Family Photos

Remember my last post about me getting ready for family pictures? Well here are some of the pictures.  We got so many good ones back! I didn't want to share them all at once though. 

These were taken at a location just a couple miles from our house next to a different housing development. Since we live out of town a ways, these special spots are close by.  

Seriously, Hunt Highway is about 40 yards to our right in the first photo. 

We absolutely love the photographer, an amazing 17 year old, Jacquelyn. It's so much fun watching her develop a love and talent for photography and that she let us be models for her. 💗

I love the individual shots she got of the kids. Each one portrays them so perfectly. 

We love our photos! 

Leo got a haircut

Leonard got a sweet hair cut last week, and it happened.  

He's a pretty crazy boy as is, but once his hair was buzzed I swear on my life he got a little more naughty.  

My mom told me that would happen with my younger brother.  I guess getting your hair buzzed and becoming even more crazy is a family trait. 😂😂😂

Well whatever it is, Leo is still cute. I'm hopeful his added strength weakens as his hair grows. LOL! 

Cool Kids

They were willing to take a picture together to send to their Great Grandma Crandell to wish her a happy birthday, so of course I'm going to plaster this all over internet land!


Gosh these kids are cool.  I really should be filming my life, cause some of the things that come out of their mouths, the ideas they have, quirks they have can not be fully captured by words and pictures alone. Maybe I should start doing video clip videos, probably not vlog that could be a little ambitious too for me right now, but we'll see. What I do know is these kids are special and I love that they are mine.

💗💗💗

I am so on the ball: December [three]

Okay last little bit for catch up for December.  Then on to January. ;)

December: 

Breakfast with Santa event with East Valley Moms Blog 

Amelia turned 7

Holiday Concerts 

Student of the month award 

Christmas

Family Reunion (Chris's side)

The last few days of December Chris's moms side of the family had a family reunion. 

It was 3 days filled with food, and family.  I don't know very many people on Chris's side unless they live in the valley.  It was great to have so many people able to travel as far as the east coast to Arizona to spend time with everyone. 

The last day of the reunion we were able to get pictures of everyone that was there and also family pictures. I'm just gonna drop these pictures and call it good. 

photos from Leigh Root at Leigh Root Photography.

Leigh did an amazing job at getting so many people pictures and they turned out amazing. 

Lenora & Roy McClellan

Great & Great-Great Grand Children

Grand (spouses included), Great & Great-Great Grand Children

Whole Group (just a few missing)

Jenkins 

Us

I am so on the ball: December [ONE]  [TWO] 

Summer Break Is Over

Well we made it through summer break.

The girls started school this past Monday.

They woke up around 5 am and got ready right away and were walking around with their heavy school supply filled backpacks for 2 hours.  They tried to be super quiet for my sake, and not bother me cause they know I don't get much sleep at night yet. I guess they played with Leo in the crib next to me for awhile so he would be quiet for me too.  They are such sweet girls and I will admit I do miss them during the day.  They are so willing to help with Camden and Leonard.

Whoops kinda got carried away there for a bit.
 
They are loving school, sure its only been a week, but I'm hoping that they continue to love it as the year goes on.

Camden had to get in on all the picture taking action before the first day too.  

I love the first day of school pictures cause its the perfect time to compare at how much my girls have grown and this past year they have grown a LOT! 

It literally blows my mind!! I know kids grow fast but just seeing this jump is unreal! My grown up girls!

Keep gettin' it summer challenge

I thought I'd give a little update on my summer challenge.

Its not going super great.

I've been sticking with the eating better, that's much easier right now than trying to find the time to get a consistent work out in. I would love to be able to wake up before the kids and get in a workout.  Lets be honest, that ain't happening until sweet little baby actually sleeps at night.

Even with not getting to work out as much after a few weeks of not weighing myself I stepped on the scale the other day not expecting any change, and I lost 3 lbs. HUH? I was a little confused, but they do say that its mostly about the food you consume.  Oh well I'll take it!

Slow and steady, I don't like to lose too fast.  So I have a few pictures for ya.

I realize now that i should have put the start on the left and the current on the right, but oh well.

