You'd think she's a pro!
And off she went...
two seconds later she was excited and ready to go!
A little nervous (because we thought we might be late)

New Do

My dear friend Leah and her bf chad own a salon in Spring Lake, and on Labor Day after the wedding weekend they cut my hair...AND I LOVE IT:)

DEAGAN and OLIVIA's Birthday

I have not yet gotten out the invites (see post below) but I wanted to let you all know that we will be having the kids' double birthday party on Sunday September 14th this year. It will be at our house in the afternoon..
more details and an invite to come soon.
Save the Date:)

Tricia

I apologize...

I am that blogger that I hate. I never update it, and when I do it's a bunch of WORDS that you have to take time to read. Not cute adorable pictures that you want to love!
Well I know and I apologize!!!! It's been a super busy summer. Super busy.
And it's about to go out with a BANG.
My best friend Lindsey is marrying one of Jeff's best friends, Peter- THIS WEEKEND.
And all FOUR of us are in the wedding!

So needless to say, we are all super busy right now. And I just can't wait for school to start.
Deagan is starting a new preschool. Olivia is starting kindergarden and Jeffery is going back to finish college. And I might take a graphic design class...might.
Does this mean it's going to be a busy year?
(I'm tired already!)

It's going to be a productive year. A weathly, healthy and intelligent year for all of us.

You see for the last 20+ years of my life, my "years" begin in September and end in May. My body uses the academic calendar. Always has, and now having kids in school, always will.
So we are all very excited for our long summer to end and our new year to begin!

We will be over in Grand Haven celebrating the wedding and Deagan's birthday on MONDAY....
and then after that, I promise I will update more and give you pictures:)

it's sad, I have family pictures from june, july 4th and august that I still have not posted!

Kudos for Jeffers

Jeffery met with his guidance counselor for the last time yesterday and is officially enrolled in classes at Eastern Michigan University. They have a great evening program and he only has two semesters to go before he is DONE with his bachelors. It's an achievement he's been looking forward to for quite some time. And now he has the opportunity to make it happen. He'll be done by spring of next year! GO JEFFERY!!!

Our Family Trip to the Tiger's Game

Jeff got our family four tickets to see the Tiger's game on Friday night. We carpooled with our friends Cara and Greg and luckily found our way there:)
We thought for sure that we would only be staying maybe three innings and then the kids would completely lose interest and be begging to leave- well we were dead wrong! They had such a great time that we ended up staying the ENTIRE game:)
They ate absolutely everything that came our way, and this time we let them soak it all in. Hot Dogs, chips, cotton candy, cracker jacks, lemonade... endless pits they have for stomachs!
We took a little stretch and rode on the carousel too! The kids loved it:)
And at the end of the game they had a fantastic fireworks show! It was possibly better than the one we had on fourth of july in Mackinaw! It was huge, loud and long:)
What a fun night!

Tiger's Game 08/08/08

We had seats ALL the way at the top, but it was great! We could see everything and had a fantastic breeze all night long! Yes, that is a giant tiger paw on Jeff's hand attacking Deagan:)
She was in heaven sitting with her daddy!
At least I smiled:)
Growling like a tiger...

Per her request to enrich the life of her little brother- cotton candy!
Deagan's first ever cotton candy! He didn't quite understand it when I handed him a glob of the fluffy stuff... He said, "where's the candy?" Then I shoved it in his mouth and told him to suck on it... his eyes promptly lit up with an "MMMMMmmm" SO SWEET!

Riding the Carousel at Tiger Stadium

the scoreboard at night

Fun @ The Splash Park

This past Thursday, the kids and I met our friends at the splash park in Kensington for a little summer fun.
The kids had a good time, despite being afraid of getting their faces wet! Silly goofs!
This is Olivia, Lillia, and her baby sister Sienna. Lillia was on our soccer team and we have become good friends with her mom Krista who sent us this picture:)

Olivia's Safety Town Graduation

The sweet princess is growing up so fast!
Deagan and I are very proud of his big sister!
Olivia with Lauren, who was on our soccer team:)

Lauren, Stephanie and Olivia at the graduation ceremony.
On the first day of safety town Olivia became friends with little Stephanie. When her mom left, just as we were arriving, Stephanie was crying. I pulled Olivia aside and told her that she was scared and really needed a friend, and she should ask her to color with her. Well Olivia did and since they've been two peas in a pod. They would run hugging each other every day it was so cute!!!
On graduation day I finally talked to her mom and found out that they will be in THE SAME KINDERGARDEN CLASS this fall. So now we are all super excited for Olivia. She's not scared at all, and she's super confident now that she has a friend to team up with to conquer the world!

