Unfair!

How is it when you take a friends two year old out to take pictures and you get photos like this: 

And then you try to get a few shots of your own two year old and you get a photo like this:

I mean, I know life isn't fair but seriously???!???! Maybe I should hire a professional...

Happy Anniversary Blog

I started the blog on October 30, 2008. I can't believe that it has been going that long, and going strong too. I have been posting now more than ever, so much so that yesterday Blogger told me I was out of my free picture storage space. Luckily it isn't much to get ALOT more storage so I did it. Which means that I will be wasting 5 bucks if I don't keep posting and uploading lots of pictures to go with it.

Every year since day one we have taken a picture of Jaxson next to the candy on beggars night. Tonight was no different, except he was helping me hand it out AND he was eating it while he worked. We thought that we wanted to get more use out of his costume so he was a sock monkey answering the door. It was cute when he heard a knock he would run over and rush down the stairs with me close behind with the bowl of candy. Then he would just stand and stare at the various costumes in awe without moving a muscle or saying a word. Next year we will definitely be out there with all the little trick-o-treaters. With such a nice night today we had triple the amount of kids as usual, but as usual I bought extra candy so it worked out perfectly.

See how our little man has grown!

Beggars Night 2008

Beggars Night 2009

Beggars Night 2010

Jesse Size Appetite

Jesse is the one guy that I know that will really try anything and go anywhere to try the most interesting foods. With their most recent trip to Iowa they of course had to try the two restaurants that were featured on the last episode of Man vs. Food here in Des Moines. One of those was Jethros where they have the Emmenecker challenge. Jesse opted to not try to the Emmenecker, although many tables all around us did. But it was for the entire table of 8 to share. It's really that big. But Jesse did find something on the menu only slightly less huge and had a round of the largest beers for the table. Minus me of course. But I did get a large Root Beer, it was very refreshing. :)

Sneaky Leah

And to give credit where credit is due, only ONE person was able to get the news out of me by very sneakily tricking me. Everyone tried to get it out of me and I had my guard on to watch my every word to make sure I never said 'him' or 'he' or 'brother' or any of the words people were trying to get of me. But, Leah Holcomb, and her sneaky little self got me in a text message of all things!! It went as follows: 

Leah: When do we get to know the baby news?

Me: Tonight on the blog after we go to dinner w fam. :) we are making a cake that is either pink or blue on the inside. Shld be fun. :) 

Leah: Cute. How are you getting the inside blue??

Me: I just got vanilla cake and just use blue food coloring. 

Leah: So you're making it blue!! Good to know, congrats! 

Me: OMG!! Don't tell anyone! 

Way to go Leah, you succeeded in tricking a mindless pregnant lady. haha... 

What time again??

I went about my day on Thursday as planned. Mich and Jess came into town and I picked them from the airport and wen to Elaines to eat some snacks and was waiting around until my appointment at 3:50pm. At about 2:40 I looked at my phone and it had the appointment under the 3pm time slot so I thought I better call, completely expecting them to say that the 3:50 is my appointment with the ultrasound directly afterwards. Well, they didn't! They said my ultrasound is first at 3pm and my appointment after. I ran out the door and called Dave who was still at work downtown and told him the bad news! He jumped in the car and somehow made it to West Des Moines on 50th in 7 minutes. Speed much??

We made it just in time and we got to see all the little pictures of our little guy. he was sleeping to start with but with all the poking a prodding he began to stir. He started to kick around in there and at one point even 'adjusted' himself, then again, and again. It was so hilarious!! If we weren't sure it was a boy before we knew FOR SURE now. But I can no longer blame the 'adjusting' as a learned habit since our little guy has no manly influence just yet. Dave was proud of his little guy in there making sure everything was comfortable.

To me, and other moms who have deciphered ultrasound pictures before, these should be pretty clear but this is a profile. His face on the right and his little belly on the left.

Profile again!

Hand and there is FIVE fingers!

 

BooBerry

Ok.. so I kept you all in suspense long enough. It is finally time to announce the sex of the baby. Our ultrasound went great although I almost missed the appointment altogether. I will save that story for when I post some of the ultrasound pictures tomorrow.


With Halloween upon us we thought we would tell you in spooky style that......

  With Michelle and Jesse AND Dave's Aunt and Uncle from Michigan both visiting Iowa this weekend we thought we better do something a little more fun and eventful than just spill the beans. So we had a reveal party at the dinner that was already planned for tonight. It worked out perfectly. 

