Happy Halloween!!!!

Halloween is the Best!!!! The costumes and the candy and the pumpkin carving....love it! So here are a few pics of my little stinkers in their Halloween garb..about to embark on the two hour candy hunt! Seriously...they were out for a long time this year...partly because it was warm, and also because they are getting older.
I got to stay home and pass out the candy. I love to see all the little kids especially the ones that are too scared to come to the door because of the scarecrow that sits on the porch...they are my favorite.
Now I am left wondering....how much of this candy would my kids miss if I throw it away?

shhhhh...don't tell!

It's my favorite time of year again...you know when there's a little nip in the air and its perfect sweater weather! We go up every year to Snowbird for Oktoberfest...and oh how I love it. The German food, the polka dancing...and oh yes the chicken dance! This is one tradition that I will never let go...no matter how old my kids get and how lame they think it is...never, do you hear me!!!!

This year there was quite a bit of snow on the ground and we had a great snowball fight. I love that every year is different. I always channel the days when I was going up with Jr high and high school friends...then college...Joe and I before kids and every year as we added a new kid to the family.
All those years live in me and come back to me when I am there. Its like you are all there with me. I know that I am sounding more than a little corney here...but that's how much I love it.

So to all of you that share my memories and love to shake your chicken wings on the dance floor at Snowbird....I say...


There's just nothing like a Mormon at a beer festival!!!!

Rocky Mountian National Park

We took a trip this month out to Colorado with the family.. I wish I could say the whole family, but my sister Sarah was toooo prego to make the trip. But John and Carrie came from Kansas City and Megan and Chris came up from Shiprock and we all had a great.....cold.....rainy weekend at the park!


The cousins...


We took the kids rock climbing and had a great hike up to the cliffs. The sun was out for awhile but only long enough for my three nieces to climb and then the rain started pouring down. We had to abort mission.. But Anna,Hailey and Eden did a great job on the rocks!







Addison had a breakdown about something...I can't even remember what it was....She informed me that she did not like our family and she was leaving. She told me that she would get a servant to feed her breakfast lunch and dinner..which she would pay for with her "kid job" answering phones at "the office"!
She said she could not wait until all her dreams could come true and she could move out!


I can't wait until she's a teen-ager! :)

Where have I been?

I have really been neglecting this blog lately, and since I do not want to stop doing it altogether, I decided that at least once a week I could update and try to look at other peoples blogs as well.
At the end of April I went back to work full-time. It was so hard for me and I have hated every moment of it! I get up every morning at 4:30 to get to work by 5:30! I swear that no one on earth should have to be up that early.
I have also been trying to keep up with my photography on the side and so that adds another part time job to the mix and with three kids and Joe I am pooped!!!!!....
So I just read what I wrote and I am sounding like a big tantrumy baby.. enough...

Angie and I went to Vegas a couple of weeks ago and did a mentoring session with a photographer named Erin Fonnesbeck. She is so good and I learned so much from her. We did a wedding a week or two ago and I really feel like I took so much of what I learned from her and used it on this shoot. I wanted to post some of the pictures that I took here and ask you all to head to the whimsypix.blogspot.com and take a look and what Ang and I have been doing! Leave a comment if you can because we are trying to get as much buzz as possible to keep the business coming our way. Anyway....Im baaack!

The Big 5

My Sweet,Precious,Adorable,Defiant BABY turned five on Monday! I can't believe it! I asked her on her birthday if she felt like she was five, and she said. "I feel a little bit five, but mostly I feel just like I did yesterday." She is the best kid! I have so much fun with Addison. She has her moments, and I think I have told some of you about her phase where she was asking everyone that came over, What the hell are you doing here. She is a firecraker and she fills my days with pure joy. I love you Addison, Happy Birthday!

Happy Easter!

Easter Sunday 2009


This weekend we had told the girls that we would take them camping. When it came right down to it, we decided that we could not afford to pull the trailer anywhere this weekend. So we camped out in the trailer 10 feet away from the house! We had so much fun. We had a fire pit, so we had a fire and made smores. Talked and laughed around the fire till it was much too late and then we all slept in the trailer. It was a little odd to replace the sounds of crikets and frogs and other outdoor camping noises with the neighborhood dog pack and the train, but it worked.
The girls can have fun anywhere and I am so glad that they are little enough not to have to realize what this economy has done to our budget. They don't care where they are as long as we are all together. Love that about them.. because I tend to stress and pout about the lack of money. What can I say those girls are always teaching me something!

