Recent photoshoots...

Just a few more recent photo shoots...

My friend Nicole from church and her cute family. Their daughter Greta was my first Senior photo shoot last fall.

 Baby Jackson...



And some I missed from a couple months ago...

I was talking to Lars the other day about how many photos I have take for people over the past couple years...not sure how many, but there have been a lot now! I need to go back through and count them.

I feel like with all of my experience I am gradually getting better at it and feeling more confident and ready to raise my rates a little :)

First day of School...2013

Ashton and Gunnar both started school on Thursday, August 22nd this year. I love back to school and all the excitement that goes along with it...this year it was just really bittersweet for me. It just blows me away that my baby started Kindergarten. How did it sneak up on me so quickly?

He literally was just my baby like last week wasn't he?

I can say with all honesty that I'm having a hard time with this.

He is so ready and so excited to be a big kid and finally get to go to Ashton's school, but I would keep him little for the rest of my life if I could.

That morning Ashton got up and got all of his chores and piano done and ate breakfast and got dressed and was excited to go also.

I of course had to snap some pictures and was glad that I got Gunnar all dressed and ready to go too so that I could get pictures of them together, even though Gunnar didn't go till later in the afternoon.

I love these pictures!

 But wow, do these two look big. As they say...don't blink. These days with little kids go by so, so quickly.

So after we went and dropped Ashton off (he did not want me to walk him in...those days are long gone!), Gunnar and I went over to a place where I wanted to snap a few more pictures of him, but it ended up just being really muddy (and got his new school shoes covered), so we came home, washed them off then just stayed home for awhile getting chores done. Then when the time came, I made him lunch...he requested quesadillas.

Then for his first day, he actually didn't have to go in till 2:30, and only for an hour...and I got to stay with him. He was very glad...he's been a little nervous.

So when it was finally time to go, we snapped a few more pictures then went in for his first day.

  He wanted me to stay right by him and was his super shy self at first. But then he did all that was asked of him and I filled out some paperwork and listened to some info from his teacher.

 The hour flew by, and it was time to go get Ashton and head home. But Ashton wanted to walk home with his friends, so of course Gunnar decided he wanted to tag along with them too.

So I followed in the car and cried a little :(

You're so grown up Gunnar...

But in so many ways, still my sweet little boy...I love you so much!
Ashton said he had a good first day and really likes his teacher. I'm so glad and hope it continues to go well.

It was a fun first day :)



Back to School Night...2013

Every summer goes by fast, but wow...when it came time for back to school night, it just seemed like we'd gotten done with last school year a couple weeks before.

I think the boys were good and ready to go back, but it was also sad to see summer be over so quickly.

Oh and Gunnar told me that for him it should be called "To School Night", because he wasn't really going "back", he'd never been to that school before!

 Funny boy :)

On that last day before school started, we slept in then I had a PTA lunch to go to, then I took the boys and 2 of their friends to see Despicable Me 2 again. Then after dinner it was time to get to the school to meet their new teachers and see their classrooms!

Ashton got Mrs. Rees, who seems great...

And he was excited that his friends Tyler and Bridger are in his class this year.

Gunnar got Mrs. Coburn, who I've become pretty good friends with since Ashton had her, she is so sweet and I know Gunnar is going to love her. She already loves him!

After we finished up at the school, we went to Macey's to get some ice cream, but the boys chose these big cookies instead...



Lagoon!

This year we never ended up booking our Bear Lake place that we usually stay the weekend before school starts and by the time I started to be sad that we weren't going to stay there this year, it was all booked up. So after going back and forth about what we wanted to do instead, we finally decided on staying in Layton one night then going to Lagoon. Gunnar had never been and Ashton had only been the one time I took him when he was 4.

So we drove down to Layton last Saturday and stayed the night at the Hilton there. Of course the boys had fun swimming as they always do, and I was able to go shopping for a little while.

Then we all went to Roosters for dinner...it was right next to our hotel and pretty good.

Sunday we got up and had breakfast at the hotel, then got ready for the day and drove the short drive to Lagoon. We got there right as it was opening at 11:00 and there were already a lot of people. We had gotten some great discount tickets from Lars' work.

 Anyway it didn't get too crazy busy for awhile and we were able to ride everything we wanted to with hardly any wait at first. Now that Ashton is as tall as he is, he can pretty much ride everything and he LOVES them all. The crazier, bigger, faster the ride the better to him. We quickly found out that Gunnar was about an inch and a half too short for lots of the big rides.

That was fine with me, I was happy to NOT go on too many of those.

But he did find a couple bigger ones he could that he loved and went on those over and over. And just like I sucked it up and had fun at Seven Peaks a few days before, I made myself do the same at Lagoon that day. Not my favorite place anymore...the rides make me sick these days and I had a headache most of the day. Oh well...watching the boys have so much fun was worth it.

Our first ride of the day...the TerrorRide...I love Gunnar's cute face in this :)

I did have fun doing the bumper cars with Ashton...

 It got a lot busier as the day went on and we later found out that it was predicted to be the busiest day of the year up to that point because it was the first day of buy one ticket get one half! And here we thought maybe it wouldn't be as busy because it was Sunday!

Oh well...the only really long line the boys stood in for about an hour was for the log ride. Then if any lines were too long, we just moved onto something else. Gunnar's favorite ride was this Bombora ride...

...a rollercoaster that he was tall enough for. It never had a big line, so we rode it a lot!

Ashton said his favorite was Wicked. Way too crazy for me, I didn't even attempt it. I think he and Lars went on it 3 times.

You can see them in the back row on the left...

He also loved Colossus...

 We stayed till about 8:30 that night I think. I'll be fine now if we don't go back for a year or two, but it was still a fun way to end off our summer break!

They were exhausted by the time we finally drove home after stopping in Layton for dinner at about 9!