little family's first christmas

love little moo

This little guy drives me insane is so many ways. Insane in the ammount I love him, insane in the ammount of questions he asks, and insane with his obstinence and definitely insane with his ability to pee on the seat EVERY SINGLE TIME.

And now to embarrass the Hubs. We went out for dinner a couple weeks a go at a place that rhymes with stickeys. Yeah you know the place. ANywyas, we got the all clear of no peanut products, ordered, and sat down to eat. Not 3 minutes later Moo declares as he dances in his chair that he has to goooooooooooo. I smile at Hubs and profusely aplogize for being a girl and he takes Moo off to the restroom.

The return a few minutes later, Hubs shaking his head in defeat. Moo refuse to go in any place that is not perfectly clean and has just the right size and shape of potty.

A few minutes later Moo is back to dancing and rather loudly proclaims he has to goooooooooo. So off they go again. A few minutes later they return. And moo very loudly proclaims that he did IT! Several people snicker. Hubs is turning red.

So I do what any good mommy would do. And any not so good wife would do. Again, quite loudly and very enthusiastically. "oh honey! Yay! that's so wonderful. I am so glad you did IT. Wonderful!" Hubs got a little redder and snak in his seat.

So if I ruined your dinner at the place that rhymes with stickeys, then man I am sorry. However, I bet odds are your dinner was ruined by the food poisioning we all endured after dinner. And that some poor sole suffered in the parking lot...

color me happy

All the toys have gone down to the lair, err, playroom. The kids love it and I love it. Now to get my studio space whipped into shape!

white christmas

I like snow. I like snow from the warm, comfortable cosiness of my home. However, I don't want to taint my childrens opinion of the stuff so when we got wallopped by a blizzard on Christmas eve resulting in 5 inches of white fluff everywhere and some 2' plus drifts (I can hear all you Nebraksans rolling on the ground laughing... stop it...) I had to take the doodles out in it. Doodle is a good name for my children, no? Moo loved it and squaled with delight. Ella Bella was a little more cautious and took it all in but said nothing.

And then, Ella Bella fell face first into the snow and Moo relaized that this snow stuff is COLD. COLD! Their countenance changed just a little....

At this point Moo laid down on the neighbors drive way and proceeded to scream his little lungs out letting it echo through the otherwise quiet winter wonderland of the canyon. He refused to move from that spot, crying out that he would rather DIE right THERE than go back in the SNOW! I have no iuidea where he gets his flair for drama, none.

little readers

One of my moms favorite photos from my childhood is of my older brother reading to me. He was 5 or 6, and I was a spitting image of my own little Ella Bella. I never knew why she liked that photo so much until I had my own kids and got to savor this little moment of sibling harmony.

second summer

We had a glorius fall here, particualarly for a few divine days in November when it was just perfect. 70's during the afternoon, 50's at night. I would like that every day. Especially after the past week of snow, bleh. But, I know some of you are big snow fans so I will endure it for you with a smile... for the most part!

waking up

Ella Bella is so full of life and opinion from the second she wakes up. This day it was from a long winters nap and I was anxious to get her up for a photoshoot before the light vanished. She was not amused at first but came around pretty quick. Here are some more of her kicking it in hergdiapers a few minutes later.

merry christmas?

it's a little late and very impersonable. The sentiment is the same. 2009 was a hard year to be a friend as we watched some of our closest friends go through the darkness of illness, loss, divorce, and struggle. I am praying for healing in their lives and a peaceful 2010. We love you dear friends.

the dump is less dumpy by the day

main living space: september 11, 2009

main living space: december 15, 2009

If you ever think it's a good idea to buy the ugliest house who you can find that needs a crazy ammount of work, let me be the first to tell you it's a BAD idea.



Ok, I really don't mean that. Yes it's been an insane ammount of work. Yes, It's been really expensive. Yes, it's been all consuming and yes living in a construction zone is a little less than convienient. However, the reality of what it has been like is not nearly all the nightmare our friends think it is. Here is the jist of many of our friends thoughts....



"It must be like camping. I hate camping"



"Your kids have slept in your room for 2 months???? No thanks!"



"You guys must be fighting constantly."



"Ya'll are CRAZY."



It has not been like camping. Luckily we finished most of the work upstairs before we moved in. The upstairs is the same size as our old house (about 1300 sq. ft) and has a huge living area, master bedroom and bath, and a laundry room. So for my sanity I pretended we were living in a loft all sharing a room and putting stuff where we could. Our kids did sleep in our room until about a week ago when the flooring went down in the basement... really lower level. And it was fine because we would work every night until we dropped and would just crash. Moo deciding he needed to see us 2-3 times a night did get really really old. Luckily, he favored Hubs side of the bed so I slept pretty good inspite of the midnight wakings.