Teenage mutant ninja Carly

I was just looking through some pictures today and I came across this photo of my girls. I had to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it! Then I must admit it made me sad. My girl are growing up so fast. How much longer will I have little children that dress up like teenage mutant ninja turtles and ride their motorcycle bike, with a ski helmet and goggles on. Or wear their princess shoes around pushing a naked doll in a stroller, or wear a ponytail directly on top of their head?!!!!
It makes me want to try harder to make sure that I don't take any of these moments for granted, because Carly is already grown out of this stuff and I know the other two are right behind her. I am so grateful for my girls....oh why do they have to grow up??

Oh Baby....Oh Baby!!!

Wow! I can't really put into words the feeling of leaving cold,rainy,snowy Utah for the warm shores of Hawaii. What a trip! We flew out last week with my Dad, Megan and Chris to Oahu for a little vacation. I forgot how much I love that island. The ocean is just so beautiful and blue and although I have a good healthy fear of it, I also love when it picks me up and slams me down into the sand to take me for a ride! I love to play in the waves!
We did a lot of snorkeling and bogey boarding. Joe took a surfing lesson and we went on a sail boat ride. I saw a shark swimming near our boat. Not a little shark... no..no.. the kind of encounter that Emily Anderson would have had to be revived after her heart stopped kind of encounter! We saw whales and turtles,octopus and lots and lots of beautiful fish.
I am posting a few pictures and I am being very(underline very) brave by posting a couple of me in my swimming suit. I know not very many people even know about this blog, so if you are looking then you should already love me anyway!
I wish you all could have been there! I have to say a huge thank you to our Moms who took care of the kids and on top of that cleaned my house and washed and folded all the clothes! No one, and I mean no one, is as lucky as I am in the Mom and Mother in law department..


I will be dreaming of you North Shore, until we meet again.....

No...Not Again!

I feel like all my posts have been about Paige lately, but what can I do, some kids just know how to make a good story. A couple of years ago Paige broke her arm jumping on the tramp with Joe. It was our first broken anything and she handled it like a champ. This last week, I guess she just needed something to do and so she decided to do it again!! She was sitting at the table coloring(i mean how much more ridiculous can it get) and she fell off the bench and put her arm out to catch her fall. She cried for a little while and I knew it was hurt, but I thought I would watch it for awhile to see it was o.k. Well I went to work that night and asked one of the E.R. nurses about it and she told me to watch her the next day to see if she seemed like she was still in pain.
Now to defend myself here I work in an emergency room and 90% of people that check in to the E.R. are not emergencies and are part of the reason the rest of us pay so much in insurance premium. (that is a topic for a completely different day). So I am a little less likely to run my kids to the doctor screaming help.. In this case however I waited until Monday-two days later-to take her to a doc. Now don't I feel like mother of the year when they tell me that she has a buckle fracture and needs a cast. I hope my children do not grow up and write a book about me and what a neglectful mom I was!!! Love you Paige.....but lets not go for number 3!!!

Amy Here you go. Let me know what you think! I can't believe you think you are not photogenic! You are a crazy woman. these pics are beautiful.

Shaw Family Take a Kid Skiing Day!!!

This Saturday we took our girls and Ezra, Megan,Chris and Grandpa up to Deer Valley for a big family ski day. We had such a good time! The kids did a great job. Little Ezra,my nephew, was a little hot dog. He was screaming down those runs like you would not believe. Carly took a run or two to warm up, but was soon asking Joe to take her over to the terrain park for more action. Paige was her usual cautious self but was skiing smooth as butter (and is probably going to be better than all of us someday). Addison is who she is and very like her Mom. She was skiing as fast as she possible could and was almost always out of control. It was one of the best ski days I have ever had. I loved watching the girls have so much fun and finally beginning to see what our ski days in the future will be like. We were the last ones off the mountain, and I think all the adults were worn out...and then some. The kids were sad to have to leave! What a beautiful snowbird ski day.