It seems the only consistent thing about my summer challenge is water spots on all the mirrors in my house and how I hold my phone taking pictures. LOL!

Just for a comparison of where I actually really started here is a picture of me from the blogging event I attended in April at 3 weeks postpartum.

Cheers to making small changes and small progress.  Progress is progress and should be celebrated!!! 

Have an awesome day! 

How I wore it for How We Wore It

Greetings you lucky finders of this post.  You are in for a real treat today. My very first totally awkward outfit post.  

A few weeks ago, after reading a couple of friends How we wore it outfit posts, I was intrigued at the idea of doing something like this myself.  I've got about 9 months left before 30 and it's something I haven't done before, and I like a challenge, on occasion.  I thought about it for a few days then signed up to do the link up for July.  My thought process was that with the amount of people that probably sign up, I would surely not be selected to do such a thing, but since you're reading this that's not how things panned out. 

I got the email to participate and I was slightly panicked.  There was a way out, a blurb at the end of the email that could have set me free..."PS. If for some reason you need to sit this week out let me know ASAP."  I could have very well taken it, but that's not me. I'm not a quitter. 

So lets get this started :) 

This month the lovely Deidre (the brainchild behind how we wore it posts) was inspired by fitness/relaxed look for this month.  Perfect! I basically live in leggings and relaxed baggy clothes, cause 4 months postpartum isn't really my clothing/body jam portion of life.  

Then I saw the inspiration photo from Looks for Lovelies, seriously, DANG, she is fly!  Again, I literally just had a baby and I am not in shape, or trendy, or anything you'd normally think of when outfit post comes to mind so, I called upon my personal stylist/older sister Mallory and we got to work. 

You guys it was a million degrees, and humid as heck taking pictures. I was sweating bullets within the first 10 seconds, but we totally Tim Gunn'd it. 

Here I am in poses I like to call "What's that over there!" & "Sassy crosswalk signal"

Oh yes I am also supposed to talk about my outfit I am wearing. 

 I call my look
"I make people of Walmart look good"

Shirt: Walmart

Leggings: Walmart

Shoes: Walmart Clearance

Shades: Men's H&M (borrowed from sister) here is a similar pair

Can't change location, just change something else then.  My personal stylist said knotting my shirt would work and look awesome.  It took some getting used to, cause the shirt does come up a bit and I wasn't confident it would look good, but I stepped WAY out of my comfort zone even more and I'm actually okay with this look. I wouldn't wear a knotted shirt a lot but I guess on occasion.  

This is literally my go to every day look.  I feel comfortable in it, and it makes taking care of my 4 kids easier cause I can move in it.  I'm not trying to suck in to get those jean to zip or constantly pulling my jean back up over my ba-dunk-a-dunk. 

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my look for How We Wore it.

Don't forget to check out all these lovely ladies that participated with me. 

Seriously, all knock outs! 

Deidre // Deidre Emme

Ruth // My Little Nest
Jenn //What You Make It
Kiana // Glitter & Donuts
Jessica // Mason Jars and Lemon Bars
Alyssa // Pinsent Life
Sierra // Sierra's View
Madeline // CaseyLand
Riley // Riley Jo Blog
Samantha //The Samantha Show
Jen //Jam tart boutique
Beverly // What a Day
Brooklyn // Brooklyn Jolley
Amber // Amber Nicole blogs
Shelbie // 365 With RyGuy and I
Jenn // Give This Girl Coffee
Kelsi // Lovestrong
Justine // Little Dove
Chelsea // Tessa Marie
Monica // It's All About

Oh and be brave and sign up for next months How We Wore It, head on over to Deidre's for more details. 

And basically, trying to take pictures in your front yard with a toddler is fun.

He was hiking into the shots and then started poking me with a stick he found. It was a great time. 

Summer days{2}

Another week has come and gone.  These weeks are flying by and going so slow at the same time.  Its the weirdest thing.  

We kept this week pretty low key.  Okay it was only low key because i basically got summer brain. You know when your brain boils from the heat and you forget about basically everything you had planned. Yeah, so that happened. oops. 

We ate popsicles, made a sonic run, watched netlifx, and went to a movie.

