My Baby

Last night Phil had basketball (he was in Sleepy Eye all day, so he wasn't able to come home before his game), so Nessa had to come with me to drop the kids off at AWANA. On our way home she was talking and out of the blue said, "Mommy, I really, really, really, love my Mommy. How sweet is that?

Pray for my family...

It has been a rough few days here. I had my root canal on Tuesday. It was horrible, I am still in tons of pain from it! If I stay drugged up it isn't too bad. Then, I have come down with something. I am just really sore and tired. No fever, runny nose, or couch, I just have no energy. I have gotten a new set of smoking pills. I started taking them again last week. I am slowly cutting back again...Wish me luck, with the lack of smoking, my mood has been less than pleasant. Aside from the fact that the last time I was on them, they were very influential of my moods! I was extremely depressed, hopefulyly it won't be that bad again this time. And then to top it all off, I have terrible PMS! My husband is great, he knew I felt like crap and was "grumpy" yesterday, so he let me spend most of the day in bed. I do feel a little better today, but am definately not 100% yet. I have another dentist appointment this morning, they are going to put the permanent filling in where I had the root canal done. I am really hoping that they don't irritate the tooth any more than it already is! This afternoon I have to pull the kids out of school early because they each have a dentist appointment too. We are going to be spending the entire day at the dentist. Well I should get going, will post more later.

What do you think?

This is the same picture as the one that I got 3rd place on...I just changed the color of the flower...Which one do you like better?

Website

I just scheduled a wedding to shoot next summer. With the deposit money I got; I am going to be able to purchase an AWESOME template for a new website. The website that I currently have is kind of boring. I have it more or less to just get some basic info out there, but the picture quality when the photos are uploaded is terrible! I am hesitant to give out my web address, because of how basic it really is, it is almost embarrassing! So, this new template I have had my eye on for awhile is amazing. It is really ridiculous how much it costs for a template~$300! It gets really frustrating trying to get a business started with limited funds. I have made decent money over the last year, but it has been spent on studio lights, backdrops, lenses, and so much more. It seems that it will be forever until we see a true profit from all of this!
This new website will also open other doors for me. It has a client preview feature as well as a shopping cart(through pay pal), so I can do some other work as well, not just portraits. My intention is to go to the "younger" ballgames and post them on the site, so that parents can get pictures of their kids "in action". I think this is going to work out well, because the paper only covers the Varsity games, I will do from 7th grade on up, on my own time and sell those through this new website.
I am really hoping that by doing that, it will help to open up other doors as well. I figure since people will be checking the site out for the sports pictures they will hopefully browse through the other stuff, and I can schedule some portrait sessions that way as well. I am also hoping to get some other prints up for sale as well. Things like landscapes and my macro work and so on...
For being a pessimist, I am quite hopeful...Wish me luck:) Stay tuned for the new site!

Update...

A while back I put a poll on the site which flower picture do you like...Well, my instructor finally got the other classes to vote on them and choose the best ones. He gave us the results yesterday...I got 3rd!!! I "won" a 1 GB memory card for my camera! He did say that my 2 images together received more votes than anyone else in the class, so if we would have been scored based on both images I would have gotten 1st!

These are the 2 images that I submitted...

Other news...

I got a root canal on Tuesday. I have to say that, "I would much rather go through labor than another root canal." It was horrible. I was there for over 2 hours! I have all these scrapes in my mouth from who knows what...They had to inject novicane several times, they even had to drill into my tooth and then inject the novicane into the nerve. They sent me home with some Ibuprofin and a prescription for Vicoden...Still today (2 days later) If I am not on top of taking the pills on time, I am in a ton of pain...I have a restoration appointment on Monday morning, just about the time that I will finally feel better, they are going to try to kill me again. Seriously, I think next time I will go with the option of having the tooth pulled. That can't be half as bad; Can it?

SNOW!!!

