So much for my sigh of relief...

Well...I just thought we were finished with the stomach bug. Last night Maggie started throwing up again...and then Rusty was next. Right now he has a high fever, chills, and all the works. It's awful. This is obviously a really very bad virus. I'm praying it leaves our family soon!!!!

Sigh of relief!!!

Whew!! We had a few more puking episodes this week, but thankfully Rusty and I were both able to photograph the wedding today without being sick!! :) It was a beautiful ceremony with a wonderful group of people. The groom's Dad is a preacher and he married them through his tears! It was so sweet! Two great families to work with today! We are blessed!

Unfortunately everyone is getting the sore throat, coughing, sneezing, achy, have a fever blues around here now! As if puking wasn't fun enough, now we are adding colds to the mix! I probably started that one with my horrible sore throat last week. So...anyway, just wanted to update those who were curious that YES we did get to photograph the wedding. (and special thanks to Denise who was on emergency back up for me just in case!! It is so wonderful to have photographer friends you can really count on when you need them most!)

I have no pictures to post.
Well, I do, but I have no time to post them!
Story of my life ;)
~m

Celebrating 10 years of marriage! :)

Today is our 10 year wedding anniversary! I simply cannot believe 10 YEARS have gone by this quickly! In certain ways I feel like it has been so fast, and in other ways I feel like I have been with Rusty my whole life! (in a good way!) Today we are having our pictures taken at the very place where we met 10 years ago! I'm so excited and can't wait to have this day documented! This has been 10 years full of wonderful memories and I am so thankful God has kept us together and continues to bless our marriage. I have made lots of mistakes and done lots of learning and growing up over the years and I am so thankful that Rusty has stuck with me! I truly mean our vows that we said to each other so much more now that I really understand them. I thought I meant them then, but I was 19 when we married. I couldn't wait to be Rusty's wife...and I don't regret marrying young at all...but I have learned so much since those days and understand what we vowed to each other so much more now! Our communication is so much better with each other today than it was in 1999! ;) Our love is stronger every year that passes and I am so grateful for the day I met Rusty!

Here are some photos from our little anniversary trip we took last weekend.

walking along the Strand...




We have stopped and taken a picture in this place before...I wish I could find the old one to post...but it isn't on this computer.


being silly ;)


Having a snack at Starbucks on the Strand...


I love this silly man ;)










We were in Galveston and the blue mark above Rusty's head is the water line from when Hurricane Ike hit....It was so strange to be walking along the streets that were once COVERED in water...


We love to go to all the antique shops out there. I found these letters for sale in a basket and put them all together like this ;)



We stopped at one of the souvenir shops to get the kids a little something. This big shark was on the wall and Rusty couldn't resist.... ;)


I took more photos on the Strand, but I don't have time to go through them right now.

Happy Anniversary Russell Wayne! :)

******************************************************************************
Updated to add:

Well, we were SUPPOSED to be having our pictures taken on our anniversary today...BUT little Miss Maggie is throwing up :( Levi started the bug at the beginning of the week and now it is Maggie's turn. I am scared to death because Rusty and I are photographing a wedding on Sunday and I am terrified we will get sick!!! Everyone please pray right now that if it be the Lord's will that we would be able to photograph this wedding without being sick! If it must happen, please let it be before or after the day of the wedding!! I'm so scared! Anyway...poor little Maggie Rayne. She's such a little trooper. She didn't even cry. Mia on the other hand is about to have a heart attack. She is so freaked out! The minute Levi threw up the other day she was bawling, and now with Maggie sick it's almost too much for Mia to take!!! She was screaming in the living room while I was with Maggie in the bathroom! She's not even the one that is sick but she is being the biggest handful right now! lol She gets scared so easily. She knows that when a stomach bug is around that usually means we will all get it and she is not excited about that. Neither am I!!!!!

So....anyway, happy anniversary....celebrating at home with puking babies....isn't that the story of life!? ;)

~m

My boy's best friend...

