A Star Wars Halloween

What a fun Halloween we had this year!  Pierce and Madi were very excited to have the whole family in a coordinated theme this year!  Ok they didn't say, "were exited to be coordinating", but they did say how excited they were to have the whole family be "Star Wars"!  We had actually had the idea last year when Pierce was Darth Vader, we though it would be cute to have Jensen as Yoda this year.  So we all got decked out in Star Wars get up...

Pierson as Darth Vader  (glad he was excited to wear the costume again!)

 Madi as Princess Leah 

 And our Jensey Boo (just one of his current nick names) as Yoda

Here they are with "Anakin" Dad.  I am totally kicking myself for not getting a family picture of all of us!  Really, really bummed about that.  

The Powerful Jedi assisting Yoda on his first Trick or Treating Adventure...

Yoda Jensen loved trick or treating, he for sure has the Robison sweet tooth, so I knew he'd be all about the candy, and he was!  

 YUM! 

  And of course, our favorite family Halloween tradition - pumpkin sugar cookies....

 Jensen thoroughly enjoyed his first year participating in this delicious tradition.  He is a fan.  

It was a Happy Star Wars Halloween!  Love my Skywalker Crew! 

Halloween Party 2012!

I have the funnest, coolest friends ever.  Really, I do.  Ryan and I hosted our annual "Couples Costume Party" and I think every year it is even more fun.  I absolutely love having everyone over and to just have fun together, let loose and be silly.  The costumes where FABULOUS, the food was delicious, and the company was the best!

The Costumes 

 Shane & Laura - "Dexter" and his latest victim.  2nd Place "Scariest" Award!
You think you know your friends and then you find out they are addicted to psycho serial killer shows! 

Jon & April - The Father & The Sister.  2nd Place Tie for "Funniest"
 - luckily Father was there for Laura's confession of her secretive obsession with serial killers

 Jared & Amanda - a flash forward of their life in 50 years.  

Greg & Kimberly - Beautiful flapper girl with the Gangster 

Angie & Daron - 1st Place by a landslide for "Best Looking Lawn Ornaments"!  ;)
2nd Place Tie for "Funniest" Award

Brooke & Jona in a box! 1st Place "Most Creative"!

Staci & Dustin - The Dirty Bandits 

Ryan & Me - Anakin & Padme

Derek & Andrea - The Mad Hatter & the Red Queen, Andrea IS the Queen of Halloween!  I could not get over their costumes!
1st Place Winners for "Best All Around"!
Also 1st Place Tie for "Best Couple Costumes"! 

Dustin & Kathryn - 2nd Place "Most Creative"
 - their true identity revealed!

Kendra & Dustin (it's the norm for 3 Dustins to be in attendance)  

Brad & Jana - Vampire-ness
1st Place "Scariest"

Terra & Curtis - Big Bird & Mitt 

1st Place "Funniest"

Lynds & Darrin - 1st Place Tie for "Best Couple Costumes"
The Runaway Bride 

Sometimes One Spoon Just Isn't Enough

This boy makes me laugh every day.  He just had to have his yogurt and spoon and Mom's yogurt cup and spoon.  Life's pretty good for him. Yogurt and spoons readily available.

Today

Today was hard.  Today is ten years since my beautiful Mom died.  Ten years.  That's a long time to not see your Mom.  Over the last month I could feel the emotion building up and I knew today was going to be a hard day.  Over the years I have gotten used to it, I can talk about my Mom, tell new people I meet about what happened to her and I'm ok.  I am constantly telling myself that I should not  feel sorry for myself, there are so many much worse things that happen to people everyday in the world... and I am so very blessed.  I have so much joy in my life, I have so very much to be so grateful for, and I am.  Very grateful for a beautiful life.  But it doesn't mean it's not hard, it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.  It is hard, and it does hurt.  Today I needed to cry.  The tears started flowing last night and continued for a good part of the day.  I cried tears of sadness, hurt, loss, love and hope.  I cried alone, I cried on the phone with my husband, I cried holding my baby boy in my arms, I cried on my front porch with my dearest friend, Kathryn.  The day is not over and I'm sure I'm going to go cry some more.

I love my Mom, I think of her every day, I miss her dearly every day.  I know she is happy, but I am sad for what I am missing out on.  I'm missing out on an adult relationship with my Mom, I feel like I'm such a different person as an adult and I so wish I could be sharing my adult life with her.  I'm missing out on a fun and loving Grandma for my kids.  I often wonder how different our life would be if she was here.  I can only imagine the fun she would have had with my kids.  The fun we would've had together.   I know she is aware of me and my children and what is happening in our lives, but that's it.  I don't get to see her with my kids, I don't get to share motherhood with her, my grown up friends don't get to meet her.  And I know they would love her.  I am sad for that.  And so I cried and cried some more.  Then I made cinnamon rolls.

 My little helpers

 Jensen's first cinnamon roll, he loved it! Well who wouldn't?! 

 They were pretty, and good, ya pretty good!

Thanks to my wonderful friends who remembered and who brightened my day, and to Ryan, the best husband ever, for being the best husband ever! 

I'm a mess, my house is mess, but oh my, does my house smells good.  

Focal Points

So, I've mentioned I got a new lens for my camera, which I am loving.  The first few weeks I had it, I needed to play around with it quite a bit to get used to the differences and also checking the focal points to make sure they are all "on".  This particular day, Jensen was enjoying his goldfish cracker snack, and being quite content I decided I'd use his eyes to check the focal points on my lens.  I was just switching focal points, keeping whichever one I was using on one of his eyes.  You know how I love to take pictures of his eyes!  Anyway, my "test" pictures were just so stinking cute of him, they were instant keepers rather than to be deleted.  So don't mind the goldfish cracker crumbs or the lack of composition to some of  these photos...I love my baby boys eyes and the expressions on his face.  