URRR, I am so not ready for winter...That being said, we got like an inch of snow last night/this morning. When Nessa got up all she wanted to do was go outside. So, after breakfast we went out. The snow is quickly melting, so we had to get out there fast. She had a blast. Here are some pictures I got before she said, "Your camera is freezen, take it inside mom." I think she was sick of me taking her picture...Notice that she is still in her PJ's (we both were), no time to get dressed, the snow was melting too fast!

Tasting the snow...mmmm

She is telling me what she is going to do when there is more snow...She is "going to make a big snowball and throw it way over there!"

More snow eating!

Carson...

I am not sure if I posted about Carson and his dentist appointment a couple of weeks ago. He had a few cavities, so our dentist sent us to a children's dentist up in Rosemount. He did awesome. He sat in the chair perfectly still and let them do what they needed to do. He didn't even flinch when the gave him the shots of novocane! Anyway he had one tooth that was really bad and they had to put a cap on it. He thinks it is the coolest thing ever that he has a silver tooth.
This morning I called to schedule his next appointment to fill his other teeth, he said, "Can we go to the one that gives you silver teeth?" I told him that we were just going to go to the dentist in town this time. He says, "Awe, I want to get another silver tooth, they are cooler." Then I had to explain to him that no matter which dentist we went to he wasn't getting another silver tooth, AND that the silver teeth are very expensive. So, now he is bummed.
All of the kids are due for a cleaning, so next Monday they all have an appointment. Well, not Nessa exactly. We are just going to get her to sit in the chair and try it out, then we will schedule her appointment for another day...If she does well.

YESTERDAY

The school was giving out flu shots, so I took the kids. Austin and Carson did so well. Austin took his papers over to the nurse got his shot and then went back to Grandma's room. Carson wanted me to go over with him, so I did. He flinched when he got it, but was fine and went back to Grandma's room. THEN, I went and picked Belle up from basketball practice. I told her we needed to go to the cafeteria quick to get hers. The child started bawling, before we even got to the cafeteria. So, Then I am holding her other arm down while the nurse is giving the flu shot to her. She jumped in the air the second the needle touched her arm. SO, it took me, the school nurse and the nurse giving the shot to hold her down to give her this shot. She screamed as well as cried like we were trying to kill her. Then once it was over she stopped and was fine. I even got her to say that it wasn't that bad! I felt bad too because there was a line of people behind us with other little kids that she managed to freak out too. When we got home, she said, "How come it looks like I got two shots?" I told her because she freaked out and had to get poked twice.
Nessa has an appointment to get hers on Monday, we will see how that goes...

Trick-or-treat

On Friday Phil took the day off. It was just us and Nessa. We went shopping and got some things done around the yard and got the cars cleaned out. It was nice to have sometime without all of the kids...When they got home it was rush, rush, rush! They ate a quick snack and then we put on their costumes, so they could go to the parade down town. The kids walk down the street and then once they finish they go to the businesses and trick-or-treat. They each ended up with a full bucket before the night even started.

After the parade we went up to Mom and Dad's for pizza before we headed out for the night. We stayed up on that end of town. Nessa was a little unsure right away, but then Austin walked up to each house with her and that made it ok. It was so nice this year; Phil and I were able to stay at the end of the driveways and not go up to the door with the kids. It also helped that it was so warm out too. For most of the way the kids didn't need to wear their coats! Nessa did get tired about 1/2 way through, so I took her back to Grandma and Papas. She was excited to share the candy she got with them. After that the kids were able to move much faster because they could run ahead and not have to wait for Nessa to keep up. At the end of the night we had completely filled a pillow case! We put most of the chocolate in the freezer to save and we have 2 HUGE bowls (Like a popcorn bowl) heaping full of nonchocolate candy! Here are some shots I got while we were out. Once again, most of them were taken with a point and shoot, so ignore the quality...

Harry Potter, Fairy Princess, Sleeping Beauty, and a Pirate

Carson and good friend Owen at the parade down town.

Nessa got a ride between houses and took full advantage of it, she would recline in the wagon with only 20 feet between houses!

Harry Potter

Today the kids don't have school. It is the end of the quarter, so teachers are working on report cards. Thankfully it is suppose to get up in the 70's so the kids have been outside and will be going out again while Nessa is napping!