Jayhawk Nostalgia

Picture by Nick Krug from ljworld.com

I'm a Kansas Jayhawk's basketball fan.

In college I was extreme.

I went to almost every game.

I would sit for hours waiting to get in, or better yet,

I would sit by some nice guy who sat for hours to get in.

I wore the Jayhawk tattoo on my cheek during the games.

I was thrown up during the Jayhawk cheer, before it got banned.

If the game was close near the end, I would close my eyes until I would hear cheers.

One of the games in the early 90's when we played Indiana, I nearly passed out for screaming so loud after Jacque Vaughn hit a three point shot winning the game.

yeah... that was me.

So yesterday when a friend of mine ask me if I wanted to go to last night's KU game,

I was on it!

Called my hubby, called the baby sitter.

Bam. I was going.

Nostalgia.

The last time I went to a KU game was after my daughter was born.

During the scoreboard introduction, I cried.

Yes, cried. Yes, I cry a lot since having kids, but during the intro to the start of the game?

Having kids, I forgot a piece of me.

I piece of me that loved sports, loved KU basketball.

It brought me to tears, because I remembered. I liked that part of me.

Last night I didn't cry, I had a lump in my throat during the introduction,

but I didn't cry. The intro is that good.

The game was great. I enjoyed it with some wonderful gals.

I love KU basketball.

I'm not the fanatic, like I once was.

I'm okay with that.

Memorable Christmas

I hope your Christmas was enjoyable and full of memories.

Ours was. Here's a recap:

Spent Christmas Eve at my sisters and did the traditional open gifts containing

pajamas and games.

Once everyone got into their pajamas we played games.

Then drove home to grandpas in the snow.

*

Christmas morning:

My kids woke up bright and early as usual ready to open their gifts.

The rest of the day was spent with my family (my sisters and their family).

My most memorable things about Christmas 09
1. Driving from my sisters to my dad's home. The roads had a layer of ice and then 5-6 inches of snow on the roads. We counted 20 cars in the ditches. My dad and husband pulled over a few times to help people stuck in the snow. A usually 25 minute drive was well over an hour.
2. My sister driving my van and her comment to her daughter. (Total inside joke)
3. Waking up the day after Christmas seeing my son attempting to disassemble his skateboard to make a snowboard. Sounded logical with all the snow outside.
4. My dad's response when I told him, my daughter wanted a pink toolbox, a real toolbox with tools like her dad's but only pink. My daughter's response once she opened the toolbox, "Where's some wood."
5. Returning home to find 2 -3 feet snow drifts in our driveway.

Grateful

I am so grateful for all the families that entrusted me this year with their family's/children's pictures. It has been an honor. I really love what I do!

Here is a year in review of some of my favorite pics.

I have been blessed! - Jen

Merry Christmas

Thankful for the many blessings this year.

Praying that everyone will see God's glory this Christmas.

If you missed the making of this card, check this out.

I'm going to be away spending time with my family.

I hope everyone enjoys their Christmas with loved ones.

Give your family a squeeze. - Jen

The princess cake

Confession: When it comes to most of my creative ideas,

it's usually a spoof off of someone else's idea.

Like this princess cake:

There is no way I would have been able to think of this on my own.
Plus I used the help of this YouTube tutorial for a princess cake.

The good:
1. Pampered chef's mixing bowl worked wonders for the top of the dress.
2. Cutting a hole in each cake was a brilliant idea before inserting the doll.
3. Purchasing a cheap plastic dressed Barbie helped immensely.
4. First time I ever did the "crumb" layer frosting thing. I'll do that again.
5. Doing the swirly things to the frosting helped when hit with the bad.....

The bad:
1. Since my daughter has an aversion to red dye, I tried frozen black berries to make the frosting pink and purple.
a. I used up 2 cups of blackberries to get the desired colors - that's a lot of mixing.
b. The "purple" icing became too runny. I didn't realize it until after I placed it in the bag to
pipe the designs. It leaked out of the decorating tip and onto my counter.
c. Placing powdered sugar in the runny bag of icing is a bad idea. I had clumps of powdered
sugar while I was trying to decorate the dress. Next time I will get a whole new bag and start all over.
d. The purple icing never got to the desire consistency to pipe the designs. Oh well.
2. I put the cake in the freezer with the "crumb" layer frosting and the wax paper. The wax paper was suppose to be taken out before to help eliminate the frosting mess. The wax paper stuck to the cake! Sigh.......


I believe the good prevailed.

Princess superhero birthday

My girl had a princess superhero birthday party filled with little girls in princess costumes, kingly boys sporting superhero capes ready to save the day. It was a dancing, balloon tossing, candle blowing, cake eating 4 year old birthday party. Love you my little princess- mom

**

If interested I may tell the story behind this princess birthday cake.

brrrr

It's our first official snowfall with a school closing.

