Spring Break so far...

I got a really great full time job opportunity last week so Brandon gets to quit his job and come home and be Mr. Mom! 

YAHOO!

I've been looking forward to this literally for  years!

Brandon is always so busy, he's always working, he's always studying, he's always doing something.

 I feel like he never gets to come on trips with me (and if he does he has to stay in the hotel and study),

 he never gets to go do fun things with our families, 

and he never gets to do anything that he really wants to do!

 so I was MORE than happy to take a full time job so that he could have the next few months before Medical School to be a free man! 

And so far the turnout has been great

His last day of work was last Saturday and this week is spring break so we've already gotten away to do some fun things.

On Sunday night Brandons dad said

"Hey we should go to Vegas tomorrow!"

so 25 minutes later our hotel was booked and we were at home packing

(Thats one thing i LOVE about my father-in-law! he's way spontaneous  and always follows through!)

We mostly went down to hang out at the pool so we booked our room at the fabulous 

Mandalay Bay because they're pool is like a beach!

.Evie of course LOVED the sand and the pool.

I loved that Brandon was there and SLEEPING on a lounge chair!

Not up in the hotel

not doing homework

not reading a text book

SLEEPING!

My mom loaned me Jareds old "Mom Rigg" :)

So Evie and I have been going on lots of bike rides lately!

It's spring in St. George already and I LOVE it!!

I honestly never want to move anywhere cold ever again!

A few nights ago we went on a date night with a bunch of our good friends from Brandons (old) work!

We were going to go bowling but it was league night so we headed over to the batting cages at Fiesta Fun!

This was my first time EVER batting at something and I did WAY better than I thought I was going to!

We let Evie crawl all over the ground out by the cages and get filthy so when we went back inside to the arcade to play air hockey we just let her have at all the kiddie playground stuff

Her FAVORITE new thing is the slide!

(pardon the hat hair)

This little slide was like 3 feet long so she could go down it all by herself

and she went CRAZY!

as soon as she was down the slide she was back up and trying to climb back up it again

She'd get overly anxious at the top and accidentally front flip and tumble all the way down and she'd 

STILL 

want to get back up and go to the top again!

It was hilarious!

Well spring break still isn't' over! 

I think today we're going on a hike with Brandons family and I can't wait!

More pictures to come on that 

until then

xo, Meg

UT NV AZ and back

This month has been CRAZY! We started off the month up in SLC for a couple of shoots

then back down to St. George for my 24th BIRTHDAY!

.man i'm old.

then we came home and headed off to Arizona for Brandons birthday/ Valentines Day AND a medical school interview!

We were leaving on a sunday and Evie learned to crawl that morning! 

(I think I already told that story in my last post but here are some pics from the day she learned)

Brandons Interview went great and he was accepted to Midwestern YAHOOO!!

*this school is my top choice for obvious reasons*

We spent Brandons birthday / Valentines Day hanging out on the sofa while Evie slept on us. 

It was just what we needed though.

We both work a LOT so we never get to just sit together anymore.

After that Evangeline gave us lots and lots of face kisses (attacks)

and then we went to Brandons FAVORITE restaurant of all time!

It's the little tiny place in the middle of an asian strip mall but it tastes JUST like Taiwanese food!

We got home from Arizona and 2 days later I took off to Las Vegas for a conference

This year I got invited to attend WPPI

.Wedding & Portrait Photographers International.

and it was AMAZING!

I met so many famous photographers

and attended so many awesome classes!

I went down with 4 other girls and I couldn't have loved being in their group more!

I could gush on and on but I won't bore you guys :)

I'll go into more detail about WPPI on my photography blog later this week.

.anyway.

My conference ended on Wednesday so Brandon drove down with Evie and he flew out Wednesday afternoon to his next interview in Des Moines.

On Thursday my mom and brother came down for Jareds soccer tournament!

He didn't have games until Saturday so we hit up the pool side ALL WEEKEND!

It was amazing to have sun on my skin! 

Last year I hardly went outside cause I was either 9 months pregnant or I had a new born and it was 100 degrees every day down here in St. George.

Evie is A FISH!!!

You can't GET that girl out of the water!

She loves the pool, she loves the hot tub, she loves the bath tub!

(and as of 30 minutes ago the toilet bowl.... 

note to self: close all toilet bowls from now on...)

This girl is into EVERYTHING!

She is the most mischievous little thing i've ever seen!

I was having fun taking pictures of her all morning and then I lost my model to the Hot Dog Dance...

