my week...

This week hasn't slowed down! My mom came in town to help me CLEAN OUT! We went through every closet except mine. I threw stuff away, put piles together for a yard sale, and gave some to our neighbor. My closets are now super organized, clutter free,  and no longer full of junk I don't need:) It feels so good to know whats hidden in those closets are now pretty and organized! Thanks mom for helping me:) Below are some pictures from our week! Beware...some are absolute cuteness:)

We have gotten pretty good at carrying a potty around in the back of our car. Annie Rice doesn't seem to mind at all where she uses the bathroom:) Potty training this little girl wasn't bad at all! It was a lot better than what I anticipated. 

Annie Rice had her first McLeod peach! She loved it! Nothing beats McLeod peaches from McBee, SC!

 This sad face was after I told her to chew her food! She's gotten in this stage where she wants it to just sit in her mouth. Dinner time in our house takes about an hour because this little girl tries everything she can to NOT eat! The other day I told her that I was going to count to 3, and if she hadn't started chewing I was going to scold her. I said 1, she looked at me and in the sweetest voice, said 2. I couldn't help but laugh. 

 We've been making a lot of cookie dough cupcakes this week! She loves helping me mix. 

 Play date with Sunday School friends:) She was so tired after!

 My bible study is doing this Ruth study! It's AMAZING!!!

 Can you tell a difference in the 2 wallets below? I bought the top one 2 years ago at Target for $7. Every time I would pull it out in stores people would say how much they loved my HoBo. After 2 years, my favorite wallet broke and my sweet mom bought me a real HoBo! I LOVE IT! 

 Me and my friend Carissa. We have too much fun at photo booths at weddings!

 Awww....So beautiful! I LOVE pictures and I LOVE showing them off in our house! We added 4-5 frames on this wall this week and I was very happy! Kaz, not so much...He is not looking forward to filling all these holes one day when we move! 

 Duck face...

 Wearing MeMe's glasses...

 I found this adorable outfit at HomeGoods. I knew it would be a good dress up outfit! BUT it's so stinking cute! I have to think of a creative way to use it at least 1 picture:)

 Kaz made a new kitchen table! It's beautiful. I'll share more on this next week! I love my new farmhouse table:)

 One of Annie Rice's favorite shows is Jake and the Neverland Pirates. I saw this shirt at Target the other day on sale for $3 and knew she would love it! So I bought it even though it was a little boys shirt! She doesn't want to take it off! She wore it all day yesterday with her patch, and kept talking like a pirate. Last night when we started to take the shirt off to put on pjs, she cried and cried and just wanted to wear her Jake shirt. So we are going on day 2! I'm going to have to get creative on how to get it off of her later today! BUT even though it's a boys shirt, she still looks cute in it:)

life....and a cookie cake!

WooHoo! My busy wedding season is O-V-E-R! I still have 12 more weddings this year, but that is spread out in 6 months compared to 15 weddings in 10 weeks! I’m very thankful for my job. I love my job! BUT I have ran myself ragged the last few weeks. We have a week of VBS at church and then we are going to the beach for a week! I can’t wait!

Life with Annie Rice has been so much fun lately. Her little personality is growing everyday. She’s becoming more independent, defiant, and chatting up a storm. 

I love that she still lays like this sometimes...with that little butt stuck out!

Last week, I had the opportunity to do a children’s story time of my children's book at Burry Bookstore in my hometown. It was a lot of fun! Unfortunately, Annie Rice was sick last week and it literally lasted all week. At first she had a temp from Sunday-Wednesday of 102.6-100.6[that was her first fever in a year..], then she just got extremely tired, grumpy, and just wanted to sleep all the time. I was very proud of myself on Friday...I really needed to get in a good 4-5 hours of work, but she just did not feel good. She didn’t want to do anything but stay in my arms. So we watched Beauty and the Beast and she fell asleep. Instead of laying her down and working, I decided to let her sleep in my arms and didn’t work until that night when she went to bed. It felt good to make a decision I wanted, not based on work. I haven’t done that very well the last few weeks..Work has always come first the majority of the time. I enjoyed my time cuddling with this sweetie so much, and about an hour into it, I wanted a nap so I let her sleep in my bed while I napped too! 

