Just need to POST THESE! Whew. That's better.

I'm seriously slacking in the blog department! I promise I'll get caught up eventually but things have been so busy with little bug I haven't had time to think! First things first. In order to get back on track I need to post my recent 365 images. I know some of them are posted in previous blogs here and there but I need to get them all on one blog to focus. Ha!

So, here they are:

Day 93.

Day 94. Just a reminder.

 

 Day 95. Chopped off my hair. 

Day 96. Sweet girls birthday party.

Day 97. Recipe Here

Day 98. April Showers

Day 99. Macro love.

Day 100! Isn't it obvious?

Day 101. Sleeping love.

Day 102. Backyard play time. (This photo scored me another feature on my 365 group!)

Day 103. Senior session stopping traffic!

Day 104. Happy birthday to this sweet girl. 

Day 105. New shoes for the big girl.

Day 106. Frosty macro morning. I laid a blanket out in my backyard and shot for about 20 minutes this morning. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm crazy. :-)

Whew! Now that that's over I can breathe! I'm currently working on editing a senior session which will hopefully be on the blog by the end of the weekend and of course I'm still shooting my 365. The weather is getting warmer so I'm trying to spend more time outdoors with the little one. She loves being outside.

Last Saturday we had a photoshoot scheduled for Miss Charlie's cake smash session with my friend Carla over at Carla Thompson Photography. I'm not going to post all the pictures here because her blog showcases them so beautifully, so I'll just post the link if you want to check them out. It's HERE and I'm totally in love with it and all the images she captured. Those are amazing memories that I will have forever!

I went back and forth about doing Charlie's cake smash myself but I don't have much to work with in that department and I really wanted to be able to watch little bug have fun with the cake instead of worrying about my settings and exposure and composition and all those fun photographer things. Carla did amazing and I got to get in some of the shots too! Yay!

Ok friends, that's all for today until later! Hope everyone is having a great day!!

xxx

Ryan

It's my party & I'll NAP if I want to!

This past Sunday we had a birthday party for our special little girl who is turning 1 on the 14th. I seriously cannot believe a year has gone by. She has filled our lives with so much joy and laughter and I couldn't imagine life without her.

We ended had a small party after much debate and I'm SO glad we went that route. I originally planned on inviting our WHOLE family which was close to 50 people and a few close friends too. That would have put us at about 65-70 people. For a ONE year old's birthday party. That's just a little too crazy for us AND for her. Instead we invited Charlie's aunts & uncles, her grandparents and our grandparents and we had such a great time. I'm not really into big birthday productions for kids. I never had that when I was growing up and I turned out just fine. I don't judge people that spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on their kids birthday parties but that will never happen with us or our kids. It's just not my thing. Plus, there is no way she needs hundreds of presents. She's one and we just don't have the room for tons of toys!

So back to little bugs party. It was at 2 on Sunday and the weather was beautiful. I spent the night before getting most things ready. Including this cute little chalkboard. I found the idea from Pinterest and added Charlie's details.

That morning I got up early and made sandwiches and got the kitchen together for the party.

The Menu included:

• Different kinds of sandwiches
• Chips
• Pasta Salad
• Veggies
• Fruit
• Cake
• Ice Cream

 I then went to pickup her cake which I ordered from the same lady that did our wedding cake. Her name is June and she's with JuLi's Creations and she's awesome and very reasonably priced. Check her out if you need some cakes or catering in the future! So, after I picked up the cake I took a trip to party city and picked up the balloons I had ordered the day before. They were SO cute and I was worried they weren't going to fit in the SUV but luckily they did :-)

Once I had the goods it was time to go home and wait for everyone to arrive. Charlie ended up taking a nap in the morning which kind of messed up her schedule a little bit for the party. She slept from about 9-1030 and wouldn't take another nap.........until her party. Ha!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day. Most of them are her playing with her cake and not eating it. My kid loves vegetables. Put a cake in front of her and she doesn't know what to do with it!

The cake and Charlie's mini cake.

Playing with a cup.

Getting ready!

This candle was used by my husband, his brother and his sister on all of their first birthdays. :-)

"I don't like this"

Just eating my puffs.

Get me outta here!

Just eating the yogurt puffs out of the cake and not touching the cake.

 

 

Mid party nap!!

 

So tired.

Can we go outside?

Oooooooo!

She didn't like it. Nope.

Enjoying the day outside!

Giving grandma some love. 

Our girl had such a great party and we are so glad that most of the family could make it!

365 update is coming up!


xxx

Ryan

Progress and daily life update!

Hello my followers!

I know I haven't written an actual blog in a while but I promise it's only because I've been so busy lately. I say this all the time but I will be SO glad when Ryan's night shift is over. Looks like it will be just in time for summer too. That makes me happy because we will get to go out and do stuff together with Charlie while the weather is nice. It hasn't been terrible during the winter but I would hate to spend the summer nights without my love.

