WHAT IS NOT STARTED TODAY IS NEVER FINISHED TOMORROW

Well I am doing it, finally publically publishing a 101 in 1001 list and honestly I already feel sick just thinking about it! A great photographer friend of mine, Melissa Jill, started this over a year ago after following some others in the photography industry. I have wanted to do it for so long, but I have been so afraid to commit! Following Melissa's blog and list has been such an inspiration and I am finally taking the plunge. Basically you set 101 goals that you want to accomplish in 1001 days! It feels exciting and overwhelming and scary all at the same time! I have been working on my list for quite some time now, and have already started some of my goals, I can't wait to start crossing them off as I go! I hope I can inspire someone else to do the same thing. If you decide to follow in my footsteps with your own list, be sure to leave me a comment and link to your list so I can follow you too! At any rate, wish me luck, keep me in check on these things and maybe even help me get them done ok? =) Official start April 28, 2008 to complete 101 goals by January 24, 2011! To make mine a bit easier I divided them into groups...

Family
1. Create a meal list of foods I can easily prepare for dinner.
2. Give Brennan monthly dates w/either parent each month for a year.
3. Give Dawson monthly dates w/either parent each month for a year.
5. Take a family vacation at least annually.
6. Have weekly family night for 3 straight months.
7. Get to church on time 4 weeks straight.
8. Potty train Dawson.
9. Get Dawson swimming.
10. Make cookies with the boys.
11. Take the boys to the library more.
12. Get Brennan into a sporting activity.
13. Go on a picnic with the kids somewhere different and fun.
14. Go to the zoo again.
15. Play outside in the rain.
16. Start a college fund for each of our kids.
17. Vacation at the beach.
18. Go to Disneyland.
19. Take the boys to the dentist.
20. Teach kids about service by helping someone else.
21. Set up a family trust.
22. Go camping
23. Implement a family chore chart.
24. Shop with a pre-planned grocery list.
25. Put Dawson into a sporting activity.

Business
26. Design and print new business cards.
27. Update and improve website.
28. Become an LLC.
29. Organize office closet and desk.
30. Improve product packaging.
31. Set up and learn Wacom tablet.
32. Order baby photo book as studio sample.
33. Get an efficient and more simple workflow.
34. Get 2-3 new studio sample wedding albums.
35. Outsource wedding slideshows/DVD proofing.
36. Evaluate and update wedding pricing, create brochure.
37. Create pricing brochure of additional products offered.
38. Evaluate and improve wedding contract.
39. 2nd Shoot a wedding with another photographer.
40. Organize Email Inbox.
41. Get a new camera AND read its manual.
42. Buy a Mac.
43. Take a seminar to improve photography/workflow skills annually.
44. Sell some old equipment.
45. Submit wedding images to be published.
46. Improve/establish relationship with 3-5 wedding vendors.
47. Create wall gallery samples.
48. Consistently edit within 1-2 weeks of session.
49. Market a new promotional session(s) to attract more business.
50. Perfect client meeting area with more photos and albums.
52. Submit photos into a print competition.
53. Implement a photography newsletter.
54. Get a custom intro to my website.
55. Improve the look of my blog.
56. Install and learn to properly use Quickbooks for business.
57. Create a promo DVD slideshow of my work.
58. Look into getting a new logo.

Personal
59. Hire a nanny so I can work on goals =)
60. Take a trip with girlfriends.
61. Get in bed by 10:30 weeknights for one month straight.
62. Exercise on average 3x a week for 2 months.
63. Take up rollerblading.
64. Pay off my car loan.
65. Spend a day at the spa.
66. Get life insurance.
67. Get a facial.
68. Take a trip with only Reuben.
69. Diet and exercise to lose baby weight.
70. Have more meaningful personal prayer daily for one month.
71. Read 3 books.
72. Complete the baby books for each kid (first year).
73. Get dressed up and go somewhere nice with my husband.
74. Run a 10k.
75. Print new photos for Reuben's office.
76. Create a book documenting school for Brennan & eventually Dawson.
77. Celebrate our anniversary every year by staying/going somewhere.
78. Visit Jason and Amy in Texas.
79. Get a really good massage.
80. Get contacts.
81. Learn to make hairbows for Emery.
82. Set up financial goals and reduce monthly spending together.
83. Contribute annually to a retirement fund for myself.