We have had a few fights. We have only had 2 big fights and they were both about subcontractors. I'll leave it at I was right. And if you need a really expensive mediochre work crew, I know just the fellows. We have actually leardned that we are stronger and more teachable than we realized. We both have learned skills we didn't think we could handle and have been surprised with pretty good results.



We are down to just the finish work throughout the interior of the house. Baseboards, triming out windows, closet doors, and paint colors. We have too functioning, allthough still pretty ugly, bathrooms. It's cool to see this dark, smelly, dated place transform into a light, modern, clean family home. We have work to do on the outside too, but that will have to wait until spring and probably won't be posted on here anyway.

the lovely h family

First let me say, I adore this family. One, for having 2 little guys who are as crazy about trains as little Moo. Two, for generously keeping Moo and Ella Bella during our move when Hubs spontaneously decided on Tuesday night we needed to move on Thursday morning. Oh yes he did. Three, being a family who seeks God and serves God. And it doesn't hurt that Ashley is a photographer, homeschooling mama, and deal hunter. :) Shooting them was just so fun, they were up for whatever. The older son was just killing me with his "modeling" faces and the littlest guy was being so charming.

halloween

the first of a veritable landslide of posts..... got to start somewhere. I promise they won't all be cute photos of my kids but the grandparents must be pleased! Moo the knight in plastic and flammable armour and ella bella the ballerina in her swimsuit.

the blog lives on.

dear poor neglected blog,

My profuse apologies for leaving you alone for so long. I promise it wasn't my intention to leave you empty for so long. I packed you up to move you to the new house (aka the dump) and alas no internet can be found there. At least not inexpensive or fast internet. So here I am sitting at a coffee shop to catch up with you mr. blog. There have been many things going on worthy of a good old blog post, like Moo and Ella Bella growing like weeds, cute families photographs, and of course "the dump" looking a whole lot less dumpy.

I promise to get REAL internet soon, my iphone has so many shortcomings.... the inability to blog, hates photos larger than a credit card, hard to talk on, and lousy for online shopping. You mr. blog are cheap therapy and after 2 months of living in very tight quarters I NEED some therapy.

xoxo,
lfh creative

solitude

Wow. Sorry, it's been really quiet around here. I knew my lack of blogging had gotten out of hand when my husband asked why I had quit my blog! He rarely reads my blog....

Anyways... since my last post we have:
- put a roof on
- sold a house
- bought a house
- ripped out 1200 sq ft of yucky pink carpet.
- ripped out 1600 sq. ft of drywall (yeah... yikes!)
- ripped out a lovely pink whirlpool tub perfectly sized for your average house cat.
- backed into our new retaining wall with our car. The wall is fine, the car... not so much.
- our main "family" car died and was then revived
- 2 old heating/ac units out... 2 new ac/heating units in (thank you, thank you!)
- new hot water heater (thank you again!)
- fixed leaks
- removed a fireplace
- re-leveled a floor
- argued, just a little
- ordered lots of stuff
- put another new roof on
- painted the upstairs cool refreshing boring white. I am in love.
- removed all the kitchen cabinets and moved them up 8 inches.
- fixed lots of electrical issues
- built a new banister
- scraped adhesive off the floor

So yeah... blogging hasn't even been on my radar! Thankfully my mother in law (and later my father in law) came and rescued us. She loved on the kids, entertained them, cooked with them, bathed them EVERY day, and just spoiled them rotten. Rotten in a really good way. I can't imagine we would have gotten anything done without her (them) here.

We have to be out of our old (we are renting now) house by the end of the month. But... just for kicks and giggles and for me to reference back to... Here is what needs to get done before we move in:

- working plumbing drains, houses on hills need special pumps to move things where they need to go.
- the massive pile of sheetrock removed from the basement. This, will be the WORST.
- the master bedroom and bath sheetrocked
- super duper baby gates
- the bee hive removed
- 1250 ft of new flooring, we will live in just the upstairs at first.
- cabinets painted and put back together
- skylights installed
- new patio doors in place
- gas turned on
- deep clean the entire house
- pack all our crap and then move it.
- clean our old house

So, we will be keeping up this frantic pace for a few more weeks! If you need something photo related, please just email me. I will get to it, I WILL. If you need anything else call me or talk to me in November. Not even kidding.

And yes it will be worth it. And yes, we think this kind of thing is fun, mostly. But seriously we will take any help we can get with the hole drywall extrication and reapplication business. ANY.

the wagon series

may 2008 - newborn

august 2008 - 3 months

november 2008 - 6 months

february 2009 - 9 months

march 2009 - 10 months

september 2009 - sweet sixteen months

My daughter has been shoved in a wagon every couple months since her birth, it's been an interesting way to chart her growth as well as the seasons. I think this will be the end of the series as she wants to move and do her own thing now. :) My girl has attitude.

bright yellow sink

We have no less than a half dozen friends mid move, and a few have said that our housing perils make them feel better about,say,ugly wallpaper. So a quick update.

