The Artwork

Yesterday, we went to the Community Fine Arts Center to see the girls' art on display. They were so delighted to see their artwork and we were proud of them! Enjoy!

Sophie's proudly showing her piece.

A close up of Sophie's beautiful nature print.

Hannah showing off her piece.



A close up of Hannah's fun Halloween scene.



Bella pointing out her art.



A close up of Bella's adorable Cat in the Hat Stamp.

Mia's Readying Herself for Kindergarten

Each year Grandma takes the girls birthday shopping on their birthday. This year, one of the gifts that Mia chose while birthday shopping {and perhaps the most beloved} was a dinosaur sandwich cutter and a matching dinosaur sandwich box. Since making this purchase she has perfected the fine art of sandwich making and insists that she would like to save these sandwiches for when she goes to Kindergarten. I have tried convincing her that Kindergarten doesn't start for quite some time and the sandwiches would be yucky by then and each time she states the same thing "I'm making this sandwich for when I go to Kindergarten." I guess I can be thankful that she is finally accepting the fact that she is going to Kindergarten next year and that she won't be staying home with me forever...

Flashback Friday...Places We Wish Were Instead of Blustery Rock Springs

So, we had a little tease of gorgeous spring weather earlier this week and then BAM! Winter seems to be back - these crazy Wyoming springs, they have us dreaming of places we'd rather be right now. Like...

beautiful Jamaica

-or-


golfing on a sunny day

- or -


the happiest place on earth

- or -


fabulous Florida

- or -


marvelous Mexico!

Justin and Sophie's Casper Roadtrip

Yesterday (Saturday, 3/13), Sophie and I took a day trip to Casper to see our friend Cassie and her fiancee Tom. I am photographing their wedding in October, and we went up to take their engagement photos. Bella was already gone for the weekend with my parents in Salt Lake City, and Maggie and I thought it would be a good "bonding" experience for Sophie to come along with me.

First, traveling with Sophie takes a fair amount of room - between the several stuffed animals, the books and DVDs, and just the room she "needs" to spread her stuff out leaves very little for the photography equipment that is the basis for the trip. However, we did come to a truce and each had a share of the car (something like 40/60 in her favor).

Sophie is at the "tween" stage; this means that she really still wants to do some kid stuff, but also is getting into the hair/makeup/teenage girl nonsense that I have no idea how to deal with. She fought Maggie when it came time for her hair to be dried and combed after her shower because it "takes too long," but then spent an additional twenty minutes in the bathroom putting on lip gloss and perfume.

When we arrived in Casper at lunchtime, we thought we would have time to sit down and eat lunch before our 2:00p appointment with Cassie. We decided to eat at the eastside Sanfords, which coincidentally is where every high school basketball team in Casper for the state tournament decided to eat, as well as their parents and friends and cheerleading teams. It would be safe to say that the restaurant was pretty busy, but we had time to kill. Fifty minutes later, after waiting twenty for a table and thirty for our food to arrive, we were looking at time being tight to make our photo shoot. During this entire time, Sophie has informed me that she is very close to death from starvation; her hair is COMPLETELY messed up and she needs to go to the women's room several times to fix it; she is not kidding, starvation is imminent; who the heck is running this restaurant?; her mother can fix dinner for SIX people faster than this restaurant; her mother could probably fix dinner for all these people faster than this restaurant, etc., etc. The food finally came, and she ate like a starved animal.

Fast-forward to the photo shoot, where we arrived ten minutes late and very flustered. My plan for Sophie was to help me with equipment and to hold things; I had a light stand that is very top-heavy and was blowing in the wind, and several bags and other things. I really just needed an assistant. Sophie's plan was much different; she saw when we arrived at Adams Park in Casper that they had (1) a small stream, (2) two bridges, and (3) lots of sticks and rocks. At this point, her plans to assist her father flew out the window and she had new plans to throw things in the stream. So as I'm trying to focus on Cassie and Tom and getting the light right and keep my stuff together and everything else that goes on with a professional shoot, Sophie was scaring everyone by tossing rocks into the water behind us. At one point, I told Sophie I wanted her to hold on to the light stand so it wouldn't tip in the wind while we walked over to another place in the park. When I looked back, she was still holding on to the stand but reaching out as far as possible to grab a stick that was close by that could be tossed in the stream with its friends.

We decided to go to another park, and on the way there I coached Sophie about her responsibilities to assist me, and that the time to mess around would be after we finished our work. We arrived at the second park and began to photograph more, and she generally was working as hard as she could to help. We decided to move closer to the Platte River to find one last location, and as we walked over I looked behind me to see a big black dog and Sophie swinging the biggest branch she could find at it.

After the shoot, we headed to the Eastridge Mall as we had agreed earlier. Sophie was looking for a newly-released Webkinz stuffed ferret, and I was the funding mechanism for this purchase. After finding said ferret, she saw the worst store possible: Bath and Body Works. I worked briefly in the backroom of one of these stores when Maggie and I were first married, and the smell still gives me the heebie-jeebies. I can usually smell these stores in the mall long before I see them. Sophie wanted to go in, and I offered to wait on the bench outside while she looks around. Several minutes later, she came out and asked for money - I dutifully opened my wallet and gave her some. She returned ten minutes later very excited for her purchases: two paper roses "for her room," some room freshener spray "because her dog MacGregor makes it smell like dog all the time," some lotion "because Mommy has some and I like it too," the best thing of all - a gift for mom. Not just any gift, but something special the sales clerk gave her - coupons! I told her that her mother would be very appreciative.

We headed out of town, not before sitting down for a mall pretzel and talking about why she needs a new cell phone (with very little input expected nor appreciated from her father). Short stops in Rawlins for dinner and gas, and we arrived home shortly after nine o'clock.

The whole trip was funny because we are treading an increasingly fine line between being a kid and liking kid stuff, and being a teenager and liking grown-up stuff. She wants the stuffed animals, but also wants a certain kind of lotion because it smells nice. She wants to throw rocks in the river, and she wants to decorate her room with paper roses. She wants to have grown-up conversations, and she also wants to be left alone to listen to the same ten songs over and over and over on her iPod.

It ended up being a fun trip that I would do again, but it makes me a little sad that my first little girl almost isn't anymore.

Budding Artists?

I know it seems as though we are always bragging about our girls - we can't help it! We think they are great and they keep wowing us! We just found out that all three {Sophie, Hannah, Bella} had an art piece selected by their art teacher to be displayed down at the local Community Fine Arts Center. We will post a continuation to this post once we all go down and see their art!