House ($$ permitting)
84. Organize the pantry.
85. Refinish the pool.
86. Get new windows.
87. Improve front yard landscape.
88. Replace bathroom vanity, install shelves & decorate kids bath.
89. Clean out and organize the garage.
90. Get a new pool fence.
91. Hang photos and complete playroom decor.
92. Repaint base color in main areas of our house.
93. Properly organize phone center.
94. Hang photos and decorate office.
95. Give laundry room a make over.
96. Give master bedroom a make over.
97. Hang curtains in front room.
98. Replace old interior doors.
99. Get the chimney cleaned.
100. Get a BBQ.

101. Do a separate act of service for every goal not completed in 1001 days.

Addy, Cale & Eli

Check out these CUTIES! I seriously can't pick a favorite for ANY of them...they are so cute and took such great photos for me =) I don't envy their mom's job to now narrow down the selection for her walls...I do that pretty good and I am struggling =) Here's some of my favorites...



This is Addy who just turned 5 years old!


Little Eli at 4 months!

And older brother Cale 2 years old

LOVE THESE EXPRESSIONS!


Thanks Mary...LOVE YOUR KIDDOS!!!!!

TO VIEW ALL IMAGES FROM THIS SESSION CLICK HERE

Wise beyond their years...

My husband had a funny conversation the other day with our 5 year old, Brennan. Lately he has become pretty addicted to the tv. He comes home from school and always wants to watch something. I don't mind him getting in a show or two, but I always make him turn it off and go outside or play with his brother or friends. I have often found myself telling him "you are becoming a couch potato, turn that tv off."

So, the other day Brennan came into my office and visited for a bit and later asked his dad, "daddy, is mommy an office potato?"

I suppose I probably am, and I suppose I better start finding something more to do with my days so I model better behavior for him!

Ashlyn and Aidan

Here's some shots I took recently of Ashlyn who turned 3 a few months ago and her little brother Aidan who's 4 months going on 4! He's so cute with a full head of hair in this tiny body, everyone thinks he's much older than he is cuz of his hair!

Ashlyn gave me a little of her "sassy" personality, I loved these shots!

Some of my Aidan favorites, babies and their toes...

I loved taking his picture, look how smiley he is! Brennan was always like this for me, I loved it!

Hopefully this photo helps her remember how much she loves him when he starts to really bug her later in life!

My Birthday Boy!

Dawson turned THREE today (Friday)! He's definitely got the hang of this birthday thing too, unfortunately! So far he's ONLY asking for the following: a yard blower, a saw, a tractor, a small trampoline, a helicopter, a motorcycle and of course, a dog! For weeks we've been hearing about the blower, saw and tractor, so thus the invite above I put together.

I can't help but share some of my favorite Dawson photos from the last 3years, here goes!
6 MONTHS

ONE YEAR
He would ALWAYS stuff his mouth with food and then hold it in with his fingers!
His 1st birthday invite...he did a LOT of crying, now its turned into lots of whining!
I guess he likes cake!

18 MONTHS

His hospital stay for pneumonia.

2 YEARS


A recent shot when he dressed himself...


Brothers...



Happy Birthday, I love you buddy!!

Birthday Extravaganza!!!!!!!

April is just the MONTH of Birthdays for me! I almost HATE it, it's too much to keep up on! Couple that with taxes and usually lots of weddings for me and it's a recipe for me to forget people!

So, this is my birthday shout out to the April Birthdays I can currently remember =)

APRIL 11TH - First and foremost...HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LITTLE DAWSON! My baby boy is now 3 years old! I am going to do a separate post on him since I have lots to share, so for simplicity, I will limit this post to the others!!

