we are feeling some holiday spirit over at our house...

to ruby

last week we had some truly fabulous days. every now an then, i really feel like i am livin' in the present and lovin' life. even though i have mountains of things to do... i am able to be spontaneous, and just be. last week, it was unbelievably sunny. so we had a some spur-of-the-moment outings, just me n' rubes, and whoever happened to be with us. the park, the zoo (twice), the movies (a christmas carol), jogging up city creek canyon or in liberty park, the playground, spiral jetty, driving with our windows down, jamming to Ah Ha. ♫"Taaaake on meeeee....take on me, taaake meeee onnnn." you bopping your head and swinging your arms yelling "dance" and "shake it baby."

your small converse and skinny jeans somehow make you look so big and so little at the same time. your range of expressions and big blue eyes make me happy to the core. you are so cheerful these days. maybe it's your new-found freedom of talking, hilarious new things chatter out of you by the hour. constant chatterbox. your new first haircut makes you look so old. i marvel at you... you are so full of life.

you have been feeling just a little under the weather. i am in love with your raspy, sweet little voice. in love with the way you sprint everywhere you are going. how i turn my back and you are completely naked. how you constantly ask me to show you things on the computer... google imaging dorothy, a witch, elmo cake, oscar, grover, zoey, big bird cake, mean witch, munchkins, spiderman, skeletons, and more.

i love watching you. roaming around, you busy little bee. carrying your entourage of trinkets from room to room in your little stroller or purse. and watching you nurture your little "baby" telling her that you love her "so much." your wild excitement when such simple things happen... makes me marvel. you are so little and perfect. exploring the big wide world. you are without fear. with wide eyes and curious fingers.

i have a wide open space in my heart for you to grow up in. yet i am saving space that keeps you little forever in my mind. i cannot believe how fast you are growing before my eyes. i am so grateful that you are mine and that i am yours. love mama.

spiral jetty

It is November and it was 60˚ and gorgeous today! That is why I agreed to take the 6 hour field trip to Spiral Jetty and left the house in a frenzy 15 minutes after Emily called me with the invite. It was a long bumpy drive... but TOTALLY worth it. It is pretty sad that I have lived in Utah my whole life and not ever been out there. I was glad to check it off of my list. Emily, her sister Rebecca, and I trekked out there with six kids in tow. The water was obviously very low so we could walk right on the salt in between the coil.

{Ruby, Me, Emily, and Ruby's camera shy boyfriend Adam}

writing prompt

unfold the creases and create.

For myself (and the maaaybe three people that will read this) here it is.

inspired by these two quotes:

"life isn't about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself" -george bernard shaw

"time does not change us, it unfolds us." - max frisch

i always find myself in an introspective mood when i feel at a standstill in life, when questions about my future and the direction it will go overtake my thoughts. i feel it is a form of therapy to ponder questions we have in life and to write them down. sometimes i feel like once it is written, i can let it go to fate and faith, and stop stressing about it. the answers unfold, piece by piece. and often we learn that we were asking the wrong questions all along. and when we realize this, another piece unfolds. and we start again. letting the questions untangle with time. a new favorite quote of mine that comes to mind is...

"all journeys have secret destinations of which the travelers are unaware." -martin buber

01. make a list of questions. silly and smart. trite and bold. let loose all the wonders inside. write them all down and then stop worrying about them. they now have a place on the page, don't let them take over the rest of your life. stop wondering about the unknowns. easier said than done, i know.

-when and where will we own our first home?
-they say it is a good time to buy.. but is it?? is the economy just going to get worse?
-if i got rid of all of ruby's cluttery toys... could she still be happy and entertained... could i?
-will my ankle hold out for my half marathon next month?
-will adam ever like his job?
-will his company ever move out of utah county, so he won't have to commute?
-will he ever make the step of faith and attempt to become a professional golfer?
-will i ever be caught up on editing photos?
-will my sisters ever move back to utah?
-will i ever feel comfortable taking ruby to that germ infested nursery?
-will i ever ignore my curiosity and get off of facebook for good?
-how many kids will i have?
-when will i decide to take the plunge with round two?
-will i ever like putting away clean laundry?