Yesterday, she broke out in a rash and scratched it so much, this morning is looked like she walked into a bob wire fence:(

Today, we took a few 2nd birthday pictures. Her birthday is July 6th, but I wanted to go ahead and take some pictures to use on her birthday party invitation. Since her LOVE right now is cookies, I knew I had to make a cookie cake of some sort. Pinterest helped me pick just the right cookie cake:) I honestly couldn’t have picked anything better...This morning when I made the cake, she was begging to eat it before we even left the house! So naturally, she dove right in for the pictures. I WILL be sharing more from our session later:)

It may not look very big, BUT that's 4 dozen cookies!

This is what my little cutie did on the ride home. She stayed like this for a good 15 minutes...

When I got home, I started looking through the pictures. These are a few I LOVE. The one of her crying WILL be framed. It’s precious. After we were finished, we told her to walk to us on the railroad tracks. She didn’t want to walk on those tracks not one bit, so she fell dramatically to the ground and gave us this face. It’s priceless!

How cute is this little ruffle bottom?

Tonight, while Kaz was folding clothes, he told me I needed to get my phone. Little priss put all of my clean underwear around her neck and walked proudly around the house wearing them! I love her to pieces!

a day with Annie...

Let me start out by saying that I am really blessed! I feel like I have the best of both worlds because I can stay at home with Annie Rice and work at the same time! I LOVE working...I always have! BUT it can get very overwhelming at times flopping between both roles. A lot of people don’t realize just how much work goes into photography. It’s not just about taking pictures...The majority of my work is editing, editing, editing, finances, emails, sending out contracts, creating albums, etc. It really is a lot of work! I could literally work a full 40 hours most weeks and still have work left to do! HOWEVER, I don’t do that. I’ve been really good at juggling between working and being a mom, but I have been really convicted lately about my role as a mom. I spend everyday, all day with Annie Rice. BUT the majority of that time is me at the computer with her playing in the room right next to me. She plays very well by herself so I can really get done what I need too. That’s a good and bad thing because I can be a workaholic and it’s just an excuse for me to work as much as I can, because she is fine playing! I DON’T WANT THAT! I want to spend quality time with her NOT JUST AT NIGHT when Kaz gets home! She see’s me everyday on my computer and she loves sitting in my lap while I’m on it, but too soon she will know what a computer is and think it’s ok for her to be on it just as much as mom. She sees me constantly responding to emails on my phone! While I have to do some of this stuff, I’m creating some bad habits for her to see AND worst of all I’m missing out on real quality time with her! 

SO, I made a rule! 1 day a week it’s Annie/Mommy day! NO EMAIL, NO COMPUTER unless she is sleeping! Today was that day! I didn’t open my computer until just now...I have seen emails coming through on my phone but haven’t responded unless I had to! It’s been an amazing day! Annie Rice enjoyed it and it has meant so much to me to see her SO HAPPY today! We started out the day at the children’s museum downtown with my friend Baylis, and her daughter Andie! Annie loved every room of the museum but especially the grocery area! Her favorite thing to eat is “cookies”! She ask for cookies all day! This morning when I gave her breakfast she said “cookies”. I said, no:) BUT in her shopping cart in the grocery store room, that little girl only put cookies in her buggy! NOTHING ELSE! I couldn’t help but laugh! 

We had lunch with Kaz at her favorite, Chick-fila! After lunch, she went down for her nap! While she napped, I watched a little TV and cleaned up just a bit! Again, no work day:) After she woke up from her nap, we fixed her favorite cookies, snicker doodle! She colored in her veggie tales coloring book and played out back with our neighbor’s daughter! We had spaghetti for dinner[again her favorite] and then took her for a ride in her favorite red wagon! I hope she feels special:) I really had such a good time with her, and I really want to do this every week! This time will go by too fast, so I’m going to make the most of it while I can! 

Below are pictures from our day! Please excuse the quality...They were all on my phone!

 Sorry, there eyes are crazy here...flash on my phone!