Cheers to 5 Years!

So I have not written on this thing in quite sometime and alot has happened since my last post. But tonight I felt the need to write a little something because I am feeling so very blessed and at peace with where God has me right now in the crazy busy life! Two weeks ago we welcomed our second baby boy!!! Wow...2 boys...and to top it off Andrew Joseph was born in Vince's and my Anniversay month (which this year is lucky number 5) As Vince and I lay in bed at 2AM this morning with Drew WIDE AWAKE in the middle of us (don't think he was feeling very well...tiny is fighting a cold) Vince looked at me and said with tired eyes and smile..."Happy Five year Anniversary baby" It was in that moment that I was overcome with joy and SO much love for him and everything we have created together in the last 5 years...including the two beautiful little baby boys God has blessed us with! Alot has happened to us and our relationship over the last 5 years...teaching credentials and masters degree, to the Sheriff's Academy and patrol training, to buying a house, and the births of our two boys! We have sure had our trials and ups and downs but through it all we have each other and the love that we share...a love that truly grows stronger with each passing year! Vince and I were able to share an amazing dinner with each other tonight (accompanied with a raspberry martini for me : ) and as we said "CHEERS to 5 YEARS" I couldn't help but think of our sweet Mr. man Brode and how he loves to do "CHEERS" with you every night at dinner...him and his Cars sippy cup! What a simple reminder of the amazing gifts God has blessed both Vince and I with over these last 5 years! I cannot wait to see what God has in store for us this next year...and the many many years after that!!! CHEERS to the years to come!!!!

He Has Risen!!!!

What a fun day filled with worship, family, Egg Hunts, and Reeses Chocolate Easter Eggs : ) !!!! I love Easter and always have, and it is so much fun now having an itty bitty of my own to begin allll the Easter traditions with. I love my little family so much and especially today, was reminded of just how blessed we are to be living this life that was given to us because Jesus died on the cross!!! What a day to rejoice in the Risen Lord!!!! As we remembered what Easter is all about, I also snapped a few photos of our growing family to capture the day!!! Crazy to think that this time next year we will have welcomed baby boy number 2....WE cannot WAIT!!! I will then have 2 little men to dress up for Easter : ) Enjoy the pictures!!!

LOVE {An Engagement Session}

I had the pleasure of photographing these two beautiful people as of recently, Retta and Jamison! They are truly a beautiful couple and during the entire shoot I kept thinking to myself how I wanted to get married all over again to my one and only and experience all the events leading up to that BIG day...including our engagement pics : ) I have know Retta since High School and it has been so fun to keep in touch and see where our lives have taken us!!!! It only makes sense though to stay in touch with someone you sang bye bye birdie with at the top of your lungs while wearing a poodle skirt in front of a large audience during DECADES! ; ) We share many memories and inside jokes, and would recommened to anyone that they read "One Flew Over the Cookoo's" nest" and try to make a Dateline NBC show out of it. Besides all of that, this was such a fun experience and I have a new found passion for shooting engagements...there is just something so fresh and fun about it...(and the wedding day stresses are nonexistant) just two couples living out there love for one another while I shoot moments they can frame : ) Here are a few of my favorites...!

Picture Perfect!

So over the last year I have been blessed to stay at home with Brode and watch him grown into a sweet, loving, VERY busy little man.  I never thought in a million years that I would have this opportunity and God has blessed me with it.  While my heart is still VERY much focused on teaching, I trust that God has me in the right place for now, especially during this very important sage of Brode's life!!! I know one day the right job will open up and I will get to create bulletin boards filled with my student's work, and write their name tags out and tape them to their desk, and intervine when feelings get hurt, but for now I am Brode's teacher, and my title is mommy and Im loving every minute of it!!!  Over the past few months however I started getting antsy, probably because I am so used to a work routine Mon-Fri, and have truly worked since high school. I saw Brode's birthday as an opportunity to put my creative juices to work and loved every minute of it...it was an outlet for me!!! Now his first birthday has come and gone and I began to wonder what else I could start investing time into now that I have the TIME (well at least for a little while longer while we wait for baby number 2 : ) I have had alot of friends and family encourage me to get into photography which I have always loved doing.  So I got up the courage and put myself out there!!! I am trying my hand at this art and seeing where it takes me...so far so good...im loving every minute of it and have had the opportunity to photograph quite a few families including those ever so adorable kiddos and babes!!! I am also learning that there is SO SO SO much to learn in this digital photo world and take each and every photo session as a learning opportunity!!! I can be quite a perfectionist so if I don't think something looks right I am itching to do it all over again!!! I feel like my mind is bursting with ideas that I cannot wait to grab ahold of baby, or child, or newly engaged couple to try it out!!! The thing that I would want most out of this whole photography journey is to bless those with what I create....and let it be a little slice of their life frozen in time!!! So here is to a new venture ; )

