Cross Light Photography

Tiffany & Cigie and their sweet families :)

2012-01-26T14:29:00.000-06:00

And we'll get to those two sweet gals soon but first I just gotta brag a little. ;) I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned how my schedule goes or how exactly I do everything I do, not to say it's alot just meaning the order or un-order that it's done in. lol So let me set the scene for ya: picture it (lol) the kids get on the bus and I: turn the computer on, while it's starting up I start making the bed half way through that i enter my password and open up the internet, itunes, and photoshop, while that's all opening I go start my dishwater and then come back to open pictures in my photoshop then finish making the bed then realize my dishwater is still running, I go turn it off and then start washing, while the next sink load is soaking I change the laundry over and put clothes up as I go to put my clothes up I swing by the bathroom and start my bath water then go do the next sink full of dishes come back and edit a picture then realize my bath water is still running go turn it off and clean the toilet, come back and edit and answer e-mails, take a bath and clean the sink....see where I'm going with this. Basically even though stuff gets done, family gets fed and my house is clean I'm basically out of control and running constant like a maniac! After three years of this I have finally figured out that I can do better! I know, I know, three years and I'm just now figuring this out. Well YES! So I decided that since I'm a sucker for a list what better way to get my act together than to make me a schedule! And that my little friends is just what this gal did and it has worked out perfectly!!! Here's my new schedule Monday thru Friday:

5:50am- get up and exercise on treadmill 24 minutes;

then wake kids up and get them ready for school and on the bus by 7

7am-8am Clean house (yes when I do it all at once it only takes an hour and this does include laundry)

8-9 shower/bath and get dressed including make-up and hair (why yes this does mean I don't wear my pj's all day)

9-4 WORK with two 15 minute breaks at 10:30 & 2:30 and lunch at 12 (this can be altered for days helping at school or grocery days or just me days :} )

4-9pm Family time set aside for homework, supper, practices, games etc.

(naturally some nights we aren't home this early but I'm flexible)

9-9:30 read bible

9:30-10:30 blog, finish up work etc. basically some down time

10:30pm BED

Yep that's right I've been going to bed by 10:30 and thank the Lord I have been going to sleep and sleeping like a baby until 5:50am. So far this hasn't turned me into a morning person and I highly doubt anything ever will. Maybe it's because being sweet isn't something as natural for me as I had thought maybe it takes an hour or so for my sweetness to heat up, so to speak, but this schedule is working out great and since I actually put it to paper you know my OCD isn't gonna let me out of it. :o)

Now let's talk about these two ladies. I've known them both forever, almost as long as I've known their dad, Danny. Danny use to come out and play music with my Papa back in the day and him and Papa would go fishing together too. They could really catch some crazy big fish and we'd have big ole fish fry's with half the county here. Danny is still one heck of a fisherman and he's even taken my boys fishing and hunting too. He has taught them, including Chantry, so much! In Chantry's words, "he's worth a whole whole lot" which is seriously the understament of the year but Danny is an amazing man. I can promise you they don't make 'em like that anymore! I could do a whole post on him and still have more to say! Tiffany and Cigie live in Arizona so there was no hesitation at all when Candy asked if I would do some sessions of them while they were here, even a real vacation wouldn't have kept me away! It was about 22* when we did these but as we kept reminding ourselves, at least the wind wasn't blowing! lol I'm pretty sure us saying that 14 hundred times made us tons warmer! :o) Alrighty, first we have Wes and Tiffany!

And next we have Alex, Cigie and sweet Baya! :)

Jagger :)

2012-01-24T22:32:00.000-06:00

Yes it's quite very possible that I'm out of catchy titles and will be moving on to sweet and simple in 2012 OR maybe my new schedule that I've put myself on is working like a charm and I've been so stinkin' productive today that my brain is exhausted and can't think. Either one is very possible so we'll just have to wait and see the answer at a later time. I'm also considering shortening (oh great now I've got that "shortenin' bread" song in my head) anyways, I'm thinking of making my posts less about me and my personal raz mataz and more business-y, I'm thinking anyways. Of course I say that and then we're gonna run into a chit chatty day and I'm not gonna be able to hold back and then what, well then I'll be a liar. So again we shall see.

Ok so I guess you could say that I'm back to work, I know I took a vacation and yet you've still heard from me so it's not like anyone's having Amanda withdrawals, I guess you could say that I was on a "working vacation" at least after January 4th I was but over Christmas break I was on a true blue, red white and green vacation! It was awesome but I'm glad to be able to say that I'm officially back! My books are open for February and March sessions and are filling up fast. If by chance you're on facebook and normally message through there I'm asking that you not use facebook messaging to contact me. I've had lots of issues in the past of not getting messages from others and also them not getting my messages and I'm just not good with unreliable, so to book a session please e-mail me at crosslightphoto@me.com and I will get back to ya asap. Now let's get the show on the road. This was my very first session of 2012 and what better way to start the year than with a precious new baby boy! This little guy came to me at 8 days old and he did super! Such a little sweetie and you know how much I love babies, until they start waking me up in the middle of the night that is. ;) I love capturing babies, especially newborns and Chantry is glad for that too because with 5 kids already it's always a good thing for this gal to get her baby fix! Hope you enjoy meeting Jagger and I hope to get to capture him grow! :o)

You know you still are.....

2012-01-19T14:07:00.000-06:00

So I've mentioned my sleeping issues and how I seem to lay in bed awake for hours, well last night I stayed up to work and went to bed around midnight and BOOM I was asleep. Yeah I know crazy huh? At least Chantry thought it was insane but not so much really. Here's why I think I fell asleep so easily, because I'm sure you are just dying to know, first off I stayed up and worked meaning I had a lot less "to do's" left on my list and secondly, and in my opinion this is the main one....I turned my Christmas music on! Yep you heard right Christmas music sung me to a peaceful slumber. Now don't go acting like you're not still listening to Christmas music, just because it's January don't mean a thing! Before Christmas I searched itunes for my Christmas favorites and I found some but then something occurred to me....Pandora! Yeah that's it Pandora has a Christmas channel and not just one Christmas channel either they have several and my favorite one is just the good ole classics, not to be confused with "classicAL" which I turned it to first and was caught completely off guard singing along to....no words? Yeah I need words to my jingle bells thank ya very much! So here's the thing, after New Year's I assumed they no longer had that station so I quit tuning into it and just listened to my songs on shuffle and was pleasantly surprised when a Christmas song would come on but for some reason last night I decided to just check into it and low and behold THEY STILL HAVE IT! I know you can hardly contain your excitement but everyone just calm down and sing along. Yes I'm a happy girl, now let's move on.

Here's some more from Kelby and Abby's wedding. This will finish their post, leaving me with one more wedding to post and some recent work from 2012. Yeah I know I'm on vacation or something like that. ;o)

BTW, Saturday is my half birthday and I'm registered at all major department stores. lol Oh I crack myself UP!

Untitled mumbo jumbo

2012-01-18T23:46:00.000-06:00

Uh oh, this can't be good....as of right now this post has no title. You know you're gonna have a lot of awesome things to say if you can't even come up with a stinkin' title! GEEZ! I've been trying to go to bed at a normal hour with Chantry and after a couple nights of laying in bed losing my mind three hours at a time I decided that "his" time isn't necessarily normal, I'm pretty sure my time is normal and his is only normal for those around 80 or so! At least I know for sure it's not for me, I've felt like total lazy junk ever since the first of the year and the whole "normal" routine is for the birds, the doh doh birds as a matter of fact! I was starting to think that there was seriously something wrong with me but with the help of webmd and a few other sites and my infinite wisdom, naturally, I've decided that there's not one thing wrong with me except for me trying to be something I can't be. I've been killing myself trying to stay caught up with momma and wife duties and also wanting to organize and rearrange this house to a Pinterest standard and stay caught up and ahead on my Cross Light work and yet I couldn't for the life of me understand why I wasn't able to do it all in a few days, cause dog gone it I wanted it finished 3 days ago! lol So I decided my OCD might be getting worse and I might need to do something about it so I did a little research and I do indeed have OCD but it's not THAT bad, the problem is that I also have ADHD, not all the symptoms fit me though, only about 16 of them do and I was going to take the little quiz but I lost interest and skipped it. I did get some good tips in dealing with both and talking about them was one. I know a lot of people joke around about being OCD and I even make a joke about it as well from time to time and I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "I wish I was a little OCD" the thing about it is that it's really not great. If it doesn't interfere in your life for the bad then I guess you just deal with it but when you can't seem to focus on putting make-up on because your toothbrush is pointing the wrong way or if you feel like you've completely failed in life for the day because you didn't have time to make the bed then there could be an issue. It somewhat turns into a snowball effect and before you know it you're miserable and depressed with no motivation to dig yourself out of the hole you've jumped into. Ya see for me having "to do's" left on my list at the end of the day is unacceptable, maybe one or two that I knew would carry over but several is just too much to shake off my mind, leading into no rest at all, maybe a couple hours of actual sleep but never rest, leading to emotional exhaustion and physically no motivation which only leads to more "to do's" piling up. See it's a vicious cycle, and you thought I was just a clean freak, nope not even close. Actually my house is never super clean or spotless by any means, but there are certain things that must be done daily. I think most people clean their house once or twice a week unless of course they stay home but not me, I clean every day and while yes I do "stay home" I technically work from home which means that I need to actually work and if I left the house to go to work then the house would stay as it was in the mornings when I left but rest assured when I got home there would be cleaning to do before bed, my mind won't rest until the house has had it's daily love. :) Oh my good gravy, this has been one long rambling bunch of boringness!!! Ok so anyways I'm working through this time of serious OCD/ADHD issues and feeling better already.

Now I had mentioned posting a couple weddings that we did in December so let's get on that. Since I'm messing around with watermarks and such I'm only gonna post part of Kelby and Abby's big day tonight and then finish tomorrow if I like the look of the resizing nonsense.

I also want to let everyone know that all my weddings are done in partnership with Jessica Woods of Two Sticks Photography, together we make BackRoads Photography and a darn good team as well. Our reasoning is so we can each keep our individuality in our work outside of weddings. So don't go all nutso on me when you see the watermark doesn't say "Cross Light" Enjoy! :o)

That's it, done, finished, ba-bye!

2012-01-11T08:17:00.000-06:00

Finally this is the last post with images from 2011!!! Except for two posts for the two December weddings that me and Jessica shot, but I want to post some shots that I didn't already post on facebook of them so maybe by weeks end they'll be up. I planned to stay up and post this last night after getting home from ballgames but that didn't work out, partly because Chantry was roaming around and I just hate for him to read over my shoulder as I type. It's one thing for him to know what I write about him but to know it as I type it, well that's another story. I consider this to be kind of my online journal so he'll have it to read after I'm gone, when I can't get in trouble for anything I've said. lol So anyways that brings me to this morning, sitting here on the couch, cozied up in a blanket, a fire in the fireplace and my little heater on and I'm still freezing along with a head/neck/shoulder ache that's currently on day 3 of visiting. I've slept more this week than I did the two weeks of Christmas break which was a crazy amount of sleep. To make it worse, I honestly feel like I could go back to bed right now and sleep until tomorrow morning. I absolutely hate sleeping that much! I'm not the type of person that likes to sleep. I only sleep because my body needs it, anytime I go to bed before midnight or sleep later than 6am, I honestly feel like I've wasted time that could've been spent productively. When I was younger, in school, from about the time I was 10 until I was.....oh I guess 19 when I had Holden, I would go to bed like clock work eveynight at a certain time, before teenage years it was around 9pm and then up through my senior year I went to bed at 10 every night with the exception of the weekends and I always sat my alarm for 6:30am. Until babies broke my habits I was very disciplined with getting my full 8 hours, but then Holden came along who was not on a schedule and ate whenever he wanted, which was often, so then getting up in the middle of the night really threw a kink in my sleeping, and then cam Kaleb, and then Luke and then by the time the twins came along it was just a given that the housework would be done after the kids went to bed but then with the kids being in school there was no chance of sleeping in. Bottom line is I hate sleeping and yet the more I sleep the more I want to sleep, so vacations and short days along with not feeling yippy skippy makes for blah days for this gal! I know the way my body and mind work though which is exactly why I scheduled taking off in January. January is quite possibly my least favorite month. It seems like everyone is so moody from it being after the holidays. I guess people have been struggling with their Christmas spirit for the past month or so and it would just be too much for them to continue the sweetness on into the new year. Heaven forbid us as a society be nice year round, Jeez Amanda dream on! And then normally the weather is so cold and wintery which as we all know is only "ok" when we want it to feel like Christmas, so everyone is gripey about winter actually feeling like winter and then there's the fact that after the first there's no more holidays until Valentine's Day so no one is getting any gifts and we all know how cranky that can make people! Wait a second, maybe I'm mistaking, maybe that's what annoys me but in January we have renewal of a new year, a new start, a new chance to better ourselves. We have the joy of celebrating a new life, Luke was born on the 16th. Luke blessed us so much, not only at his birth but the lessons we learned 2 weeks later when we had to encounter one of the hardest trials when we had our tiny baby sick and in ICU for a week wondering if he'd ever make it back home and now he's a super sweet almost 10 year old. He's so kind hearted and sweet. He's athletic, smart and mostly lives in his own little world, which is ok cause I like to stay in my little world as well. :o) Then on the 21st I celebrate my half birthday, yes I'll be 33 1/2 and hey don't judge, there's no reason to not celebrate after all everyday is a gift! So I actually love January, what I don't love is others negativity which I just must learn to not let that affect my attitude or outlook on life! So I'm gonna take some tylenol and jump on the treadmill and get out of this funk! These are the images from my very last sessions from 2011, enjoy!

Well that didn't go as planned!

2012-01-10T12:50:00.000-06:00

I'm back and cleaner and so is the bathroom. I'm not sure if anyone else does this but sometimes when I'm in a room doing something, like taking a shower, I get the overwhelming sensation to clean that room. If I'm in the kitchen cooking, maybe I'll suddenly reorganize a cabinet or something. I'm sure everyone does that, and that's exactly what I did and it's quite possible that I used way tooooo much of the works cleaner because my head is POUNDING now! So instead of a nice shower making me feel better I think I feel worse, except for the fact that I seem to have some energy, it's shaky energy though so that could be from the cleaner. It does an awesome job cleaning though I'll tell ya that for sure! By the way if you happen to get a little of that on your skin it doesn't burn, it itches like crazy! Just a little valuable info on the house for ya. Oh and before everyone thinks I must be plum stupid I did open the window in the bathroom before using that cleaner, it's still super strong. I'm kind of a cleaner if no one's noticed. It's a byproduct of my annoying OCD, not that my house is spotless, I'm too busy for that but I do clean everyday and do laundry everyday. I pretty much run this house and keep it going, not to pat myself on the back or anything that's just the way it is and in my opinion that's the way it should be. Chantry doesn't get up every morning and tell me I need to do this or do that, (obviously because he makes it to work all in one piece) it's just what I do. Just like I don't have to tell him to get up and go to work so he can pay the bills and provide for the family, it's just what he does. The funny thing about this is that for some reason the things that I do get flipped to "we" For instance, Chantry says, "hey we should take advantage of this nice weather and clean these windows" and I say, "how about you go ahead on with that while I take care of all the laundry and dishes and other housework" and he says,"WE'LL do that too but it'd be nice to go ahead and wash the windows" and then I say, "WE'LL? We don't do laundry, we don't do dishes, we don't put laundry up, we don't clean toilets, we don't dust. That would be ME, I, I, I DO THAT. Just like WE don't push dirt at the landfill and WE don't do paperwork at the landfill and the paycheck doesn't say WE Scott, it says Chantry because that's who does that work while I I IIIIII, do all this work so if YOU want clean windows then YOU can bill to it" And then his reply is, "Babe I sure do appreciate everything you do around here" See just a little English lesson from time to time helps the household run a little smoother. :o) Ok let's see more from 2011....These are all from my Christmas minis....

It's contagious!!!!

2012-01-10T11:23:00.000-06:00

At least I'm assuming that's why I'm not feeling so super duper today, I'm guessing whatever made Chantry feel yucky has now invaded my body, but it's all good because I take my vitamins which give me super hero powers so I'll be good to go by the time I finish taking a shower. Yes I know it's 11am and I'm still in my pj's with oily hair going everywhere and yesterdays make-up all over my face, now who wants to be my Valentine?!? LOL It's ok, I have a shower planned, the bathroom is currently getting nice and heated since I hate to be freezing in there. Oh the joys of working at home or the joys of being on vacation or maybe it's just cause Chantry got his boy cootie germs on me, YUCK! I knew I shouldn't have kissed him yesterday but I was tricked by his adorableness and just look where that got me! :o)~ I seriously lost my train of thought and haven't a clue as to what if anything I planned on blogging. I think at this point I'm just tired of seeing 2011 in my files or on my to do list and I haven't even started on getting my taxes ready!!! Geez 2011 was a great year but now lets move on....be prepared folks for some 2011 overload, we're gonna put this puppy to rest TODAY.......

I thought I was....

2012-01-09T22:51:00.000-06:00

....done with 2011 but I just checked to see how many posts were left and well.....more than I thought. I certainly won't be able to combine them all into one. GeeeZ!!! At least I have my blog redesigned even though I am about 92% sure that the header is gonna have to change but that'll have to wait until after I get 2011 closed out! I really don't have any stories to tell, I've just been hanging out and taking it easy. I do have an extreme to do list that isn't getting any smaller, well at least it's not getting a lot smaller very fast. My plan is to totally redo my house, organizing and a little bit of redecorating, who knew what an extreme job that would be! Not to mention that we started basketball games back up this week so my schedule seems just as hectic as it is when I'm working. I have managed to pick up some items that I needed to organize some things around here, now if only I can get that annoying Martha Stewart here to get some of this work done. Don't get me wrong my house is clean and laundry is done and with the exception of today I've even gotten dressed up and hair fixed and make-up on everyday. Pretty impressive actually if it wasn't for this stupid to do list that I made! lol Ok so let's keep this short since Chantry is sick and restless since I'm not in bed, restless that is, he's not sick because I'm not in bed. :o)

Lazy!!!

