Making Lemonade

Well, the heater in both the house and the van may be out (brrrrr...), and we may need a new transmission (among other things) to the tune of $6000 in the Pilot, but by golly, our tree is up. And we are happy! And that's all that counts... Right?

Motivational Monday - 11/29/10 Edition

From the "Inspiration" file on my iPhone, here's a thought that helps keep me going in the right direction!

Just keep going!

Decorating the Tree at Garner and Papa's!

Reality "Check!"

Or actually, more like Reality Checkmate! After several humbling games of "Chess With Friends," the over-inflated ego I had developed from playing so many games against a 7-year-old has been officially brought back down to size.

Turns out I don't really know anything about chess!! So here I am in Books-A-Million about to make a purchase. Maybe this will help! : )

Best. App. Ever!!!

Okay, Bear now has me officially hooked on Chess With Friends! Come challenge me if you dare... My username is "WildKori," and I haven't lost a game yet. : )

Let's play!!

Thankful for Thanksgiving!

Continuing my experiment with mobile blogging, here is an iPhone snapshot from our pinochle game down here in Mena with my parents and grandparents. I'm pretty sure I have the world's cutest pinochle partner, by the way. : ) It is so nice to have this time to relax with family!

Today we did all our holiday grocery shopping, watched a Hallmark Christmas movie and played a few games of cards. Tomorrow we are taking the kids to the Mid-America Museum in Hot Springs, and then we will start all of our holiday baking on Wednesday. I'm kind of in heaven! We really needed this break. 

I keep seeing people on Facebook talk about what they are thankful for. I don't know about you, but I am thankful for Thanksgiving! : )

Sent from my iPhone

Motivational Monday - 11/22/10 Edition

From the "Inspiration" file on my iPhone, here's a thought that helps keep me going in the right direction!

"Stop eating so much!" -The Man Show

Autumn is ready for our family hike.

You Decide!

Going "Gaga" for Jenn's Birthday!

Our friend Jennifer Holland recently hosted what was possibly the most awesome birthday bash I have ever been to... The Lady Gaga-themed soiree in honor of her 30th birthday was so fun and had so many amazingly well-thought out details. From the "Starstruck" martinis to the costume contest on the red carpet, she thought of everything to make the evening fun and fabulous for all the Gagas in attendance! Here are a few photos taken by "Paparazzi" Jason Hudson:


As you can see, Katy Perry was there...

And so was Ozzy Osbourne! (A very politically incorrect Kanye West showed up too, but I'll skip him for now! :)

Dave the bartender served up these delicious Starstruck martinis, complete with tiny floating sugar stars. So cute!





What's really sad is that I already owned everything in this ensemble except for the wig... And I only had to buy it because the pink wig we had that was similar got lost after we used it on a snowman! Not sure what this says about me...

Here are the winners of the costume contest... Wow!

And finally, here is one of me and Jamie (and Baby Hiryak!) with the birthday girl... She very deservedly won "Most Creative" in the contest!



I'm sure it was a lot of trouble to put together, but she did a great job! Good enough to even make me reconsider my current plan of never ever turning 30... Well, maybe I wouldn't go that far. ; )

Thanks for having all of us out for such a fun night, and I hope your 30th birthday was perfect!

Cutest Little Mess in the Whole World!

Motivational Monday - 11/15/10 Edition

From the "Inspiration" file on my iPhone, here's a thought that helps keep me going in the right direction!

"Be a Creature Unlike Any Other" -The Rules

Class of 2000- 10 Years Later!

Well, we are older, if not wiser, than we were in 2000, but for many of us that met up at Spinelli's for our 10-year high school reunion, it was as if no time had passed at all! It was great to get to see everybody, and as stressed out as I was beforehand about what I would wear and whether my teeth were white enough, once I was there, none of that mattered at all! It was all about catching up.

In the end, I had a great time, and very few regrets. Namely, that in retrospect it might have been wiser to stick with one (or even two!!) glasses of wine instead of going for 3 (oops.), that I wish I had worn my hair in a ponytail because it ended up being a little crazy, and finally my main real regret is that I did not take more pictures! We took a bunch at the very end, but looking back, I wish I had kept a camera on me for the tailgate party and the picnic at the park, because one of the very most fun parts of all of this was getting to meet everybody's kids and show off my adorable little ones, and I have no photos of any of that! *sigh. I do, however, have a bunch of fun ones from the official reunion night at Spinelli's, and for that, I am grateful. Here are a few of my favorites!
















