Amelia

I walked through the door and she stared at me with those huge brown eyes. She wasn't sure who I was, or what I was doing in her house. Her mommy put her down so the two of us could get acquainted, but that wasn't happening. She clung to her mom very tightly, eyes tearing up and her little bottom lip quivering if I would get too near.

Amelia just celebrated her first birthday, and although she is very shy, she did very well on her photo shoot. She kept her mommy close for comfort, but I managed not to make her cry. She was on the verge of it, but she contained herself.

I know all to well what it's like having shy children. Emma gives the death stare anytime someone she doesn't know even looks at her. I thought the older my child got the easier it would be, but I am still the occasional hiding place when a stranger says hi.

Amelia is a very lucky little girl and has such an amazing and loving family.

Happy Birthday Amelia!!

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It makes me happy when...

I was watering the plants the other day, and thought, it makes me happy when the flowers I plant are still alive.

So I was going to take a picture of my beautiful labor of love and post it. Then I was going to try to post weekly the things that make me happy. A nice gloomy day, a dinner where the kids don't get half of their food on the floor, you get the idea.

So well I was in my happy moment, I loaded my plant picture onto my computer and...nothing. My 5 year old laptop fizzled off into cyber heaven. Oh dear.

That should have prompted me into starting the "It makes me mad when..." post. Or maybe it was a sign, who knows.

I know have a beautiful new IMac sitting on my desk at home. I love it, can stare at it in awe for hours. But I do miss my laptop and the portability of it.




So then I got back into my "It makes me happy when..." mood. So well I have yet to upload any photos to my beautiful new computer, I will hopefully share my happy moments with you soon.

Oh, and with all the computer drama among other things, my plants died.

My Artist

Last week Owen's school celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week. Owen is lucky enough to have two amazing teachers in his Kindergarten class. One of their assignments was to draw a picture for each teacher, which would be collected from each student and put in a book.

At the beginning of the school year Owen would just rush through things, not paying much attention to detail. I've noticed his progress throughout the year. Instead of quickly drawing a stick figure and throw in the towel, he is now drawing books with such titles as "The Imagination Land" and "On the Farm".

Here, Owen drew a portrait of Mrs. Giles




Mrs. Rodney was lucky enough to get a scenery picture. Owen calls it "Life on the Himalayas"

Sticky Fingers

This is what happens when a four year old named Emma is left alone with a box of Krispy Kreme's.

Happy almost Friday!

Why does it seem like Friday today. I don't like it when the weekdays trick you like that.

I wanted to share with all of you Emma's new obsession. She got a Yo Gabba Gabba/DJ Lance Rock hat and glasses set.

She won't touch the hat, she says it's too big, but she claims the glasses make things clearer for her.

She wears them all afternoon. She'll take them off, put them back on, and say.."Much better" as if they are some magic glasses or something.

Tobin & Erika - Engagement Session

Erika had a vision. She scoped out her location, thought long and hard what would work, and set her expectations. When she asked me to shoot her engagement session, I was a little nervous, hoping I could meet all of those expectations.

We met at the train depot and wandered around a bit before we started shooting. Erika and Tobin are straight out of a fashion magazine. They look so good together! Erika fell right into the shoot and gave me a lot of sassyness, fierceness, and hotness, with little to no direction. I know it's not easy being in front of the camera, especially when you have an audience of people waiting for the train, but we managed to duck into some empty areas and got some great shots.

Thanks so much you two, I had fun sneaking onto private properties and visiting ostriches with huge ear holes ;) You both rocked!

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Bad Blogger!

Yes, I know, I'm a horrible blogger. You don't have to tell me twice.

I've been a very busy lady!

I've been...

Playing in the snow









Celebrating Owens 6th birthday at Knott's with his best buddie Mia




And then heading over the Disneyland the next day to finish off his birthday extravaganza
(I know it's blurry, but it pretty much sums up how I felt after that crazy weekend)


Was able to hang out with my favorite 13 month old Brayden Bittel


Got to shoot an engagement session with an awesome couple


And last but not least...

Took Owen to see RENT at the San Diego Civic Center. For those of you who don't know, Owen loves theater/musicals. I'm not sure if he will want me to share that bit of info with everyone.

We even were able to take a picture with Adam Pascal, one of the original cast members from RENT.



