James' New Kicks

Well it was time for James to get new shoes again. He'd been wearing his crazy boots all over the place for a couple of weeks now, because he complained that his shoes were too tight. It took me forever to get around to buying new ones (in fact, it wasn't even me that got around to it. My wonderful mom took him shopping yesterday while I worked on some graphic design projects with upcoming deadlines). He came home with these . . . totally awesome light-ups. I saw them and just knew I'd have to put the design projects on hold while we did a photo shoot.






Unfortunately I could never quite get James to run in the path that I had hoped, and thus we end up with headless shots.



Love this one. The distortion from the ultra wide angle lens makes James' awesome head even more awesome!

Fountain

Yesterday my two younger sisters and I went to a park in Lyons to take some photos. When I saw this water fountain I KNEW we had to find a way to work it into one of the shots. As James would say, "BOOM BABY!"
More photos from the rest of our adventure to come . . .

Hurricane Run 2008

I've been pretty pumped about this race for two months now. It's a 5K (3.1 miles) race around Lake McIntosh in North-west Longmont. I was pumped for two reasons:

1. When Jim, James and I moved to Colorado after graduating from BYU, we lived in some apartments RIGHT next to this lake. At the time I was car-less, which left me with limited entertainment options. When the weather was nice (which was often....come on...this is COLORADO!) I would take James on stroller runs around Lake McIntosh. So. A race around Lake McIntosh was like having home-field advantage.

2. Race Date: April 26. I don't know about you, but when I hear April 26, I see blue skies and warm air--perfect running conditions.

So I still had "home-field advantage," but blue skies and warm air was DEFINITELY not in the agenda. I hate making excuses, and I really hate hearing other people make excuses, but HOLY COW. It was FREEZING and the wind was OUT.OF.CONTROL. I definitely didn't do as well as I had hoped, but I guess it was fun (as soon as I was finished anyway). I placed 25th out of 183 women. ROCK ON!

Here are some photos compliments of my dad and Jim:



"warming up" before the race:


though it may not look like it, I PROMISE I AM running here

Flowers for Mommy

This weekend James spent the night at Grandma's. When he returned he had a lovely bunch of flowers for me. What a sweetie pie!

The Secret to Success

So maybe the title is a bit misleading. These colorful dinosaurs promise neither fame, fortune, nor beauty. But if you're trying to potty-train your 2 year old son, these things are the secret to success. That's right. Almost two weeks ago I bought a pack of these amazing little "toys." Each one starts as a small, colorful capsule, and then expands into any variety of dinosaur shapes when placed in warm water. Sound lame? Yeah, well, it kind of is. But if you're a 2 year old boy these things are AMAZING, and GLADLY accepted as bribes. Now what to do with the nearly full box of unused diapers. . . ?

*And as a photographer's note: This week my second flash (580 EXII) arrived via FedEx (only had to wait around the house until 3 pm for it to arrive....grrr). This shot was made with the second flash off camera (on the left) fired wirelessly. That's why those dinos are casting such awesome shadows.

Senior Portraits

It's time for senior portraits, and Laura was my first victim. Here are a just a few of my favorites. WOW!







At one point the wind really kicked up, and we were getting all sorts of dirt blown in our eyes. What a natural beauty!

Some of life's best moments

This afternoon I was hungry for something sweet....something chocolately. Obviously--as a choice between the dry, mini hersheys bars left over from Christmas, and creamy, smooth nutella--it was an easy decision. I scooped up a nice spoonful, sat on the couch, and began to enjoy my snack with Colin on my lap. He immediately started doing that intense reaching thing that babies do--leaning SOOO far forward towards the object of their attention that it is hard for even an adult to keep him from face planting. With his eyes focused on the spoonful of Nutella, he hadn't even noticed that I put a dab of it on my pointer finger for him. Finally he realized I was trying to share, and put my finger in his mouth. . .

All I can say is, watching your son experience chocolate for the first time in his life is PRICELESS! After he finished what was on my pointer finger, he grabbed my pinky..then ring finger...etc...checking to find out if all my fingers tasted that great.

Sadly, I have no images to document one of the BEST moments of a child's first year (and yes, I know...I really SHOULDN'T be feeding a child under one Nutella).

I LOVE using the Wide Angle!

Cool huh?