Our current home: this old house
-After some stern words and a early morning visit to our insurance company, an adjuster came out from the big D just to see us and voila, and our insurance will completely cover a new roof for the house and the garage. Woohoo!
- The roofers come in just a few hours, we are planning a day out to avoid the hammering.
- Closing got moves back on the buyers realization that the closing date was Labor Day. So we got an extra week to get things worked out without asking for it. God provides.

The new house: the money pit
-I am just waiting to hear our closing has been moved back because there is a surprising lack of little orange flags on the property meaning no survey has been done yet. But, as Hubs say... there are 3.5 more working days left until we close.
-We have met our new neighbors, all very nice and helpful, and discovered that the small side yard we had slated is really... well... not ours. It's quite confusing since the 2 properties have always shared the lot in the middle even though neither of the homeowners own the lot.
- The spending has already begun, a new dishwasher, freezer, and 15 gallons of premium white paint, and $1400 later.... Home Depot and Lowes are our new date spots. Sad, but true.

* yes, I will soon be the lucky owner of that lovely yellow sink and the even lovelier faux blue marble countertops. I am a lucky girl!

he is ok.

Last night was a typical night around our house. Hubs went off to work, I entertained the kiddos until bedtime finally and mercifully arrived and enjoyed a couple hours of editing and then headed off the bed to watch snl. It was a rerun, so I flipped it off and fell asleep.

ding-dong

11:30pm

Agh. I HATE it when our drunk neighbors randomly ring our doorbell in the middle of the night. I peek out our bedroom window and see what every firefighters wife dreads.

A big red engine, no lights on. Quiet.

My heart started racing as fumbled around to get to the door. Please God no.

I opened the door and there stood the rest of my husbands crew, without him.

No, no, no.

Thankfully, his lieutenant was quick to say "Your husband is ok. He is ok. He is in the ER, but it's minor... he just overheated after a fire."

They reassured me they would check on him, offered to find someone to help with the kids, gave me hug and went off the hospital to check on him with a promise to call me with an update. They would have called rather than scaring me to death, but they didn't have my number.

I just stood there shaking for a few minutes. So thankful to God he was ok, but so shaken by how quickly my world could have flipped upside down.

I looked around my house... total disarray. Boxes half packed, dirty sippy cubs in the sink, random toys and other kid stuff strewn all over the house. A mountain of folded laundry and a mountain of dirty laundry. My kids are sound asleep. Can you even take kids to the ER? I have no idea, the only reason we ever go to the ER is because of the kids. I scan the list of people on facebook chat. Several who live out of town, a single mom on the other side of town, and a photographer I barely know but whom lives very close. We don't have family in town, and only have a few close friends who I would unashamedly ask to come sleep on my couch in my messy house. Most of them are out of town for the weekend or have guests or would have to leave their own kids alone to come help. So, I called a friend, no answer..... but come on it's nearly midnight by now, we should all be asleep! So I prayed for peace, for an update, for his safety.

Within 5 minutes, the phone rang. It was my husband. He said he was fine, he sounded fine, he said not to worry, and not to come to the hospital, and not to wake the kids up. Thankfully, he really was fine and was home a couple hours later. He had been running on the treadmill at work for an hour (or more) when they got called to a fire. It wasn't a very big fire, but it still required them to do a bunch of physical hose dragging and whatever else they do on scene. He started feeling lousy, took a break, tried to go back to fighting the fire, but still felt lousy, got dizzy, and possibly blacked out a little. So, they took him to the hospital, ambulance and all, to get checked out. 2 bags of fluid later he was good to go. No big deal to him. He was just mad he had to take the rest of the shift off, he would have loved to go back to work.

I am ashamed my response was to worry about inconviencing others or what they would think of my less than tidy house rather than saying I need to be with my husband no matter what. Sometimes living life with other people means they see the messy side of your life. It might mean waking up a friend and seeing them stumble over to your house to watch your kids or letting go of the little stuff.

Anyways. He is ok. He slept till 10:30am (the kids and I snuck out to church) and looked like he had a bad hangover combined with the flu but is just tired. Another day and he will be back to normal.

*sorry, that was really long. if you read all of that you deserve a treat!

simply family.

I have had the pleasure of knowing this family for years and the last couple years counting them among my friends. The more time I spend with this family, the more I like them. :) Their session was filled with laughter and silliness, with only the occasional complaint (when is dinner? is it now?) and only one little tiff between the boys. I think that is pretty good for a late evening session! The youngest had to do a little impromptu roll in the grass to celebrate the end of the session and DINNER. :)