Sophistikate Portraiture

It's a day of firsts. I made a video AND put it online! Check it out, I'm on YouTube! :D

Showering Starring Samantha

Last Wednesday I threw a bridal shower for my BFFLE. She gets married in less than a month now!! Crazy! And then we will share the same last name. How cool is that? (Although it's pretty awesome, I sure hope we don't share that last name for long... While she's tickled pink to get it, I'm turning blue attempting to get rid of it! ;) ) More craziness! Who would have EVER guessed?

Sitting pretty awaiting guests and presies.

Table decor
My attempt at warming up the Young Women's room in my church building. Kinda cute, yeah?

Please ignore the ribbon hanging down on the left side. This picture was pre-scissor arrival.

Hallows Eve

As is well known and never taken for granted in my life is welcoming in of the Halloween season (or any season. I'm no respecter of seasons) with food. Laura made these super cute cookies and cream cupcakes with Halloween oreos. So good! (in my best teen girl squad impression).

Laura and I also welcomed in the holiday by putting our best emo foot forward by painting our nails and lips black, which was followed promptly with a mini photo shoot. Heheh.

Saturday morning Laura and I had our second annual "Pumpkin Guess-the-Halloween-Shape Pancake Break Break". I'm pretty sure this tradition is tasty enough to stand the test of time. My kids will be raised guessing what was supposedly a pumpkin as a hippo stuck in a mud pit. :) Unfortunately, no pictures this year. Someone may or may not have been suitably dressed for pictures... ;)

Halloween only comes once a year, and I really liked my "Little Red" costume, so I donned it ALL DAY LONG on Saturday. My nephews thought I was totally vogue. (Okay, so they kept asking and not understanding why I was in my costume already. But that's besides the point...) I'm also teaching Spencer the finer points to becoming a portrait photographer.

As you can see as demonstrated by the above picture, he is an excellent student. :) (Or perhaps I'm just photogenic... nope, definitely the former.)

Later on that festive holiday I observed the Hew Clue Clan pumpkin carving event. I even got to help them do my favorite part of this procedure - taking out the pumpkin guts. :D (When they let me. I had to sneak in handfuls of help because they would get mad at me...sigh)

The boys and Anya finally got to join me in my costume-ness. Spencer and Zachary were absolutely "cool" in their Mario and Luigi costumes! (BTW- Did anyone else notice a bunch of Mario and Luigi's this year? I bet I saw about 7 different pairs. It's a good year for the duo, eh?)

Their mustaches were fantastic and totally completed their look. I think the 'staches were my favorite part of their outfits. LOVED it! So stinkin' cute! Er... I mean cool... (Every time I tell Zachary he's cute, he quickly corrects me. He is NOT cute. He's COOL!)

Little Red Riding Hood with a puppy, Luigi, Mario, and Princess (? ;) ) Bo Peep.

In the Hood

My ward FHE partee was two nights ago. My "Little Red" costume came together quite well without a hitch!

Laura found this cape and vest at a garage sale last year in Washington, I borrowed a shirt from my mom, laced a ribbon through the vest and my hair, donned on my sparkly fishnets, and slipped on the skirt that I made the night before. ALL BY MY SELF! (Okay, so my mom did donate the fabric, told me what to do, where to sew, how to put it together, and even put in a new bobbin for me. She also threaded the needle. There I was, happily sewing away, almost all the way through my first seam when I checked on my work and found that there was no stitching to be found in the material! Whoops... it happened twice. The bobbin ran out mid job a couple minutes later... Thanks, Ma!)

It was just perfect!

I neglected to get a shot of my costume head to toe, but someone else had my camera during the night and got this shot of me, dancin' the night away :)

It's a pretty complicated step... ;)

I also volunteered to make cupcakes for the cakewalk. I was going to make a spice cake, but the store was all sold out :( I decided to look up a recipe for pumpkin cupcakes and whipped these up. They turned out pretty cute, and I hear they tasted pretty good too! Gotta love dem cupcakes!!

Sure, the dollop of icing on the top looks elegant and stylish... but it just happens to be the quick and lazy way of doing icing. Boo-yah.

I just LOVE this season!!

Bowling Adventure!!

My friend Ryan Hales invited me on a bowling adventure. Ryan decided that we should show spirit and sportsmanship by dressing up in team wear of our own creation. We went shopping at Wal*Mart and decided upon a black shirt and a bandana (Ryan rejected my idea to wear aprons as our team jerseys... go figure ;) ).

After a few inventive minutes at Ryan's apartment, this is what we came up with:

Pretty cute, eh? The bandana really did a lot to complete the look for us. ;) (Although, I thought mine made me look like Tzeitel from Fiddler on the Roof).

Ryan was concerned about the two of us showing up in our "jerseys" and embarrassing the people we were with. Coincidence of the night? It was League Night at the bowling alley. Ryan and I fit right in!

Amazonian Woman Creates a New Real Fear For Kate

A few years ago I happened upon this picture. I busted a gut! Afterwards I then thought, "I wonder if this is what I look like next to {insert name of short and scrawny crush's name here}"? Ah, crap...

New Header!!

I have been thinking that my blog header has needed a little bit of a face lift recently. It was so boring and generic. I also wanted to include in the title my own definition of "Sophistikatetion". Heidi, my wonderful, beautiful, amazing, and talented sister came up with this design. I LOVE it! Thanks!!!

John Goodman and I go WAY back!

Here's proof, see? I've been taking his portraits since he was a bouncing baby boy!

Another awesome fact about John Goodman is I is that we have the same birthday! We are so tight, we even share the same day of birth!! Yep. We're practically besties in every way...

Okay. So this is my adorable nephew, Abram. But, he really does look like John, right? And I wasn't lying about the birthday thing either.