A huge "THANK YOU" to Chris and Jessica Anderson and Jenny Robertson, among others, who worked so hard to organize the evening and make it one we'll always remember. It turned out great! The rest of the favorites are on Facebook, and the full set will be going on line as soon as I can get my computer to behave enough to run the upload software. I am installing Snow Leopard, so hopefully that will help do the trick!

So anyway, Class of 2000, it was great to see you all! Here's to our next 10 years!

Military Brides - Now Hear This!!

Are you an active duty bride? Is your groom a man in uniform? If either of these applies to you, then Brides Across America wants to salute you for your service by offering you a free wedding dress! (Yes, you read that right... FREE!)


Today and tomorrow at A Fitting Image in Little Rock, and at various other dates and locations in the near future nationwide, this organization is handing out free dresses to military brides as a token of thanks for their sacrifices. What a great idea!

Visit their website to see if you qualify, then get yourself over there for your free dress! You deserve it!

A big thank you to Heather over at All in the Details for getting the word out about this one... We never would have heard about it otherwise! Also thank you to Amelia Phillips Hale, our former associate who now owns Dreamland Images with her husband, Dan, in South Carolina, for capturing the beautiful image featured above. It was taken at a military wedding she shot with us in 2008, and we thought it was a perfect fit with this post. We miss you guys!

Jason Hudson: The Photo Bomber

Motivational Monday - 11/08/10 Edition

From the "Inspiration" file on my iPhone, here's a thought that helps keep me going in the right direction!

"Eat less, move more!" - Rosie O'Donnell

A Breath of Fresh Air!

Now don't get me wrong. I LOVE being home with my babies. I really, really do. But a girl's got to get out of the house every once and a while to do something other than nurse, change diapers, get spit up on and sweep up Cheez-It crumbles. : ) So the other day I was feeling super overwhelmed/isolated/crazytown and I had a little mini-breakdown all over poor Jason who was minding his business and trying to help out with the laundry.

He had the nerve to put a load on that happened to contain my only pair of jeans that I can wear right now. At the time, I was infuriated, but in retrospect, I realize that it's not his fault my pants don't fit, and I should really never ever begrudge any person who wants to do some laundry! Well, once I calmed down and realized I was being insane, we talked about it and decided that I need to get out of the house more!

Enter the Celebrate shoots! I've been doing them for years, and they're one of my favorite sanity-savers, but I had turned them over to Jason once my pregnancy with Shiloh started to get complicated, and I had never gotten around to taking them back. Well now I have!

I went out for a couple of hours yesterday to photograph some amazing young artists for the magazine, and again today to photograph a knitting store that is going to be featured in the December issue. It wasn't much, but it was so nice just to get out for a minute! I think I will have to do this more often!

Here is one from yesterday:




And here is one from today:





There are soooo many more, especially from the young artists shoot! I really can't wait to show all those off! More shoots to follow. Because a sane mommy is a happy mommy, and a happy mommy means happy kiddos! And around here, we like happy! : )

Sleepy Time.

I have spent the last 3 (ish) hours trying to get Shiloh to go to sleep. Well, now he's out like a light, and I am suddenly wide awake. What silly timing!!!

Trick or Treat!

We had such a busy, but fun, Halloween this year! The past few weeks had been packed so full of photo shoots and kids' activities that I wasn't even sure I was looking forward to Sunday until it got here. Trick-or-treating was honestly just starting to sound like a lot of work! But then it came time to actually get the kids dressed up, and my attitude improved immensely! They looked so cute in their costumes!


Bear was a clone trooper:

Autumn was Hermione from Harry Potter:

And Norah was an adorable little ballerina!



Our costume choices were somewhat limited with Norah, because she had no interest whatsoever in being dressed up, especially if it involved anything being on her face or head. So a ballerina it was! I think she turned out awfully cute!

Anyway, Autumn's friend Ana and Jamie and her baby belly came along with us for our evening of Trick-or-Treating fun. We decided to set out over in our old neighborhood in the historic district. With all of the adorable little kids milling around in their costumes and all of the houses lit up with Halloween decor, along with the fall leaves strewn around the ground and the beautiful weather, it all felt a little like a dream. I felt like I was trick-or-treating in a movie (or maybe on that great new show Parenthood) instead of in real life!

Here are a few pictures that Jason snapped of our adventure:















I can't imagine how the evening could have been any more perefct. Thanks for all your help, Jamie!! I hope everyone had a great Halloween! : )