Olivia and I this weekend

We are still alive:)
This was from Aunt Beth and Uncle Don's 25th Anniversary party this weekend:)

Happy Birthday Baby Thomas

Jeff's best friend Brian and his wife Allie had a beautiful baby boy early this morning! Little Thomas Albert was born at 1:22am and apparently did not want mommy and daddy to get any rest- as he was born a few weeks early!
You can check out their blog, www.briandandallie.blogspot.com for some more pictures:)
CONGRATS GUYS!!!!!!

On another note. Oddly enough we booked plane tickets to come out and see them in September- FIVE months ago. And today, the baby's birthday, we got a phone call from the airline saying they had changed our flight. They left a message saying that instead of us leaving Oregon at 8pm we were now leaving at 2pm. Cutting SIX hours off of our trip. Six hours!
So I called them right back and tried bitching my way into another flight, but they told me that this was the latest light out that day and everything else had been canceled. Keep in mind this is TWO months from now. And the flight it already canceled!

So I hang up, ticked off, and got the intimidator on the phone. Jeff calls them, raises hell, gets hung up on and then calls back. The second time he got a sweet girl who put him on hold for 15 minutes (we thought she was never coming back). But she did and she transfered us to another airline and got us back on a later flight. With NO hassle.

So why is it that me, a woman talking to a man on the phone could get nowhere? But Jeff, a loud angry man talking to a woman could get exactly what he wanted?

It's like the airline leaves you a message and tells you one thing, just HOPING that the majority of the people will just take it and deal with it.... and they get away with it because people are too afraid to question their authority. Well not us! We fight back:) And we won~

Another weekend

Another weekend update, no pictures. Ha! I've got to be the worst blogger that I have ever been! Sorry!
I need about four extra hours in each day. Please!

We did a small home improvement this weekend. We FINALLY updated the landscaping in front of the house. There really was nothing there except a few flowering bushes. So we added about 12 more small bushes and some flowering plants. We also found a STEAL and got our trailer half filled with woodchips for only FIVE BUCKS. It covered the whole front of the house:)

Saturday we had a fun time at Zach's birthday party. I can't believe he is 14! He will forever be 9 years old in my mind...

Sunday we had photo shoots in and out of the rain. They all went well and the rain broke and the HEAT came on... flashbacks to Louisiana! YUCK.

Sunday Jeff and I snuck off to see the new Batman movie while my parents had the kids. It was AWESOME. Really, it was. I'm not usually into the Batman flicks, but this one was loaded. The special effects were so real. The sound was amazing. It was thrilling, romantic, dramatic, funny and sad. Heath Ledger did an amazing job as the joker. So real you couldn't even tell who it was! It's a sad loss! If you get a chance, go see it. It's one you don't want to miss in theaters:)

Hope you all had a great weekend!

July Family Photo

This is my new favorite family photo:)
It was taken this past weekend at Nicole's daughter's first birthday party.
Deagan is, well, Deagan!
Love It!

Working with Mavi

Since Olivia is a big girl now and she has decided to give up napping (or at least make her best effort not to) I have started to let her play in the studio while I'm working. Because as you see, my only solid work time when there is no babysitter here is during nap time. I hope and pray daily for a quality nap from the kids. However, the princess is almost five and is almost done with napping, so I give her the benefit of the doubt!
These were a few pictures taken last week of her playing quietly with Maverick while I worked.
What a tolerant little dog! He loves her and will do anything just to be with her...even let the dolls rest on him:)

*HaPpY bIrThDaY mOm*

Today is my wonderful mother's birthday! She brightens our world and made me the creative professional I am today, Happy Birthday Mom:)
We love you!

I know I'm bad....

...it's the summer! It sucks the life out of you! I can't help it we are so busy and more importantly the business is soo busy that I can't keep up with my own photoshop! So you all will just have to live without pictures for a little bit. I've got them, stockpiling. Waiting for a down day- or a late night!
sorry for boring you:)
t

*HaPpY 20th AnNiVeRsArY PaUlLa AnD rOn*

We would like to wish Jeff's parents, Paulla and Ron, a VERY happy 20th wedding anniversary!
We love you:)
Jeff and Tricia