I don't know what it is about that song but as SOON as that song comes on every bit of her focus goes directly to Mickey Mouse?...

Anyways.
thats it for today!
E and I are going to go for a bike ride now
:)

Xo, Meg

Time To Lower Our Standards :)

This month has been CRAZY!!

For the entire month of February I will be home a total of 10 days! 

We've been up to SLC for weddings and other shoots

down to Arizona for a medical school interview and Brandons birthday

next week we're off to vegas for a Photography Conference

and then I STAY in Vegas for the rest of the week for my little brothers soccer tournament 

while Brandon goes to Des Moines for his LAST interview!

.sheesh.

My little girls sleep schedule is ALL OVER the place!

We worked 6 months for a routine all to blow it in one month ha ha ha 

.oh well.

life goes on

In other news!

It's officially time to lower the crib!

This gal pulls herself up on EVERYTHING!

She climbs up the TV stand, the sofa, the table, your leg, the bed, my desk, my chair, she even attempts to stand up on Charley! 

and guess what!? She CRAWLS NOW!!

She learned the morning we were heading out the door for Arizona!

I feel so bad because Brandon missed the first time she rolled and the day she learned to sit up because he was at work so I was SO EXCITED he was home for this!!

I was blow drying my hair out in the living room while Brandon was in the shower and I set my brush on the floor and she totally took a step towards it!

I jumped up and ran into the bathroom

B SHE'S CRAWLING!!! SHE CRAWLING COME NOW!!!!!

So he jumps out of the shower (grabs a towel) and comes BOLTING into the living room!

She thought it was peek-a-boo or something when he came around the corner so she started laughing and crawling towards him!! It was awesome!

We honestly never thought she'd crawl before she walked!

{sorry to all those who think stories like that are not nearly as awesome as we mammas think they are!

 ha ha ha I used to skip right passed  posts like these when I didn't have Evie so it's okay if you did too}

Upcoming Family Posts

Arizona/ Brandons Birthday / Valentines Day

Vegas Conference / Weekend with my Mamma

My birthday (yes that was clear back in January)

Upcoming Photography Posts

Wing Wedding

Conrad Bridals

Yellowhorse Bridals

Janelle Bridals

{yikes i'm behind...}

ALSO! Great News! 

My camera that broke 3 months ago is FINALLY FIXED!!!

No more using this stinkin' camera with the soft focus!!

xo, Meg

You are my Sunshine My only Sunshine

It's funny how much I look forward to blogging.

I think about it all week

when I finally get to have a minute to sit down & do it.

It's kind of like a relaxing "me time" in my week

I get to take a break from photoshopping all my weddings and bridals and I get to finally work on something that I love 

.most the time 

it's this girl.

I have never been much of a Journaler*

I haven't regretted it so far

up until 3 years ago my journal mostly would have consisted of entries like

"This month I like (place unimportant boys name here)"

"today I hung out with my same 6 best friends"

"the church is true"

but once I met my husband that all changed.

I felt like I had stuff happening in my life that my kids would want to read about.

Thoughts and memories that they'd like to relive with me later in their lives

{maybe when I'm gone?}

for me 

.blogging = journal.

So today I want to write about Evie for a few minutes

she's already 6 months old

I remember when I was pregnant with her thinking

"I think having a 6 month old is going to be the BEST!

she'll be at a perfect stage.

you can really have fun with her and she's not super fragile anymore

she has a personality but is still manageable

she's not so dependent on you but she's not mobile YET"

This girl is about 5 days away from crawling!

i'm terrified...

She is going to be a handful when she can finally get around

This girl is a 

wild woman!

We have a hard time at church already because she sits and just SCREECHES! 

It's not a cry, its just sheer joy

<3

.She LOVES to jump.

we can't go to movies with her anymore because she is CONSTANTLY jumping in our laps and we're exhausted by the end!

We took her to "we bought a zoo" the other day and she just stood in our laps and SCREECHED at the animals on the screen! I had to take her out for most of the movie!

She ADORES my brother Jared

I don't know if it's because he's smaller than everyone else or what but every time he's near her she starts to kick her legs and scream at him.

He went to Hobby Lobby with us the other day and I almost made him go sit in the car because Evie was causing such a scene about him walking by us!

She wants to be touching your face at all times

If you are holding her she's either pulling at your nose, eyes and mouth or she'll put her hands up on your temples, shut her eyes, and slowly put her forehead against yours and leave it there for a minute.

{thats my favorite}

She is so smart

she's already learning how to clap

she already says "mom"

{I don't think she does it on purpose but she says it all the time}

When she gets sad she looks at me with her big puppy face and goes 

"mom mom mom mom mom"

.heart melt.