Ok Mom, enough, I'm ready to get out!  

Please, just get me out!  

He is the cutest.  

I also just want to say THANK YOU to so many of my awesome friends for supporting me in my efforts in going somewhere with my photography!  So many of you have been so encouraging and it has helped me immensely.  Thanks to my wonderful friends, Julianne and Kathryn, for letting me practice on their cute kids, from day one, when I had no clue what I was doing!  Thanks to my wonderful (and gorgeous!)  friends who have been my "practice families", The beautiful Hancocks, Blacks and Stapleys have all been featured on my photography blog, and also my fabulous sister and bro in law, Mark and Lisa.   I had so much fun taking all of their pictures and it has helped me start a beautiful profile!  Seriously, who knew having such beautiful friends could be so helpful?!  And also a huge shout out to 3 of my far away blogging friends, who happen to be amazing photographers themselves,- Jana B., Kate and Bekah.  I admire your work so much girls, and a compliment from you on my photography means SO much!  Thank you for your kind and thoughtful comments and great encouragement, again, it means so much to me!  And especially, thanks to my wonderful, awesome, fabulous husband, for not only encouraging me to learn and  work on something I love, but for being home to care for the kids so I can get out and do my photo shoots, and especially for providing me with the means to do so.  Couldn't get very far with out some good equipment, thanks so much Babe for all you do for me.  Oh AND thanks to him for designing my official "Josie Robison Photography" logo.  I love it!  Have you al noticed it on my last 2 posts?  I don't have it up on my blog header yet but I'm now officially stamping my photos with my name! He's the best.  

So thanks to all of you for your support and encouragement!   I am thrilled that I have 8 sessions scheduled for October!  Wahoo!  Bring it on!  Guess I wont be cleaning my house.  Oh well, it can wait, the dust isn't going anywhere.  

And one last thanks, to my stunningly beautiful and amazingly talented friend, the fabulous Lyndsi Houskeeper!  Lynds gave me the great opportunity to shoot her pictures for her upcoming new album! 

 If you don't know Lyndsi, visit her site, she is a beautiful inspirational singer/songwriter, writing music for the LDS church.  Anyone of Christian Faith will appreciate her beautiful music!  I will post more about her this week when I feature her beautiful photos on the photography blog.  Thank you Lynds for making me into a "real photographer"!  I was thrilled to photograph Lyndsi and am so excited that my work will be featured as her new album cover!!!!  (Not to mention, it's my first paying job, so she really did make me a "real photographer!")  Thank you Lynds, for the wonderful opportunity,  I can't wait to share your beautiful pictures!  

A WICKED Good Time!

Ryan and I had a wicked good time heading to Vegas for a day to see Wicked with some of our good friends!  I felt a little spoiled getting to see it a second time, but I was so excited to have such a great seat, (when we saw it in Portland in March, we got our tickets the day of and were up in side balcony) and of course going with friends made it all the more fun, and then The Cheesecake Factory just sealed the deal as pretty much making it the best date ever!  We had such a fun time, we drove down together with our good friends The Woodburys and The Esplins and also met The Schofields at the theatre.  Here we are...

 Love my man!  Thanks Babe, for spoiling me so! 

 The girls - Kathryn, Andrea, Staci and Me

All the couples - Derrick and Andrea, Dustin and Staci, Josie and Ryan, and Kathryn and Dustin

SO much fun!  Love Wicked, love Ryan, love my friends, love cheesecake!  

Our Walking, Talking, Mess Making Boy!

That's right!  Look who's walking!  And like a pro now too!  Jensen started with a few steps the week he turned 14 months.  2 steps quickly became 4, then 7, then 9, then we stopped counting as he started going further every day!  By the first weekend in August he was wanting to get down and walk all the time and giving me a heart attack every few minutes as he braved new terrain!  It has been so fun watching him toddle around, he's been getting steadier all the time, now he is practically running!

Exploring the backyard for the first time - 14 months

Getting the hang of it!

 And I love these little shoes he's wearing!  They were Pierson's and I just loved them, I got them on Jensen for a few Sundays then they were suddenly too small!

Braving the rocky terrain...after having enjoyed a delicious ice cream cone at Heidi's birthday party

And that little ice cream mess on the face, it's nothing, a smudge I'd say.  This is the messy boy I'm referring to...

 Mister "I'm so big I refuse to let mom feed me with a spoon anymore"!  At 14 months Jens also decided he wanted to use his own fork and spoon, I thought it was so adorable and so great that he was wanting to do it all on his own, I had never even tried to teach him.  Ha!  It's adorable all right!  Strawberry yogurt, not so bad.  

Chocolate pudding....

...bad.   He thoroughly enjoyed it I'd say.  But I can't say I thoroughly enjoyed the clean up.  Ya, I wont be giving him another one of these anytime soon.  

I know, makes you want to go dig into some chocolate pudding.  Or never eat it again.  Good thing he's so cute.  He sure does LOVE using his own spoon!  

Somehow another month has just slipped by and he is already 15 months old.  He is jabbering up a storm and we all love hearing him pick up new words each week, really it's the cutest thing.  This week he surprised us with a "thank you", talk about melt my heart.  Besides Momma and Dadda, his two best words are "eyes" and "nose".  He loves to point to your eyes and nose when you are holding him and also loves to find animals eyes and nose in any picture he sees.   I keep wishing I could just slow him down....  

but he just keeps getting faster...

...I had better get used to this, pretty sure I'm going to be doing a lot of chasing for the next little while.