So here are some pics of what i remembered to capture of our last week. Oh and just FYI my kids basically wear the same thing every day, its summer, whatevs. 

Camden always wants to be apart of everything the girls are up too. He had just woken up and plopped himself in between them. 

 Cam is a pro and blowing his nose, he sometimes uses a little too much tp though.  

Ev is obsessed with pokemon right now and carries her cards everywhere.  Almost every time i go upstairs shes organizing them. 

I decided to be a cool mom and take the kids to a movie. We went to the dollar theater. This is not something i usually do, cause squirmy kids and movie theaters usually don't mix. We went and saw Cinderella. The girls have been begging me to see it.  About 25 minutes in it basically turned for the worst.  Even though they were asking to go home, i wanted to watch the flippin movie.  It was, okay. I'm sure I'd like it more with no distractions. 

For family night we watched YouTube music videos and danced.  It was a lot of fun and entertaining.  Mia danced to every song and taught us some dance moves she made up. 

**10 cool points if you can tell me what YouTube video were watching in the picture above.**

Welp, that's basically the end. 

the end. 

Summer days{1}

First week of summer is over and we survived! Yay!  I'm starting a summer days series to recap what we've been up to each week.

We ended the week with our weekend in the woods family get a way.

During the week was spent playing, cleaning, & swimming.  We normally start swimming in the beginning of May.  We say that after my niece Rylee's birthday we can swim.  Well it has been so freakishly cool this summer so far the water hasn't had a chance to warm up so we hadn't been swimming yet.  Last week was the first time to swim at my parents this summer. It was still freezing!!  It started to rain a bit later that day.

What is happening?!?  I mean don't get my wrong i am happy for the cooler temps, but i would like to swim and have it be just a littler warmer for that.

Anyway, here are a few pics of the week.

Its nice having three minions running around. They volunteered to clean the dishes. Ev washed, Mia rinsed & Cam put away.  They noticed i took a pic and asked why, and i told them it had to be documented, there were being great helpers, Ev just rolled her eyes.

My squad.

We ended up staying and making a whole day of fun at my parents.  My sisters came over with their kids, and the cousins all played and had a great time.

My mom introduced my sister Kim and I to a card game called Canasta (not sure the spelling) my sil Amy knew the game but it's called Hand & Foot. It took a while for me to figure it out, there are like 100 rules to the game!  I will play again, so don't worry mom! OH and i found out that Chris knows the game? What? I guess some are more educated in complicated card games then i am.

See that bird in the picture above?  Well Kim and i were talking and the kids were playing outside and all of a sudden she looks behind me and was like "uhhhh, Cam is about to grab that bird?!" I turn right as he is just an inch away from picking up this bird!  It flew away and startled him pretty good.  It didn't go far and Cam just followed this bird around for a good 10 minutes, just walking in circles.  It was so funny, and the weirdest! Always an adventure for Cam. :)

Hope you make this a great week!!

Weekend in the woods

We packed up and headed out Friday morning.  Drove a couple hours north to my parents cabin in Heber.  This crosses off visit the cabin in the kids summer bucket list! YAY!

The kids and i haven't been since last September, so its been awhile.  It rained almost the whole time we were there but we had the doors open and the kids ran around the porch, and we enjoyed the fresh cold air.  When the rain stopped for about an hour it dried up a bit and we went on a little walk around the property and picked up the perfect painting rocks.


We drank hot chocolate, played rummikub, watched movies, colored, and just relaxed.  We noticed a break in the rain and wanted to go to an antique shop in town, so we got in the van and headed out and within minutes it started pouring, LOL, oh well.  We still went and basically had a heart attack every time the kids breathed on the antiques. So many beautiful things in this shop! I wanted a picture of the outside, but you know cameras in rain don't usually end well.

I always plan to take a ton of pictures then i get home and i'm like, DOH!  Here are a few pics we managed to take while we were there.

We attempted to take a family picture, it took a few tries before getting a 'that's the best one we'll get' shot.

Attempt 1:

Attempt 2:

Attempt 3:

Money shot, attempt 4:

It rained, but we still had a great little getaway as a family. Until next time Heber house.