The Stache Birthday Bash

Sooo back to the blogging world..haha...like I have been blogging for years or something. Wow, alot has happened in the last month or so, including our Little Mans First birthday.  The Mustache party was a success, and I think Vince was very happy to get his wife back, after spending countless hours chocolate making, mustache stamping, stache cutting, tissue pom creating and photo taking! I do have to say though that I enjoyed every minute of it...I look at like it was an outlet for me...kinda like therapy.  I was able to put my creative juices to work since clearly a classroom full of 32 students is not happening for me right now (I keep telling myself someday Lindsay it will happen : ) So I used those juices to put together Brode's first birthday party!!! The mustaches were a hit and made for GREAT pictures...what is even funnier though is that Vince's first question after the very last guest left "So can I go shave now??" ahah....I think he was over the lip jacket he had been sporting for that last month!!! He was a good sport though and not gonna lie...I went to say hi to him one night while he was working a job at BV and he was in uniform...and well I will just stop there...lets just say...I LIKED it and thought it was fitting : )...hehe. So now a sense of calmness has come over our busy home again...time to sit back and take a breath and enjoy this new year we are entering in Brode's life.  He is doing SO much these days...and is continuously cracking me up!! I am obsessed with being his mom (most days...Ha...I think every mom would agree) He thinks he is the worlds best crawler and will "crawl" away from you quick when you chase him...he uses everything as if it were a phone and is trying SO hard to say HI....he just started pointing the other day and is getting braver and braver on everything he pulls up on! We watch 10 minutes of Baby Einstein before bed every night complete with a bowl of oatmeal...(yes that is the only way I can get 1/3 cup of milk or more down him...I know...NEVER thought I would have a child who does not care for the taste of milk...well at least for now) and then its off to bed with what we call "smooches" for everyone...brother gets the best ones ; ) He lights up our life and we are just enjoying every moment with him before our family gets even bigger!!! Yes...as you all have probably heard we will be expecting baby number 2 Sep. 1st.  We are super excited and will find out this Wednesday if it's a boy or a girl...I keep hearing it's the year for girls...we shall see : ) Not a dull moment in our house, especially with a little one on the verge of walking.....!!!!! So enough of us and here are some Stache pics to leave you with...enjoy!

1st Birthday COUNTDOWN!

So the countdown is officially on!!!! I cannot believe that my Little Man will be the big ONE a week from Monday!! Which means that his Mr. Man party is two weeks away!!!! I cannot believe how much a tiny person can change in their first year of life...yet somehow, everyyy now and then, I catch glimpses of the teeny tiny newborn baby face that we brought home from the hospital : ) Just the other day Brode had fallen asleep on the car ride home and when I went to get him out of his seat I stop for a minute and just stared at him.  I could see IT...the same sleepy face with full lips that he had when we brought him home.  It was a crazy moment, a moment that I took to myself for a second as his mommy and remembered back to that lifechanging very Exciting day! Now 12 months later he is becoming his own person with personality like no other and a laugh and smile just like his daddys (which by the way is ALL he wants to say lately...Dada Dada) We are getting very excited to celebrated his first birthday!!! I feel like everytime I go to lay down for the night my mind races with a million things to do/go get/make...ideas ideas!!! I know I have to stop somewhere and know that everything will come together and the most important thing is celebrating the Little Man our Mr. Broderick has become in this last year!!! As one Little Man snoozes soundly in his crib, the ORIGINAL Mr. Man is fast asleep on the couch...Lip Jacket and all (I gotta hand it to Vince, he has successfully grown a very pristine mustache in the event of Brode's B-day) I sit here cutting and gluing and mustache molding away excited to see everything finished and to just sit back and celebrate one VERY special Little Man : )

Here is Broderick's 1st Birthday Invitation created by jkhenrie.blogspot.com. She did a fantastic job and it was exactly what I had wanted!!!

NapArtist

So....annoying but I had to create a new blog.  For whatever reason I could not log into my other one and I just got frustrated and gave up.  So not only did I create a new one, but also a new name! It is very fitting for all the time I am spending lately during Brode's naps, creating.  With a first birthday quickly approaching I am trying to utilize all the time I possibly can to get all things made and finished before the big day so that I can sit back and RELAX!! They only turn one once : )  I have been planning this first birthday in my mind for what seems like forever now.  We decided on a fitting theme for our Little Man as we like to call him.  We are throwing a Mr. Man Mustache party!!!! Ties, Mustaches, everything Mr. Man! I feel like everything looks great in my mind idea wise, but the challenge is now creating it all and viewing the final product/presentation.  i am such a perfectionist when it comes to these...I drive myself nuts...and my sweet Hubby even MORE! But we are excited!!! (even Vince is growing a mustache at the moment...ahahah) So as Brode is taking what is going on a 3 hour nap now on this raining afternoon...and I sit here creating a makeshift "mustache" rubber stamp for the invites, and the NapArtist came to be!!!! I cannot help but laugh at myself at how this rubber stamp came about.  I looked online for a mustache stamp and was not happy with what I found...so I set my mind to thinking of how to create one, from things I have at home!!! I know I needed something sorta rubber material so I found a jar opener we had that was of a rubber material. I traced the stache and so the mustache stamp was born. And hey I saved myself like 10 bucks! Ill post a pic later!

Until next time, Miss Mustachio