Meeks Family Pictures............Oih!

My awesome mom chose this one for her big family photo for her wall!  It made my day :)  

Ethan at his personal best ;)

The bink was our saving grace, unfortunately

Kylie and my Dad weren't going to let anything detour them from a great picture ;)

It is always an adventure trying to get extended family photos!  Especially for my Mom because she has a rather large photo collage wall that we need to fill :)  Not to mention Lily was just not loving the entire situation.  I just have to say for my family, I will never let Bryan talk me into letting him wear a t-shirt again!  He doesn't mesh with me and the kidlets and it highly irritates me :)  He can suck it up and be hot next time, because now I don't have a family picture for my house :(  OH well, I guess we can try it again next year..............  or the next!

Cool People Alert!

Have you ever seen people this cool?  I thought NOT!!!!  Oh yes, we are awesome, LOL, or dorks either one works ;)

The Past...............

Our primary program is coming up this Sunday. For some reason while memorizing Kye's part I thought about the video of her very first primary program that I had put on this blog......... We decided to go listen to it last night. I was a mess afterwards! My kids giggled their way through it and thought Kye sounded so cute and little. We broke down and watched all the old videos and looked at our old pictures too. Wow, I have been blogging for 4 years. Ethan was 2 months old when I began, and I can not express how happy I am that I blogged all that I have! It is so much fun to look back and see how round their cute little faces used to be and how cute they sounded. I am sure in another 4 years we'll be looking of pictures taken now and think "Look how little you were!" I regret that I have fallen through on doing videos as much, because I LOVE watching them. I know blogging is becoming less and less popular now with as many social media places there are out there. I never want to stop though, looking back is priceless. As many of you know we have been trying to get pregnant for almost 2 years now. I am definitely not pregnant, so please don't get your hopes up........ I have prayed so much about it and received a pretty strong answer that "yes" we should keep trying. I try really hard to stay positive month after month, but it is hard I'm not going to lie. Sometimes you wish you could see the bigger plan for your life, but I have faith that what is meant to happen will, I just wish I was a patient person. I am not patient in the least though, one of the worst attributes I have :) I keep telling myself that maybe it's not about you, but maybe whoever might come join our family has a plan of their own and they need to come here at a specific time for their own purposes. Nobody ever said life would be easy, or if they did I wasn't listening before I got here ;) I am determined to make a better effort to live life as it is and not dwell too much on what might happen. I have two beautiful children who I am so grateful for and if they are the only two I get while I'm on this earth I will still consider myself very blessed! Now if I can get back to my 2008 body! Man we were looking at pictures and I seriously was thinner four months after I had Ethan then I am now! Ugh! It is pretty sad when your kids go, "Wow, Mom look how skinny you were!" I'm not a runner, but I began walking today and really enjoyed it, so hopefully I can get a solid routine going and get myself in some shape! Comfort food is Fall fashion so I better do something ;) We all know I can't pass up some potatoes and gravy, I think I could eat it till I burst :( I am definitely a meat and potatoes girl! Why couldn't I be a health food nut? Oh well, work with what you have is my motto..............

Who couldn't love these two? I know it will never be possible for me to stop ;)

Preschool again...........

Yes! We are off to preschool again. Off to fill our noodles with ABC's and 123's! Ethan is really coming into his own and has been working hard this summer. He knows by sight his entire alphabet and all the sounds those silly letter make too! We even sounded out a couple of words and I am so excited that he is grasping things! He has definitely been so much harder then Kylie in the school department. I would try to sit and force him to do flash cards and he hated it! I finally found his niche though, and he is grasping things so quickly now! He even brings me the flash cards and asks to do them, because he is so proud of himself :) I am so proud of him too and hope he loves school and enjoys learning :) He is also our little T-Ball player right now. Soccer was a disaster, he hated it!!!! T-Ball is a breath of fresh air though. He wants to play and wants to practice with daddy (even though daddy's time is extremely limited at the moment). Boys are so much different then girls I am discovering each and every day. Where Kylie skips from fad to fad, Ethan has maintained a like for Cars, Legos, and Batman. Give that kid a $1.00 matchbox car and you have made his day! We love you Ethan and are so proud and excited for you to go back to preschool! You bring so much fun and silliness into our family! Life could never be the same without you :)

Facebook and I are personally taking a step back............

