Halloween & Emer's 1st B-Day

I have been M.I.A. on my blog for the past month, and since it is my only method of journaling (and Emerson's baby book - how bad is that?) it's about time I did an update. Mostly, I have been buried under mountains of photo shoots and editing, rarely getting to bed before 1 am. Unfortunately, my work hours tend to be from 8 pm - 1 am. Then I decided to make myself go a little more mad and sew my kids costumes on top of everything else. I found a Dorothy costume for Dot and it was so hilarious that I had to design my kids costumes around it (which is really dumb because Dot only wore her costume for about five minutes of unproductive picture-taking before trick-or-treating.) Jo was Glinda the Good Witch of the East and Emerson was the Lion. I never finished Emer's costume (he was supposed to have a mane) and I forgot to have Jo carry around her wand. Oh well! I have these memories of my Mom making our Halloween costumes - she would measure us right before we went to bed and we would wake up the next morning all excited to see how much progress she had made. In honor of her, I spent one night sewing until 4 am.

This was at the Aliso Viejo Community celebration, and I hadn't finished the "Glinda" crown yet so she was just a princess (much to Chase's distain!!)


Sitting in the Fire Truck


My girlfriend and I took the kids to Disney Land and let the girls wear their costumes. All the character were out that day, and the girls were in absolute heaven getting to meet them all. They are BFFs, and it was so cute watching them run through D-Land holding hands, all dressed up!



The three amigos at the Campbell's In 'n Out Kids Halloween party:



"Adult" Halloween:





Halloween night:





If you are wondering where Chase was, he and Mason were working the Haunted House at the Campbell's.

Emerson has had some major milestones... he just had his first Birthday, cut his second tooth (on his b-day!) and started walking last week. He is SO much more work than Jo was at this age, we didn't even need to baby proof with her. He tries to climb up or sit on anything possible, so everything seems to be a hazard. His one present was a little car to sit on, and he was so excited to get on it that he threw a tantrum as Chase was trying to get it out of the box.



I catch Emer doing things like this:

Or splashing in the toilet with Johanna's fresh pee. Gross, probably TMI. Sorry.

We attempted a family photo shoot a few weeks ago, but I think we'll need to re-do it because of Johanna's massive bruise face. She rolled off a blanket as Chase was pulling her around and smacked her head and got a huge hematoma, which turned into a bruise and then seemed to melt down her face so it looked like she got a black eye. (this pic was minutes after the smack, so under the bandage is a huge forehead bulge).



A few days later, the bruise starts melting... I still love this picture...


Me and Emers


One last pic of Johanna with her favorite gymnastics "Coach Lisa"

good for a laugh...

I have so many of these stories and I forget them the next day, so I find myself writing them on whatever is around, like the back of receipts. Then I lose them and they're gone for good, so I think I'm going to start blogging more as my way of journaling.

We role play a lot, Johanna tells me who I am and then who she is. This morning, I was "Snow White" and she was "Prince", so that's how we addressed each other. Jo: "Are you going to watch me at gymnastics today, Snow White?" Me: "Yes Prince, please get in the car" and so on... so this morning I was exhausted from the fourth night in a row going to bed after 1 am (editing), so I decided to try to make myself some coffee. We were late for gymnastics and I took a corner a little faster than I probably should have, and my coffee went all over me and the car. I was so frustrated I was about to lose it, when I hear from the back seat "what happened?" I told her and she responded (sounding totally put out BTW), "Uhhhhhg! Snow White!!!"

Crafty

If I could just sit and do crafts all the time, I would. I remember making hot pads for my kindergarten teacher, clothes for my barbies and trolls, and one time I even made about 20 "pink ladies" jackets (from the movie Grease) when a group of my friends and I entered the talent show contest in 8th grade. I love making Halloween costumes, but haven't decided yet what everyone's going to be. Anyway, last night Amanda and I had "sewing night" (i.e. husbands away at Ducks game). I've had this pattern in my head ever since my friend Mackenzie got an adorable skirt at her baby shower... I changed a few things and made it double-sided. Ta da!




p.s. Emer FINALLY got his first tooth the other day, the day he turned 11 months!

Just Beachy

It is still so hot here, I can't believe that it's almost October! We've been taking advantage of it and spending some time at the beach, which is the perfect time since school's back in and tourist season is over.






All day yesterday I was canvasing areas to do a specific photo shoot, and last night Chase came with us down to Emerald Bay. Talk about lifestyles of the rich and famous! I have a friend who lives there so she called me through the security gate, and then all the sudden you are in this bubble of an exclusive world! The houses are obviously huge and amazing and unique, and they have their own private beach with volleyball courts and a playground.



Emer finally stood up by himself (first time!)... once his feet were securely buried in the sand...




I love how Johanna's face is outlined by the sun...




This morning I caught Johanna doing this... see if you can figure out what she's singing before me and my marvelous voice chime in...