Actually not much snow, maybe an inch or two

But absolutely freezing!

Today's high 13 degrees, Tonight's low -4

My son is currently playing outside in the snow.

My girl and I decided the warm house was a much better choice after 5 minutes outdoors.

I like to be warm.

The scene behind my kids Christmas card photo shoot

This is how our last minute Christmas card photo shoot went since I decided I didn't want any of the gazillion pictures that I have of my kids this past year.
In order of events:

3:15 Pick up son from school. Realize my daughter is asleep. Deep sigh.
3:30 Arrive home. Tell son that I need a big favor and would like to do a photo shoot after he relaxes and eat a snack. Try to wake up daughter. No use.
4:00 Place props and camera in car.
4:10 Tell son to get on his photo shoot clothes. Realizing that he will grumble about the outfit, I immediately tell him that he can change his clothes after the photo shoot, and he will get something sweet for his modeling job.
4:12 Pick daughter up from her sleeping state and place her on the toilet. Hoping that she will go since I know she will need to in the near future. No such luck.
4:14 Dress, brush and curl daughter's hair while she is laying on her bed still wanting to sleep.
4:15 Load kids in the car.
4:25 Unload props at an uninhabited home.
4:26 Kids complain its too cold.
4:27 Daughter says she need to go the bathroom. Exhibit A:

4:28 Attempt to help daughter use the bathroom outside. Again no such luck.

4:30 Quickly take some pictures.

4:32 My heart races as a cop car siren goes off. I think I'm in trouble since I am trespassing on private property. The cop car races by. Whew.

4:33 Load up kids, props, and camera in car.

4:34 After driving 1/2 mile, daughter pipes up and says she is not buckled.

4:34 2 second later Pull over and buckle her car seat.

4:44 Pull into home, let daughter use the bathroom.

4:46 Arrive at gas station, fill up, and let kids choose a sweet of their choice.

4:50 Let kids eat a donut before dinner.

Let's see if I can make lemonade out of lemons. To be continued...........

Just because

She's sweet, cute, funny, and beautiful.

And I don't know if she really knows it.

Truly knows it.

It's my prayer that my sweet niece will always see herself as how God sees her.

Holy and blameless in his sight.

"As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you."

Isaiah 62:5

I pray that she will not internalize criticism around her,

but will stand firm in the understanding that she is a child of God.
That is something I still struggle with,

but I hope she will learn it deep in her heart much sooner than I.

"In Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us." Romans 12:5-6

I pray that she discovers and embraces her God given talents

and encourages other to use their gifts as well.

God is and will continue to use my sweet niece.
He has great plans for her.



Lots of love- Aunt Jen

Give Thanks

"Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.

His love endures forever."

Counting my many blessings today.

Give your family a squeeze. -Jen

Could so easily be Gap models

These two boys are so stinkin cute.

I just could not get over it.

Their mom wanted something different than the "farm" look

since she had done that the last couple of years.

She suggested railroad tracks.

I was once again giddy. I just love finding new photo shoot locations.

I discovered an old train station/abandoned warehouse looking thing at a nearby town.

Score!

I love the oldest boy's expression in the above left photo.

The youngest boy gave me a huge compliment at the end of the photo shoot.

He told his mom that he loves getting his pictures taken.

Fun is what I'm after!

"B" family- I enjoyed meeting you. Your boys are so much fun! - Jen

Just the sisters

Here are some more pics of the family from the earlier post,

but this time just the sisters.

Adorable! Simply adorable!

Gold mine

One of my favorite parts of photography is discovering new places for photo shoots.

I get giddy when I find one. Really giddy!

I discovered one this past weekend.

As I was turning into the driveway of this lovely family's home,

I noticed very few trees, just acres of grassland.

hmmm...

Where was I going to take the pictures?
Then the lovely "S" told me that across the street,

there is a vacant home that we could possibly take photos.

Gold Mine!

I walked over. I was in heaven :)

I wonder how long this place is going to be vacant. I may need to go back over soon :)

Thanks "R" family. I'm still editing away. I will post some more photos of just the baby and sister soon, since it was "A" 3 month photos ;)

Fading Fall Colors

I'm already missing the fall colors.

Why does it go so fast?

These pics of my kids were taken after some fall mini photo shoots

a few weeks ago.

Pictures of my kids just make me smile.

Sister

While I was in town visiting family,

I took a few shots of my youngest sister's family.

My sister has such beautiful blue eyes:

Her daughter is pretty cute with those freckles!

I can't believe the "C" man is ten. He's almost as tall as me.

That can't be.

Sister- loved spending time with you. Thanks for laughing at my jokes! - Jen