Levi loves his stuffed cat. Actually he loves 2 stuffed cats. They are twins! ;) When we went to Tennessee a few months ago we brought these 2 cats back for Mia and Maggie. They were pretty happy with them, but they ended up at the bottom of the stuff animal pile on their bed! Levi somewhere along the way became really attached to these little cats! He calls them both "Mow" and wants to have them BOTH with him at all times and especially in his bed at night! When I'm rocking him he wants to hold them both (along with his "PupPup") and he will hold the tags and feel them with his fingers. (Maggie used to do this with everything!) Anyway, I finally got a few pictures of him carrying around his little best friend Mow. ;) If he has one in his hand the other one isn't far from him! When I get him out of bed in the mornings he wants to take them both with him! He says "Bye Pup Pup..." but he will grab both of the cats and say "My Mow" and hug them with a huge smile! :)



kisses for Mow...


If you notice, one kitty lost his whiskers so they aren't identical twins anymore! ;) I think they were removed by a certain little boy...but we'll never know for sure I guess!


He had been walking around in a hat for no real reason at all. He loves putting on hats. He will grab one and say "OH HAT!!!" and put it on and give a silly grin! If you look closely you will see Mow in his hand! He is so stinkin cute! :) For Halloween we had these little buckets that my Aunt bought for the kids to carry candy in and he only wanted to wear his on his head!!! lol



Just a side note, he has started to talk quite a bit! My absolute favorite thing he says is "I lull loo too" :) (I love you too!)

~m

Happy Halloween :)

Because I will never have the time to do anything with these pictures the way I would want to, I'm up at midnight posting a few snapshots to the blog from our night! (BUT at least I get to set my clock back...so instead of 12:45, it's 11:45!) ;)

Anyway, this year we all dressed up! Rusty's side of the family had a little get together and everyone was supposed to dress up. We had no idea what to be, but Rusty suggested that we go as Loretta Lynn and her hubby Doolittle! We always joke about some of the lines that came from that movie ("Stop a-makin' that noise, you're growlin' like an ol' bear or somthin'") and so we thought it would be funny to dress up as them! I look RIDICULOUS, but it's all in fun! ;) Anyway, we grabbed a quick family photo: (are you ready for a good laugh?!)....



Mia is Queen Esther from the Bible, Maggie is a "God's girl" that is called Princess Sarah (God's girls are like a Christian Barbie and she has Princess Sarah and loves her!) and Levi is Charlie Brown! :)

The 3 of them were none too interested in taking a group photo together (of course) I do have some individuals I will post of them later, but no time to go through all of them tonight.


And last a photo of Loretta and her Doolittle! ;) LOL! I crack up laughing every single time I see this picture!! It is SO funny!! We made silly faces on purpose but I had no idea how hilarious I looked in that wig and hat until I saw this! I'm actually wearing a dress that my Moma wore when she was in a band with my Dad in the early 80's! ;) It's authentic! The hat I'm wearing was my Dad's when he traveled in Canada playing music. Rusty's hat was my Papa's. ;) I didn't keep this wig on all night. It was so uncomfortable! I took it off after a little while and just went with my normal hair and hat! ;) It was pretty funny dressing up with the kids on Halloween this year! Mia loved that we dressed up! She kept wanting us to talk in character and she kept saying "Come on Loretta, let's go!" :)



Hope everyone got a good laugh out of this post! ;)
Goodnight!!!
~m

Update...

So, I haven't blogged in weeks....here's some recent things happening:

1. My glasses broke in 1/2 yesterday! Yes. In 1/2! I kept the old ones, so I've been readjusting to them again!

2. Luke is now an outside pup. I'm much happier about it, but I'm pretty sure he hates it. This makes me sad. He was chewing everything in the house and was not interested in potty training. Our house was pretty smelly. He's cute, but he stinks. He has a nice little home on our deck...but I just don't know if it is working out. We don't have a fenced yard, so we aren't sure what the plans for little Luke are. :(

3. Maggie wants to be a photographer. She asks to take pictures with my camera every single day. I gave her my old camera the other day and let her go crazy with it! She had the best time taking pictures of everything. When I realized that she filled up a card within about 5 minutes I knew she was taking after her Moma! :) I need to go through the hundreds of pictures she took and post some! She has a great eye! ;)

4. Mia is doing GREAT in school! She loves it! We are all having lots of fun with it and despite the daily challenges, it is going much better than I thought it might! ;)