She likes to bug charley and pull her ears

{charley will usually let out a huge annoyed sigh* and then go lay on the other end of the sofa}

She LOVES ice cream

{like her mamma}

She loves sock monkeys!

She thinks they are just hilarious

She's in a MAJOR scratching phase

which stinks because when i'm rocking her to sleep she HAS to be touching my face and most the time she's just scratching me.

When she has something in her hand that she is particularly pleased about having (dads cell phone) she starts to sing this high pitched little song and flips the item around in her hands.

She loves to suck on faces!!

My makeup looks like crap everyday because she is constantly sucking on my cheeks!

She loves to be upside down?

The higher and faster you drop her the more fun she has.

She's very curious about everything going on around her and watches everything very intently

She loves when I sing "you are my sunshine"

"I'm trying to be like Jesus"

"pop corn popping on the apricot tree"

& "you'll be in my heart" but doesn't like "I am a child of god"?...

.weird.

{maybe i'm a little pitchy.... sensitive ears...}

She gets exhausted at the grocery store because with out a doubt she has at least 6 people come within 3 inches of her face and say "oh what a cute baby!! do you love shopping!? You are just a doll! Are you with your mamma?! Oh my goodness how adorable!" while we are there.

She cracks up when Dad dances with her.

She likes to eat moms Ipad.

She HATES the car seat

Loves the stroller

and goes CRAZAY  in the bath tub! 

This girl is gonna be one of those kids that you have to go in and manually remove from the swimming pool! 

anyway, it's 1 a.m and I just got caught blogging by my husband so I'd better go but thats my journal update on Evie. For those of you who stayed through the whole thing, thanks for listening :) 

Talk to you all soon!

xo, Meg

Christmas Overload!

Get ready for the ultimate Christmas Vacation photo OVERLOAD!

We had such a great break and I couldn't narrow down my pictures at all!

We started out on Christmas day at the Valantine house! Evie's first Christmas was a blast!

She got all kinds of new toys, books and bath toys and of course her FAVORITE thing was

.the gift wrap.

As soon as presents were open and the big Valantine Christmas Morning Breakfast was had those traitors took off for a cruise and left us "newly parents" at home :(

.but thats okay.

I was more excited about seeing my sister and brother in law for the first time in 6 months 

AND

Elder Anderson would be calling us that night too!!!

so we took off to Salt Lake with a VERY full car

{I never knew having a baby meant packing around so much stuff!!}

That night was sat around the laptop staring at the Skype home screen waiting and waiting for Ryan to call!

 Of course my mom HAD to buy Evie this cute little Cambodia shirt since it was the first time she'd be meeting Uncle Ryan!

It was so fun to see him smile and laugh again!

We got to talk to him for upwards of 2 hours!

It was awesome, we loved every minute of it, but it was so hard to say goodbye

-----------------------

Since it was Christmas Day and Santa hadn't come to the Andersons yet we played the rest of the night off like it was Christmas Eve. 

We did all of our Christmas Eve traditions and opened a gift. Read the Night Before Christmas Etc. and then went to bed!

Christmas is much different when you have a baby

For example when you wake up at 5 a.m on Christmas morning it's not because your overly excited about gifts...

 We put Evie in her Christmas Jammies again (middle pic) 

(PLEASE notice the reindeer on the feet!) 

and then we had a blow out so we switched to our other favorite jammies.

.incase you haven't noticed.

Evie has this thing where she is CONSTANTLY sticking her tongue out!

I have about 25 pictures from the holiday with her making a tongue face

 Christmas morning came and went way too fast as usual

I'm the worlds coolest wife and scored my husband a new golf bag and the new Travis Rice Snowboard Video ;)

I made my dad this little license plate plaque for his shop at the Dickens Festival

he has all the license plates from every car he's ever owned hanging on the wall in there so I thought it fit the theme.

I got SUPER spoiled this year and Santa brought me and Ipad 2! 

.which I haven't put down since I opened it...

 After we opened gifts we all took naps, played with our new gadgets and we put "Stinker Butt" into the bath.

Grandma Rainey has the BEST bath sink at her house!

E loves it!

That night I begged and BEGGED and my family took me to see the Zoo Lights!

my 2 favorite things in ONE place!

.It was bliss.

 I loved these snuggly Giraffes so much I made everyone get their pic in front of them ha ha ha 

------------------------------------

The next day I caught a flight and flew out to sunny Newport Beach California to shoot a wedding!