What we did was bake a vanilla cake with it dyed pink or blue then covered it with white frosting so nobody knew what was inside until the first cut. It worked out so good!! Grandma cut the cake as everyone anxiously watched on to reveal the very blue cake. Everyone laughed, cheered, yelled out "I KNEW IT!" and was happy about finally knowing the news.

 

Pumpkin Carve-off

Starting four years ago, (maybe five, we can't remember) we began a tradition of carving pumpkins and having them judged by family and friends to see who won. We only really win bragging rights but it still is so much fun for us. Being somewhat competitive, at least with each other when it comes to pumpkins, we look forward to it every year.




This year we carved as Jaxson watched the classic Charlie Brown The Great Pumpkin cartoon. We continued to carve far after he went to bed. And would probably still be carving if Dave didn't have to go to work tomorrow. It seems like they can never be perfected.

And this is what we came up with for this year. Check them out and get to voting! 

On the right hand side of the screen you will see a voting box. Choose your favorite and submit it. Thanks!! Curious about last year's pumpkins?? Click Here

Pumpkin A: 

 

Pumpkin B: 

 

Brown Eyed Girl

I was asked by the Colemans, long time friends of the Barry family, to take pictures of their adorable little girl Essix who has just turned two. As usual I have been a maniac on the computer and finished all of their pictures already and will share some of my favorites.

Girl or Boy??

Today is the BIG day. We get to head to our appointment for the ultrasound around 330 today. But
before we do all that fun stuff I wanted to post about what YOU guys thought. We put the poll up about a week ago and the votes are in. When we first started the polling it was girl, girl, girl. But then I had the request from Michelle to put up my other picture from Jaxson and then boy started to make a comeback. In the end, though, girl has won with 57% of you thinking it will be a little bundle of girl. Now, if it IS indeed a girl Dave should worry because do you know how many cute little, frilly dresses and outfits she will need??? At least my need to buy boy clothes is somewhat satisfied having done it for the last two years. Well.. more like three years because I started my shopping spree with Jaxson the second I found out he was a boy. But, the best part is I have learned the joy of the consignment shops and they have a ton more girl stuff than they do boy. Eeeks... I'm so excited!! 

Final Results: 

8 (42%) for Boy

11 (57%) for Girl

Thanks for voting everyone and stayed tuned for our pumpkins that will be carved tonight. Yes, TONIGHT! 

 

Photo Class: Seven Deadly Sins

Our latest project in photo class was to interpret the seven deadly sins however our little heart desired. The one requirement was the photos needed to be cohesive or have a common thread. I was going to use prom dresses and found that finding dresses that would fit my very tall, very thin cousin was difficult. So we moved on to shoes. I have a lot of shoes, and have many friends with plenty of shoes themselves. I rounded up two models and about 25 pairs of shoes and went to work. I borrowed my Aunt Carol's house since it would be easy to set the many different scenes with lots of natural light. After two days of working on this project this is what I have come up with.

Practice Pumpkins

I officially lost our practice pumpkin carving competition we did at Kyle and Brittany's last Thursday night. They host an event each year and buy carving kits and pumpkins for everyone and you come, carve, and carry home your pumpkin. I picked a fairly easy carving template and Dave picked a comparably more difficult template. I was done with mine about an hour and half before his, and we were the last to leave, and one of the first to show up. Needless to say Dave is feeling alot more confident about our carving competition that will begin just next week. I have to admit that I am feeling much less confident but will be spending ALOT more time on my pumpkin. This may have been the loss that has made me fired up and ready for a serious comeback. maybe...

They also had cookies for the kids to decorate. Needless to say Jaxson had a blast doing this. He decorated two cookies, his face, the table, and the chair. He definitely won the most messy cookie decorator award.

 Here are the pumpkins that we carved. This is the few that a couple had left, along with ours. Dave did the bottom center, and I did the top left. I am going to have to step it up big time if I want to win. To say the least.

Sam's Senior Pictures

Anna asked me if I would be up for taking Sam's senior pictures for them. And of course I was up for it. I feel so lucky that my world outside of my "real" job has revolved around photos because I really do love it. And I have been loving it more that I know how to use my camera better and therefore the pictures turn out better more often. :) We went to a variety of places around Des Moines to compliment his variety of clothing he wanted to wear. We started at the West Des Moines Library, then outside at the pond next to the library, off to the Art Center, then to Valley Junction, and finished at his favorite comic book store Mayhem in West Des Moines. Whew... can't believe we made it to all of those places in just three and half hours. But we did and I think we got some good photos out of our cross country traveling...