Life is Beautiful

Motherhood, Sewing, Family

Interview with Blickenstaff’s

~ Etc.

One Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I woke up with Aiden and was nursing him when my husband came to the bedroom and said, “Uh, hun? There are some people at the door saying they’re here to interview and take pictures?”  “Oh, crap!” was my reply as I remembered Blickenstaff was coming to interview and take photographs of our family to be featured on their website.  We had it scheduled a few weeks in advance for them to come to take photos and interview our family but I totally forgot about it!  Mom brain is a real thing, people!  I skipped and hopped over my closet and the bathroom and tried to get ready as fast as I can while Jay got ready too and made sure the kids looked presentable.  Me on the other hand, I hadn’t showered in 3 days, my hair was so greasy and matted, I had just woken up not long before, I was not camera ready to say the least!  I quickly got dressed and tried to look decent(I couldn’t find my make up bag but I found a really old eyeliner and lipstick on the back of the bathroom drawer, so that had to do).  We got ready in less than 7 minutes.  It was our family record.
These are the pictures from that Saturday morning.  
Photographs by Aria Photography.
My favorite part of the interview was when the interviewer asked my 6 year old daughter, “So do you have any funny stories that happened recently?” and my daughter replied, “When my daddy dressed like a girl in my mommy’s dress and Rapunzel wig and acted like a girl.”  To read the story behind that and for the full interview, click here.
We love Blickenstaff’s(possibly the coolest toy/candy store ever) and I think it’s awesome they’re emphasizing on the importance of family traditions and values.  Thanks for having us Blickenstaff’s!

Family pictures 2012

~ Etc.

We had some family photos done by Jessica Peterson and I’m so happy with the results.  Jay, who strongly dislikes taking photos(he says I take too many-and if you’ve noticed in most of the photos I’ve posted before, he’s usually half smiling and not looking too happy, hahaha) was such a good sport about it, which was awesome!
check out Jessica Peterson’s website here.
p.s. Jay and I had this conversation last night while watching the american idol.
Me: “Phillip Phillips’ parents must be very creative people to name their son Phillip, huh?”
Jay: “I bet kids called him pee pee when growing up.”
Yes, all our conversations are terribly deep like that.  And I like Phillip Phillips, I would buy his album.

the curse of taking family pictures.

~ Etc.


warning: these are the extras from our christmas family shoot
and it’s a guinness world record for the highest number of pictures in a blog post.
i deleted quiet a lot(like three or four 😉 but i love them all so i have to post it all!

congratulations, you made it!  
there are way more pictures of A1(oldest one) than A2(youngest one) because A2 wasn’t in the best mood to take pictures.  oh, wait!  just like her dad!  i think we have a curse in our family.  the curse is that i get mad and cry every time we try to take family pictures.  remember our last year‘s pictures?  go back and look at how happy my husband looks.  oh boy!  we got in another fight this year and i cried and cried and cried.  it was probably the pain built over from the last year’s incident too, so it hurt x2.  i decided we’ll take individual shots since i was taking them myself and i can never get the self timer to focus good.  anyway, so after much thought on deciding the outfits we’d wear, i started snapping the pictures away with our girls.  A1 was a good sport, A2 was mad about something but she started to warm up for a short while, and then it was my husband’s turn to take pictures.  i thought his would be the easiest.  I wanted each of our personalities to show up in the photos so after taking some shots of him just looking at the camera with no personality whatsoever(and he has a lot of personality, one being really funny and witty), i told him to show his personality and he would just laugh and not even try.  i kept trying to encourage him like, “yeah, that was good!  i liked it when you looked to the side.  maybe look to the side and look tough!”  and he just continued to laugh and he would attempt at it, and then just start laughing.  i was so hurt!  i took that as, “i don’t care about these stupid photos, this is all a joke, so i’m not even going to try.”  pictures might seem like it’s just pictures, but to me it’s more than that.  it’s a whole year of happenings summed up in one picture.  that our family endured a year with happiness, hardships, health, imperfections, love, and forgiveness.  that we won’t be taking another family picture until a year later when our kids are a year older and they won’t look the way they look this year.  so i got snappy, and then got mad, and then he was mad that i was being snappy and pissy, and then i started crying and said forget about it and walked out of the room.  i continued to cry out loud in the livingroom while my girls came and hugged me and told me it was okay.  
it wasn’t until a few hours later, after they came home from church(which i stayed home because my eyes were like a puffer fish), and my attempts at giving him the death stare in trying to scare him(it never works, shesh!), we made up.  and guess what?  i was mad for no reason!  it was just a huge misunderstanding!  after communicating, we realized and understood why the other person was mad.  i told him what his actions were saying to me and he told me that wasn’t his intention at all.  that he was really trying his best but he just had the giggles!  that he really tried his best and he was more so laughing at himself in trying so hard.  ah.  only if i had not gotten emotional about it and we communicated correctly right then.  yes, yes, husband, i’m admitting that i’m sorry and that i was wrong.  it doesn’t happen often that i’m wrong, so you better embask in the moment. 😉
so the next day, he came home during his lunch break and he was great when i took pictures of him and he was wonderful at taking pictures of me.  and we were happy.  until next year’s family pictures.  hahaha.  haha.  ha.