02. in what ways has your life turned out differently than you thought? how has life flipped you on the bright side? what experiences have left you thinking, am glad that happened, i learned so much from it..

wow. it has turned out differently than i thought in many ways... and at the same time, not so many ways. at any one time, depending on the path that i chose, it could have changed dramatically.

foremost for me was my decision to go to utah state, instead of going at playing lacrosse at denver university or the university at albany, ny. i made a solely financial decision and went with utah state. sometimes i regret/wonder what it would have been like. if I still would have married adam, and how successful my collegiate athletic experience could have been? would i have been an east coast transplant right now? in hindsight... i am ok and happy with my decision. we can't do it all. i am so happy with the choices i have made. and in making that decision to stay in utah and go to utah state (for what turned out to be only for one year), i ended up marrying my highschool sweetheart, becoming very close with my sister and best friend kate, and still getting to play lacrosse at utah state and staying very involved with it here in utah. because i chose to stay here, i am fortunately not strapped with what could have been easily a hundred thousand dollars in school debt. and i feel like now, with some of the decisions and opportunities that have arose... i would not have realized my love, talent, potential, and passion for photography. would i even be married right now? would i have a child as awesome as ruby? sometimes i wish that we could see our lives as they could have been if different decisions were made. i guess that probably would not be a good thing, but it would definitely be interesting.

03. how do you create and pave your own path? describe what this quote means to you; life isn't about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself.

i strive to create my path through being positive and spontaneous. life is just not fun without those two things. we don't find ourselves. we can discover certain things about ourselves, but really, it is a fine tuning and molding that we do each and every day that really creates who we are. we have so much power and so much potential. if we strive to keep the negative out, we can create amazing people. and people are drawn to positivity.

i have also found that people/friends help a lot when we are trying to create ourselves. it is so sad that so many people are not open to finding new friends. there are some incredible people out there that have the potential to affect us for the better immensely. people and relationships are very important to me. they buoy me up and inspire me in so many ways. there was a time that i thought... "i have my friends and i like them, i don't really care to have more." i realize now that i was limiting myself so much. we can never have too many friends, and we should always be looking for an opportunity to have more. and age should not limit us. what is age anyways? i always laugh when i go from hanging out with a 19 year old one day and a 35 year old the next day. that is very common for me. and i love it.

unfold yourself. find what's inside. let it out.
create a path that is fit for your potential.

what now!?

"I be Dorothy," "Happy Halloween" and "See the witch" have been pretty much been all that we have heard for the last three weeks. We had a blast. Ruby ALWAYS takes a nap but today, she totally fought it. I think she was really just too excited to think about sleeping! She has LOVED this holiday and is so incredibly obsessed with witches/pumpkins/skeletons/scarecrows... and many more possible Halloween costumes. We hit up trick-or-treating at Foothill with the Creers (which is always great), visiting with cousins & grandparents, a hoppin' partay with amazingly decorated spooky food and house at Nat's, scones at the Tempest's, and more visits to friends. She was so tired. We all were. We totally busted her eating so much candy in the car. I thought I had grabbed all of her candy and put it away. Oh no.... she had snatched an Almond Joy (which makes me think of you Kate), and a pack of m&m's!! So... she was tired but...off the wall. What now? It is over? What to do with her Dorothy dress, and her obsession with her ruby red slippers. It was fun, but I am kind of ready to move on. We basically celebrated this holiday for the entire month. Here we come Christmas!!! A BIG shout out/HAPPY BIRTHDAY (tomorrow) to my wonderful mom and my awesome brother-in-law Andrew. Love you guys.
This little video is nothing too exciting... this busy girl had absolutely no time to deal with the camera! This is us... Pre-trick-or-treating. Her raking "help" was a little counter productive:)

playgroup

Today a few of us braved the frigid cold weather and checked out Mabey's Pumpkin Patch in South Jordan.