APRIL 8th - Happy BELATED birthday to my sister Stephannie, her's was on Tuesday! I am sure she turned 21 again! Here's a recent shot of her and cute little Aidan.

Happy BELATED birthday to my friend Lindsey! She shares my sister's birthday...quite convenient for me to remember! Today my friend Tricia and I went to lunch and did a quick shop with her for her birthday! SOrry I don't have a photo of all of us!

APRIL 11TH - Happy Birthday today to my Dad in California, he and Dawson share the same birthday despite Dawson's insistance that it's not his Grandpa's birthday, he doesn't want to share. Here he is with his wife Annalee at my cousin's wedding in San Diego.

The 3rd birthday on the 11th is my wonderful friend Bradie! I was going to post one of her gorgeous wedding photos, but instead decided to do a photo that just shows Bradie's fun loving personality instead, now I will see if she kills me for it!

This photo was taken when we were in San Diego over a year ago for a photo seminar we both went to. We went out to San Diego after it and did some photos of each other on the beach. Not more than a few minutes into the session Bradie slipped into this puddle and while that was REALLY funny, the more hilarious part was the fact that she continued to sit in it for the longest time while she laughed!

April 13th - Happy early 30th birthday AMY! My sister in law in Texas whom I adore and miss! =) Here she is with my brother Jason on my recent trip to Texas (more on this later).

April 21st - Happy Birthday Becca. I have no idea if she ever reads my blog, but she's a GREAT friend from my younger days who has never ONCE forgotten to call ME on my birthday and I never remember to call on hers...but I do still think of and love her, Happy Birthday Becca!

April 30th - Happy Birthday Tricia! My great friend and former neighbor who just had a baby girl 3days after me!

And I know there are others...sorry I have forgotten you...can you blame me?

WPPI UPDATE

Here's my update on my photo convention last month, FINALLY!! Sorry for the long post! Lots to share. I only came home for a week before leaving again, thus the delayed posting of my WPPI trip to Vegas! I had such a great time but admittedly, it was also EXHAUSTING. We had long days and not long enough nights of sleep paired with it. The classes this year were not as impressive in years past. In fact, we walked out of quite a few because they were just THAT bad! Here's the highlights for the week...

#1 - THE COMPANY
Marnee and her mom go to this every year and they were gracious enough to let me tag along with them...we had so much fun with all the photo talk!


The Sitters - Check out these cute girls! Ashlyn and Laura were my roommates and also our babysitters for the week! They were so good with the babies and lots of fun to have around!


Lindsey & Ryan - Here's my friend Lindsey with her husband. This was her first year, which is always the most exciting, it was great to see them and hear about other classes I didn't get to!


The BABIES - We were blessed with two angelic girls that let us take them around with us whenever we could! I quickly learned it didn't pay to take Emery to the tradeshow, people everywhere stopped me to ask how old she was and talk about her, the problem with that is I had a HUGE agenda and didn't have time to chat over and over about my 4 wk old baby that I was carrying with me =) Granted, they were super sweet but you can't even imagine how many vendors are at the tradeshow and I needed my time to wander!

Here's Marnee's daughter Kate looking cute and Emery looking a little unsure...
Kate quickly becomes jealous of Emery's bow and decides to take matters into her own hands!
#2 - Breakfast with Janelle!
One of my absolute favorite people in the world! Janelle and I have been friends almost the longest, like 18years now (I think Nicole takes the prize though). She lives in Vegas and she came over to Paris to have breakfast with me one morning. It was quite fun (you can read one funny moment on her blog). Thanks Janelle, I love and miss you!

#3 - The Shopping
Admittedly this year's classes weren't nearly as good as previous years. Actually some of them were just downright BAD. So what are 5 girls to do when the classes are bad and we're stuck in Vegas? Shopping of course! We headed to The Forum Shops where I surprisingly spent NO MONEY (too bad I couldn't have done that at the tradeshow).

