My Chaos -

We celebrated Brandon's 32nd birthday a day early on Christmas Eve - what an old man! I did make him his favorite meal, enchiladas. I also made a cake for him from scratch! It was quite an experience. We had a nice time with Brandon's parents and brother. We also opened a couple of Christmas gifts. We have completely lost a present that supposed to be for Brandon's dad. I hope we find it soon. After the nice dinner, we had heck of a time getting the boys settled down and to bed. Joshua especially didn't want to go to sleep - he was wired! We finally were able to get cookies and milk set out for Santa.

My baby turned five recently. Oh it is so hard to watch him grown up knowing every milestone he hits will be the final time I experience it with my own kids. He is a great five year old - fiesty, opinionated, confident, bossy, intelligent and so stinkin stubborn. He is my mini-me. LOL! He had a great birthday celebration with us and Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Brett. He was so hoping for a blue DS and got his birthday wish. He was so excited!

WOW! I have resisted signing up on facebook up to this point. I figured that I hated what I knew of MySpace plus I already have a hard time keeping up with my blog and with the Village as well, so why would I add one more thing to keep up with? Well... a few friends have been talking about it a lot lately and how they have been able to reconnect with people from the past. That was the motivator for me - there have been several people that I have looked for in the past, but never been able to get in touch with. I opened a Facebook account YESTERDAY and I have already re-connected with FOUR peole I knew in 8th and 9th grade... That was a lifetime ago and so far away. And I have found about 13 other people, although I haven't reached out to them yet. I feel kind of silly going "Hey - do you remember me from 18 years ago?" LOL! I have been talking a bit to 2 friends from when I was in the 8th grade in Tanzania - it's very cool!

I recently took some Christmas photos for a family - I also did their fall photos.

by a four year old! That's right - Joshua kicked all three of our butts playing Pirate's Cove. It was the first time he's ever played with us. We had a great time!

I wasn't very much in the mood for Christmas this year. I was feeling kind of out of sorts and a bit cynical about life in general. I'm done shopping and wrapping and making homemade cards and presents and NOW I am in a better mood. So.... was it the stress of getting things done? I guess that could be it. I think it was also some of the commercialism and the deluge of Christmas items going up on the shelves by SEPTEMBER. I'm not going to be a hypocrite though - I admit it - I love buying things for my family and friends and I love the thoughtful gifts they give me as well. I just need to remind myself to relax, not freak out and remember the celebration behind Christmas and not to forget to teach it to my kids.

Last month I took an online class called Stories in Hand. It was really interesting and best of all were the materials. There were enough journaling prompts in the course material to keep me busy for years. My mind was coming up with so many ideas while I was reading them, that I couldn't keep track of my own thoughts. I think after the holidays pass, I am going to go through them and start making notes of some of the subjects I would like to document. I would also like to make another copy of the journaling prompts to give to my mom - I would be very interested to read her stories as well.

We hadn't been to the zoo in quite awhile. We renewed out membership and took the boys last month. It happened to be cold the day we went, but we had a really nice time. It was the first time we had been since they added Giant Tortoises and the Rays. We didn't get to see the tortoises, but we did get to see AND pet/feed the rays. Joshua's reach wasn't quite long enough to reach them and Bryan kept freaking out when they got too close to his hand. LOL! I did manage to feed them and it was VERY cool! We also got out yearly pics of the boys next to the brass Tiger claws and mouth. My Bryan is getting so big!

The boys in their Halloween costumes? They were way too cute to not share... Bryan was Indiana Jones and Joshua was King Peter from Narnia. I should have starched Indi's hat to stay straight and King Peter's sword was taller than King Peter!

I love photos of nature and landscapes, but my thing is people and close ups. I took these pics recently and thought they turned out nice. The field of purple flowers was FULL of butterflies! and that tree was just really cool and it doesn't even look real - it is though.

Here are some of the pics I took of my own babies on the same day:

So... I mentioned awhile back that I took some photos for some friends of mine. I had so much fun and I took 200 pics between my kids and the two families. It didn't take too long - I found out that the majority of time is spent editing photos. I had a great time doing that as well though. It was definitely a great experience! Here are a couple of my favorites: