A day in the life of a mom w/teenagers

Yesterday I was loading up my gear, getting ready to leave for 3 Noah Herman House sessions and noticed that my GPS was not in my car, asked Jess "I might have left it in Caleb's car", the car that's not out in the drive. So I go to text and call Caleb...no reponse (b/c when you're 18 you don't get up before 11:30 unless you have to be at work) & I also realize that someone has unplugged my phone charger to plug in their mp3 player...cause that's more important. Running out of time, don't want to be late so run back in the house, mapquest the 3 houses, grab the papers from the printer and run for the car. Jump in, start it and notice that I'm out of gas (cause teenagers like to drive...ALOT). Thinking maybe I can still pick up the GPS out of Caleb's car when I get to the gas station (if he's working today, which I still don't know b/c he hasn't answered my text) and now realizing that no matter what, I'm going to be late for my first session...& I hate being late.

Get to the gas station...no caleb, no caleb's car, no GPS. As I'm getting gas, I finally get a text from Caleb, he's home....& his car is at my sister's...cause that's a good place to keep it......where mom would never think to look.

Mapquest gets me to my first house about 8 minutes late...I hate being late. Done w/that one and in the car heading to the second one I realize that mapquest has decided to take me the LONG way around to Princeville and tell me that I've arrived at my destination when I was at least 6 miles from it....I'm lost, and my phone battery is reading 20% but the important thing to remember here is that somebody has a fully charged mp3 player today. Call the home owner to apologize that I'm running late...20 minutes late...I hate being late.

Get done w/that house and am supposed to be heading to Brimfield....mapquest says take a left on 150...only when I come to a main road that looks like it possibly could be 150 there are no road signs....so I take a left and end up in Dunlap....I am obviously directionally challenged and SOOOO NEED MY GPS! So I use the last of my phone battery to call the 3rd home owner and ask for directions...and apologize for being late....18 minutes late....and I hate being late!

When I finally get home that night, and start to place orders, answer emails and get ready to listen to our church sermon online I realize that my computer speakers are gone, so off I go to find them (upstairs in Logan's room)....& just then my older boy's friends start trooping in w/huge amplifiers for band practice....even if I had my speakers I couldn't have heard anything anyway w/the floor shaking and all.

After it finally quiets down and the house smells of pizza...they load up their stuff to go spend the night somewhere else...which is probably not smart because 2 out of 3 have to work in the morning...but it's quiet here so even though I don't like it, I did enjoy the peace.

Today I'm heading to Lake Thunderbird for a senior session....I have my phone charging...and I HAVE MY GPS....hopefully things will be better.

The only thing I have to say about yesterday is "aren't they cute at this age?"

a few pics from july 4th

This first one is proof that Diane is SOOO not the favorite aunt:)





We spent july 4th weekend camping at Norris Lake. The problem w/these kind of weekends is there is NO time to relax...we play HARD and come home TIRED!

On Sunday afernoon I snuck in a family session for my niece. They are in the process of adopting a little boy so she had to update her family pics. These are some awfully cute kids:)

I stink at blogging.

I realize this, & yet I really don't think I can improve. I don't know if I just don't want to take the time to write down what I'm doing everyday for my 9 faithful followers...(not that you followers aren't my entire world). I think the real problem is that I just don't think what I'm doing every minute of the day is THAT interesting.

So anyway, here's what's up in my life. We are officially on SUMMER SCHEDULE. Now for lots of moms that means running your kids all over for every type of sport practice/lesson you could possibly think of....uh, no thankyou.

Here's the schedule: We get up, we clean the house, I do my internet work, take care of any phone calls/messages, do some editing, or back up some files, then we go outside. I maybe will do some weeding and include my kids in this exciting gardening adventure, lest they get the impression that vegetables (which they don't eat anyway) come from grocery stores. Then they swim, fish, & play in their fort the rest of the day. Not including yesterday when I was really mean though and actually made my younger boys clean their rooms to the point that they could actually RUN A VACUUM! (drastic I know!) But for the most part they get to have lots of fun & I love it!

As far as work goes I'm back to doing NHS houses every wed. and then thru June I have a few sessions each week. July, however is looking busy w/weddings & individual sessions, plus the NHS houses so I'm thinking I will probably have to brush up on my juggling skills.

Here are a few pics from the last few sessions...





This last one is from a week ago. Luke came w/me on a location shoot and we heard about this home zoo so we stopped and got to see lots of cool animals.

i don't remember...

I can't remember when i blogged last so i'm going to cheat and just upload the last few sessions & recent pics and maybe that will jog my memory:)


Patti & Ian's Wildlife wedding


A bison giving birth just behind the ceremony site....so romantic:)





Here, Logan is turning 14.


This is one of my great nephew "asher"


Asher's Family


Andrew came out for his senior pics


A raindrop on a hosta leaf..(random I know)


caleb graduating...



This is from last night's Night of Worship that we hosted at the old school center. Lots of work but really was a blessing. 3 of my kids performed...and myself.


And now I know why my memory is failing me,I may or may not have too much going on....

Spring "chicks" & good friends

Saturday was pretty busy again.
First to arrive was Braelyn for her 1 month shots. The problem was that Braelyn's mom forgot to clear this w/her and she was not super happy about the whole thing. We started at noon and after an hour only got a few keepers. We decided to give her an hour break (because I had a 1:00 session do to) and then try again to see what we get.



Morgan showed up right on time for her outdoor session. The wind made for some really beautiful shots of this beautiful senior.



Then at 2:00 it was back to Braelyn, and she still wasn't thrilled but we managed to pull off a few nice shots. This girl just thought she was starving and wanted to eat, eat, eat. And w/a newborn, you just have to go w/it!



Then we had about an hour to dye some eggs, bake 2 pans of brownies for dessert that night, & make 2 pies for Easter dinner the next day before my next session @ 4:00. (I know this sounds ridiculous, but this is how saturday's are here!)


The last session of the day was my friend Kim and her family. Her mom was diagnosed w/cancer...the really bad kind, so when I heard, I really wanted to take some family pics for them. This is the one thing I feel that I can do for people when they get this kind of news. Her mom has the most positive attitude of anyone that I know. Yesterday was her first day of chemo so I've just been praying, and praying for her.



After their session we grilled some hamburgers and just enjoyed catching up.

On Sunday we were at my in-laws for Easter and we were walking around looking for mushrooms when Jess spotted some baby owls. It was another one of those times when I was wishing I just carried all my gear w/me where ever I go! I took a chance and went back on Monday morning w/a zoom and got a couple of shots of these guys. 2 baby great horned owls...first ones I've seen in the wild. This is the type of photography I would do full time if I could....I just love being in the woods & enjoying God's creation.
Unfortunately momma owls don't usually order any pictures of their babies so the pay stinks:)

spring?

Does this count as spring? I saw snow on the side of the road yesterday, so I just don't know...is THIS spring?

This past week I had some fun w/Morgan at the studio. We were supposed to do a studio session and then head off to Farmington Park to do some outside by the lake....but it was rainy and cold so we opted to put off the outdoor stuff till Friday. Morgan was a blast in spite of the grossness of the weather and we had some fun w/her prom dress and vball shoes...in the same shot:)

Love it!


I also got to drive to Makinaw to meet my new great niece who was born Sunday. She's just 1 day old here and already loves her favorite great aunt:)




This morning I got a call from my sister saying they've had a horse deliver at the Horsemeister barn 3.5 weeks early and could I run over to check and see if it's okay. I grabbed a towel and my camera and thankfully got to use both on this healthy baby girl. Babies being born left and right means it IS spring..right?



Found some of these as I was driving home from the farm....






Yep, definately spring! Bring on the sun!!!

Hit the ground running

That's how it always is after a vacation. You've got to hit the ground running about 90 miles an hour and that's pretty much how it was this time too. Only I felt like we were going 90 miles an hour before we even left for vacation!

I guess I should start w/the story before we even left for vacation. I come from a big family, and by big I mean HUGE. Anyway, the next baby born into the family would be the 100th person and there were 4 different girls expecting but only 2 were really in the running for the title. The day we were scheduled to leave I get a call saying that Anna, my nephew's wife, was in the hospital almost ready to deliver. Now we had gone over this carefully and I had it all worked out that I could go on vacation and be back in plenty of time to take pictures at the hospital, like I do w/all my families babies....and then she goes into labor 2 weeks early!

We were leaving at 4:00 in the afternoon that day, so I didn't think it was appropriate for me to call poor Anna and ask if she could hurry it up so I could still get the newborn pics and get to leave ontime so I just prayed that things would go quickly, and they did! I was able to run up to the hospital around 1:30 and take pictures of little Braelyn when she was just 4 hours old, run home and edit them and email a few off to the new parents, plus burn a cd of all of the pics and drop that in the mail on our way out of town. I think we got on the road by 4:30...not bad!
So anyway, here's my mom in the hospital nursery holding her new little great grand daughter Braelyn Jo.



So that was all before vacation. Since getting home little Jaycie came in to the studio for her 6 month shots, then Heather came out to my house for some 8th grade graduation shots, & Tom for senior pics.








It's always exciting to start shooting outside again, except for the mud! We stayed relatively clean and had some fun in the warm beautiful weather:)

Sunday we went to church for the first time in what seemed like ages to me. I really do miss it when we're gone. Then in the afernoon our sunday school had their Easter Program. I love watching all my cute little great nieces and nephews & my own kids singing songs about Jesus.

It was so hot when we left church we headed straight home for some R&R and David J decided to go fishing. I was just getting comfortable in my lounge chair when I hear David yelling. He caught a huge bass and of course I'd better take some pics. This bass was so big it couldn't even fit into the 5 gallon bucket. Then he caught another one, then Logan & Jess started fishing.




Then because it was sooo hot my younger boys decided it was finally time to do this...




After that we were off to my inlaws for dinner, then back to the playground for vball and some praise singing. It was a great day, super busy, but still lots of fun.