2012-01-08T21:59:00.001-06:00

Ha! Figured it out!

Lazy!!!

2012-01-08T21:58:00.001-06:00

Yes too lazy to even get out of bed to sit on the couch with the laptop! I was on the couch and couldn't seem to stay awake so I came to bed to grab a few extra "z's" and naturally I'm wide awake now! Grrr! I decided I'd do a little update on my blog transformation. So far I'm pretty much done with it except for updating the pages and some info but the design is done, I think. I asked Chantry several times about my header and he said it was great but I'm thinking I'm gonna end up changing it. I hate to change stuff but at least my colors stay the same! :-) If I wouldn't have ate that 1/4 cup of chocolate chips and mini marshmallows with my ww bonus points I might actually move to my desk and work but I'm pretty sure that's not gonna happen tonight! I'm MISERABLE! That makes me think of one of my motivational pictures I keep on my phone. Maybe it'll upload for me.....

Amanda
"Shine on!!!"
Sent from my iPhone

2012-01-06T08:09:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to let everyone know my blog is under construction so just ignore it until I get it all up and going again. I was planning on "unpublishing" it but I was afraid I'd mess it up completely and delete it or something tragic like that so just bear with me over the next couple of days! :0)

Amanda
"Shine on!!!"
Sent from my iPhone

Well Hello 2012!!!!

2012-01-03T23:15:00.000-06:00

It seems crazy to say that, it just doesn't seem like it should already be here! I've been enjoying some time off. I originally planned on being off for 6 weeks, I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to do that now that the kids are back in school. This girl isn't much for sitting around, not that I've been sitting around the past couple days but I'm just sayin. My last regular session(s) for 2011 was on the 17th and by that next Tuesday I had those discs in the mail which means I had some time off to spend with the kids and just hang out. The first week of Christmas break was a lot of baking, cooking, wrapping gifts and what else but watching Christmas movies and let me tell ya.....I LOVED every stinkin' minute of it! Then we had a wonderful Christmas weekend starting on Friday and ending Sunday evening. Then last week we hung out watching more Christmas movies and being lazy pretty much. We had a little bit of strep that seemed to move through some of us but we still had a great time. Tuesday I took the kids to town to spend some Christmas money and I'll admit I was worried taking 5 kids to the mall and several other stores but they surprised me, they were AWESOME! We had so much fun, in fact when Monday came and I had to put them all on the bus I'm pretty sure I was hating it more than they were! Normally I'm ready to get back into a routine but maybe that just shows that I've been working hard because I sure was having to stay busy to keep from getting the "missing the kids" blues. :( I just love Christmas time, as a matter of fact, I'm still listening to Christmas music and singing along and I'm more than okay with that, I mean after all for Christians Christmas should be EVERYDAY! The only thing greater than our Saviors birth is His death! So if you're starting to lose that Christmas spirit and cheer just STOP. RIGHT. THERE. that's unacceptable! ;o)

So I've been thinking about something since Christmas eve and I just wanted to share my thoughts so bear with me. On Christmas Eve you can pretty much always find one station on tv that shows the movie "It's a wonderful life" over and over and over, and as usual it was on again this year. Now I can't even tell you how many times I've watched this movie. I remember my mom watching it when I was a kid and she just loved it and I wondered why in the world would anyone like a movie that wasn't in color! This year the kids had gone to bed and naturally Chantry was in bed snoring like a lion as well so there I was with no one to talk to so I decided I'd watch this classic movie that I've loved since I became.....well.....older, anyways I got to thinking. (this is were Chantry says "oh Lord") But seriously, I got to thinking about how amazing the message in this movie is and then I got to thinking a little deeper.....for those who haven't seen the movie, well....get off my blog! No just kidding, here's the basic of it: George owns/works at a building and loan company and his uncle loses 8000.00 (this movie is set in black and white days so that was a lot of money) and the auditors are coming to find out about this money and of course since George is responsible there will be charges filed and so on. So George is very upset and ends up at a bridge, keep in mind this is on Christmas so there's snow and it's cold. George decides that his family and everyone would be better off without him so right as he plans to jump and end his "troubles" another man jumps in and George "saves" him only to find out that the "man" is an angel (naturally he doesn't believe this right away) To help George believe the angel, Clarence, shows George exactly what the lives of his family, friends and loved ones would be like if he had never been born. It's amazing the impact that 1 life makes on so many others. To shorten this George ends up believing and is back at the bridge praying to please have his life back and he gets it back, right where it left off, still with all those "troubles" that brought him to that bridge except now he has a different outlook and is so thankful for the life he has even with the troubles that he's facing. As he runs through town to get home to his wife and kids he has such a great appreciation for everything, everything that seemed so horrible before was now a blessing and as he runs through his front door he sees the men there, the auditor, the sheriff with a warrant, but instead of worrying he runs to his kids and just soaks them in, loves them and hugs them with all his might and then in walks his wife and he hugs he with all he has and behind her comes the entire town all pitching in money to help him out. (SIGH) What an amazing story, first off how incredible it would be in such a time of darkness to have such a revelation as that. But how about this side of the story: have you ever thought if you were able to see how everyone's life's would be if you hadn't ever been part of it? Would your absence leave a sad, negative impact or would it better people to have never known you? What kind of impact are we having on others, is it negative or is it positive? I asked myself that and naturally my first thought was Chantry and the kids sure are lucky to have me, lol, but that's easy right, I mean of course I'm nice to my kids and husband, I love them but what about those that aren't so "lovable" what about the lady at wal-mart that is right in my way or how about that annoying person at the ballgames that just won't shut up or the dude at mcdonald's that just can't seem to get my order right. Don't think for one second that because we don't know them or because our interaction with them is so brief that it doesn't impact their life, it does. Your frown or your smile can make a big difference in someone's life. Don't be so fast to get to "your life" and what you have going on that you can't even say a simple "hi" or stop and listen to someone's story, it's not gonna hurt you but it might hurt them if you don't. Just a thought, I know it's a bit long and maybe even silly but if someway, somehow I was able to see how my world would've been if I had never been born then I want to see that my time here did/does make a difference in lives, a difference for the better. :) Okay sorry you know how I get so here's some more 2011 sessions....

Where did I go wrong?

2011-12-20T22:05:00.000-06:00

So I put 4 sessions and the Christmas minis on a flash drive so I could blog from the laptop and be just a bit more on the lazy side on my break and afterwards I recounted thinking I should be down to single digits on sessions left to blog and after 7 counts I still got 13! I was pretty sure I only counted 14 last night and that was before blogging three sessions.....hmmmmm, I knew I wasn't a mathematician or anything but good gravy! Well whining about ain't gonna get me caught up so I might as well roll with it. So far it's been a busy Christmas break, Gabe and Gracie are both better now but they had been sick with strep. I'm super glad they're feeling better but they are some high strung little fellas! If I'm in the room then they seem very calm but as soon as I turn my back holy kalamazoo!!!! Nothin' but craziness! Tonight we went to see the lights and get ice cream and it got me to thinking about effort and how much effort do we actually put into the things we do. For example when I'm doing something I love I give it 100%, at least, but if it's not something I'm just lovin' then I wonder exactly how much I'm putting into it. Like Chantry and how much he loves to hunt, he plans and prepares to go hunting and he's in no hurry what so ever when he's hunting, he's giving it every bit of 100% effort, however looking at Christmas lights that we've seen somewhere around 40-11 times is just not that exciting so even though the plan is go to the lights, go to braums for ice cream and then to wal-mart to pick up three dirty santa gifts we choose to only dress in sweat pants because we don't plan on getting out of the vehicle. So we drive 30 minutes to get there, takes about 10 minutes to drive through the lights then onto the drive thru at Braums where they get our order wrong, naturally because when you're ordering 7 different ice creams it can be a mess, which is why I stated 9 times how much I HATED going to the drive thru at Braums and then we skipped wal-mart totally so there'll be a special trip made later for that then back home with a total family quality time of 1 hour and 27 minutes. Hmmmm, reckon how much effort was put in that. Now this in turn got me thinking to my life as a christian, how much effort do I put into it. Sometimes I don't feel excited to go to church, because like the lights I've seen, sang and heard it 40-11 times and sometimes I don't have time to go inside the bible and study, so for convenience sake I just rush through the "drive thru" and read a scripture or two and call it good even if this causes me to get the wrong order, and then praying, well who has the time right, sometimes it's a hassle so let's just skip that all together, I'll take time tomorrow or the next day to do it. WOW, how much effort am I putting into and in return how much am I getting out of it. See here's the deal, tonight the lights were eeeehhhh (shrugs shoulders) for one reason, because there was very little effort put into it and if our christian life is "eeeehhhh" then we should check ourselves and see how much effort we're putting into it. Ya see you get what you give, so if you're only giving 50% then you'll only get 50% and that not only affects you but also those around you. Bottom line; it's not always about us, as a matter of fact it's not about us at all! No I don't love the lights and I'm not a huge fan of ice cream but this evening wasn't about "me" it was about our family, making memories, making traditions, forming solid foundations and learning that we make up a team, so to speak, and sometimes members of the team might have to do things they don't love in order to spread a little light to another part of the team. Looking at the bigger picture, going to church, studying the bible and praying isn't about us at all, it's about Him, our Lord and because He has asked up to do these things and because He loved us enough to suffer such a cruel death and now part of our job on His team is to shine a little light to spread His love to others. Hmm, it's funny how such a small thing can make me put the big things into perspective! Sorry for the rambling but that's just what was on my mind. Enjoy these next series of sessions shots. :o)

And over a month later......

2011-12-19T22:08:00.000-06:00

.....I'm so far behind on posts of sessions it's literally mind boggle-ling! I just counted how many regular sessions I need to blog and I think I counted 14 and that's doing the Christmas minis as 1, plus there's a wedding that needs to post and then there's my 52 pieces which I'm sure you all have forgotten about and I'm sure you all think that I've forgotten too but that'd be a big NO! I've actually been taking pics of different pieces of me with my handy dandy personal assistant. Now there's just the task of getting everything up and blogged. A certain friend of mine that will remain nameless due to the fact that she is a bit harsh and I don't want her identity known because her request was just so shocking but she said, prepare yourself this is tough to handle, she said that I.....I have to do them all in separate posts! I know crazy huh? But I see her point, the only thing is I'm not sure I can come up with that much to talk about. I know me at a loss for stories is more mind blowing than Jessica's.....errrr uhhh I mean my friend's request but I just have my doubts. This past Saturday I shot my last sessions for 2011, I still have a wedding coming up on the 31st which me and Jessica are totally excited about and then there's a family coming from Arizona in January that I will be photographing but other than that I won't be doing any shooting until after February 1st. With that much time off my house should be totally spotless and organized and everything should be caught up and possibly some fun shooting along with a few workshops I plan on taking to improve my work. If there ever comes a day where I think it's "good enough" then it's time to pack the camera up and move on. I'm happy to say that when I look at my work I see lots of room for improvement so that'll be part of my plan for my time off. So don't think I'm being a slacker with Cross Light, I'm taking this time off to improve Cross Light on the business side and also on the artist side. So I have no idea who is next to be blogged but no matter cause all of my clients are amazing people with their own awesome stories. I admire each and every mom and I love each and every child and most of the dad's are pretty cool too. ;o) Anyways enjoy.....

There's one session, now on to another.....

Annnnd, let's go ahead and do one more just to make me feel a little more productive......

Nice try Wednesday!!!

2011-11-10T08:12:00.000-06:00

Wednesday tried it's hardest to get the best of me but I held my ground and didn't let it take the smile off my face. So here's the story; our big freezers are in the shop and since we have a side by side not much meat fits in the freezer in the house so I'm always asking someone to go to the shop and bring me up some meat so I can cook dinner every night. Well asking the boys to do that for me ended up getting me 12 T-bone steaks and since yesterday was far from a nice "cook-out" day I decided I better go down and bring some meat to the house. I see that the Tahoe is frosty so since I could walk down and back in the time it'd take to defrost it I thought that'd be the way to go. So still in my jammies I grab my snowboots (cause they're warm) and Chantry's camo coat (so no one will see me) and head out the back door and down to the shop. FYI white snowboots are no good in mud and at this point I am literally freezing, but whatever it takes to feed my family right? So I slide through the mud and make it to the shop only to find out Chantry decided to lock it without notifying the cook. So not too happy of a gal, I head back up to the house only to find that some idiot (me) locked the back door and naturally the front door would be locked as well. I sure hope and pray that the camo coat done it's job cause I'm pretty sure a grown woman with muddy snowboots climbing through the window wasn't anything too cute!! I made sure and let Chantry know about his mistake in NOT informing me of the recent changes and even though he told me where the key was and that I could get it and go back down there, that didn't happen, the mood had passed so everyone had ramen noodles and vienna sausages for dinner last night. I did get over it though and I smiled while editing the rest of the day before heading out to a pretty eventful sr. session which included us almost getting eaten alive by two monsterous dogs!!! We escaped unharmed but my heart is still beating a little faster. :o) Today is our crazy busy Thursday so I need to get off here and get busy, on the agenda today: edit and post sneak peek to facebook, get ready and go coat shopping, get pizza for supper as I still don't have meat here in the house, pick up kids from school, take Gracie to tumbling, all sports meeting and basketball games, home and more editing. Tomorrow we head to Savana to support our Redskins in first round playoffs, which is 5 weeks away from ending our season! :o)

Stupid, squeakin' chair!!!!

2011-11-08T22:26:00.000-06:00

And THAT is the real reason why I'm so behind on my blog posts is this stupid squeakin' office chair of mine!!! GRRRR, it's not that it's that loud but here's the scoop.....I always sit with one leg under the other, always. I actually have calluses on my ankle bones from them rubbing the leather on the chair, yeah I know not cute at all but true story. Anyways I switch legs from time to time and everytime I do the chair squeaks and when the chair squeaks Chantry "wakes up" and starts talking, usually about work. So I pretty much get in my "zone" and am blogging away, switch legs and out of nowhere it's, "no dump 'em on the bottom"....."how much dirt did ya get hauled".....and so on. Which #1 scares the thoughts right out of me and #2 is annoying. If you know Chantry then you know his voice is less than quiet so I'm sure you can imagine how startling that would be. It's worse if I have my headphones on because then I don't even hear the chair just him asking about dirt and slopes which by the way I care nothing about! Over the years I have learned way too much about heavy equipment, dirt pushing, slopes and blah blah blah, to be honest I kinda think it might be taking up precious space in my brain causing it to start running slower, you know like a computer hard drive, but I still listen to him and I seem to retain it all to well. Just the other night he was talking about the dozer and packer and I said something about the model # or whatever it's called and was a little worried about my knowledge retention. I mean seriously I am never gonna use a D6r on a regular basis in my photography business and my Tahoe runs by the mile not the hour so again I say that's info wasting my hard drive! :o) Ok so there's why I'm pretty sure it's all the chairs fault that I'm such a slacker, I mean who can stinkin' focus with all this dirt dumping going on up in here!

Ok so here's an overload of cuteness from several past sessions. Lots of babies and kiddos!!!! I just love the little ones, probably cause they're more on my level of hilariousness. I know your thinking, "how can somebody with such infinite wisdom be a total clown?" I'm not real sure on the how but trust me the kids think I'm MUCH funnier than the adults do, I can tell these things. :o)

Ok, right where we left off right?

2011-11-07T22:37:00.000-06:00

Oh goodness, it has been so stinkin' long since I've blogged I'm not so sure I remember how and I'm hoping I can accomplish two things tonight, 1: to successfully blog without getting writers block and 2: to successfully blog without rambling on like an idiot. I'm pretty sure we all know that neither one of those is gonna happen. So it's been over a month since I've not only posted on my blog but that long since I've even checked it or looked at it and I've gotta say, it could use some updating, not only current posts but my pages and everything need updated. Of course that will all happen in good time, like after Christmas. That being said this might be a good time to let everyone know that with a few spots that I've left open on purpose my 2011 calendar is booked and I'll be taking off December 18th thru January 31st, with the exception of a very special wedding. I have a couple of different reasons for taking this time off, first of all I want to be off while my kids are on Christmas break and since this time of year, after the holiday rush, is very slow I decided to take advantage of that, also I will be shooting two weddings in December with my awesome friend and fellow photog, Jessica, and I want to be able to get those images edited after the kids go back to school and before my busy season hits again in February. :) And, how could I forget, to update Cross Light!!! So basically I'll be taking off but I'll still be working on Cross Light some. I'll more than likely be updating my blog as well but my facebook will be closed. I'm gonna spend most of my time off just being a mom and wife, and getting our home in order!!!

So since we last chit chatted according to my calendar I have shot 16 football games, 23 sessions, 2 football teams, I've been on one date night and one field trip and I've had one dr.'s appointment and one hair appointment and I've made cotton candy once and I've been sick once (one day that is, I never get sick). Out of all that I have about a kagillian images left to edit, awesome memories from an amazing 13th wedding anniversary, great memories from a pumpkin patch fun day, an ok bill of health, great hair and around 250 elementary kids that think I'm awesome cause I looked like a smurf after making them fluffy sugar!!!! I'm not gonna elaborate on any of these awesome events because let's not fool ourselves into thinking we're not just getting lucky getting a post update at all, so let's not push it into trying to be a novel. How about we post some shots from some of my not so recent sessions that haven't been posted yet and we'll call it a night! :o)

This is a sweet couple that will be saying "I Do" on the 10th of next month, so excited for them!!!!

Next we have a couple of awesome kids from some October sessions.....

ok and last for the night, an overload of cuteness from my pumpkin mini sessions.....

Football Friday and I'm blogging?

