So, Where Have We Been?

So last we left off it was just before Halloween. I had these grand plans of taking the kids on our traditonal trip to the pumpkin patch the night before Halloween. This is the first year we didn't make it. I feel like a bad mother! We had a huge dust storm that night.I didn't mean to wait until the last minute, but our schedule has been insane! I couldn't take the kiddies out in the nastiness since we live in the valley fever capitol of the world.

Our church had trunk or treating on Halloween night. We had the fine dining experience of hot dogs and nachos, carnival games, and of course trunk or treating. Kiahna and her family met up with us there as well as our good friends the Lawson's. We figured we could visit the neighbors after, but we were so stinkin' tired and had more candy than we took to church, that we all (even the kiddies) decided to call it a night.



























The photography business (aka my play job) is going well, in fact better than I have anticipated. I never really planned on starting this as a business. It just kind of happened on accident. I've been super busy since I started, which is good I guess. I am hoping to go live on my actual website soon. I keep ho-ing and hmm-ing about logos or pictures to showcase. I am just too anal! I had another wedding a few weeks back (will post some of those pictures later), several family sessions, Christmas cards to design, and a reception this weekend.

The kiddies are doing well. The little ones have adjusted well to daycare. Despite their homework drama every stinkin' night, the big boys are doing great! Their teacher's had nothing but positive things to say at their conferences. Jared made honor roll and Nick received all A's. Jared had his awards assembly today. I am very lucky to work at a school that allows me to farm out my kinder kiddies for a few minutes so I attend these types of things! Later that evening at Pack meeting, Nick received his Bear Cub Scout Badge. YAY for my boys! Catch ya later!

Party Animals

Whew! What a weekend! Friday night Nick had a few friends for a sleep over to celebrate his 9th birthday. I can't believe it has been 9 years since he joined our family!! He is such an awesome kid! The evening was filled with Nerf Gun battles and Wii tournaments. They kids had a great time!


Saturday morning after his little friends left, Damian and the boys went to clean the church building. I figured it would be more of a chore to take Jack with us so I passed (oh darn!). Glad to dodge that bullet!

All of our kiddies were invited to Katie and Lyndsey's Halloween Party. Katie was one of my past Kindergarten students and I've become great friends with her family. Lots of friends and students there and boy, did we have a blast! There was tons of pizza, lots of games and a great craft! I couldn't resist taking the camera!






I so needed a nap today! I squeezed a short one in. I am bumming a bit as this weekend was a whirlwind and now I have to finish my lesson plans for tomorrow (sigh!). TTFN!

My Session with the Thygerson Kids

I've been a very busy girl this week!! Today I had a session with the Thygerson kids. I was Bryce's primary teacher before our ward split and I just love her mom!The boys are so yummy! I had so much fun with them and now we are lifelong buds!! We looked for spiders, lizards, pretended we were dead, and rolled in the dirt. Whatever it takes to keep kiddies happy and get great shots. I so need a bath! Anywho, hop on over to my photography blog and check out their super cute slide show.


http://jenwolff.blogspot.com

Keychain Album

So Becky, Krista and I have been at our local scrapbook store for a Halloween Crop all weekend. Tons of Fun! Becky and I made these cool acrylic keychains. I am almost done. I still have to add Jared's picture. I botched his up trying to figure out what adhesive would work best. Becky even drove out to the other scrapbook store to see what adhesive they had. The third adhesive was the charm. Anywho, I was so excited how great this turned out! I just had to share! I am thinking Christmas gifts for the Grandma's. I would've posted my other projects, but they are still at the crop. I'll try to post them later tonight! We leave our gear there until the crop is over. Would it be rationalizing to think I am not breaking the Sabbath if I scrapped later this afternoon at the crop so long as I didn't spend money? I am spending time with friends and working on family history you know.

Credits: All products by Prima

Livi's Power Source

We are still home with the cooties! Damian and I are hopeful we'll return to work tomorrow! We've spent our days in our jammies since last Thursday. Olivia was the first sick so of course she is the first better. She has spent her time wandering through the house looking for things to get into while they rest of us prayed to the porcelain god. One of her favorite places to get into is where I keep my jewelery. Now to preface this I had got the kids the Ironman movie last week as they all love the old cartoon. I know it's a bit racy at the beginning, there is a lovely feature called fast forward. I told my big boys that all you need to know was Tony was a jerk in the beginning. They were fine with that. Anyways, Olivia is just as obsessed with superheroes as her brothers are. She has even announced she will be Superman for Halloween. Well, we convinced her to be Supergirl. So, she gets a hold of my necklace. She squeals with delight that she has her power sore (translation-power source). I love this necklace and have not gotten it off of her since yesterday. She has asked me to energize her power source a bajillion times already. I think I got a girly girl and tomboy in one. I'll have a battle on my hands trying to get it off of her.

Livi Lou has the Flu and Now Everyone Else does too!