I left SLC at 8 a.m and landed back at 9 p.m that night!

It was fast and crazy but really fun!

-------------------------------------------

The next morning B and I went to the Draper Temple for my "baby Marni"s wedding

Squid and I met on the first day of the 7th grade

class got over and everyone was crowding the door and I got pushed and fell right on top of her desk!

It was destiny ;)

we stuck together all through high school and 300 miles apart all through college.

I love this girl, she's always her own person and i love that best about her.

----------------------------------

and what sister/mom reunion would be complete without some after christmas shopping!?

We hit up Nordstrom Rack which is almost always a mistake because I can NEVER narrow down my number of shoe choices...

Neither can Evangeline though...

we spent a few days in park city shopping our hearts out while the boys stayed home with the BYU athletics department and Tom Cruise.

Later in the week we made about 20,000,000 calories worth of carmely, chocolately, minty treats

and subsequently ate almost all of them before the week was over...

 for our last night all together we went to park city, had an amazing dinner and then walked main street. We looked through all the galleries and saw all the Christmas lights.

It was such a great week!

The holidays always go by so fast when your older

When your young it NEVER comes

.so unfair.

CSI St. George

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Merry Christmas!

This is my FAVORITE time of the year!

Summer is amazing but there is just nothing like Christmas!

We put our tree up the other day and I'm in LOVE with it!

A few years ago my mother-in-law gave me a christmas present, she said after christmas she'd take me around to all the clearance sales and get me some stuff to start off my christmas tree and since then my tree has gotten FABULOUS!

Every year we get a new ornament that shows what happened that year!

This year we got a little Woody car for our trip to San Clemente

and...

.mine!.

This one is for my graduation from SUU in photography!

how cute huh!? 

I had been trying and trying to find ornaments for Brandon and I since SUU doesn't make ornaments.

Well I found mine and Brandons is still MIA.

What kind of ornament do you get for someone who has a Business and a Biology degree with a Chemistry minor?...

any suggestions?

My FAVORITE Christmas shop went out of business this year :( so if you know of any cute stores or websites let me know!

I also REALLY REALLY need to get one for Evangelines first Christmas!

this year I did lots of DIY Christmas decorations! 

1- those glittery trees! They turned out super cute and I love them but for those of you who are thinking "oh thats cute! I wanna do those" I recommend you just go buy some at Tai Pans, Pier One, Target etc. 

I thought it would be cheaper to make them...

.it's not.

and it's not worth the glitter I PROMISE!

I'm finding glitter EVERYWHERE!

in my hair

in my bed

in Evies diapers

on our dishes 

in the car!

and I made these

.4 weeks ago.

I had to buy the foam trees ($4 $2 $1) 

and the little glass stands (#1 each) 

White spray paint for the glass stands ($2)

and the spray adhesive ($9 YUP. NINE DOLLARS!)

glitter ($6)

E6000 glue ($3)

= too much

I've seen the really tall trees at all those places I listed from $9-$30

They don't come on the cute white stands but these puppies are not worth making yourself 

ha ha ha 

the stands are my favorite part so I would recommend just buying the stand part and gluing it to one you buy.

2- These fabulous reindeer!

I found them at D.I! They had big google eyes and red puff ball noses so I pulled it all off and sanded them down and made these beauties for a total of $2!

3-the mirror behind them! Brandons mom was taking this mirror to the D.I! It was this gross gold and cream mirror that was all chipped and broken so I salvaged it! 

The paint cost me $1.50 cause I got a sample size for wall paint and the mirror was free! How I painted it makes it look cold and frosty (perfect for winter) in the spring I'll put a brown glaze on it.

big news!

EVANGELINE CAN SIT UP!

She's a champ at it now!

(sometimes charley knocks her over)

but other than that she's awesome at it!

I started taking pics of Evie in front of the tree and this sprung a MASSIVE need for a legit Christmas photo shoot with her! I have JUST what  I want to do in mind!

So the other day I got everything ready for the shoot and went to go get her little white hat that I love 

. and its missing.

It's no where to be found!!!

I've looked all over my house, my car, my moms house, my moms car!

It's gone... I need to go buy another one...

I'm NOT doing the shoot with out that hat!

I CANNOT WORK IN THESE CONDITIONS!

;)

of course after taking pictures of Evie charley felt like she needed to be in the photos too.

as soon as I took Evie down off the ottoman from her shoot 

Charley jumped right up there and gave me this little pose 

ha ha ha

.crazy dog.

Jouex Noel!