2011-09-30T15:40:00.000-05:00

That is weird but I've been working away this week to try and get caught up before my insane week starts Monday. I''m not totally caught up but I'm doing a lot better than I was a week ago! And there's always tomorrow. I was sitting here enjoying some pickles and lays chips and decided I'd get another post in before the kids get home from school and my brain overloads on "MOM, can I" "MOM, are we" "MOM, guess what" Anyways, I've been craving pickles, actually frozen pickle juice all week and I had some earlier this week which only made the craving even worse and we was out of pickle juice and pickles for that matter! Soooo yesterday while I was at wal-mart I picked up some pickles and then today I started thinking how I really wished that they'd sell just the pickle juice so I wouldn't have to eat all the pickles before getting my craving satisfied. I'm not above tossing the pickles though, if it comes to that. I'm very particular about my pickle juice though.....I like kosher dill the best and it must be eaten with salt....yummo, makes my mouth water just thinking about it!!! Ok well the kids should be home any minute so I hope everyone has a great weekend and go support your favorite football team tonight, I of course, will be cheering for the Redskins as I do every Friday night!!! :o) In celebration of football Friday here's a few shots from my football mini's I did this past weekend......

I couldn't resist adding this one of my slacker assistant!!!

It's just whatever.....

2011-09-29T11:04:00.000-05:00

Normally I'd be excited about blogging again so soon to my last post but every time I do that I just jinx myself and then I'm not back on here for a week or whatever so let's just keep quiet and roll with it. I am feeling pretty productive, not so much because this will be my second post this week but because Chantry had to work until midnight last night and when I saw him at church he asked if I would wait up for him "if I could", now him adding the "if I could" is just hilarious in itself because I was just hoping and praying that since he'd been up since 6 yesterday morning that'd he'd be able to stay awake long enough to drive home. I naturally didn't point that out (a little marriage 101 insight) and I just said that I had planned on staying up and getting some work done while he was working. This made him super happy, which made me wonder if he had something planned, like bringing home ice cream or something I mean who knows but anyways. I myself was a working fool, I get the kids all taken care of and sent to bed and I hit the photoshop hard and when Chantry rolled in around 12:30ish I had finished editing 10 mini sessions from this past weekend and had half of the disc's burnt and ready to be mailed out. Of course having half of them done was not a stopping point for me to just shut down and go to bed, I would NEVER be able to sleep with something half way done. So Chantry says, "I don't see how you do it woman (I'm starting to think that's my pet name) I can't stay up this late, this is crazy, are you coming to bed?" My reply, "yep I'll be there in about 15 minutes I just gotta finish up here, ok?" "OK?" Yeah you guessed it he was OUT! Dude's getting old, poor guy can't hang! lol Actually he's pretty awesome and truth be known I don't any man that could hang with the schedule Chantry has. See here's my thoughts on our busy schedule: God gave us 5 kids, 5 active kids, so to me that means that He must have a lot of faith in us and well.....I don't plan on letting him down. So Chantry may work 60 hours or more a week and that's eeaa whatever but what everyone doesn't see or doesn't know is that when he's off the clock at work then he's on the clock as father and husband, so every Tuesday and Friday we have ballgames which means we are never home before 10 and them he helps me pick up and get all the kids in bed, on Wednesday's we have church which means we get home around 8:30 or later and again he helps me with the kids and what not so bedtime is normally around 10 or so, Thursday's we have all-sports meetings which puts us home around 8:30 or so and that's if we don't have a pep rally or parent teacher conferences or something else to go to and since Gracie has tumbling on Thursday's that means we're checking homework after we get home, I work every Saturday unless I've taken off because we have something going on which in any case means we're not home and means we certainly aren't sleeping in, I'm up and out the door no later than 8am, we have church twice on Sunday's and in between services is when we try to catch up on the housework that didn't get done while I was working on Saturday, now all this being said let me add that Chantry never, not even on Sunday's, sleeps later than 6:30am and most mornings he's already out the door by then. Basically he's an amazing husband and father! I texted him yesterday to tell him how amazing he was and how much I appreciated him....the reply I got......."are you being a smart alec?" Wow, seriously babe, what a way to break that precious moment! But then again I am a little facetious from time to time. Anyways there's my story, not sure I made much sense but I got little sleep last night so just look at the pictures and carry on......

Marriage 101 "the blog"

2011-09-28T15:46:00.000-05:00

No I'm not starting a new blog, good gravy I can't even keep this one up so that would just be failure waiting to happen! As my facebook followers know from time to time I post a status titled "Marriage 101" These statuses give various tips on how to keep a marriage good, I guess you might say. For example: Marriage 101: adding "reckon" to the beginning of a "command" does NOT make it a question. For example: "Reckon we can wax the floors sometime this week" As a matter of fact if you don't DO the housework, then I'd say just don't mention it all together. Hypothetically speaking of course.

or: Marriage 101: If your wife is sitting next to you with her feet on you and she sighs and says,"man my feet are tired" then that would be your go ahead to rub them NOT say,"shhh I can't hear the game" Hypothetically speaking of course. ;-)
So you kinda get an idea now. By the way, my marriage 101 tips is totally worth having a facebook. Just saying. Anyways, I've been told on numerous occasions that I should be published. Granted only by women but I'm sure the men are far too proud to thank me in public but I'm sure they are so very thankful for the many times I have saved the tails from trouble with my generous insight. I felt as though my own husband should be aware of the many marriages that I'm sure I've saved along the way so this past weekend I gave him a little "marriage 101" Now I don't want to get into all the specifics of the conversation but let's just say Monday night it was 8 pm before me and the kids got home from ball practice and Chantry had came home, ate his supper that I had waiting for him and then......wait for it......cleaned the kitchen. Yeah you heard me right, after three years of considering me a cheap maid he finally decided that I was a busy woman!!!! Wait, what's that I hear.....the angels rejoicing!!!!! :o) I can't even begin to tell you how happy I was Tuesday morning to wake up and not need to do any housework before getting busy editing! I got over 100 images edited and 5 discs ready to be mailed out and that was only working 8-3 and I had to stop in the middle of work to take goody bags to the 8th graders from us class parents!!! So now I'm almost certain I could make a go of being an author and doing a little marriage counseling, I mean it was only about a month ago when I got an e-mail saying that I could be a psychologist!!!! And here I thought my talent was photography!!!! So now let me look back and see exactly what sessions I should be posting since I'm a ridiculous blog failure......

Somebody stop me.....

2011-09-20T10:45:00.000-05:00

....or just come do it for me. I know what I need.....I personal "blogger" like someone that's sits in my office with me and while I'm editing I can tell them all my witty thoughts and they can type up and posts my blogs. That would be so awesome because my witty thoughts come a lot faster than my fingers can type and in turn my blog stalkers miss out on a lot of infinite wisdom. Sorry about that. :( You can always come hang out with me though, well except those who are weirdos and then no thanks, of course you'll need to give me a heads up cause I like to shower before having company over and as of right now I'm still sporting my jammies and bed head but isn't that just a little bonus to the whole "self-employed" life. :o) I noticed I didn't blog any last week, naturally I was busy but also I had a little medical issue arise. Not to scare anyone with my condition but it seems I have contracted a serious case of poison oak. Yeah so here's the scoop.....I am not allergic to poison ivy, at least not the leaves or the oil, I am however allergic to the spores that will blow in the air, that being a localized reaction does not get into my bloodstream causing it to become systematic and also the best thing about that is that I can scratch and scratch and it does not spread. So naturally last week when I saw a bit of this "rash" on my belly I assumed poison ivy, no biggie right? WRONG!!!!! And I absolutely can not stress WRONG!!! enough!!!! 5 days into the "rash" it had not only spread across my belly but onto my chest (yeah buddy) on my right arm, my back and some on my ankles and lower legs. Needless to say my self diagnosis of poison ivy was off by a leaf or two. Turns out I am highly allergic to poison oak and sumac which we only know that's what it was because of the pictures I took of the plants to see, (that would have been awesome to check into beforehand) but anyways yesterday I gave in and went to the dr. I was basically to the point of wanting to scratch with a cheese grater which is no bueno. So after 2 hours of waiting and the doctors office, one shot in my hip (which did hurt), three prescriptions and 50.00 worth of copays I thought I was bombdiggity ready to hit hard yesterday afternoon but to my surprise the only thing I hit hard was the recliner after my medicine kicked my tail! I always tell that doctor of mine not to give me medicine that'll make me drowsy, I can't do drowsy, I have no time for drowsy and every time he says, "ok this is very mild, you shouldn't have any trouble" and then POW I'm out! It took it about an hour to hit thank the Lord cause if you can't tell that your hands are attached to your arms then that wouldn't be a good time to drive. So after a two hour nap yesterday I cooked supper, got homework done, kids picked up and cleaned, fed and in bed then I did some work before taking anymore of that stuff. I did sleep like a baby after taking it and going to bed so today my plan is to not take it until after the games, and even though I am itching like a dog with fleas I'm not gonna lose my self-control, I can do this, I just gotta keep my hands on the keyboard. I hope everyone has an awesome week and I hope to be back on here tomorrow or so.....

24 of Amanda :)

2011-09-20T10:16:00.000-05:00

Ok so is there really any catching up at this point? I think not! To be honest I'm not real sure where we went wrong in our relationship or who's to blame but me and Mr. blogger just haven't been spending enough quality time together which really does put a strain on things! The sad thing is I'm not sure I can make and promises that things will change. :( I sure do love staying so busy though, I just hate that it's my precious blog that suffers, but I'm here now so let's cherish these few moments that we do have.....

My 24 ~sunglasses~

I know I go from one extreme to the next on my 52's but honestly I'm pretty random like that so let's just say it adds to my charm and move on. Here's the deal with sunglasses.....I LOVE THEM!!! I remember when I was little I thought everyone wearing sunglasses was super cool and I tried and tried to like wearing them but the "darkness" in the light that they made drove me CRAZY!!! So as much as I wanted to have that "coolness" I just couldn't handle it, even through high school they bothered some. Naturally the older I got the more I could handle them and now, well now unless I'm wearing my glasses (for seeing) you won't catch me outside without a pair of sunglasses on. My eyes are so sensitive, especially with my contacts in, that I can't hardly bare to go without a pair on, even when I'm on a session and yes I have been known to actually "shoot" wearing them. Another thing I love about sunglasses....they always "FIT" you know when you're shopping for say a great pair of jeans and you go in store after store and try on pair after pair and nothing, nothing fits just right or looks just right as you had pictured it in your head. So you're totally bummed cause you had planned on shopping and getting a little somethin' somethin' for yourself but no such luck. So what are you gonna do, leave the store empty handed, uhhhh no way, grab a pair of sunglasses, which won't tap into your jeans fund, and walk out lookin' ten times the cooler! Yep, pair after pair they always fit!!!! :o)

Oh yeah and one more confession about sunglasses......I'm a bit of a people watcher, sunglasses........(whispering) hide your eyes. ;o) You're welcome for that little tip, no charge.

23 of Amanda :)

2011-09-11T22:17:00.000-05:00

So tonight I'm blogging with a pretty heavy heart, so there won't be any funny stories or wise cracks about how big of a redneck I'm married to. Truth is if Chantry wouldn't have gotten called into work I wouldn't even be blogging until after he was sound asleep. Not because I'm hiding anything but because this piece of me isn't a piece that I discuss too often, ok not at all and honestly if it wasn't weighing so much on my heart tonight then this wouldn't be anything I'd share, not with him or friends and certainly not with my blogstalkers no matter how awesome y'all are! (deep sigh) here we go......

My 23 ~the missing piece~

So today is 9-11 and the 10 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on our great nation and my heart breaks for all those lost on this day. For me 9-11-01 hits very close to home, on that day while so many were losing loved ones on the east coast I lost a part of my heart a lot farther west, Arizona actually. Today marks the 10 year anniversary of the death of my step-dad, Ray. So on this day I lost part of me and there's a hole in my heart that will never be filled. So since I never talk about any of this let me fill you in.....I was pretty young when Ray came into my life, I was his "little princess", he taught me how to ride a horse, helped me practice basketball, never missed one of my games, came to all my class parties, took me fishing and among many other things he even taught me to play black jack, 21. I remember when I was maybe 5 or so he was breaking a horse and got bucked off and shattered his knee, after surgery he was laid up for a while and I "babysit" him while mom was at work. That's when he taught me how to play 21. We started betting crayons, at first he almost had my whole box of 48 but then I caught on and won them all back. We used to take road trips to Texas to see his boys and it was nothing but George Strait all the way. :o) Those are a few fun memories but here's where it gets tough......when I was, oh I don't know 13 I think him and mom got divorced. He left Oklahoma and somewhere down the line ended up in Arizona. He wrote me though and sent cards, actually he sent a card every holiday, Christmas, Labor Day, whatever it may be he sent me a card and never ever did he miss my birthday. He didn't miss my graduation either, at least the card came and of course there was a card that came when I had Holden along with some pearl snap shirts and a rope and then when I got married. He never missed any occasion. He didn't just drop a card in the mail either, he took the time to write, sometimes 5 page letters. That's just who he was, at least to me that's who he was. Of all the things I learned from him I wish more than anything that I would've realized how much those cards and letters would mean and if only I would have taken the time to write back. I know those cards in the mailbox would've been replaced with him at my door, but I never did. I guess I felt like I had to choose sides between him and mom. Regardless it was a poor choice on my end for sure. I talked to him about a week before he passed away, I was pregnant with Luke, I asked him to come back to Oklahoma and he was planning on it. He was finally gonna get to meet Chantry and Holden and Kaleb and he planned on being here to meet Luke as well. That day never came though, and the cards stopped, the letters stopped, oh how I miss those letters. You'd think after 10 years the pain would be gone, it's not, never will be. I think about him everyday, some days the memories bring a smile and some days they bring a tear or two. Luke's middle name is Alan, same as both of Ray's sons middle names so I knew he'd like it. :o) Somehow I thought that might give me a bit of closure but no. My Texas tattoo is in Ray's memory. He loved Texas and he would sing yellow rose of Texas to me and to my mom. Ray's middle name was Alexander, Gabe's first name is Alexander. His memory will always live on in this house, this house that almost 30 years ago he helped make a home but even without these walls he'll always have a home in my heart. While searching for some of my favorite pictures of us I found one of the last cards he sent me, the front of it reads, "wishing you all the things that bring beauty into your world and joy into your heart....the things that make you feel good about life and about yourself......" and the inside read,"....the special things that will give you happy moments today and happy memories tomorrow." I bet he never thought he'd be such a big part of those memories. He signed the card (after he wrote a short letter) Your still my little princess, Crazy Ray. That was his handle, he was a truck driver and you bet I still am! He would hate that I even spent a second sad and missing him, he was a laugher, I don't ever remember hearing him complain. I'm sure he did but I don't remember, what I do remember is his laugh, he laughed with all his heart and soul. I miss that....I miss him.

This was my birthday. :)

My very first fish. :)

Love this!!! It was Ray's birthday and mom helped me decorate the kitchen!

Ray teaching me to balance on a horse.

Feeling abandoned?

2011-09-10T14:12:00.000-05:00

I'm not personally but I'm pretty sure my poor little blog is. Good grief this is ridiculousness!!! Seriously at this pace I should just shut the thing down! I don't think I'll do that though, I think I'll just get myself in gear and post a session or two or three or.....you get the picture. HA get it? Picture....photo blog! Geez I am one funny gal! So it's Saturday and normally I don't blog on Saturdays but Chantry is with the two older boys scouting some hunting spots and the three younger kids are chilling in front of some Tom & Jerry so I can get some work done. I had a family session this morning and let me just say right here and now, I LOVE LOVE LOOOOVE this weather!!!! It is amazing so if you want in on this awesome weather you better get on my books soon. I still have a very few openings for September left and my October books are open and filling up fast. Now....where was I? This past week was nothing short of insane busy crazy, not so much with Cross Light but with my "other" job, mom and wife. Chantry asked me what my "wife" job consisted of that made me so busy. I sweetly explained how his clothes and dishes didn't exactly wash themselves or put themselves away, nor did his dirty clothes pick themselves up off the floor and walk into the hamper on their own. And of course you can look at him and tell that he ain't missed any meals, meals that I've prepared. By the time I got around to explaining how the floor fairy never showed up to sweep and mop nor did the little toilet fairy ever come around he didn't have much to say and then when I pulled out the calendar to get into my momma duties he was backstepping pretty good. I thought I'd share with my blog stalkers out there what a week is like for Amanda as a mom and wife, so here's my schedule from last week: Monday: Holden football practice at 7:30am-10am, Kaleb football practice 10am-11:30am, Granny's for lunch, friends over for a fish fry and 4-wheeler fun at 3 (this was a fun day fo'sho'!!!!) Tuesday: edit pictures, do laundry, clean house, put supper on, go to post office and town to get grandma medicine, finish supper, make sandwiches for football team, load car, get kids ready for game, Kaleb's football game at 5pm, Holden's game at 7, home by 10 (homework all done in car on the way to the game, supper ate in the car also) Wednesday: sessions at 8am, edit pictures, lunch with Jessica at 12ish, be at gym by 2:30 for pictures, pick up Luke, Gabe and Gracie at 3, PTO meeting at 3:30, football practice until 5:30 or so, 6th grade class parents meeting at 5:30, church at 7 (all homework and supper was done in the car again) Thursday: I totally stayed home all day editing until 2:30 then picked kids up at 3, did homework and ate supper in the car then tumbling at 4-4:50 then pick Holden up from practice at 5, all-sports meeting at 6:30, Friday: clean house, laundry, clean out fridge, go shopping (for me which was fun), grocery shopping, home by 3 put groceries up fix supper, feed kids and get ready for ballgame, home around 11:30 :o) Please keep in mind we live 20minutes from town so there's no chance of running home and coming back.