5. Levi wants to play with his "sissies" all the time now! He can be heard through the house calling "Sissy...c'mon!" It's SO cute! Last night they all 3 held hands and ran through the house back and forth for about 45 solid minutes! They were running and giggling and making each other fall. It was the cutest thing ever! They were all HOLDING HANDS! So sweet. He has started to say "Me-muh" for Mia and "Mah-me" for Maggie. Too cute ;)

Here are a few random pictures ;)

A Friday family day in the yard. This was a good day. Perfect weather! The puppy was happy because we were all outside playing with him. The kids rode in the little car Mia got for her bday. They played baseball. They rolled in the grass. Maggie took pictures. We all laughed, hugged, and loved each other all afternoon. Great day!


My babies! :) Mag with my old camera in hand!


Last weekend my big brother and his clan came in for a quick visit. I think this was the first time all of the grandkids were together in the same room! We attempted a few group shots! ;)


I am officially drowning in work. I have NO idea why I am sitting here blogging. I miss blogging though. I miss doing things because I WANT TO. I have been editing every night until way too late. It's not really fun. I love photography and I even love editing....BUT not when I have MONTHS worth of work piled up waiting on me. I hate that. It stresses me out. I can't sleep. I'm constantly thinking about how behind I am. I now know that I just overbooked myself this year. No one person can handle this amount of work and stay sane. It's just so hard to say no when people are asking for me to take pictures! I love it and I hate turning people away! BUT...what I don't love is being in way over my head. (So much that I start to hate what I used to love!) So, I am learning how to say no. My problem is that I am still editing things that I shot months ago, while still continuing to shoot more...just adding to the madness!! I need to get caught up in a seriously bad way and then stop booking so much. period. SO...why am I still writing this blog?! I don't know.

~m

Finally a blog!! :)

Well, here I am on Friday...finally blogging! :) Here's just a few random photos and stories from the last week or so!

Maggie REALLY loves Luke! She carries this puppy around all the time! I am pretty sure they are best friends. (At least MAGGIE thinks so!) If she's not holding him then he's chasing her all around the house. You can hear her giggle and Luke bark and the giggles just keep on! I'm surprised she hasn't dressed him up yet. I'm waiting for that one! ;)


Just a side note...Moma isn't so much in love with Luke anymore! ;) He isn't the best at potty training and I just don't have the patience for that! I'm pretty sure that Luke will be finding a nice little dog house just for him on our deck OUTSIDE very soon! ;)

Mia is such a creative child! She has the most vivid imagination. The other day I heard her talking about her laptop (she said it was a Toshiba!) and how she was going to be playing games on it. I went to see what she had come up with. She designed her very own "play" laptop using one of my old photo albums. She created a video game and pretends to play it all the time. It is the cutest thing! ;) She is writing a story in our school time called "Adventures of Andrew the Apple." We add a little to it each week. She has even written a little theme song to her story! We all sing it! It's really catchy! (Too much really, it gets stuck in our heads and we are singing it in our sleep!) I will be sharing all that more later. She is convinced that when we are done with this book we will be dropping it off to the library for people to check out and read! :) Anyway, I mentioned all that because her video game is about her Andrew character. Here are some photos from this morning of her new creation. (She made one for her little sister too!)




You'll see that Luke has gotten a hold of this a couple times and chewed on the end!


She's so cute! :)


Maggie is growing up...look how old she looks here! Don't you love her hair? lol She has a new love of wearing her hair DOWN. She always asks to wear it down now. It doesn't do so great down! ;) It's just a "little" crazy! I'm not sure I know quite how to tame that head of hair she's got! I've had nothing but straight hair my whole life and I have no clue how to handle curls! She's SO cute no matter what though! :) I think the crazy hair just adds to her personality and I love it! :)




Daddy with all the babies one morning last week. That's our favorite chair because almost everyone fits in it at one time! ;)


My little man. He's growing up fast too! I love this boy ;) He was watching it rain one day last week. He loves to go outside, but unfortunately the mosquitoes have been SO BAD. We can't even open the door without being attacked! Poor baby! The weather is beautiful today though and we will be playing outside!! :)


Last one for now...the 3 kiddos sitting in our chair early this morning. Sometimes they actually like to sit together and be sweet! I love those moments ;)


and there's your weekly Fuller update ;)
~m