{Caitlin & Winston, Otie & Emily, Eliza & Sarah, Me & Ruby}

follow the yellow brick road...

We hit up the neighborhood trunk-or-treat this afternoon. Ruby... I mean Dorothy was VERY excited. So... a month ago, Ruby had no idea who Dorothy was. I decided that she would be Dorothy, got the costume, and went home and popped in the Wizard of Oz. She LOVES that movie now. Lucky for me. I was a little hesitant because it is a little scary. But, she is so intrigued by witches now. She spots them everywhere we go. She makes me show her witches on the computer... so I "google image" them and when they pop up, her eyes completely light up and she says very clearly... "oh my goodness." This afternoon when we were getting ready for the trunk-or-treat, she put her basket in the center of the room and ran around it a hundred times yelling "followyelllooowbrickroooaaad", over and over, and over:) She also loves to sing "Some the Rainbooooww" over and over. It is very pretty:) She must have been concentrating while trick-or-treating because she sticks out her tongue, just like her daddy when she concentrates.

Ruby and her little friend Jada. Unfortunately... it is necessary for them to stand this far apart at ALL times. Otherwise glasses get yanked off or someone is pushing... ok, it is ALWAYS my child!

By far, the best part about going to the trunk-or-treat this year was the special unexpected appearance of some of our best friends Joey, Lynsie, and Baby Frank in from Elko. Isn't he adorable.

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Then.... later, after Adam went golfing of course and Ruby had a nap, we went to this fabulous annual neighborhood carnival. We went to this carnival last year and it did not disappoint. There were the world's best scones, and other yummy treats, carnival games run by real "carnie folk," a fire dancing/fire eating show, THE Jared Hess (of Napoleon Dynamite) as the freak-show "Merman," fortune tellers, and snake presentations. I am sure I am leaving a lot out. But... you get the picture.

And... after the carnival we headed home for some pumpkin carving and Sleeping Beauty watching:) This is Adam's impressive attempt at "Cookie Monster!"

journal

i blog as a sort of journal. because otherwise... there would be virtually no record of my life besides the pictures i take. i am still in my pajamas. it is 1:00 pm on the dot. am i sick you ask? no. i should kick myself for not being outside on this gorgeous crisp autumn day. i am dealing with a myriad of feelings spanning the spectrum of emotions. part of me is melancholy and confused about the death of a friend. and a friend that i am really not that close to at all. someone i knew in high school who i have really only connected with through our blogs and via the internet. if you look at her blog... you will see why i was drawn to her. she was an incredible person. so sad. so confusing. why... is what everyone is wondering. i am sad for her. sad for her loved ones, her husband. she is "online" on facebook right now (someone in her family obviously) and it is really bothering me to see her name. it is so interesting to me how much it is affecting me. i cannot comprehend suicide. at all. i always wonder after someone commits suicide if they would still would have done it if they could look into the future and attend their own funeral, and see all of the people affected by their life and their death.

i also feel incredibly grateful. grateful that i can sit here in my sweats. working from home. choosing my own hours. doing what i love. while spending my days with ruby. teaching her, taking little breaks from work to read to her until i lose her attention, chasing her down the hallway giggling, kicking the soccer ball to her and have her pick it up and run it back to me... not understanding what i want her to do at all:) or not working at all and spending entire days out on adventures. going to playgroups. meeting up with friends. exercising. playing. i am grateful for that. truly grateful. grateful for all of our family that love and support us.

i also feel stressed. i have 4 shoots to edit right now and yet... i am blogging. typical:) sometimes i feel like i bite off more than i can chew. i am the queen of odd jobs and have a number of little projects going on right now. not to mention the daunting task of building an entire website with 2000 + items in the online store on the horizon! again, daunting.

i feel a little bit of fear. this flu season is kind of stressing me out. having a sick kid is not fun. i really might have to nix that thing called nursery for the next few months! ruby did get the H1N1 vaccine last week... and hopefully just in time, because a few days after she got it, we spent a lot of time with her little cousins who all apparently had it at the time! so far so good.