Wow that was boring and exhausting! On the bright side of all this crazy momma/wife routine is that I have 5 awesome kids and 1 amazing man and well I'll take credit for some of that, at least right now I will since they're all gone or asleep! lol Actually I just think organization is important and if I'm not organized then they sure won't be. One day they're gonna be grown and I'm gonna be bored outta my mind!

Ok let's post some sessions now........here's some of my recent sessions, not the MOST recent but still recent. :)

Road meditation....

2011-08-25T11:50:00.000-05:00

I'm not really sure if I spelled that right but whatever, that's what I'm headed out for. I'm gonna scout some new locations and in the process get a little backroad therapy! I've been so busy, not just with work but also the momma/wife gig I stumbled into about 14 years ago. ;o) Anyways I love to stay busy but sometimes my OCD gets the beset of me and I'm seriously torn between sitting here and working and working and working and the organized routine that I find to be necessary for my kids to keep up with all their homework and activities. Naturally I have to keep my priorities in check and since I'm caught up on my work with the exception of this blog, which is proving to be more and more of a pain and less fun. I'm like 12 weeks behind on my 52 pieces, but the thing is I'm determined to catch up now that school has started. Hopefully that will happen but not in this post it won't. I got so fixated on getting my vacation posted that I lost track of how far behind I was getting with my session posts! I believe it's 7 sessions that I'm behind now so if you'll forgive me I'm gonna combine some into one post. I've almost decided that it's the stories that attract so many blog hits, not the pictures, and as a photographer that started this blog for the purpose of Cross Light that would normally crush my spirits a little but I'm not one to hang my head and since I get 95% of blog hits through posted links on facebook that tells me that these images have already been viewed on my facebook page but the stories, for the most part, have not been. Soooooo, I'm outta here! Enjoy! :o)

Part III, wrap it up!

2011-08-19T12:35:00.000-05:00

I've gotta say I'm not sorry to see this vacation (post) come to an end! This girl's ready to get back on track with some regular posts and maybe catch up on some 52's I don't have a lot of stories left to tell everything went pretty smooth and uneventful....well as "uneventful" as it gets with my family. :o)

The first night we ate dinner at David Beard's steakhouse, which I give two thumbs up to! The food was great and the atmosphere was right up our alley! There was even a door on the ceiling above out table....yea I'm not real sure WHY but I'm sure it was pretty humorous for the locals to see a family of seven all staring at the ceiling! lol I so wish I would've taken my camera to the restaurant and taken some pictures but I never really expected it to be so cool. Holden enjoyed coloring a pretty picture while we waited for the food, I'm thinking that picture is hanging on the wall to display such coloring skills from a 14 year old!

The next day we went to Beavers Bend and drove and drove and drove which was fine by us cause it was some beautiful scenery! That day we stopped at about 1400 pawn shops, I don't have any clue as to WHY but the guys wanted to so we did. After about the first 2 me and Gracie started staying in the car, with the doors locked of course, some of those people walking around looked pretty rough. We couldn't really gripe too much about all the pawn shops though because me and Gracie had Big Daddy ;) take us by every boutique or girly store that we saw in search of the perfect birthday gift for Gracie's BFF. Later on we went and rode go carts....here's the deal there's me and Gracie riding together, we're cool right, win or lose we don't care we're there to have fun and be safe right? Yeah well that's what we thought but I can assure you we were WRONG!!! Apparently, the signs at the place that read, "no bumping" and "this is not the indy 500" or "be safe" are just for kicks because Chantry, Luke and Gabe are pretty crazy but Chantry is a safe driver over all but he has skills, then there's Kaleb who respects the rules but none the less is in it to win it and THEN we have Holden who btw will NOT have a license as long as he lives here, he is NUTS! The dude seriously was bumping and almost ran me and Gracie smooth off the track and that was AFTER he had already lapped up 3 times (like at that point we're a threat), then he cuts us off and starts slamming his brakes on and fishing tailing right in front of us almost causing us to rear end the fool!!! Now at this point I'm a little stressed and just ready for the fellas to call us in but that was yet to happen, as we come around a curve low and behold there's Kaleb on the side of the track broke down and when I say broke down I mean the kid drove a wheel off the go cart!!! So while the guys are checking on Kalebs go cart I'm thinking Chantry will stop and check on him, OH NO, not a chance him and Holden don't even slow down even though there are pedestrians on the track one being our son!!!! It was insane! Earlier that day we had taken a train ride through the park and it was nice and peaceful, unlike the go cart danger nightmare!

The next day we headed home by way of the Talimena drive which was awesomely beautiful BUT if you're a little scared of heights then you might want to brace yourself, this chicka was pretty sure she was gonna die!!!! My husband and oldest son don't help matters either, they're so rotten....."wow look how high up we are" and "can you imagine if we drove off, oh look there'no guard rail" being heard often didn't help things at all! The best thing about taking the sky way home is that I got a small break from hearing everyone, mostly Chantry, scream "CHICKEN TRUCK" See over there that's what kind of 18 wheelers you see, not gas or oil but log trucks and chicken trucks and holy cow!, everytime we saw one everyone tried to see who saw it first and by whoever said it first was naturally the one who saw it first, and being the DRIVER, Chantry had a bit of an advantage!!! The drive home only took 6 hours, probably cause Chantry was so excited about our date night that we had planned for Friday night, so we got home unloaded, reloaded and dropped all the kids off with friends and had a little us time and then we came back to reality and we've been there since. lol It was fun, good times and good memories!!!

This was on the way home, in McAlester, I just happened to wake up at the stop light with my camera in hand. lol

The was driving over a dam at Beavers Bend

See I just don't feel like I should be seeing the tops of the trees at this angle

This is on the Talimena Drive

I told them NOT to cross those bricks....they listened pretty good

They are very interested in the view.....I'm good from where I'm at. lol

This stressed me out a bit, but as Chantry said, "it not a straight drop off" oh well ok then

Because I'm pretty sure you HAVE TO take a tourist picture in front of this

and this

Beavers Bend

on the train ride

Train ride again....Chantry and Luke was behind us and they're very camera shy! lol

from the train, this is the view of trees I feel I should always have! :O)

4-R's part II

2011-08-18T11:24:00.000-05:00

Because I can't remember what all the "R's" were on part I. lol Well I've got a confession......those socks didn't get folded yesterday, as a matter of fact I dumped the basket out and then somehow got sidetracked and well they're still in the middle of the living room floor. I did however sweep the floor around them this morning. I really think that if I decide to NOT throw them all away and go buy new ones then tonight would be awesome family time matching them up. :) Ok so here we go.......

DISCLAIMER: SAME AS YESTERDAY'S

Alright so we're heading out, destination: Idabel Now from our house Idabel would be southeast of us so which way do we head out.....west, yay I know right? So let me just tell you a little bit about Chantry and how he travels, most men take "short cuts" not Chantry, he takes what I call "Scott cuts" which basically means he takes the deepest most backroads/longest route EVER. So basically a 4-5 hour drive to Idabel took us 9 hours via TEXAS, yes I said TEXAS. Now let me just add a little visualization here for ya, we have a Tahoe with 3 rows of seats, obviously with 5 kids, anyways Kaleb, Luke and Gabe sit in the very back and Holden and Gracie sit in the second row, now what you might not know is how extremely annoying a 14 year old can be, especially MY 14 year old! He just got an iphone for his birthday in July so naturally he has his "destination map" pulled up so this is what I hear; "only 4 hours and 32 minutes until we get there" "turn here dad" "oh you missed it, you missed it, you should've turned back there" "only 5 hours and 28 minutes until we get there" "oak road right up ahead, just over this hill....yep there's oak road" Yeah for 9 hours, seriously! But then I'm sure this will come as a surprise to you cause it certainly did me.....my Tahoe has......Jake brakes....yep for real, everytime we went down an incline either Chantry or Holden or BOTH would go, "BBBBLLLLLLLLLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRR" if that's not the proper way to spell the sound a jake brake makes I apologize but just work with me a little. :) Ok so now that you're practically in the car with us let me ask, do you need to take a bathroom break before we go any further? Well, we did and we did OFTEN and let me just say that my husband picks the WORST places to stop at. Ya know with boys you can just pull over on the side of the road, especially on the roads we traveled, but for the ladies well I just feel like a bathroom is the best choice considering Gracie has yet to master copin' a squat, although I think having pee run down your leg might have been a better option as opposed to some of the places we had to pee at. Let me put it this way, if your stopped at a port a potty and it was one of the nicer "establishments" then you know your driver is not a good pee picker! Just sayin. Although after getting so much grief over it I will say that by the time we headed home he was getting better and the last place we stopped at before getting closer to home had very nice bathrooms, wallpaper and everything, even a sink! But let's get back to the drive down there, I mentioned we went by way of Texas well let me explain WHY we had that little detour......see I was hoping to go to Paris, cause what girl doesn't want to go to Paris, only most girls want a little fancier Paris rather than Paris Texas but hey I'm a simple gal. ;) Anyways some of the guys Chantry works with told him that there was an AWESOME bass shop right before you get to Paris, "it's 10 times better than Bass Pro" they said so naturally we're all excited so we head down there, "right after you cross the border" they said and then of course we can't miss it with Holden and his google map, so we're driving, "1 more mile" Holden says, Oh we see the sign and......."that can't be it" says I. This is not even close to being bigger or better than Bass Pro, this place isn't even as big as my HOUSE! This can't be it! So as we're parked in their parking lot searching on our phones for pictures of this place that is "better than Bass Pro" Chantry says, "I'm going in" So fine we all bail out and go in......OH MY GRAVY ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!! The whole place smelled like a tackle box!!!! Seriously this was NOTHING like Bass Pro, all this place had was rubber worms and fishing lures and bait, LIVE bait!!!! Ok so listen, I'm a country girl, yes, and I do love to fish but jimmeny crickets folks we're on vacation and we drove 7 HOURS to come to Texas to shop at a BAIT SHOP!!!! Really!!!! So the name of the place is "------- Bass Shop" but it should sooooo be "-------- BAIT Shop" and to top it all off Chantry and the boys and even Gracie (Chantry tricked her into being happy with a new pink lure) were so excited that they didn't even take me to Paris!!!!

Ok sorry, I had to take a little break there, I might possibly still be a little jaded about that, and to think they want me to bake them some cakes to take out there. HA! How about you go just north of Paris, Texas there's a great bake shop oh wait no that's a BAIT shop!!!!

Ok moving on......so back on the road and now onto Hugo so we can go see where Lane Frost is buried at. I really thought the kids would like to see the grave since all my kids have loved the movie 8 seconds, Holden was given a cowboy bible by Lane's parents when he was about 4, Gabe can quote the movie like he wrote the script and I'm actually old enough to remember him back before the movie. What I didn't realize is the kind of emotional break down Gabe would have....he refused to get out of the car and everytime Holden said, "you gonna be alright buddy" (which was alot, don't confuse Holden's aggravation with concern) Gabe would get even more teary and say, "stop it HOLE DUN, I don't want to talk about it" He did finally get out to look at the grave, with Kaleb only, everyone else had to stay in the car. Poor guy. :( I felt bad for him. Alrighty, next stop....the hotel, what say we take a break, this was a long vacation! lol

Refreshed, Rejuvenated,Refocused,Relaxed.....

2011-08-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

.....okay let's not get carried away. :o) Well, I had planned on blogging my vacation last night after everyone went to bed buttttt, here's what happened: So yesterday I had the HARDEST time staying awake, like it was ridiculous cause normally I can't sleep in the daytime to save my life but yesterday was a different story. I did manage to stay awake long enough to accomplish some "to do's" but by the time football practice started (3pm) I was BEAT! Even still I was watching the boys practice, at least until about an hour or so into it and then zonk! out like a light! lol I think I slept in the car with the other kids for like an hour! Craziest thing ever right? WRONG! it gets crazier!!! So we come home from practice and I had already made the salad and the potatoes were baked to perfection in the oven so I throw the steaks on and by the time Holden had his shower plates were fixed and we were all gathered waiting to eat....we did and then finished with showers and baths and Chantry crashed about 8:30, we all got our stuff ready for the morning "to school" rush and everyone was super cozy in bed so I decide NOT to work and go ahead and go to bed myself because we all know that Chantry sleeps better with me next to him and I don't mind laying in bed reading so he can rest cause I'm just nice like that, anyways I turned out the lights and locked up and realized it was still light outside! I looked at my phone and good gravy it was 10 til 9!!!! So I'm thinking there's NO WAY I'll be able to go to sleep but that's cool cause I'll still get some reading in right....nope about a half a chapter in I was out!!! Slept like a baby next to my honey ALL NIGHT until our alarms went off at 6!!! WOW I feel super, so I've realized that even though I take my flintstone daily plus vitamin C, D, B-100 and an iron pill my real, true, energy comes from a great nights rest next to my favorite! I don't know what he has but I'm addicted to it! :) Seriously that was a post in itself and I haven't even began on vacation!!!

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A PERSONAL POST ABOUT MY VACATION IT WILL BE LONG AND BORING READ AT YOUR OWN RISK AND DON'T GRIPE ABOUT HOW LONG IT IS, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

Alot like last nights rest, vacation was great and just what we needed. Since I started Cross Light I have not taken a full weeks vacation, yes I've taken a day or three off from time to time but even on those days I still edit when I can so technically I'm still working or maybe I take off but still answer calls and messages so again still working, well this vacation was different. I shut my computer off and did not work at all!!! I felt like it was deserved to take the time off, maybe not so much that I NEEDED it because I love my work but my family needed me to. After all I realize that a lot of people may think that my "talent" is my photography but that's not the case, my special talent, true talent is being a mom and wife, that's what comes natural and easy to me and that's what God put me here to do my photography is an extra side talent that He's made possible so that I can be the mom and wife my family needs me to be and still help out cause you know raising 5 kids ain't cheap! :o)

So here's a few highlights from our rockin' week off!!!

Day 1 or so (I don't remember but we were still home)

Fish stories......Chantry thought it would be great to take the kids fishing but for this gal getting up before the sun seems a bit nutso! So I decided to get some much needed sleep on my first day off which was an excellent thought but that's about as far as it got seems how long about 8am I hear everyone running in and out of the house in an excited panic considering my husband and all kids are very accident prone I decided I'd better get up and check on things. You know just in case we needed to super glue something back together, like a finger or something, but I was happy to find that all the craziness was caused by a 8.8lb bass that Kaleb had caught. I was pretty excited but not nearly as excited as Kaleb who couldn't have smiled any bigger, seriously he looked like those "pudding face" commercials! Then of course we have Holden aka Mr. competitive who was a little huffy about the situation, Luke who was excited and determined that if Kaleb could catch a big fish so could he and Chantry who just needed to find the number of a good taxidermist cause heaven forbid we NOT have that bass hanging on our wall somewhere. Then I take note of the little ones.....Gabe, he's cool, whatever, just another day fishing and he caught about a 1 pounder that in his mind was just as awesome as Kaleb's fish and then there's Miss Gracie who was so proud to get to go fishing with the men folk, as a matter of fact she was so happy that when her daddy woke her up she put on her brand spankin' new, never been worn, jeans and a white, yes WHITE shirt! Yea welcome to my world!!! But hey they had fun and some great memories right? 10-4 on that one!!!!

Yes Gracie had changed pretty quickly after I got sight of her! :)

Another Day:

We (I) decided it would be cool to go up Route 66 one day and stop by Pop's of course that would be after a trip to Bass Pro, which was totally cool with me cause I love Bass Pro. I honestly can't remember anything amazingly interesting happening on this day trip besides just the everyday life of rednecks going to town which is hilarious in itself but good grief I can't write everything that's said, we have to have some things private! lol I will say that since my kids are southern the place we ate lunch at was not "Pops" it was "Cokes" per Mr. Gabe. Of course that's coming from a kids that told Kaleb, who is pretty sweet but none the less twice the size of Gabe, "we clear on that" lol I can't remember what he was telling him not to do but when he ended it with "we clear on that" as serious as can be me and Holden totally lost our composer! So that's pretty much it for this day but let me say if you've never been to or ate at Pops aka Cokes you should it's yummolicious!!! Here's a few shots from that day.

Chantry took most of these cause he wants to be like me! lol ;)

Please don't interrupt his coloring!

I'm sorry but when someone points a camera at me I'm gonna smile, I look a lot better smiling than I do with my mouth wide open saying, "no don't take a picture of...."(click) too late

See Holden trying not to have his picture made, "no mom don't....." (click) too late sidenote: notice the grasshopper on Kaleb's shoulder that he is totally unaware of! lol

I'm pretty sure the mustard people are gonna be contacting me for their new ads! ;)

For two reasons: #1 because the light is mad crazy awesome in this place and #2 because I love the colors!!!

Okay so for now I'm gonna close this bad boy out and make this whole vacation post two part cause I'm easily distracted and I'm thinking I want to go fold a basket full of socks.......later!

Taking it with class.....

