Brainstorming...

Well my friends, I think the time has come for me to set up a separate website to show any pictures that I am taking that are not Lorelai- related. For those of you who don't know, I am seriously and prayerfully considering starting my own (not full-time) photography business sometime next year. I have found someone who is (crazy enough) sweet enough to mentor me and help sharpen my skills and I'm going to be practicing alot this summer. One Problem! I want this new website to have the name of my possible-future-photography-business, and I have yet to think of a name! I have a pretty good one that I'm really, really liking, but it was suggested to me to try and incorporate "Little" into the title since it is a fun last name. And, I've got NOTHING. Anyone have any suggestions? You won't win anything....except my eternal gratitude :) Let me know some ideas, you creative people, you! (p.s. your ideas do not necessarily have to have "little" in them)

Go team!

Beach Buddies!

This past weekend we had our first chance to slip away to the beach house with a couple of friends for the weekend since Ike hit. It was crazy to see how destroyed the island still was, but I know it had to look better than it did those first couple of months! Driving down Bob Smith in Jamaica Beach there were sooooo many houses with sagging decks, caved in roofs, some were even crumbled to the ground. My father-in-law's beach house is in recovery mode and was fully functional, but it just didn't look the same (yet, that is....contractor is at work!) Anyways- our friends from church, Jared and Amanda and daughter Peyton who is a few months older than Lorelai came with us and it was SO cute to see the girls play together! Peyton is SOOOOO energetic (seriously Amanda....how do you do it???) Lorelai has her crazy moments and is quite a quirky child, but energetic she is not! She would just stand there watching Peyton run around and smile at her- free entertainment! Peyton loooooooved "WorWie" (Lorelai) and Lorelai loooooooved PeyPey. At one point, Amanda and I were cooking in the kitchen and looked over to see the girls just standing there in a hug, looking out the window. Priceless. (No, I didn't get a pic- these kids are fast. I did get a hug picture at the beach, though!) At one point, the girls were eating snacks and Peyton decided she wanted to sample some of what Lorelai was eating. Lorelai is pretty possessive of her food and has learned to defend herself from the dogs trying to eat food out of her hands....and so she spent most of the rest of the weekend, very authoratively telling Peyton "no! No! NO!" It was cute. We did manage to run down to the beach for a couple of hours Saturday in between passing rainclouds.







*Friends*


"You tell anyone about this- let's just say, I'll have my people take care of you."

Sweet little Peyton


This was the first beach trip Lorelai has ever been on that did NOT involve an ear infection (twice last summer...) and she loved every minute of it! Shawn and I swam out knee-deep with her and played in the waves- she would laugh and laugh when the waves crashed in front of her, and as soon as that wave was gone- she would do her sign language and say "more? more? more?" It was SO cute. My little beach babe!

NO TRESPASSING

....is what the sign (that we ignored) said. Hey, Lindsay and I tried to knock on these people's front door and ask permission....but they weren't home. So, naturally, we pretended we didn't see the signs (there were three of them...) and took pictures anyway. HA! We went way too early in the afternoon, so we didn't get a whole lot of good ones, but we got a few:





On the way home, I was feeling inspired, and remembered Lindsay had told me about a spot that wasn't too far. So, naturally, I kept going. The suitcase featured in this pictures was given to me by my Grandma Shirle for my birthday (It was her high-school graduation present!) and I thought this was a cool way to incorporate it into our life. (Don't worry Grandma, we were very careful with it!) Lorelai just sat so sweetly and let me snap away...

Post numero Uno

Okay, so i know many of you have been patiently waiting for me to post pics of our new kitchen, and yesterday, for some reason, the stars aligned: the kitchen was clean, and I had a second to grab my camera. Here it is!



Beautiful.
I LOVE cooking in this place. When the sink is empty. And the counters are clean.

Next up: naked Lorelai on the deck! Shawn was outside watering the plants, and Lorelai decided to help out. She had already gotten herself soaked, so i stripped her down and let her have a little toddler fun.



Next up: trespassing in the name of wildflowers and vintage luggage!

Practice Makes Perfect...

Okay, so I know these are just flowers. They cannot compare to my beautiful, big-eyed child. But, c'mon. LOOK at these. I went in the backyard while Lorelai was napping today to practice on my new camera, and I'm only posting the SOOC (straight-out-of-camera....meaning they have NOT been altered in photoshop or any other program) shots I took. It was a little tricky because there were passing clouds that decided to mess with my shutter speed/ISO settings. I just considered it a pop quiz. :)




and here's one of my little ant friend that decided to make a surprise appearance...


But seriously- check out my previous post of my beauty in black-and-white...

A Picture....

...is worth a thousand words.

New Camera...

I. Love. My. New. Camera. LOVE it. It is one of the best birthday presents I have ever received, and am so grateful to have a husband that supports my hobby/possible future (Wayyyyyyy far future) profession!

We've been super busy the past couple of weeks so I haven't had too much time to play around with it, but here are a few sweet pics of the little lady I had to share:

Baby Girl's Best Friend...

Lorelai loves her "doggies," but Lance in particular is her favorite. She especially loves torturing him, probably because he endures it with love and patience! I frequently catch her beating the dogs with whatever object she can get her hands on, yanking hard on their tails, grabbing their legs, pulling their ears, etc. Clementine usually runs as soon as she sees Lorelai coming, but Lance... he loves her. He will take it. If the torture becomes especially strenuous, I will catch him growling in a painful way. I got worried when i heard him do this the first time because he is usually such a sweet dog, I didn't know what he'd do when put to the test. I saw him looking the other way, wincing, then growling.... then finally, when I thought he'd reached his limit and was going to snap at her, I moved forward to intervene... (I usually command her to be Gentle to the puppies when she beats them, but I really wanted to know what he would do...)
Before I could get between the two of them, I saw Lance lunge for Lorelai's face. and that vicious, vicious dog retaliated by... LICKING her! Sweetest dog ever. He just kept licking her face til she stopped, and I've never worried about them since.

Here's some pictures I caught of them just today:

She was holding the phone to his ear and saying "helloooooooooo!"

(sorry for the blurry pics...I was just trying to capture the moment!)

This next one was SUPER funny because she had him cornered in the office and was trying SO hard to get Shawn's hat on his head. Every time he ran she would just giggle and chase him!


And all you haters out there can call it gross that I let him lick her, but seriously. This dog just LOVES her. How could I get between that?

(and no, her mouth is NOT open. That is gross. I usually discourage licking on the face.)

I know Shawn loves Lance, but I think Lorelai is Lances favorite. Sorry honey.