I have decided that on a personal level Facebook and I are having a break up! I mostly use if for business purposes and that is what I intend to continue using it for. If you want to know what's going on personally you'll have to just check here or call me. If we are that good of friends or family you will probably know because I talk to you. I am getting rid of 90% off my friends list, not because I don't think we're friends, but I am just not going to be using Facebook on a personal level. I only kept people that Facebook is one of the only places I communicate with them through. Hope no one takes it personally, but I'm not living in a world where that is easy to do. So if you hate me for it you probably really hated me long before that. I am a firm believer that the internet and social media do just as much damage as it does good. I saw a story about FB bullying the other day and thought, "90% of these bulliers (not a real word but you get it) would probably not say these things to the persons face, they wouldn't have the guts!". I post 90% of the same stuff on my personal and business page so it is basically the same. I sat back last week and saw that I had posted about my kids Halloween costumes. Wow, like anybody really cares but me and like two people! I started reading other people's post and thought wow you ran today or wow you slept in, but who cares? Nobody really but ourselves. That is why I keep this blog because it is like a journal. So I keeping the personal end of things here and using facebook for what I really use it for. When I go on there I look and business stuff and then go look and deals and cool stuff from vendors. I probably seem like a jerk, but I hardly ever check to see if it was someones birthday or look and what they recently posted. Sometimes it makes me mean too! I mean some folks post way too much information for the masses :) Then I find myself thinking badly of them. It is a never ending cycle of if I hadn't had saw that on facebook I wouldn't have had that mean thought about someone. I am sure there have been people who look at mine and think why the crap do I care what her kids are going to be for Halloween! No kidding you shouldn't, it isn't healthy for us all to know so much useless information about each other. I'm not even sure my blogging is healthy, but about 20 people might look at that. Oh well, if you think I'm crazy that's your peragative. I am off to worry about more important things, like making a car rug :)

Inspired by FRUIT?

Remember this photo from last Halloween? We I was featured on http://confessionsofapropjunkie.com this week for FRUIT inspiration pictures :) That apple actually looks yummy, too bad it seems to be deadly ;)

Only the Lonely.......

Bryan and I had the past weekend all to ourselves....... the kids went to my parents' new cabin with them and we stayed behind this time because I had a shoot on Saturday. We went out on two dates and watched a movie, it was nice to be with each other, but our house felt empty and a little too quiet! I remember the days of going out all of the time before we had kids. Seeing every movie in the movie theater that we wanted, and actually getting ready and trying to look cute everyday! I am happy to say that I don't miss them in the least :) I missed my kids too stinkin much! Bry felt the exact same way :) I love my kids, and I am happy to go and see 90 % of the kid movies that come to theaters and only 2% of the adult ones. Nothing beats being a parent. Sure they may drive me up the wall and fight like crazy amongst themselves, but I remember doing the same thing when I was a kid! I should probably tell you that I have been walking around without a wedding ring for about a month now. Ethan decided to take it off my bedside table and play with it one day! Yes, needless to say it was lost! I turned my room inside out, with no luck. I felt slightly naked without it. I even had a weird guy hit on my at the Harry Potter movie Al and I went to. It made me so uncomfortable!!!! Hello, why couldn't he tell I was married with two children, honestly! Oh yeah, probably because I was missing the one thing that lets people know for sure that you are. Honestly though I think you can tell by my body that I have had a few kids, lets be honest I am no Spring Chicken! Anyways, I asked Ethan where he put it and he had said on my bed! Oh yes, oh NO! I thought about five minutes of killing him, but then talked myself out of those drastic measures. Honestly, it's only the most expensive thing I personally own. Then it clicked in my head, it is just a thing! You can't take it with you, and plus Bry and I both know we're married :) Well, I stopped looking figuring we'd find it when we move in 10 years ;D Luckily Bry decided to flip our mattress today and WA' LA! My four year old stuck it between our mattress :) See it is a good thing I decided not to end his life at the ripe old age of four :) I'm sure there is only much worse to come from that kid anyways, but I'll probably look back and miss him dearly when he is gone on his mission or off married to some girl. Time passes faster then I'm personally prepared for, I just hope I can find patience and take everything in stride............. pray for me!

Our little Chick-let.....

Well dance tryouts have come and gone once again and Kylie did awesome! Or so her teacher tells me ;) Kylie moved up this year to the Chicks performing team!!! YAY for her, we are so proud of her! She also made Hip Hop team again as well. She has been asking me to do a solo for well over a year now, but I was hesitant to put that much more time and money into it. After watching her last year we decided to jump in and do a solo this year. I know she will do a great job and am so excited for her! I don't think I did a solo until I was in the 9th grade. I love the confidence that dance is providing and know she will only grow more from doing a solo this year. So this year we have a little Chick-let on our hands, and are super excited to see her continue to grow in her talents :)

Back To School!

Yay! We are back in school and filling our brains to the brim :) Well at least Kylie is, Ethan doesn't start till the day after Labor Day. Now I must tell you, I planned on only taking Kylie's back to school pictures, and waiting on little old Ethan till closer to his school start date, but he insisted on taking pictures too! You can't tell, he looks like he was forced to do it, frankly he looks extremely uninterested in the whole event! Oh well, K SARA SARA! Noticed I added one with Kylie totally losing it in a laugh! I had someone ask me if Kylie was an unhappy child because she doesn't smile in all of her pictures....... not the case she is always happy, she just thinks she has a jacked up smile and teeth (something she has learned from her father!) I told her it's her choice how she smiles for photos I wasn't going to chew her out anymore about it :) So if she is not smiling it is by her choice and hers alone! Frankly I like a good serene look, you see the subjects eyes much better, and that is one of my favorite parts of a photograph :) Enjoy our rendition of school pictures!