2011-08-15T22:51:00.000-05:00

I know this must be a surprise to everyone that I'm blogging two nights in a row but what can I say, schools in session and that makes for one productive momma!!! So last night after my little "rant" I gotta say I felt better, a little anyways. :) Today I woke up with a little bit better of an outlook on things. I got lots of housework and laundry done, edited around 100 images then got cleaned up and went to get groceries. I normally head out early to get groceries so I can get back home but Chantry asked me to go a little later so we could have lunch together and I believe his exact words were, "the later the better" So I headed out to get groceries and I took my time getting them and then I called him to confirm that it was "habanero" sauce that he was wanting and to let him know that I was about to check out and I'd grab some lunch and be there. So naturally that's what I did, I'm a busy lady so it's not like I have time to dilly dally or anything, so Arby's it is, btw I specifically asked for ranch with my fries and 3 miles down the road I discovered that they had failed to put it in there. That should have been my first clue that something was "off" but none the less I continued on not letting the whole ranch incident get to me. I get to Chantry's work and I call him, it goes to voicemail so I call him again, voicemail and again and basically this continues for around 20 minutes when I decide that there's no way I'm letting my roast beef get cold so I ate my sandwich and then I called him again, voicemail, made some other phone calls for work and then called him again when I finally got an answer as to which he was totally shocked that I had been waiting. He hadn't heard my ringtone because he was in the dozer with the windows open. Now I'm just gonna say if I know my wife is bringing me lunch then I'm probably gonna be watching for her call, true? Yea, I thought so. Anyways he ate and I pouted a bit and then got over it, as all women do. I blow the ranch incident and the 40 minute being stood up lunch date off and carried on, come home put the groceries away get supper going and decide to wrap up some sessions by burning the cd's and getting them in the mail. So after fighting with my cd burner for an hour and going through around 10 discs I finally turn the computer off and head to football practice to pick up Holden and Kaleb, things went fine after that and when I got back home and turned the computer back on it was all good. I can't even begin to tell you how incredibly aggravating it is for my cd burner to mess up, like I was seriously gritting my teeth at the stupid screen. Like that did any good, about as much good as it did for me to get upset about Chantry not hearing his phone when I called. Anyways, while I was there waiting I was thinking and I thought back to a sermon I heard at a gospel meeting we went to awhile back, basically the part of it that came back to me today was this: we all have hard times and go through trials but are we gonna gripe and whine and have a little pitty party about it or are we gonna take it with class....well folks let me tell ya something I'm gonna take it with class! I won't let these minor upsets cause me to be someone I don't want to be and negativeness don't live here so you won't hear no more of that from me. :O) Here's another one of my recent sessions.....tomorrow my long awaited vacation blog post!!!!

As promised....pinky promised that is....

2011-08-15T00:15:00.000-05:00

So I've been getting some pretty rough messages as of lately to update my blog....I think we're bordering on threats so I decided I'd better get to posting! lol Just kidding.....well about the threats anyways but I did promise I would update my blog by tomorrow morning and since tomorrow is cleaning and grocery day I decided I better get busy. :o)) The thing is I could blog probably everyday but I'm not always in a great mood and I just hate to pass any negativeness on to my blog stalkers I mean after all when I'm in a bad mood I can lock myself up in the house and stay busy editing but for those of you that actually have to interact with people no matter your mood, well I'd feel horrible if someone got hurt because I got mouthy on here and then that got a reader ready for a fight and well you know an avalanche starts with one snowball right? Or something like that, anyways I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you guys, after all you are my closest 300 blogger friends so since we've been home from vacation it's been a little rough. First of all taking a week off is awesome and for the most part I was caught up but if you get back from vacation and have 9 days before school starts and the busiest weekend EVER for your little hometown then things are gonna get backed up and they did, a little, so that leads to some serious OCD craziness running in my head cause I haven't had time to actually get my OCD thoughts done. And then there's the fact that I never, NEVER get to see my husband. With his revamped (ridiculous) working schedule he's not around much and when he is he's pretty much a walking zombie for lack of sleep. The hours he works wouldn't be bad if when he was home he could actually lay down and sleep but the times that he absolutely does not go into work is when we either have church or if there is something important going on and when I say important I mean like I'm pretty sure if I drop dead he'll be at the funeral. I'm not kidding here either folks, yesterday was the watermelon festival, now for Chantry growing up that meant nothing but for this gal it meant you go and I have gone every year since I was born and I've taken my kids every year since they were born and yes that means that I drug Holden out to the Watermelon Festival when he was 1 month old (and he loved it) and that also means that Chantry has attended (forcefully made to go) the festival every year since 1994.....well make that every year except this year. Uh huh, I "single mommed" it to the festival twice yesterday but on the up side me and the kids had a blast. But my point here is that as of lately I've realized exactly how obsessed with my husband I really am, ya see when I don't see him or wake up with him next to me it puts me in a less chippery mood. :( I hate to be that way but it does, we've been together since I was 15 and mow I'm 33 so basically he's been in my life longer than he wasn't and I know this is gonna sound crazy but we like to get to see each other, like I could seriously be with him 24/7 and that would totally be cool with me. BUT, it is what it is and I'm just gonna roll with it, it's always good to realize how much you love someone and how much you might possibly take them being there for granted....but his little "I'm tired" grumpiness is gonna have to hit the road cause momma ain't diggin that!!! :o) He's asleep right now and has been since 9:30 so my guess would be that in about an hour he'll be awakened to go in to work cause 3 hours is about what he gets at a time. He's been a pretty busy fella since he drifted off though, from the way he's been talking he's been doing a little mixing and dirt hauling, he woke up once and asked what time it was and I told him and asked if he had been makin' a hand and he was all "I don't know what you're talking about woman" he does kind of flinch everytime I move and I'm pretty sure eating these kettle cooked chips is a bad idea cause they crunch pretty loud and he reaches for his phone about every other crunch! Alright let's move onto something else cause I'm pretty much over all that. SO, the kids started school last Wednesday and they all seemed to be happy with going back. Gracie seemed to have a great first day she came home excited about a sleepover invitation. Here's the little convo we had: Gracie, "Mom, (insert boys name here) was....well let me start with, you know he doesn't say bad words anymore AT ALL and he is doing GREAT at school, I mean like really GREAT and he wants to know if I can spend the night with him, so can I?" I'm so happy that this little fella is making such great improvements in his life but that little request was shut down pretty quick! :) Of course I have all the faith in the world that she can hold her own considering what she told me today while I was fixing her hair for church, as she was staring at herself in the mirror she said, "I'm a girl" and I thought wow this girl is one bright cookie and then she said, "you know it's really weird that I'm the only girl, I have all brothers and I'm a girl and I can beat up all of my brothers, it's just so weird" I'm not sure if her being the only girl is the weird part but ok. :) Just so Gracie doesn't get all the attention here here's a little snippet from a convo with Gabe....Holden (from in the kitchen), "hey Gabe I'm sorry but I drank all your sprite" (he was lying about it but was trying to get Gabe wound up) Gabe, (screaming from his bedroom),"sorry? you're sorry? Sorry doesn't get my sprite back now does it, sorry doesn't give me something to drink now does it sorry doesn't fix everything ya know" Yeah I'm pretty sure that boys been spending a little bit too much time at grandma's watching soap operas cause that was a bit on the dramatic side!!! lol Alrighty so let's call it a night and I'll try to post again tomorrow. I still have my vacation post to do but those are stories in it's own so tonight I'm posting a recent session I had that was so much fun. This momma is so sweet and is just a joy to photograph her and her boys! Enjoy and goodnight!!!

The story of the day.......

2011-08-08T21:25:00.000-05:00

.....it's HOT. That seems to be the subject of 85% of conversations, facebook statuses and pretty much any thought that runs through our minds each day. I know the heat and dryness has been on my mind a lot especially since it is very tough to have a pleasant photo shoot when it's 115* outside and sunset sessions only help by about 5* so it's still pretty warm. I myself am a summer kind of gal but even I have to admit.....I'm ready for fall. I'm also ready for rain a slow long rain, for days even, which by the way you won't hear a photographer say too often so it must be serious! :) I'm pretty certain I would just sit outside and listen to it and watch, unless there was lightning of course and then that just wouldn't be safe! ;o) I'm working the night shift tonight awaiting midnight so I can take the boys to football practice which will be awesome!!! The reason for having our first practice at midnight is to of course beat the heat but just to be honest I'm a night owl and I think it's gonna be bomb diggity!!!! Sooooo that being said the heat kind of has me in a case of the blahs so tonight I'll keep this short but I didn't want to fall any further behind than I already am so here's a session that I did about a week ago. An awesome little family that traveled around 3 hours to come have me do family pictures for them which btw is such a huge compliment and to top it off the boys were so super well mannered and awesome it was a complete pleasure photographing them!!!! :o))

I just can't, not yet anyways......

2011-08-04T23:41:00.000-05:00

So here's the deal, I know I've been home from vacation and back to work for almost 5 days now and I also realize that I have yet to blog....anything.....especially vacation but I can't, at least not yet. Here's why; first of all I have been slammed busy with sessions and being mom getting the kids ready to start school next week that I haven't had a chance to edit all my pictures from vacation. That being said I must admit that I didn't take NEARLY as many pictures as I should have and I sooooo totally regret that but there's no sense in living in the past right? RIGHT. So, then there's the whole "blog peace" ya see in order for me to truly do my blog justice and give my posts my all I must have a certain "peace" and I just haven't found it since being back from vacation. For one thing I think my house is haunted or it could just be the heat but either way I haven't slept worth 2 cents since being home and when I do fall into a deep sleep I have some of the craziest vivid dreams ever! Not scary dreams but I wake up feeling like I never went to sleep thus leaving me in a rather anxious, running a race kind of mood. AND then there's the fact that when I try to stay up to blog, like tonight, and everytime I move my chair squeaks a little and Chantry jumps to high heaven and grabs his phone. Like really do ya think a squeak from a chair sounds ANYTHING like his phone ringing? Uhhhh that would be a no but none the less he jumps which scares the bejeebees outta me which in turn diminishes any "blog peace" that I might have found and then there's me sitting as stiff as possible and trying not to so much as move my foot even though it's totally fallen asleep all just to keep Mr. jumpy from causing me to wet myself. The crazy thing about a squeak waking him up is that I can't even begin to count how many nights I've tried to talk to him when he seemed to be awake and yet got no response. It's so weird, almost as though he has selective sleeping instead of hearing! Anyways I had a great vacation and I have a few stories and pictures that I will be sharing with you over the next week or so. I actually took a notebook to make notes so I wouldn't forget! And don't think I've forgotten about my 52 pieces either cause I've got that going to and according to google calculations I am 9 weeks behind, and that my friends it what 5 kids and summer gets you.....lost pieces of yourself! lol No seriously I have a list and beginning next Wednesday my pieces will start back up and will get caught up! :o) Now then, with all that being said I have been busy with sessions in spite of the scorching heat, of course I very rarely shoot in the middle of the day anyways but honestly if it's still 103* at 7:30pm then your still gonna sweat and be one hot mamma jamma! Ok so here's a few from my first session back from vacation......enjoy!!!!!

It's official!!!!!

2011-07-22T12:41:00.000-05:00

I'm officially 33 and officially on vacation!!! I know, if I'm on vacation then why in the world am I blogging......well technically my vacation started yesterday since there's NO WAY I would work on my happy birthday, I mean I waited all month for it's arrival, but sadly even though Chantry does awesome in celebrating my happy birthday he (for some reason) does not see it as a national holiday and neither does the company he works for. :( So his vacation won't start until he gets off work this evening, and with the kids playing video games and such I just felt the need to blog. And I thought that blogging about how awesome my birthday was would be fun plus I wanted to brag on my favorite just a little. ;) The only thing he ever forgets on my birthday is a cake and for some reason he just can't seem to grasp onto the fact that I love birthday cake and even harder for him to grasp....the fact that I want a birthday cake!!!! lol He really out did himself this year though and no worries about the cake cause the next trip to town I make I'll be picking me one up. I know Chantry doesn't exactly LOVE me blogging about him buuuuuut, I'm gonna anyways.......

Day 1, July 1st, I woke up and headed for the fridge for my bottle of water to take my daily vitamins and what do I find.....

.....a new hat and a diet pepsi!!!!! First off I was super pumped that he got me a hat because he hates me wearing hats, he likes for my hair to be fixed and the only time when I wear a hat is when I don't fix my hair, he also says that when I wear a hat that I have an attitude, I totally do not even know what he's talking about there but I could possibly be in a bit of a tiny bad mood if I for whatever reason didn't feel like fixing my hair, just a little common (woman) sense there. ;o)

Day 7, July 7th, I wake up and head to the bathroom (cause that's the first place everyone goes) and what do I find.........

......ummmmm, hello awesome husband!!!!! You really can't see all the beautiful, eye catching sparkly-ness of the crosses but well they shine and we all know how much I love love love shiny things!!!! Annnnd turquoise!!!!! WOOT!!! WOOT!!!!

Day 14, July 14th, came and went and nothing.....hmmmmm odd or so I thought......

......by day 15 and hearing Chantry tell me I needed to wear some different shoes 14 hundred times I finally went to my shoe closet and what do ya think was waiting for me........

......GOOD GRAVY MAVIS!!!!! I HAVE SOOOOO BEEN WANTING THESE BOOTS FOR OVER A YEAR!!!! Thing was they was too pricey for me to justify buying them for myself but let me say after finding these sweet babies we could have skipped day 21 all together!!!! Now at this point Chantry grabbed the laptop and asked me to come over because he had done something and needed my help....well from past instances I know that this can only mean 1 thing.....that he tried to get all high tech and surprise me and now has realized he messed up and needs my help. Well his problem, turned out was that he had seen these Justin flip flops with bling and wanted to order me a pair for day 14, thing was that he wanted to get me brown ones with pink stones and he couldn't find them anywhere, at least not in a size 10 (since God blessed me with a firm foundation) so together we spent about 2 hours online looking and looking and never could find any, but I was sooooo okay with the boots so it was no biggie to not have new flip flops, but not for Chantry his mind was made up so finally a few days later I found some black ones with turquoise stones and he got them for me. So moving along.....

Day 21, July 21st, the big day.....and what do I find in the bathroom on this morning......

.....a gift card and a sweet little note. Please notice his amazing use of paper in the house, receipts, corners of papers, paper towels! lol This was perfect considering he knew I would be going to town, almost kid free to get my.......

....nails done and.......

......a pedicure. I already knew I was gonna get those things done but it was super sweet of him, knowing how much I love to have my nails done but since they slow me down on my editing and such I hardly ever get them done. Notice my pretty new flip flops. Btw, that's pink not orange, but hey it's an iphone not a canon! :) So that's my awesome birthday but I've gotta say as much as I loved every gift and all the pampering there was no gift as good as the one I got when Chantry woke me up at 6am yesterday morning to ask if I felt any older when I said, "yeah I always feel old at 6am" he replied with, "well you look even more beautiful at 33 then what you did at 32" That was the best part of the whole month, even knowing that while one night didn't age me a year I'm well aware that my reflection isn't the same as it was when I was 18, nor is it the same as it was at 25, I'm okay with that though because if people never changed then I wouldn't have such an amazing husband and I wouldn't trade him for all the shiny things in the world!!!!! :o)

I hope everyone has a great next week and I'm sure I'll have lots of stories to share when I get back!!!!

Caught up!

2011-07-20T11:15:00.000-05:00

That's right this last post, even though I've cheated and blogged more than one session in a post, this one will catch me up on sessions. Of course I realize that I'm about a year behind on my 52 pieces but I thought that I'd work on capture some pieces of me during vacation. :o) I've got tons of stuff to do today to prepare myself for the big 3-3 that will be arriving tomorrow so I'm gonna keep this short and sweet! :)

This first one is of Miss Sophie's 1 yr shoot, she sure has gotten fast over the past year! ;)

Next is a pretty momma and her precious son.

And last but not least, a little boy that I just captured last night! :)

I'm at it again....

2011-07-19T22:44:00.000-05:00

....mainly cause I'm feeling a little chit chatty and since Chantry is working on his lesson for church tomorrow night, well that leaves my blog stalkers. Trust me the fact that I won't hear y'all talking back to me will be fine considering I've spent the last hour sitting across from Chantry and only getting the occasional "oh yeah" and "huh" Of course every now and then he did try to act like he was totally into the convo by saying something or asking me a question but it was so far off topic that I would have to say that would be an EPIC FAIL on his part. It's ok though, I'm good, nothing important to say anyways just a little blah blah blah cause I'm pretty excited about my happy birthday and then vacation. Yeah I'm pretty simple, it's the little things. :o) As excited as I am about vacation you'd think we was headed to a beach somewhere but nope, all I need is an open road and some good music! And after about 20 bucks in the itunes store that has been taken care of! :0)

Sooooo, a little over a week ago I did some mini sessions, I called them "color me happy" sessions because I wanted bright happy colors so for a couple of months I painted and I painted and let me say I'm not a good painter, it's for sure not my talent. However, I do have a little bit of talent as a photographer so I just rolled with that. :) Enjoy!!!!

Smack dab in the middle of the day?

2011-07-19T15:10:00.000-05:00

And I'm blogging.....with all 5 kids here....somewhere. It's amazing what sound proof headphones and an awesome playlist can do for a persons concentration! lol I'm 1 session away from vacation!!! I think it's safe to say I'm a bit excited about it and this morning me and Gracie did a little "pre-vacation" shopping trying to pick up a few last minute necessities....you know like shoes! hahahahaha Taking her along shopping for myself was probably not the best choice I've ever made in my life considering that she looks 1400 times cuter in everything and is wayyyy easy to find stuff for. We had fun and the best part......when she got "Blueberry" instead of Strawberry Shortcake in her Happy meal!!! She was sooooo excited! Now everyone is back home taking it easy and I'm thinking about jumping in the pool, of course then I'd have to blow dry my hair before my shoot tonight so it's still up in the air on that.

Here's a session that I did a couple weeks ago, sometime, I think, lol, anyways....two super adorable, super sweet kids that did great!!!!

Wait, that's not all.....here's a family that I shot just the other night. It was HOT and we was quickly running out of light but everyone did awesome and we was able to get some great shots of a great family!!!!

Ok last one now let's get down to business.....

2011-07-18T23:20:00.000-05:00

Seriously I'm heading to bed to get some reading in and hopefully I'll be dozing as good as Chantry is within the hour....we'll see. ;o) Okay so let's rock this.....

Here's an adorable couple that I had a blast shooting! I did miss the shot of a mishap on a horse but in my defense I was afraid that my camera was gonna get kicked outta my hand which would totally be uncool and you know me I'm always trying to stay on the cool side of things. ;o) Enjoy......