This post is not for those with a weak stomach. So if your a mom, you should manage. Pictures with this post would not be appropriate so "gasp!" this is a rare post for Jen. Sorry to disappoint! I am up to my eyeballs in BARF!!! When we picked Livi up from daycare on Wednesday, one of the little boys began to throw up all over the carpet, poor guy. By 3:30 in the morning, Liv comes into our bed and barfs all over it and us. YAY!!! Damian stayed home Thursday with the little ones while I go into work exhausted. I arranged for a Friday substitute. By Friday afternoon Jack was sick. Fortunately he had his exorcist moment all over the kitchen tile instead of furniture or carpet. By Saturday afternoon Jared was camping out by the toilet. Poor Nick, here's a story. I had finally agreed to let that kid go to his first slumber party. Yes, I am oober over protective and his little friend's mother humored me with all my psycho questions. The only reason we decided it was ok for him to go was the mom used to sub at our school so I knew her from work and she didn't have a boyfriend or a husband we didn't know. So Nick could hardly wait and had been talking about this party all week. He was the only twerp not showing any sign of the barfies or the poop soup (as my darlings call it). I had warned the mom what was going on and she was fine with him coming so long as he let her know if he was beginning to not feel well. By 9:30 pm I got the call. I rush to the other side of town with bucket in hand (like I am going to let my kid vomit all over my clean Tahoe). I even offered to clean the toilet for her. She kindly declined my offer. I think she just wanted us and our cooties out of her house. I hope she has sick time built up. I warned them. We drove home with the windows down and I held my breath. Livi is better whilst my male offspring continue to blow chunks. I don't know if I am queezy from the stench in my house or if I actually have the bug. Good thing we DVR'd our church's General Conference. It is hard to be spiritually fed when no one is purposefully being fed. I guess I am staying home tomorrow with my little ones.

Update 10/7/08- It's my turn!!!! Bluck! Missing picture day at work. Jack barfed in my bed this morning. Hmmm...I wonder if I'll make the field trip tomorrow to the pumpkin patch?

Jessica's Type+Writer Class

I can't believe I almost didn't register for this class. It is amazing! I was a little hesitant that the focus would be primarily on writing. I wasn't so sure it would be the class for me. It's so much more than I expected! We're learning about typography, creative writing, and other photoshop tricks all while creating layouts. This is so worth going without sleep! I was just telling Kiahna that anything Jessica sells, I am buying!!!! Here are a two layouts I've made so far.

Blessings from Blogging

If you haven't heard about about Stephanie Nielson (NieNie) and her husband Christian, you really must check this story out. Almost a month ago the couple was in a terrible plane crash and severely burned. They are both in medically induced acomas in Arizona. Stephanie has an amazing blog that I've been reading. She inspires me to be a better mom and has an amazing testimony. The blogging world has come to their aid raising money for their medical bills. The family updates Nies's blog almost daily and you can go to her sister's blog to receive updates as well.There is also a blog set up for their recovery efforts and design mom has posted a list of live auctions. There is some pretty cool stuff to bid on in which all proceeds go to the Nielson's. What amazing blessings have come out of the blogging world!

Here are the links:
Nie Nie's blog
Her sister's blog
nierecovery.com
www.designmom.com
Clip of the family on the Today Show 9/9/08

Jen, Kiahna, and Priscilla's Adventure

At the end of July, I get a phone call from Kiahna that a lady from her ward wants to talk to me about shooting her daughter's wedding. They hadn't found a photographer and there was only a month before the wedding, they were a bit frantic. I nervously accpeted the job. Because of my experience with the photographer I had assisted (won't go in to that), and the fact that I would be shooting at the San Diego temple in the mid-day sun (the worst possible time to shoot) my confidence was less than perfect.  Kiahna cheered me on, offered to be my assistant, reminded me that I had just learned some amazing things from Candice, had some crazy photoshop skills, and told me we could do this. Priscilla was an added bonus and in need of some mommy time and joined in the fun.I couldn't have been happier with the reuslts and they were the perfect couple to photograph! It was a total challenge finding the right places to shoot in the funky sun, but I figured it out. For LDS standards, this was a pretty swanky event. Instead of a CA. reception, the family hosted a luncheon at the Sheraton Marina Hotel. Was I in the right element? So now I have a website that is under construction and a new blog. I'd love to conquer the LDS wedding market in CA. (hehehe). So here is the link to my new blog:

http://jenwolff.blogspot.com 

Feel free to check it out and say "hi!". On my blog, I have two slide shows with about eighty photos between them and I have about 600 more to edit. Editing is the fun part where I put these mad photoshop skills to use.  I never really intended to start a business, but it'll be great extra money on the side. I have already began negotiations for a few more weddings and have had people call me out of the blue asking for family photos and Christmas card designs. I think I am going to be very busy in the near future.

Spraground Gang Tutorial

Some girls on the Spraground were nice enough to include my in their tutorial gang. Just a group brushing up on their photoshop skills while trying to learn some new tricks as well. I was sent a tutorial on extracting an object from a photo. I feel like I haven't scrapped in ages, so here is the LO I made with a photo extraction...Nick's 1st Day of 3rd grade.

Credits:K.Christensen & D.Tope collab kit Olde Skool(pprs. recolored), font-Century Gothic