#4 - The Bellagio
The last day we tried out TWO classes giving them ample time to get to their point and content, after over an hour we skipped out and headed quickly to the Bellagio to check out the Conservatory and flowers! LOVING THE TULIPS! Man, I'd love to have a few of these oversized watering cans for shoots! And these cool insects and frog that are made out of flowers...IMPRESSIVE!!


#5 - The Print Competition - Marnee, her mom Jane and I did get to go to the print competition, I had never been and it was actually VERY interesting. They take prints that photographers had submitted and they VERY quickly score them. There is a panel of 6 or so judges and they can score them in a matter of seconds! It was really neat to watch and see what it was that made the images do well or not so well. Overall FOCUS was the number one contributor to images being under scored. I can't wait to go to this again, it's a great teaching tool!

#6 - THE TRADESHOW and all the STUFF
Talk about overload, this tradeshow has everything and anything about photography and it's my job to find the right products and people that will help me improve my business! No small task with hundreds of booths and vendors! It is very inspiring to look at all the products and ideas and get my own new ideas though! This year I spent my fair share on a few new things. Among those include Canvas Cash to get more canvas prints, Album credit for my new studio sample albums, Photoshop Q&A so I can easily continue to self teach myself such a complex program, Monitor Calibration so I can get more accurate color in my images, a Wacom tablet so I can work easier and more accurately in photoshop, a new light stand for studio sessions and some tutorial and presets for the program I use to do my workflow, so HOPEFULLY I can reduce the amount of time I spend on editing! So, I guess that's why I didn't spend money on shopping!! =) I am now working on utilizing/installing these things so my money was well spent!

Emery and Aidan's blessing day!

Well, I am a slacker mom, we had Emery's baby blessing about a month ago and with being out of town twice and my need for perfection in getting the PERFECT photo of her in her dress (which by the way I still want one more re-shoot) I never posted photos, so in my hope to catch up on blogging, here are a few photos from our special day! Here's Emery in her dress,

This is my nephew Aidan who also was blessed that day, double the sweetness!
Here's a photo of my entire family, thanks Uncle Jeff for decent framing, but we have to work on you learning to FOCUS now!
This is my husband Reuben's entire family. As you can see from the family shots, we both have big families so the get togethers we do have are quite the large group!
Uncle Chris with Aidan.
Here's a cute shot of Emery sleeping on the blanket made for her big day by Grandma Garbett. It's pink and white and I love the daisies around the edge!
My sister Stephannie and her family, isn't Aidan's smile just adorable?
My dad who lives in California, his wife Annalee and some of my family.
Last but not least, the reason I STILL want another reshoot! We had such a GREAT DAY! I am so thankful to all of our family and friends who came and celebrated with us! After the blessings we had lunch at our house outside with the beautiful weather, thanks everyone!

Reflections of Christ

I know I am behind on posts, I promise to have recent sessions, a WPPI update and other things on here soon! I have been doing some projects this week and haven't been able to organize the other posts I want to put on here!

In the meantime, I am VERY excited to share this great slideshow and highly recommend you take 5 minutes of your day to watch it. A friend of mine, Mark Mabry, who is a great photographer did an AMAZING job in his recent quest to depict the life of Christ through real photographs! I know that so much went into this project including many volunteers to scout locations, make the costumes and assist on the sessions etc. The prints were enlarged and put on display for a short period of time in The Arizona Temple and were absolutely beautiful! The slideshow truly doesn't do the images justice, they are incredible to see in person. It's great to see PHOTOGRAPHS of some of these great events of Christ's life and I am impressed Mark was able to tell such a great story with his talent! Anyway, take a minute to watch the slideshow even if it isn't as good as the real thing! It's my understanding that the photos are going to be sent to other LDS Temples and displayed in the visitors centers.

It was such a great time for this to come out around Easter when we can take a minute to reflect on Christ and all that he sacrificed for all. I was amazed at how moving it was to look at these images for just 5-10 minutes and it only further confirmed my love and appreciation for the Savior and his sacrifice for me! Thanks Mark and congrats for his success with this! Also, thanks Katie for sending me the link to this!