It’s Been Awhile…

but we're still here. I don't even know quite where to begin. I almost can't believe I haven't posted in over a year.....a year! Yikes! We've celebrated holidays, birthdays, an anniversary. I had surgery in the spring and spent most of my summer recovering. And...most recently Ana Kate started Kindergarten and shortly after turned 5! I can't believe my baby girl is in Kindergarten....where did the past 4 years go?
So, first of all: Why has it been a year? Originally I think I was just burned out after doing the 365 project. I loved it and kind of hated it all at the same time. I love that I have every day of 2010 documented, and I love having the photos, but at the same time it completely burned me out on blogging and photography for a while. I haven't taken very many photos in the past couple of years. I also burned Ana Kate out. She started running from me every time I grabbed the camera. We are finally getting back to normal (as normal as it gets around here) and she likes having her picture made again, and I miss photography and blogging. I also really miss having our lives documented, so that we have it to look back on. So, here we go. Let's see if I can keep it up. : )
Just to update on what's been going on around here. I had a surgery in the spring (hysterectomy) to help with some issues that I'd been having and I also found out I have hypothyroidism the week I had surgery. So between some surgery complications and adjusting my thyroid meds I had a crazy summer. It was basically filled with doctor's appointments and trying to take it easy at home. I was finally feeling back to 'normal' by the end of July and I actually feel pretty good now which is amazing!
Towards the end of the summer I joined a summer bible study and some of ladies were asking me if Ana Kate was going to Kindergarten in the fall. I told them I wasn't really sure since she wasn't going to be 5 until the end of August, but I was encouraged to check into it. So, I did. Obviously she couldn't start public school because the cut-off here is August 1st. I hadn't really planned to send her to public school anyway though. I wanted to send her to private school, so we scheduled an interview and evaluation and before we knew it Ana Kate was enrolled in Kindergarten! I am so glad we did it. She loves school and has the most amazing teacher! We just had her parent teacher conferences today and she is on track and doing wonderful! I feel SO blessed that we found the right school for her. So, I'm sure I could say more, but I'll just add some pictures to complete the update. Oh....did I mention that Ana Kate got a puppy at some point in the last year? And we ended up with Whitney's puppy too. Not sure how that happened, but we now have two new dogs in the house. : )
Some pictures from last September 2011:

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Family Vacation from October 2011:

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Christmas Pictures of my girls:
 
 
Ana Kate enjoying the gulf coast in April and Whitney’s 21st birthday cake:

Ana Kate’s First Day of Kindergarten:
Happy before leaving home….

Not so sure at school, but she ended up having a great day!
 
Ana Kate and her new puppy:

I have the birthday pictures somewhere, but I can’t find them.  I will add them to this post when I figure out where they are.  Hope to update more often now that I’m back on track.  I got a new portrait lends (which I took these last two pictures with).  I love it so far and I’ll hopefully do a photography post on it soon!

i heart faces | Pet Week

This week at i heart faces the theme is pet week.  I haven't entered the weekly photo contests for quite a while, but when I saw the theme a recent photo came to mind.  In July I did a mini photo session for my daughter and her boyfriend along with their new puppy Meeko.  Meeko is precious and I'm in love with his beautiful blue eyes.  I had several to choose from, but this one is my favorite.

To see more pet photo entries head on over to http://www.iheartfaces.com/ and join the fun!

Busy Summer

Wow...I said I wouldn't wait another two months to post, but it's been nearly that long.  We've been busy this summer and I just haven't been into blogging or taking very many pictures.  It's been SO hot here this summer that it's put a damper on a lot of Ana Kate's outdoor fun, so we've made the most of playing inside the past few weeks.

I've been doing a lot more sewing lately.  I made several pillows for Whitney's new house.  I also purchased a dress pattern from to make a knot apron dress for Ana Kate.  I was a bit scared to attempt it, but the pattern was SO easy to follow.  Check out the Little Lizard King shop on Etsy...she has lots of great patterns available for purchase.  Here are the two dresses I made for Ana Kate.

I made another tiny one for baby Amelia and I'm working on another one for my cousin's daughter Piper.  I didn't take a picture of the pillows I made for Whitney, I'll have to post them next time.

I also mentioned in one of my last posts that I had ordered a new camera bag/purse.  I have been using it for over a month now and I love it!  I can totally carry my camera AND my extra lenses along with my wallet, keys, lotion, lip balm, etc.  I even carry it when I don't want to take my camera with me because I love it so much!  If you are in the market for a camera bag that doesn't look like a camera bag, check out Kelly Moore bags...they are amazing! *

I haven't done many photo sessions lately, but a couple of weeks ago Whitney asked if I would take some photos of her and Josh and their new puppy Meeko.  I got several great shots, but here are just a few of my favorites.

My beautiful girl.

 Isn't Meeko adorable!