Last week my Dad flew in to shoot Buchanan Street's Challenge for Children event with me. We've done it together for three years now, and I love being able to finally work WITH him! I feel like I've been watching him work (shoot) my whole life, and it's sometimes surreal to me when I realize that now I'm doing the same thing. Jenny watched the kids for me and brought them to the event for a little bit so my Dad could see them. Here's the two "Tommys'" together (Thomas is Emerson's middle name).



I'm in charge of shooting the team photos, and this year it was much more fun because there was a contest for who could be the most creative and the best team spirit. Obviously I'm a little biased since Chase was part of Camco's team and my kids made it into the picture, but I didn't have a part in the judging. They did end up taking second place. See the other winners on my photography blog.




I got a new lens so I experimented on Johanna. This is her "Mom! I'm so sick of posing for pictures for you!!!" face.

Mr. Emer

I know, I go for a month without posting and then do two in one day... but I just finally got motivated to start editing a client's shoot and instead I found all these cute pictures of Emer on my flash card. I have to share, he's such a little stud! Might as well procrastinate my editing a little more...






Johanna has discovered that she likes to feed Emerson, and he has discovered that he prefers her feeding him over me. It SOUNDS good, but really it's just a long, dragged out and extremely messy escapade. You can tell in this picture that Johanna's arm started to get tired.


...and a funny one of Dot.


ahhhh, back to work.

Ahhh... to be a kid again.

This week has been soooo bloody hot. I'm too cheap to have the AC on all day, so we just sweat it out (I'm sitting at my computer right now, sweating). We went to the Spectrum fountain the other day and met up with my friend and her daughters. Aziana is one of Johanna's very best friends, they have known each other since they were three months old (they're only three weeks apart in age). It was so much fun watching them run around, holding hands and putting their arms around each other. They kept telling all the other kids that they were friends. It's so weird because those two remind me of my childhood friend Adi and I. We were the same age but she was always like two heads taller than me. I was the shrimp, just like Jo :) (don't worry Jo, you'll grow in high school!!)





Emerson loved the fountain... that is until he crawled right up to the hole where he saw the water coming out and it shot him right in the face... multiple times. I really wanted to get some cute pictures of him, but he is such a busy, mobile little guy that he kept getting into trouble before I could grab my camera.

Once he's strapped in I can get a better picture.


Last night was Amanda's 25th birthday (gettin' old sis!!!) As usual, Johanna was so excited that she ended up blowing out the candles before the birthday girl. The best part is hearing her sing Happy Birthday... she belts it out at the top of her lungs.


These next pictures are NOT Photoshopped - we were totally spoiled and got to sit down in the dugout suites at the Angels Game last weekend. During the 7th inning stretch, Amanda and I were on the Jumbotron with the kiddos! It was so much fun that we didn't even watch the game! (well, I'm sure the guys did...)




Johanna with her Uncles (more like protective older brothers :)


Emerson "watching" the game with the guys

Summer Travels

Phew, it's been an intensive (but fun) few weeks. We jumped in the car (dog and all) and drove to Utah, where we spent the first week up at the Weber cabin and the second in Montana on Lake Hebgen for a Smart family reunion. Nicole and Adeline were there the whole time and Johanna and Adeline were the best of buddies. It was so much fun to watch them play and interact, which made it even more hard and sad to leave them at the end. Here are the girls walking the dogs up at the ranch...

Unfortunately, Chase had to leave in the middle to go home and work (bummer!) so I was by myself at the Hebgen. Luckily, I had my parents and about 100 other Smarts to help (a little exaggeration there :) We took the girls to "Frog Island", which brought back huge memories for me, since we used to canoe out there and catch frogs when we were little. They had just hatched and there were frogs everywhere. You would take one step and the ground would move with frogs. Johanna was a little grossed out at first, but by the end we were trying to not let her squish them to death by picking them all up. I have my cousin Mitch to thank for taking most of these pictures... he's a photographer also and I was so grateful to have someone else taking the pictures!


We took the girls on lots of boat rides, and Nicole and I even took a tubing ride with the girls! Johanna kept giving the "thumbs up" sign to go faster.




I absolutely love this picture of my Dad and the girls in the hot tub (thanks again, Mitch!!)

I love this picture too, of the girls with Grandma Dofi reading to them. Johanna loves her so much, she pulls her around by the finger and they play together. I think they have a special little bond. (this photography credit goes to my Dad :)

And then a photography credit for me... I borrowed Mitch's camera to test out one of his new lenses and take some pics of Emerson's yummy little body...

click here to see more from this shoot on my photography blog...
Finally, this is about the only good memory of driving home on Sunday. It took us all day to get from UT to CA due to traffic outside of Las Vegas. We stopped to let the kids stretch and - go figure - all they wanted to do was drive. Here's their paparazzi shot...