Geek Jewlery

Drake, you've created a monster! My newest hobby, as well as fashion statement: Chain mail earrings!

Inexpensive, and very stylish :)

(Please excuse the blurry-ness :0)

My first set, and also the only one out of the four that I didn't make. This is Drake and Quinn's first pattern.

Fun, eh? :) I can't wait to make more!

The Day the Do Didn't

Ever since my hairs have been cut short, I've wanted to try to get my hair to do a mohawk. Or, I guess in my case a faux-hawk. It works in the shower with my shampoo I thought all I needed to do was get some real strong gel and I would be set!

I found some "Got2b Glued". Sounded perfect! I tried my new do on! Except it didn't work. My spikes fell limp....

It was a sort of painful hair don't, but I sported it. ALL DAY LONG. Hehehe.

PEACE!

Carousel Ride! ... and a sad realization

For the past few years I've been wanting to relive a part of my childhood by riding on the carousel. But I just had never made it. Until.. yesterday! I went to the park with a friend to play frisbee and the carousel was going. A couple hours later Sam finally ;) came home from work and I dragged her (actually she willingly hopped into my car and we drove) over to Porter Park. And we rode. :D

I handed the carousel attendant my dollar (Yep, that's right. One whole dollar!! For one ride. Inflation sure has hit big time since I was a shorter kid) and she gave me this look, "Uh...Where's your kid? This is for you? Really?". Heheh. :) I'm just glad she didn't stop us from getting our long awaited ride.

Ah, the making of a dream come true...

And then... the music stopped and the horses came to a standstill. ):

A good last hoorah for Sam and I before she goes home to spend time with her family for a couple weeks during the school break.

I also spotted a horse named after me though! I should have ridden that one.

Any guesses which one my good eye is? ;)

And now, time for the sad realization.

Did you notice it? Did you see it? MY LIP!!! It's unsymmetrical!! It looks as if one side of my lip died! :( Good thing I had some ice cream right there to help ease the pain of becoming aware of just one more deformity of mine.

(PS - People! Did you notice this is the SECOND post within ONE week!!! Crazy, eh? That hasn't happened in... in... well, a REALLY long time. The time unemployment gives me. It's great! ... Except that I'm poor.... meh...)

This... THIS IS HYSTERICAL

I found this picture a few months ago. Oft times when I am having a down day I pull this little gem up:

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Insta-betta day! It never gets old. I laugh myself to tears!!

Cali Trip - Let's finish this

April 14 2010

Wednesday

Wednesday morning

I just loved the work Julie and Lindsay have put into designing their apartment. I couldn't leave without taking pictures of their awesome apartment!

Lindsay paints trees on walls :)

I LOVE these. They are pictures from a crocheting magazine. :)

I tried to pick my favorite picture, but they are all so awesome. So I think I'll have to go with the bottom left, but only because he's holding an awesome camera :)

We went to Trader Joe’s with Lindsay. What a great market! We need one of these in Rexburg. Or perhaps I should just move here… J

When we got home, Lindsay made us carrot juice.

It totally exceeded my expectations.

I thought it wouldn’t be that tasty, just good enough to drink it down and be polite. But it was scrumptious!

11:54 am

Sam and I are driving on our way to pick up Julie for a sushi lunch at Laguna Beach. My arms hurt…

2:34 pm

We had lunch at Laguna sushi. I tried my first sushi ever!

Fish – raw and uncooked. Doesn’t it just sound disgusting?

But I ate it. And I didn’t hate it! It actually wasn’t that bad. But I don’t think it will ever be something I crave.

We also visited Julie’s Gammy and Papa at their house on the beach at Laguna beach. Wow! Their yard is amazing! They live right on the coast.

Now it’s back on the open road. We are driving to Provo tonight.

5:38 pm

We needed ice cream. We stopped in Victorville afor some ice cream. We found a Ruby's on Gertie. It led us into the middle of a neighborhood... So we headed back into town scanning for any place that would give us our beloved love of all time. The cream of life that never lets us down...

We found some random diner to pull into. Richie’s All American Diner. It was decorated nifty fifties.

There was a boy inside, probably around the same age as us who went around riding a unicyle.

He came by and made us balloon animals.

Very entertaining. He talked so fast my ears could barely keep up. He was amazing with those balloon animals.

Sam asked for a panda:

I asked for a clown fish:

He just whipped them right out! He told us he had recently been on Jimmy Kimmel. So cool!

Now it’s nothing but the road for hours and hours. Bring it on. Provo or bust!

11:30 pm (Back in Mtn time)

Stopped for gas in Cedar City. My turn to pay ($40.00 again) and drive. We are back in Utah. When I walked into the store there were two girls talking about missionaries.

2:13 am

Drive, drive, drive all night long, drive, drive, drive while we sing this song. … Made it to Amy Lou’s!! Yay! Bedtime J

April 14 2010

Thursday

9:03 am

I’m awake, showered, and dressed. Sam is still sleeping. I think I’ll go for a walk.

10:57 am

My walk was fun. I walked a few blocks and found the BYU campus. I checked out the bookstore. Now we’re going to get Krispy Kremes. About time I get my doughnut! J Ryan is also going to come meet us there and eat doughnuts with us.

11:40 am

Yum! S’mores doughnut and a chocolate covered cream filled doughnut. Hit the spot. I also think my heart is getting mad at me… Plato’s closet, Barnes and Noble, and then we are Rexburg bound.

2:46 pm

Lun lun and gas up at Ogden. We ate at a Del Taco again. While they do have tacos, they are by far not my favorite taco wrappers. L Not a good experience today... And I want a pancake. ;)

5:58 pm

We’ve gone full circle and now we are sitting in my parking lot again in Rexburg. This is a bitter sweet moment.