SO! As most of you know I started a weightloss competition on January 5th. I'm in one with all my friends, who are totally kicking ass by the way, and considering most of us girls had babies last year we totally rock for wanting to get back in shape as soon as we could. (I'm a little late, my kid is almost 1 :-) ha)I'm also in another one on a website called dietbet.com. Totally genius idea and concept but you really have to be focused to at least win your money back. I bet $125 that I would lose 10% of my body weight by July. I'm well into that bet, I've already lost 6% and I fully intend to lose the 10% plus more. My friendly diet bet ends in April so I really need to kick my butt into gear for the next two months.

I've really been focused on eating right and staying away from fast food and garbage that I know my body does not need. I haven't totally kicked the diet cokes, I maybe have 2 a week but I know I need to give those up too because really they do absolutely nothing for me. I've been running 3 miles a day 5 days a week and sometimes my weekend runs are a little longer. Running at 530  in the morning is really the hardest thing ever, especially in the cold, but I would rather knock my workouts out early so I can spend time with the little bug when she wakes up. My pace is getting better too. When I first started running again my pace was like 12:50 per mile. haha. I'm back down in the 10's now so that makes me smile. 

I've decided not to run the mini or any of the triple crown races this year. Those races take so much out of me and by the time they are done I don't want to run again for like 6 months! So, I've decided to take this year off and focus on fun running for ME!

I'm still working on my 365 project and it's coming along. Shooting everyday has done wonders for me. It sometimes hard to think of things to photograph though. Especially in the winter. Especially this winter. IT'S BEEN SO FREAKIN' COLD! Ugh. I'm so ready for it to be over, but nope, snowed again last night. Jeez.

So yeah, that's what's been going on with me lately. I'm also planning little bugs first birthday party! That's probably a whole different blog I should write because there is no way a 1 year olds birthday party should stress me out the way this one has. More on that later. Probably after the party.

I'll be posting another blog later with the 365 update and following that up with a special blog about a special client of mine having TRIPLETS! I've snuck some in on Pinterest. Check the link--->

Hope everyone has a great day!

xxx

Ryan

Our girl is 9 months old!

Ah well, I'm a few days behind. If I could get some energy together I would be able to post consistently but since my kid wants to keep me sick all the time I do what I can :-)

I am finally feeling much better and was able to squeeze in a two mile run after getting back from Molly's slumber party princess birthday party thingy. I glimpsed into my future tonight and it was filled with little girls, screaming, tiaras, pink, giggling & fun. I'm cool with that. I do wish I could have stayed and helped my sister a little longer but as we all know, Charlie has a pretty strict bedtime and if she's not in her crib by 8pm she's not a happy little camper.

I'm a few days behind on posting my 365 on the blog.

Here is day 17.

This was yesterday morning. Little bug decided to sleep until 8:20. Yeah, she never does that on the weekend. I was just going to wake her up so we could get ready for daycare because I have to be at work at 9 and she was just sitting there waiting on me. Not even making a peep. She's so silly.

Today I decided to take her 9 month pics. The week is so busy so I don't really have a lot of time to do things then and also, the light isn't very good in the house when we get home at 5 so I knew that I was going to snap a few photos today.

Here is day 18 and Charlie's 9 month picture.

Those blue eyes kill me. I just love this little bug so much! I cannot believe it's been 9 months since she was born. It seems like just yesterday we were going through those rough first few weeks, the jaundice, the colic and the growing pains. I'm so glad we have such a great routine now and our girl is happy all of the time.

Louisville is about to play some ball so I'm not going to write much more. Gotta cheer on my CARDS! Here are a few more pics from today. :-)

xxx

Ryan

Facebook - RC2

Day 14 & 15 plus a big Happy Birthday shout out to my favorite niece!

Day 14.

Charlie was enchanted by the morning news. Silly girl. Day 14 also happens to be the day our girl turned 9 months old. So big!!! Her head looks so huge here. It makes me laugh. It's ok to laugh at your kid, right? I hope so. :-)

Day 15.

I love reading and I'm currently in the middle of a great book called Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. I saw this book was recommended on Buzzfeed as a book to read before the movie comes out later this year. I've already read one Gillian Flynn book, Gone Girl, and it was one of the greatest books. I loved all the twists and turns in that book. Very very good. So anyway, I knew I had to slap this book on my Kindle and get to reading. Day 15 is a selfie. :-)

Today also happens to be my sweet niece's 5th birthday! I cannot believe Molly is 5. I face timed her earlier on her iPad and she was really excited. I love that she showed me all her presents and what was left of her princess cake. This weekend her mom is hosting a slumber party so Charlie and I are going to go help out with that for a little bit. Molly is such a good big cousin. She's always asking to see baby Charlie when we FaceTime, it's the cutest. I just know they are going to be best friends.

Well, I'm exhausted as usual so I think I'm going to go crawl into my heated sheets and finish this book. I've got a list I want to finish up and most of the books have movies coming out this year! Yay!

Anyone have any good book recommendations?

xxx

Ryan