I also wanted to thank my BFF Drew who is a major RENThead, which recently turned me into a RENThead, and in turn morphed Owen into one as well.

Picture courtesy of Owen

Disneyworld: Day 3 & 4

We decided to leave our Disneyworld bubble and travel to Universal Studios. Our first stop was the Studio park which is so much different than ours in Los Angeles. The main difference is there is no tram tour in Orlando, which is the biggest part of the Los Angeles park.

Owen and Emma with Donkey


The day we visited, they had most of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons, which was really cool to see




Orlando's Jaws is far superior to the one here


Margaritaville for dinner











The following day we visited the Island of Adventure Park in Universal Studios. The park is known for it's rides. Some are similar to ours here, but others are one of a kind. I highly recommend the Spiderman ride!






Emma with the gals from X-Men

Love Love...and Vegas

Las Vegas and The Beatles. Two things I love, and two things I was able to share with Owen this weekend. Both things always bring me back to my mom who left me with such fond memories of both Vegas and the Beatles.

I started visiting Vegas at a very young age. My mom was an amazing bowler with a beautiful maroon ball with silver swirls. Her team would find themselves in Vegas tournaments often and her being a single mother meant I got to come along for the ride. I remember so vividly some of our adventures while we were there. It's so weird to remember the Vegas of the 80's and to see it now. Things have changed so much.

My love for The Beatles came from my mom as well. She was obsessed back in her day! My favorite memory is on our long drives, she had a tape called "Beatles Love Songs". It had a brown cover with The Beatles faces in tan. It's crazy how clearly I remember it. She would play it all the time, which is why by age 6 I knew every word to practically every Beatles song. When I got older I found her collection of Beatles albums and played them non stop on my Holly Hobbie record player.

Last year I had both world collide when I saw LOVE, the Cirque De Soleil show at the Mirage. It was amazing, I couldn't put it into words. The soundtrack to the show blew me away. My first thought was of my mom and how I HAVE to bring her to Vegas to see this.

A year has passed since my last visit. I was never able to share the experience with my mom unfortunately. She had passed away four months later. I know she would have loved it though.

Not too long ago I received an email with a great hotel and show package for the Mirage. I couldn't pass it up and decided that Jake and I would take Owen. Jake has already seen the show and doesn't share the same love for the Beatles as me (he almost fell asleep during the show! How dare he!) So I booked the package and couldn't wait to share this experience with Owen.

I thought the whole Vegas experience would be a little overwhelming for him, but he handled it like a pro. He was a party animal, staying up past midnight and sleeping past 10am. I know, I'm a bad parent, but hey, he was in Vegas!

I couldn't wait for him to see the show. We had tickets to the 9:30 late show, I was so worried he wouldn't be able to keep his eyes open. Throughout the show I kept taking a peek at him. His eyes were just so huge, taking everything in. I thought to myself what a bittersweet moment this was. The one person I would have loved to be there at that moment was gone. I could imagine my mom sitting there, tapping her foot to the music, enjoying the show. It made me so angry, thinking how much she would have loved this. Then I turn to see Owen sitting next to me, this perfect little guy who I love so much, enjoying every minute of the show. For a moment I truly felt like my mom was with us.

When the show was done, he turned to me and said "That was the awsomest thing ever mommy...can we go again tomorrow?"

We kept him busy the next day, going the the lion habitat at the Mirage, going to Circus Circus to play the carnival games. I can't even count how many times he asked if we could go see LOVE again. I would say I caved when I called to see if there were more tickets available, but like Owen, I could see the show over and over. Luckily there were, and at 7pm we were sitting in the theater again watching LOVE. He was really into it this time, knowing what songs were coming on next, telling me where to look and what to look for. He knew when the performance was coming to an end, and leaned over to whisper..."Can we come again tommorrow?"

He was very dissapointed to know we were leaving on Sunday. I promised him we would come back someday, and I promised him when we did come back we would see the show every night we were there.

All the way home Owen, wearing his new Yellow Submarine shirt, listened to The Beatles songs on my Ipod while he reminiced about the show.

I am proud to present to you, Owen Oliver Greene...Third generation Beatles Fan.









On our way back home, we made a pit stop in Baker to visit the best beef jerky store ever!