Okay those were super fun!!!! Annnnd, so was this next session which was an early morning sibling session. We had a blast and it was even super nice, at least it is when you get up this early for a photo shoot!!!! :o)

Okay one more than I'm outta here! That is if this stupid bug hitting my touch screen computer don't mess this whole post up!!! UGH!!! I thought having a touch screen computer would be the bomb.com but in the summer it's a PAIN....if only I could figure out how to turn that feature off.....hmmmm, anyways, here's some preciousness for ya! :o)

This ain't ever gonna happen.....

2011-07-18T22:59:00.000-05:00

.....at least not posting these one at a time it won't! Thing is I could wait until I came back August 1st but that week I have 6 sessions scheduled so there's no way I'll be able to post these now 9 sessions and those, at some point this blog is gonna be overloaded and it's super possible that I might be shoving more than 1 session into 1 post....yep I think that's the only way to do this.....

So here we go.....

This session is a maternity session. I'm pretty sure I looked more pregnant at 4 months than what Allene does at 30 weeks but some mommas to be are just lucky like that! Not me, I was a horrible pregnant lady. It seemed like as soon as those two blue lines showed up I was sicker than a dog and none of my clothes fit and the constant peeing was enough to make a person crazy!!!! With my oldest I was literally in bed unable to keep anything down for the first 4 months, I seriously lost 28 lbs but still couldn't comfortably wear my clothes. Pregnancy #2 was not quite as bad but I was still unable to function in my daily life without help from my mom and a medicine that is given to chemo patients to help with the sickness, Pregnancy #3 was pretty much the same except that by month eight it hurt so bad to stand upright that it wasn't even funny and I'm not even gonna get into Pregnancy #4 with the twins. The doctors said that my hormones were very high naturally and pregnancy made them even higher which in turn was what made me such a sick and miserable woman but that it was good for the baby. My hormones were actually so high that it caused my saliva gland to be over-active which meant that I spit ALL THE TIME. Yes isn't that a wonderful thought. I would've LOVED to have had just one pregnancy where I felt good and looked good but alas that was not in the cards for this momma, never the less I would do it all over again even though I do envy those women that have easy, feel good, "glowing" pregnancies but on the flip side my labor and deliveries were pretty uneventful with the exception of the twins I had no problems and as soon as our little bundles of joy arrived I felt like a million bucks. The nurses would come in the room to check on me and ask where the mother was cause I was the patient that was up, showered, dressed, make-up and cleaning the room nice and neat. :o) Ok anyways, maybe it's because it's so late but I'm rambling and never intended to tell my child bearing life story so anyways here's the maternity pics! lol

Shhhhh.....down to 2!

2011-07-18T22:40:00.000-05:00

Kids, that is. The three older boys spent the night with my mom so they could get up early and get some work in when it was still somewhat cool outside so me and Chantry only had two kids tonight. They wanted to camp out in the living room so they are, of course. :o) We ran to town and got some ice cream earlier for a little treat cause you know it's not very often you can can that for less than 20 bucks in this house! As soon as we got back home Chantry hit the hay and Gabe and Gracie stayed up for a bit watching tv until they couldn't handle it any longer and konked out. Soooo, it's a quiet house and I've got lots to post but very little stories to tell. :( When I get on here to start posting it occurs to me that I've been so busy this summer with baseball and work that I haven't had much time to take it all in. We've had lots of fun and lots of family adventures but thinking back it seems that maybe my mind was pre-occupied and didn't grasp onto it all like it should have. But the good news is from Thursday through August 1st I will be on vacation and that means totally on vacation, my computer will be OFF and I will be on total "Amanda" mode and I'm gonna take every minute in like it's my last!!! I'm pretty excited and I've been working pretty hard over the past month to get caught up and stay on top of my editing so nobody's images would be just sitting on my hard drive waiting for me. :) If you didn't catch that subtle hint that means I have lots of sessions to post....in fact that means that I have 10 sessions to post so get ready folks this is gonna be a long night!!!! Not really, I'll save some for tomorrow. :)

Alrighty, so I honestly can't even remember the order I shot these sessions in and since I'm not really feeling the need to look back at my calendar and order them so I'll just roll with it. This first is a precious, precious family. A young couple that certainly took the road less traveled and done an awesome job taking the curves if I do say so. I did their engagements pictures a couple years back, one of my first sessions, and I've just gotta say I am so proud of them!!!!! :o)

22 of Amanda :)

2011-07-12T01:43:00.000-05:00

Long time no blog! ;o) Last night sleeping was such an issue that I decided I'd just avoid it tonight and boy have I got a lot of work done! The only thing I hate about staying up late, besides the morning after, is that the house is so stinking quiet....ok maybe it's not the quiet that bothers me maybe it's the dark but whatever it keeps me glancing over my shoulder and checking the floor for scorpions often! I thought I'd take time to post a piece of me and attempt to get back on track, thing is I don't even know what number I SHOULD be on! So if anyone has one of those fancy calendars that tells you what week of the year it is, if you could be so kind as to pass on that info it'd be bombdiggity! Kthnxsomuch!!!!! I only have one little story to tell, I've been so busy it's hard to remember all the nonsense that goes on but anyways.....today the kids had chili dogs for lunch and Holden was chopping onions when Gabe walked into the kitchen and says, "wow Holden, I didn't know you was so talented as to chop onions....the Lord has really blessed you." Ok #1 I didn't even know that any of my offspring could speak proper english, "as to" ???? alrighty then!!! #2 "talent"....."blessing from the Lord" realllllllly, chopping onions? How easily impressed my child is, I mean he must think I'm an angel or something if chopping onions is a talent! lol :o)

My 22 ~makeup~

I love make-up! I don't wear it everyday, nor do I have tons of it. BUT, a make-up artist is right up there on my "to do" list! I think that would be awesome. I'm pretty good with applying the stuff since as a woman I've had a bit of experience doing it and before the whole "cable catastrophe" I was a faithful Jerseylicious watcher so you know that only added to my knowledge. Seriously though I think that make up if used right can enhance a womans beauty that God blessed her with. I also think that if you don't know what your doing or if you get carried away that make up can make you look like....well rough to say the least. Even though I don't wear make up everyday normally if I'm going anywhere I'll put on mascara and lip gloss, those are my "musts" I tend to wear make up more often in the winter because in this Oklahoma heat make up pretty much melts so it's best to just let your summer glow (sweat) show during this season. :o)

For real....that many times?

2011-07-07T00:59:00.000-05:00

Yeah it's been so long since I've posted a blog that not only had Google forgotten me but then I had to seriously for real log into blogger as well!!! That's pathetic, I'm a bum that has completely neglected my blog stalkers!!! So basically I've been as busy as a bee in a honeycomb, between the holiday "break" and all my regular business I can't promise that things will ever be a normal schedule again! I am finally caught up with my facebook sneak peeks and if you're not on facebook then you are totally missing out on some awesome sessions that have been keeping me tied up lately, along with a few sessions and other things that you won't see or read about on this blog, a new path you might say I'm venturing down or a new "road" so to speak....like maybe a backroad..... ;o) Anyways, all in good time young grasshopper, all in good time. Okay, so maybe it's a little late to be sharing whats on my mind but if I don't update this thing soon my peeps are gonna think I'm outta business and we sure don't want that!!! lol Of course my nonsense could also be a result of having a sugar free AMP at 9:30 this evening which maybe was a bad idea but then again I've managed to sort through tons of pics and get 2 sessions edited and I'm blogging so I'm leaning to more of a "way to go" kind of idea.....yeah, "WAY TO GO AMANDA" :o)

So I hope everyone had an awesome holiday weekend, I know I did. We had 2 cookouts with friends on Saturday night and Sunday night and then went to family's on Monday for a bit then drove home on one of the bumpiest backroads in the free world and watched the temperature drop from 98* to 73* and rain in the 30 minutes it took to get home, which basically translates into "AWESOME" for this country gal. Of course what's the 4th without fireworks, although I hate at home fireworks I do love to go watch the ones they do at town but this year the Mr. was on call so how in the world are ya gonna take the family to watch the fireworks if you've gotta work? Well being the rednecks that we are, our "head redneck" decided that since he got called in and a truck was on it's way that it would just be perfect to take us to watch all the surrounding towns display from on top of the landfill. That's right he'd take us to work, let us watch the light show while he took care of ONE truck and then we'd head on back home.....well holy creepers batman 4 trucks and 4 hours later we finally was able to go home with 5 kids crashed out after whining and fighting for an hour after the light show ceased! Luckily I had brought a book to read but as I told my "bright idea minded" husband, if I wouldn't have had that I'd have been one mad momma cause even my personal assistant (iphone 4) can't keep me entertained for that long!!! Alrighty so that's all I got for now....well one more thing, I got an e-mail today from some blog research junk something and they're researching to see if there's a link to peoples personalities and what they blog about and they wanted me to participate....so I'm wondering if this is for real or somebody trying to get inside my witty and paranoid head....hmmmmmm

So here's what I've been up to, a cake smash session, examples shots for my mini sessions coming up this weekend (spots still available :-D) and shooting some royalty!!!! Enjoy!

WoW! For lack of a better word....

2011-06-30T15:22:00.000-05:00

....or for lack of any words at all! I'm one busy lady her lately, but I'm seeing a bit of a slow down in my near future. Two back to back weddings at the end of ball season can cause one busy momma! And basically this is just a post to say "hey!" or "I'm still alive and well just super busy" :o) I know I have lots and lots of posts to catch up on including my 52 pieces and I for sure will get it all caught up by my vacation, actually make that by my favorite holiday EVA!!!! My happy birthday on the 21st! :o) No I'm not registered anywhere but as much as my blog stalkers know about me, shopping should be a piece of cake! ;o) So this is already Thursday and we have a holiday weekend ahead of us so I hope everyone stays safe and has a great time with family and friends, we actually have 3 different get togethers to go to and I am soooo looking forward to each one!!! And you never know I might get super ambitious and post a few over the holiday, which would be easy to do if I didn't go to bed everynight at 11 or right there close but we shall see! Happy 4th of July my blog family!!!!!

21 of Amanda :)

2011-06-23T15:04:00.000-05:00

Oh yes it is!!! I am blogging again, holy cow Sally Frances! ;o) So seriously I have no stories to tell.....huh maybe I should have thought this whole "catching up" thing through a little bit better. Actually I take that back I do have a little story, nothing to interesting though so don't get excited. :) A while back, like a year ago, we was given an awesome and big propane grill which was very exciting for me because I love to cook out. The problem with that has always been having to wait on Chantry to get home from work to use the grill cause after all he WAS the grill master. He mostly held this title because we use to only have charcoal and I'm not at all a fan of fire so the thought of spraying something flammable on a fire just didn't entice me one bit and then when we first moved up here we had a small gas grill but it was super tricky to use and Chantry was afraid to let me use it in fear of me blowing something up, I guess, he never really used those exact words but seriously I'm no fool. Here's a little background for ya, my first step-dad was pretty conservative as far as "mans work" and "womans work" and teaching me to mow the lawn or grill was soooo not happening and then my second step-dad I'm sure would've showed me except by that time I was a teenager and I was super cool with the mowing being "mans work" lol Anyways, we have this nice new grill and I have Chantry show me how to use the thing, well last year we basically went through a bottle of propane each time I cooked because I forgot to turn the valve off so he quit letting me use it. (meanie) But this year I have fired it up a few times and remembered to turn the valve off so the ban was lifted, so last night I thought some porkchops would be bombdiggity so I get my taters frying and my okra frying and then I go to turn on the propane but I couldn't get the stupid knob to turn on, I strained and strained until I thought my bicep was gonna split and finally I got aggravated enough to message Chant and ask him what the secret was on this new bottle of propane, since he was the last one to use the stupid grill and had hooked up a new bottle to it. He said, "turn it to your left, the left, if your facing it turn it left" Me, "ummm hello! I'm not stupid I know WHICH way to turn the thing but it won't turn for me" Chantry, "oh well get those muscles a workin' and get some dinner cooked" Oh okay babe thanks so much, I don't know why I didn't use my muscles before. I mean seriously what did he think that I was staring at the bottle trying to THINK the valve one! So I grab a dish towel hoping it would give me a little more leverage and I turn and I turn and I take a break and about 15 minutes into the turning and resting, I just so happen to turn it to the right and what do ya know SOMEBODY (Chantry) had left the thing turned on!!!! Yeah so who doesn't get to grill now.....oh wait I should rethink his punishment, cause anytime he wants to cook I'm game! :)

My 21 ~clothes~

Yep, I have a clothes addiction! I love clothes, but my space is very limited, I actually share a closet with Gracie and one with Chantry and even with that space I still pretty much live out of my laundry room. I don't just shop and shop and add clothes on top of clothes though ya see everytime I get something new then I clean something out, I mean I can't handle the clutter so no way would I be able to just keep getting new stuff and not get rid of anything at least not until I get that big ole walk in closet with the revolving shoe rack straight outta Overboard cause Kurt Russell ain't got nothn' on my hillbilly! ;o) sidenote: after the laundry room picture was taken all of those clothes were put away nice and neat!!!

The infamous laundry room

The closet I share with Chantry

This is the closet I share with Gracie

20 of Amanda :)

2011-06-23T14:28:00.000-05:00

Yeah I know, I'm sure you thought 19 would be it but not hardly, I'm no quitter! ;o) Annd I would highly recommend you get ready for an "Amanda overload" Pace yourself though, I mean you don't want to drink all your coffee in one day! lol I should also give everyone a little heads up....the 21st is my very special very own happy happy birthday day and the 22nd (supposedly) begins our vacation which will be through the 31st (technically) Now that being said let me say that that only means that it is POSSIBLE that I won't be on here or facebook during that time OR it's also possible that my precious little Mr. won't be able to completely pull himself away from work or work won't be able to completely pull away from him (including the phone) and that my blog stalkers will make for....well it'll make for alot of posts that's for sure! ;o) But hopefully we'll get some time away and be totally unconnected to the world and only focus on our sweet little family and of course take loads of pics to document that it did actually happen....history in the making!!! Okay let's get down to it since I'm gonna run outta stuff to say before I get all caught up on these pieces!

My 20 ~sunsets~

I OMGoodness LOVE LOVE LOVE sunsets!!!! They bring a bit of peace to me, [sigh] this is gonna be so hard to put into words. My favorite sunset is a summer sunset. Maybe it's because it's such a relief from the heat of the day, maybe it's because they come so late in the day that I sometimes actually get to share them with my favorite, maybe it's because winter sunsets are soooo cold and fall sunsets are a little chilly themselves and spring sunsets are normally covered by rain clouds, or maybe just maybe they remind of when I was a kid and we would always stay outside until dark, riding bikes, swimming, riding horses, or just hanging out or maybe because they remind me of when I was a teenager and we'd all hang out in the front yard until the bull bats came out and then we'd try to hit them lol, or maybe it's the peace that comes with putting the day and all the good and bad of it to rest and moving on to see what the next day holds. Whatever the reason is, they are my favorite and I can't even begin to tell the butterflies I get when we take a sunset drive....MAN I LOVE THOSE! Music playing, Chantry driving, windows down and the sun setting....could it get anymore perfect. What a gift each sunset is.....just look at it, it's perfect, it needs no editing, the colors are perfect......it's just.....beautiful!

Frozen grape???

2011-06-22T16:29:00.000-05:00

That's what I thought when I sat down here to blog and I popped a grape in my mouth. The thing was kinda slushy and very cold, hurt my teeth actually. I was afraid that maybe it wasn't a grape at all and that I had tossed some sort of grape eating bug or something in my mouth instead but then my mouth relayed the message to my brain to calm down it was only frozen and now three frozen grapes into it I gotta say they're not half bad. :o)

I know it's been a while since I've blogged, almost so long that I'm totally out of practice, and I'm not good with learning how to ride a bike again so let's get back on this blog rollercoaster and ride!!! "Rollercoaster" that makes me think back to our senior trip....we originally had planned on going to Texoma but long about Ardmore 5 car loads of 18 yr olds pulled over and one fella (I'm not mentioning names here) but Mike had the great idea to go to Texas, to Six Flags to be exact, so somewhere in all of this (because back in my day the LAST thing we wanted on our senior trip was class parents) a green camaro with 2 gals listening to some George Strait followed a black chevy pickup with 3 fellas listening to Lord only knows what and talking about even worse down the interstate to Texas. I really don't remember how we got separated from the rest of the group but somehow we did. I was pretty mature for 18....okay I was still 17 but still I was quite mature and I looked the part too which was lucky for us because the hotel that we got a room at was no way no how gonna let 5 teenagers stay in a room without "adults" but thanks to a young married couple or maybe we just looked like a young married couple ;o) either way we was able to get a room for the night and about 12 hours later we hit Six Flags and OH the fun we did have and the rollercoasters we rode on!!!! A year later I had Holden and have been a fraidy cat of rollercoasters and heights ever since.....Karma? Uh huh, something like that! BTW if any of my children read this (since I two that are computer literate) let me just say, try something like this and I will drive to Texas, hunt you down and I will bring my paddle with me! :o)

Okay FOCUS!....wait one more little story and then I'll get on with the session post.....so this past Sunday was Father's Day and as every year I planned a big breakfast for my super special baby maker honey and this year I had planned on omelets and fried hash brown potatoes, which was not the best idea considering that Saturday I shot a wedding and it was almost 10 before I got home and weddings are a lot of work! Never the less once I set my mind to something then that's just the way it is so omelets it was. I stayed up after I got home Saturday washing dishes and cleaning house (cause the kids got pretty messy while I was working) and then I chopped up veggies for the omelets. I gotta say at 6:30 when Blake Shelton started singing I was not looking at being anybody's honey suckle, BUT I got up and fixed one awesome 4 egg, sausage, bacon, peppers, onions, mushroom, black olive, jalepeno, tomatoe and cheese omelet along with a bowl of fruit since I totally forgot the hashbrown potatoes and a cup of coffee. And I fixed all this while Chantry was still sleeping, I might add, so I slip in the bedroom carrying a plate, a bowl and a hot cup of coffee, slowly sit down on the bed and very sweetly say, "Happy Father's Day" and what response do I get you ask.....something like "HHUUHH, WHAT JUST PUT IT IN THERE ON THE TABLE, I'M SLEEPING" (in a half asleep mumbling voice) You're sleeping? Are ya, I know you're sleeping, you was sleeping last night when I came home from working and now I have a hot breakfast and hot coffee and if you aren't up in 5 to enjoy it then you might wake up with it next to you in bed. Now NO of course I didn't actually say those words, I only thought them but I will say after he drank half of his coffee and ended up with some coffee grounds in it (ok alot) because I didn't make the coffee right in his new stupid fancy coffee maker....well I wasn't completely sorry. ;o) But I will say that when I first knew I loved Chantry I would imagine how adorable our kids would be since he was so good looking and I knew a little science and how genes would be dominate and such and I was pretty sure ours would mesh good together but never ever in those years could I have imagined that he would be the amazing, dedicated and loving father that he is. We are one blessed little family to have him as the head of it!!!!

