgrowing the ones we had transplanted them in before. Now, I have to purchase something even bigger to put them in (they are the plants in the 2 orange plastic pots on the top shelf of the baker's rack)! He also planted some sunflower seeds that I have (I had to find the shortest growing ones for him). It is so fun watching both boys get excited at watching the entire process. From the planting, to the sprouting and to noticing blossoms and fruit.

We have already enjoyed a few strawberries that we have grown and even have a cherry tomato that has started changing color! David and Rob have been eagerly anticipating its ripening. David told Rob that he was going to eat the first tomato because he likes them now. He wasn't going to let his daddy have it. What a nut!

Next year, when we have a bigger yard, we're going to grow more stuff. Until then, we'll just enjoy what we have in our many pots! :)

Today.

Today was a truly fun day. The boys and I went shopping--had to look for a few photography-related items and also got a few shirts. We had lunch after we got home. I straightened up the house a bit and then Tifini came over for her maternity photo shoot. The 3 pictures posted are probably my favorites from our session. She's such a beautiful pregnant woman. Taking her pictures was so fun. Granted, I was really nervous since it was my first-ever maternity session, but I learned a lot. That's what's important, right? Well...that, and having some great pictures as a result. :-)

After Tifini's photo session, Rob, the boys and I hopped into the car and drove down to Christiansburg to the ballroom dance studio to look at dancing shoes. I found a pair that Rob liked (and that were comfortable for me). We had to eat dinner fairly quickly, I straightened things up and then Autumn came to watch the boys for us while Rob and I went to our second dancing class. Rob signed us up for the Latin I class through Blacksburg Parks and Recreation. We are having so much fun!!! Hopefully we can take Latin II next.

Tomorrow we're off to the zoo with my MOPS group. David is really excited about getting to see some of his friends. They're both pretty excited about the zoo too. David told Rob tonight that he was going to ride the zoo-choo tomorrow and wanted to be the one to pay for our tickets. He's such a funny (and fun) boy.

What a day!

My day really didn't get off to the greatest start. I mean, getting myself and the boys ready went well, but when it came time to run out the door it hit me...where are my keys??? I looked frantically through the house, through the bag I used yesterday--anywhere I had been. Light comes on. Oh, I think they are locked in the car since Rob drove home yesterday. Thank goodness for Onstar (although I forgot the number and had to go search for it online). I called Onstar, the guy who answered was really helpful, and nice to boot. When I have had this happen before (like, over a year ago), I have had not-so-nice people answer the phone and treat me like I'm really dumb...like they really needed to do that since I was feeling pretty stupid when I called them anyways. OK...back to the present...the guy was nice. My car was unlocked within 30 seconds. What do you know? My keys were sitting in the console!

Well, I was late for our playdate already, so I ran by the camera store and after I paid my bill and was looking at the photos, I noticed that my $100 1GB CF card wasn't in the envelope. I'm trying to look and act calm, cool and collected. I didn't want to make a scene, but that is my ONLY CF card!!!!! The guy at the store called the developer at the sister store, they didn't have my card there. I got on the phone with him and described it in more detail (I think that the fact that my last name was written on the back in black permanent ink helped matters). But they wouldn't know until after noon where my card was, so I left and went to Starbucks. Meanwhile, my car tells me that I'm running low on fuel (like I wasn't personally at the time anyways). :-) I literally prayed that God would make sure that we made it to the gas station at the south end of Blacksburg so I could fill up and jump on the bypass to get down to Floyd County for our playdate with our friends. I also prayed for his protection because I knew that if I didn't, who knows what else might have happened with the way my day started out!

Our playdate was awesome though. My friend, Wendy, has a son who is almost exactly 1 year older than David, and her daughter is 6-7 months younger than Aidan. Everyone played so well together. My boys were in heaven having so much outside (and inside) space to run and play in. David is even dressing up with his cowboy hat now after playing with Benjamin (who really likes to play cowboys). We even walked down to the creek that is at the end of their driveway and played in that for awhile, the boys got to hang out with the chickens--Aidan even went in the pen with them and loved it! I had a lot of fun visiting with Wendy (and her husband too when he wasn't doing his own thing). The boys really didn't want to leave when it was time to go, but Aidan fell asleep as soon as I drove off, and David threw a fit half of the way home and told me that he didn't want me for a mom anymore. Oh well. I think he's over that now! :-)

Other than the shaky start to my morning, the day turned out to be a good one. I'm definitely thankful to the Father for that. He gave us the perfect weather for playing outside today (below 80 degrees for the most part with lower humidity--it had been really hot and pretty humid too, although I didn't notice the humidity too much until yesterday). My CF card was found and is now back in my possession (next time, I'll buy a cheap-o CF card to upload my photographs to so my stomach won't sink as far if it gets misplaced). I didn't have to water my plants today because God took care of that for me with the rain he sent later this afternoon/evening. I did notice, however, that almost all of my tomato plants have blossoms/fruit growing on them now! We're going to be swimming in them soon. One of David's pumpkin seeds bloomed too! He's really excited about that!

Well, I need to let my dog in, she's causing a ruckus outside--someone must be walking in the parking lot behind our place. I'm glad that she's so protective of the boys and of myself, but I don't think the neighbors like her barking much.

Yippee!

I will get my Unit 1 photo project mailed into New York Institute of Photography possibly late this afternoon!!! I'm definitely a perfectionist and hemmed and hawed over this part of my course. Finally, I just decided that, "Hey! This is good enough, I need to get the project sent in sometime in this century." Plus, Rob had been hounding me--"Do you have your project turned in? Did you get the pictures taken?" and so forth.

Yesterday, after we went to Farmer's Market and ran a few other errands, we stopped by the studio/camera store that is in the downtown area (the one I have driven past on numerous occasions but hadn't been able to go in to check it out). I talked to the owner/photographer for awhile and made a new contact/mentor person in the area. In the process of doing that, I placed an order to have all of my pictures printed off of my camera's CF card and will pick them up this afternoon (and will take the photos for my project directly to the post office). Yippee! I'm pretty excited about all of this.

But...I need to go downstairs and check out what my two troublemakers are doing. Aidan has already broken the magazine for the CD player and the morning is still young!

My little pilot.

Captain David R. Crossler

After dropping my mom off at the airport in Roanoke, the boys and I decided that we were going to go to Toys R'Us before we went home (it was that and buy toys and later go to the park to play in the sand, or go to the zoo--toys and park won out). While we were in the Imaginarium section, we saw all of the dress-up costumes. The pilot one is what David immediately wanted. I figured, hey, he's got quite the imagination, why not?!?! We paid for the costume, drove home, I took it out of the package and one little 4-year-old is now in heaven.

"This is Captain David Robert Crossler speaking, welcome aboard!"

"We're taking off from Sydney, Australia and are going to Alaska--because I work for Alaska."

"Aidan is my flight attendant...no, Nana is my flight attendant. Mommy, will you be my flight attendant?"

"Stay in your seats and buckle your seat belts--we're in turbulence."

These are just a few things that David has said since adorning his uniform. The above photo is one from our little ID badge photo session. He wants a plastic badge--kind of like Nana's...

Oops...it's time for take-off. I'd better report for duty.