I just celebrated my birthday and couldn't decide what I wanted for a gift.  Doug got me 18 red roses and they were beautiful!  He said he never knows what to get me, so he went with flowers.  I don't really ever tell him what I want and I definitely don't really need anything.  But I recently have been looking at electronic cutting machines and decided I had to have one.  : )  So as of today I'm the proud new owner of a silhouette!  I just took it out of the box and got the software running, so I haven't played with it much.  I'll do an update with some completed projects sometime soon.  I'm excited to see what all it can do!

I took a few pictures of Ana Kate yesterday afternoon.  She was being silly posing (as usual), but I managed to get a few good ones.  She is such cutie!

 Can you see the mischief in her eyes....

 Giving me the pose I asked for, but somehow you can see she's not into it....

I'm thinking of starting up a new blog that focuses on sewing, knitting, photography, crafts, home decor, etc.  I'm not really sure what I'm going to do, but I don't want to clutter up this blog with all of that stuff.  I prefer to keep this as a journal primarily for Ana Kate (and our family)....so I'm still trying to figure out what I'll do.  We'll see.  : )

*Just a little disclaimer....I am in no way affiliated with Kelly Moore Bags and they have no idea who I am.  I just happen to love their bags!

Happy Birthday Whitney!!

My oldest 'baby' turned 20 today.....can you believe that!  It seems like only yesterday she was starting junior high, now she's grown, out of the house, and starting her career.  I only saw her for a few minutes when we took cake and flowers to her salon.  She is such a blessing and I love her so much!

I've had a crazy busy week which has resulted in no posts, photography or otherwise.  I kept baby Amelia on Wednesday and Friday for the last couple of weeks and she is SO sweet!  She is a super easy baby, but it's definitely different have two little ones to look after instead of just one.  I also went to meet my cousin Taryn on Thursday night to pick up her daughter Piper.  Taryn needed some help while my Aunt Sharlette had surgery and was in the hospital, so I offered to take Piper for a few days.  Piper is 18 months old and she and Ana Kate are having a blast together!  Yesterday I had Amelia, Piper, and Ana Kate....it was a lot of work, but fun!  Good thing I drive a suburban....the back seat was completely full of car seats!  We went to MOPS and had a great time and then did some shopping.  Doug was off work yesterday, so he went shopping with us, which helped a lot.  It's definitely not easy loading and unloading the car with 3 kids age 3 and under.  But we managed and everyone was happy.  After Amelia went home I made dinner and Piper fell asleep in her high chair while she was eating....I guess we've worn her out! 

We woke her up and took the girls to the park for a while so that Piper wouldn't be up all night.  I didn't take many pictures, but hopefully I'll do better this weekend.

197/365

Today we got going pretty early and ran some errands.  We also had to go by Whitney's school in Fayetteville to take care of some final details because.....she graduated (from cosmetology school) today!!  Yay Whit...we're SO proud of you!  She'll take her state boards next month and by then hopefully she will have figured out where she'll be working.  I know she is so happy to be done with school.  She was super busy this year...between work and school we haven't seen her much.  Of course I'm sure she'll now be working all the time, so not sure how much more we'll see her.  : )

During our errands today Ana Kate did not behave very well.  I was done after our 4th stop, so we headed home and had lunch.  I know she was sleepy, but as soon as I put her in bed for her nap it started storming and she is really scared of thunder.  So....she didn't nap and her behavior went downhill as the afternoon progressed.  By the time Doug got home she was in tears and no one could make her happy. 

We were planning on taking her to Vacation Bible School and then meeting Whitney and some of her friends for a graduation dinner.  But it was clear that she was too cranky and sleepy for VBS, and she fell asleep right when we left.  So we took her with us to dinner and she slept in her stroller the entire time.  I'm glad she finally got to rest, but now she won't go to bed.  We had fun at dinner with Whitney, Josh, Hollyann, and Baillie.

I attempted to take some pictures after dinner, but Ana Kate was still in a bad mood.....so I have more pictures of Whitney & Josh tonight. 


The only thing that made her happy when she woke up was her sippy cup of milk...

146/365

This morning I had to take Whitney in for more surgery on her mouth.  She developed an infection where one of her wisdom teeth were removed.  It was so bad that they had to cut it back open clean it out and insert a drain.  Surgery went well and they actually took the drain out before we left the office.  She seems to be doing well and isn't in too much pain. 

On another note....Ana Kate was absolutely wild in the waiting room, so she had to sit in time out when we got home.  That gave me a chance to get Whitney settled.  After time out I put Ana Kate in bed for her nap.  The nap did wonders for her, because she was such a good girl when we went to the store later.  I'm really not sure if her behavior issues lately are just the terrible 2's or if I haven't been consistant enough with warnings and time outs.  I am really going to work on that this week.  I do know that Ana Kate responds well to time out, but I find it hard to enforce it if we aren't home.  I guess I will start taking a time out spot with us wherever we go until we can sort out the misbehavior in public.  I know I can't expect her to act like an adult, but just listening to me and doing what I say would be a huge improvement.  We'll see how it goes....she is stubborn.  : )

We stayed close to home for the rest of the day to keep an eye on Whitney.  I plan to go through Ana Kate's toys tonight and get rid of some of them....they are taking over the house!

I took photos outside on our usual spot...I love the first one.