Say cheese!

This past Saturday was prom night for my nephew, Cody, and his friends who attend Mountain View High School. He asked me if I would be interested in taking a few pictures for the group before the dance, and seeing as how I have never shot any of these type of photos before, I jumped at the opportunity!

They scouted out a few places they liked, but ultimately decided the winning spot would be Bridal Veil Falls up Provo Canyon. For those of you who have never visited this place, you are missing out. It is beautiful! However, it is a pretty popular attraction when the weather is nice, so I was a little concerned as to how we would be able to snap a few shots whilst weaving in and out of the crowd :) Although there were quite a few people there, they were mindful of the shoot and steered clear for the most part.

When taking pictures, the more ideas the better. They had some ideas of their own they wanted to capture, and mixed with my ideas, I'd say it was a pretty successful night! Here are some of the shots:

There is a bridge right in front of the falls, so we snapped a group shot right in front of it. There were actually a few little kids climbing up the rocks in the background, so I had to strategically place the couple to block them view :) Cody is the tall, handsome gentleman just right of the middle.

Another group shot showing more of the falls.

When I snapped these shots, I'm pretty sure they all thought I was nuts! I was trying to get a modern look, and overall I'm happy with how they turned out. Hopefully now they understand why I had the camera waist-level, and moved me down a few notches on the crazy scale!

There is an old bridge that is no longer being used that had an old shed in the background. An old run-down shed?! Right up my alley! We did some couples' shots as well as some single shots here. I really liked how his tie matched her dress, very fashion-savvy!

I LOVE the splash of colors the blue and green provide in this one. OH! and if you can believe it, this girl's aunt made her dress for her! Go aunt, go! Turned out so pretty!

We did some single shots in front of the falls also.

I thought it might be kind of fun to try having a main girl in front, and having the rest of the girls in the background in soft focus. This way it was kind of like an individual shot, but they still had their friends in it with them :)

So after all is said and done, I think everything turned out pretty nicely. Thanks, Cody, for giving me the opportunity to do this :) Such a fun, polite group of kids! I had a blast doing it.

Hoppin' Down the Bunny Trail

This year for Easter I spent days trying to figure out what to put in Jaylinne's Easter basket. I didn't want to give her too much candy, as then she would want to eat said candy. I'm paranoid enough as it is when it comes to cavities and decay, I don't need any more sources of paranoia! Finally...it hit me. What is one thing in this world that Miss Jaylinne Louise can't get enough of? Dresses. Long ones, short ones, frilly ones, twirly ones- you name it, she'll wear it and dance around fancy-like. She is the definition of a girly-girl to put it mildly. So the bulk of her basket consisted of dresses and a couple pair of sandals she can wear with them. I didn't want to be one of those moms, (you know, the ones who pass out raisins and dental floss on Halloween night) so I figured we had better throw in a few pieces of candy to keep the attitude of a sassy 4 yr. old at bay ;) This is the finished product, and if you ask me I'd say we did a pretty darn good job!

For nearly two weeks straight, Jaylinne asked us everyday, "Is tomorrow Easter?! Does the Easter Bunny come tonight?!" Though our answer remained constant, her reaction was different; there were some disappointed sighs, a few tears, and even some growling.  So come Saturday night at bedtime, you can imagine the excitement we had when we finally got to tell her, "YES!" Much to our surprise, she slept soundly through the night thanks to a busy night at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and we even had to wake her up in the morning! We knew she was excited, so we decided to video it for good measure ;)





Last year, Ryan and I hid some plastic eggs around our front and backyards for Jaylinne to find. Again, looking to be creative and hip, we rolled up some dollar bills and stuffed them into some eggs for her to find.  Well, that didn't pan out too well. Apparently the odds were not in Jaylinne's favor. She couldn't find all the eggs, and even we couldn't find them all! Turns out we weren't the innovators we thought we were, we were just forgetful. (As disappointing as Easter 2011 may have been, we got quite the surprise a few months later when we found the money-filled eggs when doing some yard work!) This year, we decided early on that we would rather get together with everyone on Easter and have an egg hunt with Laura and her family, so the kids could go wild. So after the initial chaos that has now come to be known as "The Greatest Easter Ever" subsided, we made our way down to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the hunt!






In no time at all the kids had rounded up all the eggs! This not being their first rodeo, Grandma and Grandpa were prepared with other fun activities for the kids to enjoy. And even though we had to put up with the occasional, "Start the bubble machine!" in Grandpa's best Lawrence Welk intonation, the bubble machine was a hit :) It was fun to sit back and watch Jaylinne and Dylan dance around in the bubbles and try to catch them, pop them, kiss them, etc...

But the funniest reaction of all to the bubbles, was little Daynie. Dayne really isn't one to get excited about toys, or anything other than the remote control to your TV really. But bubbles were right up his alley. I just couldn't stop watching him! After turning the bubble machine on, he really didn't pay a whole lot of attention.....at first.

However, once he saw how much the big kids were enjoying themselves, he got curious.

"Now hold on a second here? What is this?! This looks like something I can really get behind...."  Curiosity immediately turns to intrigue.

Intrigue immediately turns into a state of bliss. He was bobbing and weaving through the bubbles like it was an olympic event, and he was after the gold medal! And he was just a laughing all the way. Dayne was in the business of bubble-playin'....and business was GOOD!

Like all of life's lessons, this was a hard one Dayne had to learn on Easter Day 2012: all good things must come to an end...(or at least be postponed until after lunch) and the bubble machine was turned off. YES he's pissed off about it, and NO he doesn't want to talk about it!

......but sitting on Grandpa's lap might help soften the blow after a full tummy :)

Since Dalys was too little to partake of the Easter festivities, she spent most of her day lounging in the shade on various laps. She was particularly curious about the floral pattern on her Momma's shirt!

However even with all the goings on, she still managed to find a few minutes in her busy schedule to get Hollywood, daaaahling! 

So after all was said and done, it turned out to be an Easter to remember! You can't go wrong with family, hard-boiled eggs, and bubbles :) 


Oh...and if you see these clowns scavenging around your yard, have no fear. They mean you no harm. They are just looking for last years' Easter eggs that remain un-accounted for! ;)

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!