Okay here's my latest session....at least the latest that is "postable" ......for now.......

A few changes....

2011-06-13T22:59:00.000-05:00

Well I didn't actually look and read my last post before starting this one to see if I mentioned any of my newness here on my blog so I thought I'd take a minute to either go over them again, or just go over them. First, if you'll take note of my fancy "Facebook" button on the left side of the blog, it's a "floater button" so they call it in the high society world of blogging. ;o) It replaced the "fan page" that was previously featured on the right side of the blog. Obviously you've noticed the new header and the change of colors but did you notice the new font? That's right I switched from "summer funkyness" to "ambrielle" :0) and a change that I did NOT make but never the less is present is the fact that my music does not start automatically anymore. This apparently is something that playlist.com took upon themselves to do and I for one am APPALLED!!! Not that they care but I'm pretty sure that nobody is gonna scroll ALL THE WAY to the bottom of my blog, start the music and then take in some reading! That makes me not one bit happy because without the music it's just words! :( Then I did a little adjustment on my signature and I think that just about covers it. Of course I still have the individual pages to update, but all in good time. I'm really pacing myself this summer and I'm not overbooking myself like I have in the past. I'm taking time to read a good book (or 3) and time to relax in the pool and just time to enjoy life a little without feeling like I should be working. Right now my wait time for cd's is only 1 week, of course that's after you let me know which proofs you picked to go on that disc but none the less that's pretty awesome if I do say so. I think I'm doing pretty fair at staying caught up on my posts here with the exception of my 52 pieces which is currently a disaster but I'm very hopeful that it too will come together soon, after all I'm not a quitter so be warned that when it does come together there's gonna be a lot about me! I have also found this summer that working during the hours of 10pm-2am that I am so much more productive and that leaves my days a little more lax. :o)

Sooooo, here's a couple session that I did a little over a week ago. They are such a sweet couple. It was a bit warm outside but we got some great shots and it didn't take us too long to get them either so luckily nobody melted. :) Thanks so much for allowing me to capture some warm moments of y'all!!!! Enjoy!!!

AAAAH, who am I kidding?

2011-06-09T16:35:00.000-05:00

I'm never gonna get my 52 pieces done and the truth is it's not because I don't have time it's because I'm a BUM!!! That's right I haven't fixed my hair or put make-up on since Tuesday and that was for a funeral and by the end of the day it was all wind blown and cried off. I have a list of pieces so while they do all seem a bit trivial it's not a lack of deciding what pieces of me are noteworthy. Sooner or later though I have to actually feature myself considering they are my "pieces" but even photoshop can't help me at this point. It's definitely the lazy days of summer! Of course exactly how fancied up do I need to be while sitting at my desk working and eating butter cream icing! lol Okay okay I know pathetic, starting.....Monday I will get up before 8am even if I do stay up until 2am working and I will get myself in some kind of purty condition and I will get some stuff done. Promise. I will report back here Monday afternoon-ish to my blog stalkers in order to keep me in check!

Well since I have two softball games to shoot tonight I think I'll rest a bit and cozy up with a good book before hitting the road but before I do I want to share some young fellas that I captured about a week or so ago. They are some great boys! They never complained once and trust me as a mom and a gal I KNOW that boys in particular are not fans of having they picture taken but they did awesome!!!! So enjoy! Remember Monday it is!!! ;o)

Random thoughts....

2011-06-08T16:39:00.001-05:00

I originally thought that I was way behind on posts because I haven't been at my desk working (except for something in the making) for almost a week now but I just found out that's not the case at all. Basically I'm all caught up except the sessions that I just now posted sneak peeks of so I'm doing pretty good actually, well except my 52 pieces. I'm not giving up on it though, I just need 20, 21 and 22 by Monday to be back on track, it could happen. Not saying it will but it could! I thought I had writers block when starting this post but then I realized I ain't a writer so I don't. ;o) However I really don't have anything of much interest to blog about. I've been reading a book from a series and it's basically overtaken most of my free time at night, I sit on the couch reading until bedtime and then I lay in bed until 2 or so in the morning reading and then I wonder why it's so hard to get up when my alarm goes off at 6 and why I'm so sleepy by 4. Of course by 8 I've got my second wind and I'm normally at it again BUT last night I finished the book and I absolutely REFUSE to start the next one until I am caught up on everything, including laundry! lol Cross Light will be getting a little summertime face lift soon, which means I'll be running a special on gift certificates in order to get rid of the old styled ones and make room for the new ones. Of course I hardly ever post my specials here so you'll need to check out my facebook to get in on the good deal!

Welp, it's almost time for Chantry to get home so I better get dinner going even though I could have sworn that I just got lunch over with but oh well! Here's some more of the images that Jessica with Two Sticks Photography did of my sweet family. I promise these will be the last ones I post, even though I love love love them!!!!

*******All images shown were taken by Jessica with Two Sticks Photography and were edited by me and are protected under copyright law*******

MOM! Can I?.......

2011-06-01T11:27:00.000-05:00

For all those out there that think I'm such an awesome mom because I have 5 kids and SEEM to have everything under control let me just shine a light on the situation for ya........I DON'T!!!! We're only on week 2 into this summer vacation and I'm pretty sure I have been asked 14 hundred billion questions, as a matter of fact I was just interrupted with the question of "Hey mom can we have some gum now?" Seriously as if my ADD wasn't bad enough! lol So let me just break it down for ya, this was my morning: get up at 8am (cause I'm a lazy woman), gather my clothes and towel to take a shower as I walk through the house four times picking up things and putting them in their proper locations (this includes Chantry's stuff) and waking the kids up so they can get started on chores....."Kaleb, switch the laundry over and put any of your clothes up. Holden, sweep the floors and put your clothes up. Luke, wash those few dishes and put your clothes up. Gabe--Gracie, make sure your rooms are clean and beds are made. LET'S GO GUYS! BURNING DAYLIGHT! I'm gonna take a shower and I want your stuff done when I get out and I'll fix breakfast." So I jump in the shower for a good 15 minutes of peace and meditation while they're all busy at work or so I think!!! Within 3 minutes this is what I hear, "MOM, my room is clean" "MOM, can I dust" "MOM, can I use the swiffer" "MOM, the swiffer is out of dusters" "MOM, my room is clean" "MOM, we're done" "MOM, what do you want us to do now" "MOM, can we go outside" "MOM! MOM!! MOM!!!!!" So here's my reply to all these questions, "I WANT YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE BECAUSE #1 I'M TRYING TO TAKE A SHOWER AND #2 I CAN'T HEAR HALF OF WHAT YOUR SAYING!" I then get outta the shower and dressed and ready to face the little rascals.....I cook 2 lbs of bacon and 14 eggs, and tell them to come eat while I'm getting 2 cakes and 2 batches of brownies in the oven which I do and it is then that I realize they saved me ONE piece of bacon!!!! Good gravy these kids can put away food!!!! Holden and Kaleb then leave for work and I, only having 3 children all with full bellies, sit down to get some work done and what do I hear, "MOM, can we have a snack" Me, "no"...."MOM, can we have some candy" Me, "no"......."MOM, can we go somewhere today" Me, "no"......."MOM, can we have some gum" Me, "no" Of course I'm positively certain that we will be taking a lunch break soon and going somewhere because I'm no fool and I know that 2-6 yr olds and a 9 yr old will never let me get anything done if they get too stir crazy! Not to mention the fact that my kids being shut up inside and me trying to work is like not feeding the bears at the zoo and then sitting down to eat a steak next to 'em....not gonna happen peacefully! I'm not gonna point fingers or anything but if Chantry had the pool up by now I can guarantee there would be peace in this house, mostly because every single one of us would be in the pool, including me and this house would be EMPTY!!! So just so everyone knows, I don't always have it together, my kids are crazy little rowdy rascals and YES we do believe in child labor!!! :o) Now I believe it's almost lunch time......

This is Sophie's 10 month post! It's hard to believe she's almost a year old already! She is just so sweet. I love photographing her! This session was a little different seems how it was her first session to go outside and at first she had her doubts about the grass but after a bit she got used to it and actually thought it my be a yummy snack!!! LOL

19 of Amanda :)

2011-05-31T13:14:00.000-05:00

I'm sure one of two things has happened by now, either you are sick to death of hearing about me, my "pieces" and my life OR you are just as amazed and humored by it as I am and wonder how in the world a girl like me got so lucky to have such a life! Well I hope it's not the first one and if it is then you should totally ask yourself why you're still reading this....just sayin. I've got a little short story to tell but before I start let me give you fair warning that as I type I am also cooking lunch for the kids so I'm typing....cooking.....typing so if this gets a little off topic just bare with me.....is that the right "bare".....hmmmm I know I'm not looking for "beer" and "bear" is an animal but isn't "bare" naked?.....oh well you know what I mean, I don't want anyone getting naked here!

I think everyone possibly has heard me talk about Chantry talking in his sleep and "moving dirt" and the such while sleeping. Well Saturday night or early morning Sunday I was sleeping goooood and all of the sudden I get HIT and when I say "hit" I mean to tell ya Chantry knocked the fire out of my shoulder! Obviously it woke me up and as I rolled over (away from the wife beater) he says, "sorry babe a dog was trying to get my food" I, being the good (beat down) wife that I am let it slide and was just thankful that it was my shoulder that he mistook for a dog and not my face and since it was really only my feelings that was hurt and my shoulder was still movable I only gave him a slightly hard time (all day long) BUT the more I get to thinking about it the more questions I have....like if he was asleep then how did he know he hit me and not the "dog"? and if there was a dog trying to "get" his food then what did he do with the said food? mmmhmmm, sounds very fishy to me! Well that's pretty much it for the story...I'm gonna just go on and forget about it this time and we'll just say I'm lucky it was only my shoulder and he's lucky I had forgotten about the ball bat that sits next to the bed, I would've taught that dog to try and get his food, especially since I'm certain I was the one that cooked that food!!! ;o)

My 19~backroads~

I LOVE THEM!!!! I love backroading, but let me just say that the backroading that was done 17 years ago is not the same backroading that is done today. We have since grown up a lot! Our first date was backroading and our 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on all was backroading as a matter of fact for the first 3 years of us being a couple we only went out twice that didn't involve JUST backroading, once to eat at Chili's and once at Pizza Hut where Chantry decided to be "Doc Holiday" who we all know had tuberculosis which would cause him to cough uncontrollably until passing out, well Chantry didn't really have a cough but he was a VERY good actor who did indeed cough and did indeed FALL in the floor and started flopping around like he was having a seizure. That whole incident could be the reason why I love hitting the backroads and I'm certain that it was the reason why after that I was perfectly content with him not "wining and dining" me. Of course he doesn't do that anymore so I'm all about date nights but they still start and end on a backroad! My honey knows there's nothing that I love more than to drive down some old backroad, radio up and windows down, camera in hand (sometimes) and sometimes I just take it in, the scenery, the sky, the trees, the man driving me around! :o) Most Sunday's unless we're running late we take the backroads to church. It's just part of our lives, we live on some old backroad and welllll we're just simple country people that love nothing more than driving around enjoying each others company. We don't need some "event" to go to, we make our own fun!!!

Here's a song that I love love love!!!! It's Rodney Atkins new one, "Take a backroad" Make sure and turn my blog music off at the bottom of the blog so you can here this bombdiggity song!!! :o)

It just comes natural....

2011-05-31T10:54:00.000-05:00

Which is basically the song that I'm listening to right now and since I'm at a loss for any other title that's what we'll roll with. ;o) I got up this morning around 8 which seems to be the time that my eyes prefer to open up at while the rest of me would much rather try 7 but I'm not gonna fight it anymore so anyways I got up and what a beautiful warm cloudy calm day!!! Makes me wanna take a road trip!!! That's not gonna happen today but maybe soon it will. Today my plan is to get some work done, take it easy and then we have a ballgame tonight. I actually have my #19 ready to post but as I looked in my "done" folder I still have a couple sessions to post so I thought I'd split them up some. This post is of Miss Gracie's model shoot for a boutique. You might remember me talking about putting her in a model search for Pretty Piggy's Boutique and I'm sure I posted about her winning considering the excitement of it all!!! Well what she won was a custom made outfit that she would model for the boutique to use in advertisements, facebook, website, etc. So after many weekends of windy or rainy weather we finally got it done. Gracie, who obviously is her momma's daughter, decided she wanted her shoot done on a couch in a field. Well luckily for us we live in a field and even luckier we have a couch so naturally big daddy would be willing to move our couch out in the middle of our field. He actually loaded the thing on the back of the 4-wheeler and hauled it down where we wanted it. Now I'm sure you're thinking, "wow that must be a little couch to fit on the back of a 4-wheeler" well NO it isn't, it's a standard size couch that hung over each side of the 4-wheeler but you know anytime there's a redneck man with an idea around this house means that there's also at least 2 little rednecks that are willing to help! That being said Holden and Kaleb walked on each side making sure the couch didn't fall off. I took a picture from my phone but it wasn't a very good one but it was just another funny moment at the Scott's! The good news is it worked, he got the couch out there and then we started shooting and about 10 minutes later my southern engineers loaded it back up and we called it a night! So here's what we got!

Just a little bit ridiculous!!!

2011-05-30T21:00:00.000-05:00

The wind that is!!! Maybe I have a bad memory but I don't remember past years being as windy as this year has been. I mean I realize this if Oklahoma, where the wind comes whipping down the plains but GOOD GRAVY MAYVIS!!!! This is extreme!!! You know it's a bad deal if wind screens that are made for the sole purpose of keeping the wind from blowing things outside of an area get blown over! Yeah that's crazy!!! I have had to reschedule 3 sessions in the past 2 weeks because of wind which is super nuts considering that I took last week off! I'm not bored by any means though, I'm still working on editing my family pics and getting all the pictures from the end of the school year edited and then there's Dylan and Jessica's to finish as well. Of course that doesn't include catching up on my 52's and redesigning the blog. It's exciting stuff though or at least it is for me, these are the things I love to do!!! We just got a pool, thanks to a precious family member, and Chantry said he'd be putting it up tomorrow night so I've got a feeling that some of my plans might be delayed but mark my words it will get done! :o) I'm pretty excited about getting some sun and getting rid of these crazy tan lines that I have acquired from a classic ball field tan and as much as I love zebra print I am totally not digging it on myself! lol

Welllll, this post is specially for a precious newborn! He is a true miracle, all babies are but he had a little bit of a tougher time getting here or should I say not getting here too soon. He arrived healthy and just as precious as can be! He did AMAZING!!! And we all know how much I love me some babies!!! [SIGH] So PRECIOUS!!! Enjoy!

18 of Amanda :)

2011-05-30T11:45:00.001-05:00

So I realize that I am so behind on my 52 pieces of me that it's pathetic and after taking a week off to some things done and have a little fun I think it's obvious which avenue I took more than the other.....yep a lot of FUN! So now that I'm to a ridiculous point of playing catch up, because I will complete all 52 weeks on this thing if it kills me, you might all get an "Amanda" over load!!!

My 18 ~Iphone~

Yes it's true my iphone is a piece of me! I know it seems horrible to be so attached to something so trivial but I NEED it!!! Chantry go me my iphone4 for our anniversary in October after months of me begging. It wasn't just a matter of getting me a new phone, it was that we were still under contract with a different carrier so he'd have to cancel my phone with the old carrier, pay a cancellation fee and then get me all set up with AT&T and my new phone. He did and I have never been happier!!! I had a blackberry curve for awhile and then "upgraded" and got a Samsung touchscreen that I hated! After using (fighting) it for 3 months I switched back to my blackberry but after not getting messages or phone calls or e-mails I was pretty much [ this close to throwing that thing through the window! I love my iphone though! We mesh pretty perfect, she's basically my personal assistant! As a matter of fact I put a lot of thought into what to get for her for Office administrative's day and turned out I got her some new screen protectors and a new Ballistic cover. :o) She totally deserved it!!! After all she answers all my calls when I'm busy, keeps up with my schedule and appointments, gets all messages to me right away, calculates difficult math problems, keeps me weather aware, does last minute shopping for me, sings to me and wakes me up with a sweet melody every morning and that's just a little of what all she does! Just to be honest I think she's a better woman than I am! ;o) Anyways, there is 1 place that you'll see me without my phone and that's church, otherwise if you see me you can bet my "assistant" is right there with me. Stupid? Maybe but true! Happy Memorial Day!

Finally!