i feel excited. excited for a number of parties and carnivals on the agenda this weekend. and the annual "trunk or treat." it is especially fun haivng kids this time of year. i feel so much love for my little family right now. especially my little ruby. she is so fun and funny. i absolutely adore having conversations with her. the other night we were sitting down for dinner and ruby had been asking to go to a movie earlier that day so i said (really enthusiastically)... "we should go to a movie." ruby's eyes lit up and she said in a long, deep, excited, drawn out voice.... "yeaaaaaaaaaah, let's do it guys!" it was so funny. she says and understands soooo much these days. i hope i can keep up with her little brain and give it all the stimulation it needs. i just adore her. she is so excited to be dorothy for halloween and constantly yells out "i be dorothy" and "happy halloween!" can't wait to get her all decked out again:)

so blog. thank you for being my journal today. and for all you that got through this... have a fabulous weekend.

This has nothing to do with this post but here is a cute pic of Ruby and her cousin Ella from last weekend. It was so fun to see Aunt Amy & Ella in town from Chicago.

DAYcation to Seattle!!

I took a little ladies DAYcation today. Destination... Seattle, to go shopping and eat lunch with my sister Kate. It was a spur of the moment thing... and sooo fun. My sisters friend Nora invited us along on her dads jet which was headed up to Seattle to pick up her brother and his wife. So, we tagged along and spent 4 fun filled hours up in the Emerald City. It was fun to hang with the girls and see Kate, Brian, Miss Hazel, and little Maxwell who by the way is such a chunk!!!

{Natalie, Laura, Me, Nora}

{Hazel, Laura, Me, Maxwell, Kate}

Monster Mash Birthday Bash!!!

Well, our baby is 2! Yep... it happened today. Crazy. We kicked off Ruby's 3rd year of life with a Monster Mash Birthday Bash will all of our favorite friends (that could make it), dancin' to Ruby's favorite tunes. The party was so much fun. I know... I know... she's only 2. I just love a good reason to have a party! Thank you everyone for all of your help, gifts, and company today. Dorothy... I mean Ruby LOVED everything.

She needed a little help blowing out the candles on the famous/much anticipated "Elmo cake." Thanks to Amy Bellamy for making the AWESOME cake and character cupcakes. She is mucho talented.

{Front, L to R: Eliza Metcalf, Winston Creer, Jakey Lockwood, Ruby Jones, Ben Mann, Peter Dunham. Back, L to R: Logan Simmons, Kayla Peay, Berkley Reitz, Charlie Reitz, Olivia Hathaway, and Jada Peay + few other kiddos M.I.A.}

We had a special guest appearance by my awesome friend Dana. Ruby was so starstruck that Snow White would attend her party. She ran right up to her when she arrived:)

She was also intrigued by the talented Danna, a professional Face Painter who did an awesome job with all of the willing kids.

Our little dancer... getting some air as she tore up the dance floor.
Mmmmm... don't judge this spread... this was pre-party... during setup:)

Ruby topped the afternoon off with a nap while I had to scurry of to a photo shoot... stay tuned here for that cute engagement session. Later, we hit up Hires for dinner and it did not disappoint. What a great birthday. It is so amazing how Ruby's birthday is 10 times more exciting and fun than my own.

autumn

If you haven't taken the opportunity to stroll up in Park City by the white barn yet... I suggest you do so. The leaves are gorgeous.

cornbellys

Well... since it is the first of October, we did not skip a beat on Halloween festivities! I LOVE Halloween. Today we headed out to Lehi for Cornbellys Corn Maze and Pumpkin Fest. I had not been there before and, it DID NOT disappoint. TOTALLY WORTH IT. Of course it didn't help that we went early in the season and around 3:00 in the afternoon... it was not busy at all. There was SO MUCH to do... we were there for over two hours and I don't think we did half of the activities.

{cousins: Olivia, Sydney, Ruby, & Georgia}

Not to be a downer.... but Corn Mazes ARE NOT fun. Getting cute pictures might be the only good thing about them.

