The Blog that took 4 hours to Type

So if you happened to notice the title, you can thank my husband for that. Haha. We're sitting here recouping from a long night of driving home and he keeps saying "You haven't even started typing yet. Are you ever going to finish your blog tonight?" That's code for "I want you to cuddle me and you're taking too long." So I ask him, well, what should I call it? And badabing, that's where we get the title.

This weekend was a blast!

We packed up our little family and 'putt-putt'ed up to Goshen to visit our Fridell family.

First of all, Happy Mom's Day to all you lovely mothers! Not only did I get to celebrate being a mommy, but I also got to celebrate being married for 2 years to my best friend! We celebrated by going to the Provo Temple and walking through the Payson Temple open-house. It was so lovely.


For those of you who don't know where Goshen is, it is a tiny little town in Utah County. You can't blink or you'll miss it! But if you happen to find it, you will stumble upon some of the kindest, funniest people. And you'll catch a pretty beautiful view, too.

Mumford loves Goshen. More than anything.

This is where we got to spend our weekend. And these are the crazies we got to spend our time with:

Papa Fridell

Nana Fridell

The Hurst's 

(Daddy is missing from picture because he was walking around exploring 

haha, he's such a big little kid)

Anywho. I learned that weather severely decides whether you take pictures or not. It was rainy and freezing pretty much the whole time we were there. Which is so sad because on the drive up I was telling Trevor that I had all these plans to take pictures of all his family members, and make this really cool picture book for our little Abigail (thanks for the idea mom!!). And I wanted to get a picture of the grandbabies all together and give it to Nana Fridell to hang on her wall. But no. It had to be rainy and cold so that no one had a desire to be outside, which resulted in everyone staying in pj's 90% of the day (myself included). Needless to say, my picture perfect plans didn't happen. However, we did get lucky and finally landed an opportunity for a family pic! woohoo! 

All in all, it was still a wonderful weekend to be with family. Hope you all had a fantabulisticious weekend as well! 

A Day to Celebrate

Today is a day to celebrate. A day to laugh. A day to reminisce. A day to give my dad 48 birthday spankin's !!!

So, as many of you may know, my dad is pretty great. He's flippin hilarious and he's super smart. He ALWAYS wins. And since he lives in a house of girls, he's always wrong even when he's right. Thanks for putting up with all our emotional rollercoasters and girl fights! Love you dad! Would'nt be here if you weren't born! literally.

Since its my dadio's birthday, I want to share some of my favorite memories of him.

When I was really little, it was like the best time of my life because a) we didn't have cable TV, cell phones, Xbox, iPads...(need I go on?) and b) I was an only child so I got pretty spoiled. NOT THAT I DON'T LOVE MY SISTERS, but how can you complain about getting 100% of the attention? Anyway, I have a butt-load of awesome memories from when I was a kid. At that time, my parents weren't in the best of financial situations, but that made it all the more fun! My mom and dad got super creative with things to do as a family. I remember my dad would blow up an air mattress and put like 7,000 blankets and pillows on it, and we'd have movie night and sleep in the living room. And the best part was in the morning, helping him put the mattress away. I'd belly flop onto it, and we'd roll back and forth, squishing all the air out.

In the mornings, my mom would have to be to work really early, and my dad would just be getting home from the ambulance base, so he would take me to school when he got off work. And sometimes if I was lucky, we would stop at McDonalds for breakfast, or Maverick to get donuts and orange juice. I was always excited to see him get home from work because he was at work most days and nights, working two jobs.

Even though he worked a lot, he was always good about setting time aside for me and my mommy. We would play games, like Phase 10, and Rummikub. We would get the air mattress and put it in the back of my dads pick-up and we would go to the drive-in movies (That was the BEST!).

Oh!Oh! Funny story. So I should've known long ago that I wanted to be a cosmetologist because of the make-overs I would give my dad. HAHA! He was such a trooper. So you know how he is bald, right? Well he's been a baldy for as long as I can remember, and sometimes his bald head would get all shiny and greasy. So as he was sitting and playing a computer game, I would get a bowl full of soapy-concoction water, and a bowl of rinsing water, and rags and lotion, and I would de-grease his head. Once that was finished, I would get lotion and put it all over his arms and legs and while the lotion was still wet, I would comb his arm and leg hairs and draw designs in the hair. Bahaha. He would even tell me how cool it looked and stuff! Best dad ever.

Point is, my dad is awesome. And I am very happy he was born. So everyone tell him Happy Birthday! (Preferably in a really loud obnoxious way, because that's the way he likes it best).

Love you dad! Happy Birthday!!!

Goodness, I'm already slacking on my blog-posting! I was like "Oh yeah, I'll totally post every day. It'll be great!" Hah. Welp. We all can see how that's turning out. But its fiiiine. I am here today and that's all that matters :)

So! I've had a lot of fun the past week. First of all, I got to see a dear friend from high school that I haven't seen in, oh, what? 5 years? 6 years? Something like that. Anyway, I got to take pics for her little man's first birthday, which is in 5 DAYS! Happy Birthday little Trekker-Man! The photo shoot was super funny though. It never really turns out how you plan; example: I bought this red balloon for little man to hold...super cute, right? WELL! Turns out it was windy, and right when I was going to take the very first photo, the wind popped it! Awesome. But it was fine, because I brought chalk to draw cute things on the sidewalk for him to sit by and look all handsome. Well, he was just a busy-body and a boy; crawling over and smearing the chalk, not looking up at me, moving away from the chalk drawings. haha! just being an 11 month old. So silly. And! an army of ants crawled up my pants and literally made me do the boogie dance! However, after all the chasing and boogie-dancing, I'd say they turned out pretty swell :)

On Friday last week, I got to play dress up with my bestie! I got up about 8am, drove to Hurricane, did her hair and make-up, she put on her wedding dress (that still fit her! she was worried. I wasn't. She's a skinny-mini) and then we took a load of pics! Actually, it was a lot of prep-work for only about 10 minutes of taking photos. Worth it? ABSOLUTELY! It was so good to spend time with someone that understands my mommy life and can communicate with me other than just saying "mom", "ball", or jibberish words. I love my little girly, but sometimes you just need a friend your age! Anyway, we had loads of fun. Take a look :)

My biggest struggle as a photographer right now (besides trying to remember all the loads of information involved with producing a well-exposed image) is organizing and separating family life and business life. I feel like I'm ALWAYS on the computer; marketing, uploading pictures, editing, etc. How do you working moms do it? I feel like there's always a sacrifice; either my house looks immaculately clean, and I am behind on editing a session, or I'm all caught up on my clients photos and my child and I are wearing the same clothes we've been wearing for 3 days. What's the secret? Clue me in peeps!

      On the real though. I'm going to go spend time with my little munchkin now. Thanks for stopping by! Keep smiling!