2011-05-27T15:30:00.000-05:00

And when I say that I'm referring to two things, the fact that I'm finally getting this post up and the fact that I'm finally getting another date with my favorite tonight! Chantry's been on call at work a lot lately and I think we've already been over the fact that I can't sleep without him next to me, well let's just say it's been a long month for this momma! The other night I actually fell asleep on the couch with Miss Gracie until Chantry got home from round 1 of that night shift and to be honest that 2 hour or so rest was the best I had gotten in a long time. Of course now that summer is here Gracie might be getting a sleeping buddy a lot! I'm not complaining though it could be worse.....okay I am complaining, I HATE not having him beside me when I go to bed and I HATE waking up and him not being there BUT it could be worse he could have to work away from home for so many days and then be home for so many days so I'm thankful he's not working like that. It'll be alright though, I'm a strong woman and I'll adjust.....eventually and if the adjustment doesn't come soon then there's plenty of room in Gracie's full size bed for me too. :o) Anyways with all that griping being said I managed to find placements for all the children so we could have a little "us" time which just makes me smile from ear to ear! You'd think after 17 years we'd run out of stories or things to talk about but nope, not us or maybe I should say Chantry ran out of stuff to talk about 12 years ago but me...well ya know me I could go on forever! It's the gift of gab that I was blessed with and mine runs deep. I've realized that when I get older I'll be that one family member that nobody just stops by to say "hi" to because a simple 10 minute visit would turn into hours. haha You know the kind I'm talking about, I'm pretty sure every family has one of those and when my kids are grown that will be me! :o) So since I've got to get busy turning myself from a "ball mom" to a gal that my husband would want to take out on a date then I better quit with the chit chat and get on with it, my hair alone will take a good 30 minutes and that's if I don't get distracted! lol

This is Brittni and this was her 4th and final Cross Light session as a senior! :( The year seems to have gone by so fast but I enjoyed each and every session. We started last summer at her home and the families land and we traveled to Sulphur for our fall session and then we got lucky enough get some snow that stuck around for us to do her winter session here on my land and then we closed the deal at the Verden school campus. Congrats little lady, it has been a pleasure!!!! 8-)

A country boy and a photographer.....

2011-05-26T15:43:00.000-05:00

This is a little love story about a country boy and a photographer and I'm sure you're thinking I'm referring to Chantry and myself but NO!!!! HAHA! fooled ya! A couple weeks ago my friend and photographer, Jessica did our family pictures well this past weekend it was her turn to have the camera turned on her! It was my first time to meet her husband, Dylan, and he did great, such a good sport and was keeping me laughing most of the time. They are such a precious couple. Me and Jessica have so much in common that we just really click. Well Dylan seemed to really click with my cute assistant.....Mr. Scott lol. If I remember correctly, and I do, me and Jessica were waiting on them to quit talking about fishing so we could go! hahaha Dylan and Jessica celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary on May 18th which brings our bond even closer.....I forgot to tell her and she might already know but May 18th just happens to be George Strait's happy birthday and we all know the bond that me and George have soooooo here's their sweet story and some of the pics that Jessica edited and posted to her blog. YOU KNOW YOU WANNA! Now here's an overload from some of my favorites!!!!

Jessica is so beautiful!

Dylan is REALLY tall!

And together they are super adorable!

This is a little proof that you can not beat a country boy in a tickle fight, trust me ladies it can't be done, I tried it, Jessica tried it, if we can't then it ain't gonna happen! :o)

This is soooo one of my favs!!!!

Sometimes square is a good thing!

love!

double love!

Jessica is one of those little ladies that is just as gorgeous not smiling as she is smiling, normally I wouldn't like someone that's like that(as a woman, not as a photographer) but it's okay she's cool!

You know I've got to add a scripture to at least one!

I super love these in the wheat!

I deleted all evidence that getting this shot was anything but a piece of cake! ;o)

FIERCE!!!

My kids run around in circles same as the puppy dogs did.....they're ready to start a family now they have kaos experience! lol

These next ones are pretty grainy because of the low light but I still liked them so I decided to go ahead and edit them. :)

Sometimes it's hard to decide between color or black & white! :o)

These made me smile today, hope they did you too!!!!

Getting my mind back....

2011-05-26T10:05:00.000-05:00

Well Thursday of my week long vacation and I don't feel like I've gotten nearly as much accomplished as I had hoped for. I think maybe I've done more hanging out with the kids than I have brainstorming and focusing but still a successful week and best of all I have come to the revelation that this summer I will be living a little bit of a slower pace. My shoots will be a bit more limited, especially during the days. Tuesday we had some severe weather in the state which is nothing new for Oklahoma. The weather men were talking about it on Monday and by noon on Tuesday events were already being cancelled. On facebook there were status updates constant, some saying for everyone to stay safe and keep an eye on the sky and some griping about how everyone was getting all stirred up over a little rain and places were closing which was a total inconvenience to them and their regular routine. By sundown on Tuesday I think any fool could see that it was a lot more than just rain and as we drove around looking at the devastation I wondered how the "complainers" of how the "rain" was putting their daily life on hold could sit back and worry about such little insignificant things when families were searching for loved ones and families were now homeless. I know there's a lot of petty people out there and normally I can ignore their negativity, to a point and I guess Tuesday was my point. As me and the kids watched the storms move in earlier that afternoon they kept asking to watch something else and I wouldn't let them, I guess in a way the "rain" was an inconvenience to them as well and as the storms got closer I decided to pack up my camera gear and have it ready to go. The longer I worked on editing images the more I thought about my computer and all the files that were on it, naturally I back it up often but there are some things that I don't back up, not that I couldn't replace them but I'd rather not so I decided that I would shut off my computer and load it, just in case we had to go to the fraidy hole aka cellar. So I felt like I could replace my mouse and keyboard easily enough and just grabbed my huge, heavy computer, luckily it's an all-in-one which made it a little easier. I thought about the thousands and thousands of pictures that I had in albums and on discs that I would have to leave behind, sadly but hopeful that the storms would pass us over. My camera gear and computer is nothing that the insurance wouldn't replace but waiting on them to do so if something was to happen seemed to "inconvenience" me so I took the time to gather it and load it and before it started raining I gathered the kids and down the road we went to grandma's. I called Chantry and told him we were down there and for him to just come straight down there from work, by this time tornadoes were popping up and as I waiting on Chantry we watched and we watched as they told everyone in Rush Springs to take their immediate tornado precautions and we watched as a tornado touched down in Chickasha and finally Chantry pulled up and then with 4 kids in the cellar along with our dsi's, ipod's, phones, camera gear, chips and some cold pops to get us through we watched. We kept the cellar door open so the kids didn't get to scared while we watched to see how close to us it would come, Holden watched from the driveway, Chantry watched channel 9 to channel 5 to channel 4, Grandma watched Chantry watch and I ran from Holden to the cellar to the house watching them all! The news said a tornado on the ground between Bradley and Alex and a tornado on the ground in Chickasha but maybe it didn't register with us, at least it hadn't at that point. After it looked like any danger had passed we let the kids out of the cellar and everyone came inside, grandma put her purse up and again we watched, we watched that tv until Chantry said, "let's go home guys" and we did. Everything seemed fine, a few things blown over and across the road but nothing serious, we unloaded our things and then my phone started blowing up with "are ya'll alright" text messages. Chantry decided we'd take a little road trip and go see what the storms tore up. I don't think any of us was prepared for the damage we saw. You can watch it on the news and be amazed with the destruction and in '99 that's exactly what I did but it seems to be a whole different ballgame when you're seeing it first hand. As we drove around we tried to get in touch with everyone we could think of that might have been near the storm, everyone was accounted for except one little fella that works with Chantry, we couldn't seem to get a hold of him or anyone that could tell us he was okie dokie! We was a little panicky and I know there was A LOT of prayers being sent up on his behalf and then finally I got word that he was ok, that was a relief! As we traveled the same path the tornado did earlier that day we realized how close it came to our home and how blessed we were. I've lived on this land for over 32 years and never has a tornado came this close to us. Yesterday I woke up to the sun shining, a beautiful clear blue sky with white puffy clouds and the birds were singing and it all seemed so surreal. I couldn't help but think of those directly affected by the storms and I'm heartbroken for them all. By nature I'm the type of person that wants everyone to be happy and I would love more than anything to be able to mend everyone's hearts right now but I can't. So while I was worried about camera gear and computers peoples lives were ripped apart, I know everything happens for a reason and I trust that there is a reason for all that has happened and everyone that trusts in God's will during this time will come out a stronger person but I am still having the hardest time getting my mind back on track. I'm sorry this blog post is so long and I'm sure boring to most, everyone has a story for that day and mine is nothing exciting but I feel like I need to "talk" about that day and then put it behind us and go forward. I ask that everyone please continue to pray for all those that were affected by these storms. I originally had planned on this being a post from a session that I had done but I've decided to post pictures from football camp that I took Tuesday morning. Kaleb, Luke and Gabe had football camp and Holden was a helper so that's where we were Tuesday morning until around noon. What started out as just a normal day turned into one that many will never forget.

Holden....he dances like this too! ;o)

Gabe catching a pass....

Luke trying to deflect a pass

Luke blocking

Kaleb blocking

Kaleb going out for a pass

Gabe running through a drill

Kaleb same drill

Luke same drill.....I don't know why all my boys are smiling....c'mon! this is football, we don't smile in football!!!! lol

Redskins Football Camp 2011

My boys!

Who knew!

2011-05-24T00:34:00.000-05:00

How productive I could be on a break!!! I've accomplished quite a bit on my first day of vacation! I've gotta say trying to find things to do besides work was a little rough. I get bored pretty easy so after I fed the kids and made 6 batches of brownies, a cake and supper and painted two tires, two chairs and a foot stool, I decided to find something a little more.....well a little more educational. So while I was looking for a book to read, which I discovered I don't have any, I found the owners manual to my camera. Now when I got my first dslr I read the manual over and over, like I could seriously almost quote the thing but when my new camera came in the mail, almost a year ago, I had no time to sit down and read. I was too busy shooting and football and school starting and such and I mean afterall I knew what I needed to know about a dslr and this one was basically the same except nicer, right? Nope, not so much!!! I had no idea the capabilities that I have with my baby! So I'm glad I had the chance to sit down and read it and get even more familiar with my sidekick!!! So my advice for tonight in my infinite wisdom and a photographer to all others is to read your manual! And that advice is one the house! Something tells me this could be a long night, possibly because Gabe and Gracie both went to bed at 4 this afternoon and are still sleeping. Pretty sure they'll be waking up about the time I go to sleep which will be fine because if they don't then I'm sure Chantry's loud, annoying phone will, as it does every night of our lives! And he says me and my phone are inseparable, well let me just say as often as his phone interrupts our time together I'm pretty sure it could be called the "other woman" MMM HMM! ;^o Tomorrow on my agenda......hang out with the kids some more and study my workshops and continue filling up my notebook and thoughts and brainstorming ideas!!! :o)

This is Morgan and she is one pretty gal!!! And super sweet at that! I could photograph her all day! She went to a formal ball and her mom wanted to get some awesome images to capture these special moments!!! Moments that as moms seem to fly by too fast. It seems like Morgan was just in Mighty Mites and now she's looking half grown, she is half grown!!! Thanks ladies for braving the wind! :o)

SLAMMED!!!!

2011-05-19T15:04:00.000-05:00

I'm kinda feeling a bit slammed right now but I have almost made it through this crazy busy week and I do feel MUCH better than I did yesterday!!! Tuesday we had super kids day at school which is basically a day of fun and games at the football field for the kids and this momma got there at 8am and left at 2:45 with a sunburn that I didn't bring with me! Now it wasn't a bad sunburn at all, actually most people thought I just got a tan but no it was painful and red and it came with a headache and some crazy exhaustion! Thankfully this morning I woke up tan and feeling all the good. I had Kaleb and Luke's awards assembly this morning and Kaleb's graduation from the 5th grade into middle school than a farewell 5th grade party. The plan was for me to get groceries and have a late lunch with Chantry after all that buuuut the thought of grocery shopping just didn't appeal to me so I ended up just coming home to get a little work done before ball practice and 8th grade graduation tonight. I don't have an 8th grader but Holden was chosen to be an usher so I'll be there. :) Tomorrow Gabe and Gracie will graduate from kindergarten and then it'll officially be summer in the Scott house!! That being said I'll be taking next week off for a little r&r, regrouping, brainstorming, relaxing break! I normally update my facebook daily...ok a couple times a day but next week I won't be updating there at all. I will be posting on here though and hopefully by next Friday I will be up to date and maybe even a little ahead of myself! :0)

Goodness I sure did get off subject there! Ok when I said "slammed" I was referring to the slam session that I blogged about a week or so ago. A slam session that me and my good buddy Jessica with Two Sticks Photography did of Levi and Taylor a session that was a BLAST!!!! Me and Jessica turned the cameras on each other a little to capture some of the fun and some of the "business" of the day. These sessions are an awesome way to not only capture part of your senior year but I can guarantee there'll be memories made! We offer these sessions for up to 3 people which totally helps pull even the shyest sr. out of their shell so we can capture their true self without stiffness! Don't just make pictures on your senior shoot, make memories!!! For more info you can either get with me or Jessica!!!

******Please take note that all images that are not watermarked were taken by Jessica and are copyright Two Sticks Photography!!!!

Yeah we are pretty adorable! :)

This horse sings!!!! Okay maybe he just tries to sing! hehe

Jessica super hard at work!!!!

This is an unhappy client, if you act like this in front of the camera then please take note that you're gonna have to turn that frown upside down for us!!!! ;0)

This is a golden eagle.....yeah we attract all kinds!

Don't be hatin' on my ponytail kthnx! This is serious work! hahaha

Again I'm just noticing my ponytail here.....note to self: carry a brush for goodness sakes!!!!

Okay now this picture below would normally NEVER be allowed to be seen but me being the good sport that I am will post it, mostly so everyone can have a good laugh on this Thursday but let me just explain what happened first.....ya see there's this little pond that we were headed down to and I was planning on shooting from across the water soooo with my camera and light meter around my neck I start down to the spot I think would be good to shoot from. Welllll, we hadn't gotten any rain in so long I figured the ground would be pretty dry and it looked dry, the first step I took near the water the ground was actually cracked so I'm sure you can only imagine how surprised I was when my feet started sinking like quick sand and my gear in hand. I was just lucky that I had a good friend there to help out.....when I say "help out" what I mean is she stood on the bank and laughed and took pictures of me!!! But I'm a good sport so here ya go....I'm just glad she didn't get me on the ground with my hand out stretched for help!!! lol

17 of Amanda :)

2011-05-16T09:23:00.000-05:00

So there's no story to tell for this one so we'll just get right to the point.....

My 17~sports~

I was thinking a while at how busy we always seemed to be with sports and to be honest we love it!!! I figured up that I spend 9 months out of the year involved in sports. We start baseball the end of February and also start track around that time, baseball ends the last week of June and we start football and cheerleading in July and that goes until the middle of November which is also around the time basketball starts. Until this past year we didn't have any kids play basketball but Holden did this year and he did a really good job at it and this next year Kaleb will be playing basketball too. Basketball games are spread out so even though they start around November, we get a break for the holidays so basically we have a break from sports with the exception of a little basketball from the middle of November to the middle of February. Which means that I'm a sports mom!!! Since Holden was 5 I can honestly say that I have missed very few practices and only 1 game which was a basketball game this year that I was at and then got soooo sick that I left and went home and it was the one game that the team won....could I be bad luck?.....NAHHHH! ;0) Football is my favorite sport, maybe because I know more about it than the other sports or maybe because I have a tiny violent streak. hehe Football, however, is the toughest season for me because I love to capture all those awesome hits from the sidelines with my camera BUT I also feel like if I'm gonna be on the sidelines then I need to pretty much keep my mouth shut and not holler (and when I say holler I mean coach) at my kids to do or to not do anything, that would be the coaches job, who knows FAR more than I do!!! I do love to cheer for my football boys though so occasionally I'll head to the stands, do a little "cheering" and then head back down to the sidelines. Don't get me wrong, I'll cheer from the sidelines, just not "instruct" from there and of course as nice as I am there are times when the refs miss something because they didn't see it or they make a bad call, which used to happen alot more in mighty mites, but in times like that it is soooo handy to be "shut up" by staying occupied with the camera! So there ya have it, I'm a crazy sports mom and I have 5 very active crazy sports kids!!!! Oh and I'm married to one crazy obsessive sports dad!!! So here's a few of my latest sports pics of my kids!

The back of Kaleb's track shirt (above) reads, "tough times don't last, but tough people do" I love that! It couldn't be more true!!! How many tough times have we gone through....many I'm sure and how many of those are still here.....none! We've overcome them, we've outlasted them, we've "beat" them. Sports are not only fun but they teach our kids, teamwork, self discipline, the emotions that come with victory and the emotions that come with defeat. Most of all they teach us how sometimes in life we might not always want to do a certain something but we realize that we have to step up and "take one for the team" Maybe we don't "like" playing center but we're good at it and our center is hurt, so for the good of the team we step up and do what needs to be done. Sports teaches us to take pride in who we are and what we represent. A couple weeks ago Kaleb had a track meet and I was of course there. He was in the 100 hurdles, the 100 dash, 200 dash and sprint relay. After a long cold day he had finished his events and we was about to head home when one of the boys came up to the track coach and told her he wouldn't be able to run in the mile relay because his leg was hurt, as she turned to Kaleb me and her could both see the panic come over his face. She gave me a few minutes with him, I pointed to the front of his shirt where it read, "Redskins" I said, "that means something to us, it doesn't mean something to everyone but to us it does. It means more than a mascot, we're an example to that "Redskin" but more importantly we ARE a REDSKIN, sometimes you gotta step up and do something you're scared to do, not because you think you can but because you know you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you." Then I asked him, "how are you gonna feel if you leave here right now and don't run this race for your team? and then ask yourself how you'd feel leaving here knowing that your team finished the race because you stepped up?" I was pretty sure that would do the trick and maybe for the most part it did but after all that, the football coach, who also coaches track, came over and put his arm around Kaleb and said, "this is a stud race, all my best football players run this race cause they're studs. I know you can do it and you know you can do it so let's do it!" And at that point Kaleb starts warming up and stretching!!! Anyways, I might not make it as a motivational speaker anytime too soon but I have never been prouder than when Kaleb pushed through and the team brought home 3rd place medals!!!! That's what it's all about!!!!!