Ruby picking out her little pumpkins

I was AMAZED how still she sat. You should see her squirm when I try to do ANYTHING to her... hair, button her shirt, you name it. But, she was mesmerized. Check out this ladies chubby little hands:)

elephant parade

Well... the circus is IN TOWN. Ruby and I met some friends down at The Gateway Mall to see the parade of circus performers and animals as they marched down Rio Grande Street. If only we had tickets to the circus now. It is starting to be really fun doing stuff like this with Ruby. She is really starting to "get it" and get excited about things.

perspective

change your perspective people. be positive. be grateful for what you have. i recently became an active participant on the black hole we call facebook. I am quickly realizing how much of a waste of time it is. it never ceases to amaze me how many "debbie downers" are on there. i mean really... who cares or wants to read all of those negative status updates... "i am tired," "had a horrible day," or "had a crappy night"... they go on and on. why be negative? i strongly believe in the law of attraction. we attract what we put out there. i mean, yes... we do all have days that are more frustrating or exhausting than others, but... that is life. deal with it and try to be positive about it. everyone is having hard times right now. everyone. lets try to draw any positive that we can out of our day to day mundane-ness. instead of "i had a horrible day"... why not, "i am so grateful that i visited with an old friend today." that way... you forget about the fact that your two year old keeps getting out of her crib and won't sleep... for example. i had a fabulous day today. and there were many of those frustrating things that i am choosing to not dwell on that happened. still... i had a great day. rollerblading in the park with my oldest friend audrey gygi... then to the gym for a great lifting session, again with audrey. some yummy bread and samples from great harvest. watching ruby grow and learn as she playfully climbs out of her crib again and again. she has the most amazing little personality. i hope she always stays so cheerful, carefree, forgiving, and positive. i found two pairs of great/much needed jeans today... for a steal. my wonderful husband watched ruby while i went running tonight to have a little break. And they greeted me at the bottom of the street when i returned... ruby on his shoulders... giggling. it made me happy. these past two weeks, i have picked up my daily running again. after a long funk of maaaaybe going once or twice a week. i love it. it clears my head... or fills it with awesome music, like the weepies! pushing ruby or not, i love it, i feel free. i am the sort of mommy that tries really hard to maintain my independence/individuality. fortunately... i have a husband that loves golf... so i can even that out by playing/coaching lacrosse, soccer, and doing other social things. it is only fair:) anyways.. back to my run, and the reason i started on this thought-path of being grateful. first of all, it was gorgeous. i love running in the evening when the sun is setting. if you run up 1300 south in salt lake city while the sun is setting... you have a perfect view of it as it hits the horizon. so... i was running and, i ran past sugarhouse park where i saw a daddy and daughter playing soccer. this was not just any daddy and daughter. these people were from my neighborhood growing up. this daddy and daughter are not soccer players. very homely looking. very tall, skinny and lanky. wearing regular clothes, jeans and long shorts with shin guard strapped to their legs. no soccer socks. hiking boots. he like he always has, wears his hair in a pony tail. her, a sweetheart, but always a bit scraggly looking... hair not combed. a consequence of not having a mothers touch in her home. her and her sister lost their mommy to cancer when they were both in lower grade school. i felt so sad for them, and so happy at the same time. i also felt grateful for my own situation as it really put things into perspective for me. good for this daddy. good for him. taking time to teach his (now) young teenage daughter some soccer skills. running around... not caring what he looked like. making memories. how difficult it would be to lose that motherly influence in your home. as a husband... to lose his partner in crime... not quite knowing how to tread the waters of female adolescence. good for him for trying so hard. this little scene seriously made me want to cry as i was running. i imagined that her mom, his wife... was not far off in that park... watching happily as his daughter and husband made memories. it made me grateful for everything i have. grateful that i am alive, that i was running, able to get exercise at that moment. this was my view the other night while running (excuse the camera phone quality). beautiful. be grateful people. change your perspective... and maybe, that will change your situation.

introducing: walker gordon owen

Congratulations to my good friend Camilla and Jordan Owen who welcomed little Walker into their family today.