natalie walks

Natalie had taken a few steps at home before leaving for Fort Wayne, but she would always fall on her third step if she got that far. What a difference a week makes!!! Well, I guess I really have my hands full now! Watch out, world!!!! This 10 month old is ready for you!!!! You better get ready for her!!!! :)

we {heart} dave ramsey

This is Dave. 

Every Sunday evening we go to this church down the street from where we live...

to watch him do things like this....

so we can learn things like this:

(We watch him on DVD then have a group support discussion... Dave's not actually there.) I love Dave Ramsey. His lessons are brilliant, loving, fulfilling, inspiring, motivating, energizing, and full of education and hope. He has certainly changed our life. He teaches about how much you really pay when you use a credit card, even if you pay it off every month. About the benefits of taking out a 15 year mortgage. About how much $50 a month will be worth when you're 65 if you start setting it aside now. About taxes. Insurance. Health. Disability. Life. Teaching your children about money. And he makes it SOOO easy to understand.

I will forever be grateful to Dave Ramsey for his life lessons, and I will forever be grateful to the people who are supporting our journey to become completely debt-free (medical bills, cars, house.... everything). Our parents have given so much to help us raise and take care of our children as we have cut daycare out of our budget temporarily. My parents take the girls at least once a week and Dan's parents take them anywhere from a long weekend to a week every month so that we can build our business and therefore take care of our family. 

This entire week our girls have been in Fort Wayne with their Grandma and Grandpa Brand. This has given Dan and me many many hours of uninterrupted work time, which we are so appreciative of. We do miss our girls so much when they are gone, but we enjoy the fact that they have a real relationship with their wonderful grandparents and we generally keep so freakin' busy when they are gone that we almost (ALMOST!) don't have a chance to miss them!

Last month when the girls went to Fort Wayne we started our week with a wedding and Baby and Toddler Expo! We set up this booth Friday, worked the wedding Saturday while my dear friend Sarah A worked our booth for us, then Sunday Dan worked the show while I was in bed sick all day (boo). 

This week we started with a garage sale and then 9 back-to-back family sessions the following day with several of our favorite clients! That was so much fun!!! Busy, busy! This garage sale was offered by our Dave Ramsey class to the students as a way to sell some stuff and become closer to getting out of debt. Thanks SO much to my parents for helping me sort, price, and sell $183 of stuff! Dan worked several photo sessions that day and I could not have done the sale without them! Since Joe and Lisa are doing the class too, we snagged booths next to each other. 

This is how Lisa spent time in their booth:

This is how Joe spent time in their booth:

(Love you guys.) :) I'm so glad I did the garage sale. It was nice to get some cash, but I also learned that all of the work that goes into a garage sale is really not usually worth the effort. It was my first {and last} garage sale. If I had worked at our studio that day we would have come out ahead. Next time it's Goodwill for me! :) (And maybe ONE more sale to sell all of our kids stuff once we know we're done and they've all outgrown all their gear.) :)

We did two very fun things this week in the midst of work. We purchased this awesome swingset for the back yard with gift money we were given to pick one out last year! Thanks so much, Grandma and Grandpa Brand! I am SOOO excited to set it up next spring! (Well, I'm excited to watch our dads set it up!)

And, we went to dinner and a movie, thanks so much to my dear friend JoAnn for treating us as a birthday gift!!! 

Of course, you can't see A Christmas Carol without your 3-D glasses!!!! 

The movie was incredible (absolutely NOT suited for children), but wonderful. The week was exhausting and productive, and I am ecstatic to get my girls back tomorrow. I can't wait to squeeze them and see how much they've changed in a short week!!!! 

I'm off to bed! Oh geez, it's after 1am. Goodnight!!! 

bath time together

Bath time is quite different at our house lately! Now that Natalie is more stable I let the girls bathe together, and they LOVE it!!! It's giggles, splashing, and playing all around! Oh, and a little cleaning too!

I love seeing them play together and starting to be interact more. Samantha loves to call Natalie's name from the next room and Natalie giggles and races to her. The other day I found them playing in front of our full length mirror together, laughing and mimicking each other. Sammi likes to build forts with empty diaper boxes and blankets, but Natalie doesn't go in them much with her, as much as Sam tries to get her to. Smart girl, as I am sure Sam would throw a few punches in there while I'm not looking. The times of Sam beating up on Natalie still far outweighs loving on each other, but hopefully we are going in the right direction! :)

kkg friends eating pizza

I was a Kappa at Purdue, which was a huge house, but I wasn't a girl who made a million friends there... I made just a few really awesome friends & have stayed really close to them for about 10 years now! Jill is a dear friend of mine and she and her husband, Shaun, brought their little girl, Alexa, to Indy for a photo session from Cincinnati last weekend! (Look for that on the professional blog soon!) After the shoot we met up with another kkg friend, Jenn, and had pizza together!

Thanks to my parents for watching the girls during the session! We picked them up to have lunch with us & obviously Sammi couldn't go out in public without her tutu! I mean, that would almost be like going naked!

Alexa and Natalie were born 8 days apart! Alexa was ready to be best buds immediately, but Natalie was a little more hesitant at first. :) They'll be great friends, I'm sure!

Love this cutie!!! She is a SWEETHEART!!!!

Jill, thanks SO MUCH for coming in to spend time with us & get your photos done! We had so much fun seeing you and already can't wait to do it again! Next time, I'll come to Cincy! :) I love you so much and I feel so blessed to have you in my life!!!!! Jenn, I'm so glad I got to see you!!!! We seriously need to get together more often, considering we work about 5 minutes from each other!!!!!! Can't wait to see you again!!!!

samantha and natalie

I am SO excited to share these photos!!!!!

I met Dan at the park on Wednesday after his last session with the girls, a stroller full of clothes and hats, and bags full of snacks, milk, and candy (bribes)! Considering sessions of our own children are usually the most difficult ones we do (near impossible), we were both delighted with how the girls got along and behaved! Dan is keeping the rest a secret from me until I see them on the big screen at the studio this weekend and I'm so excited!!! I can't wait to complete our house with big canvases of some of these images. Thank you so much, Dan ! I love you so much and I'm so grateful to have these photos of our girls forever!!!!!

trader's point creamery

Today we went to a dairy farm with our friends, Becky, Bree, and Kate! We had SO MUCH FUN!

There's a baby cow behind me!

Oh boy, she's coming to lick my face! (Which she did, and I didn't like too much!)

Bree and Samantha had fun climbing in the hay stacks!

Hello, cow.

Hey sis, wanna feed this cow, too?

They all ate right out of Sammi's hands! I couldn't believe it didn't scare Sam, but she loved it! It was really cool. Natalie liked it too, as long as they kept their distance!

Lifelong friend Bree and a new friend from Becky's neighborhood playgroup!

Walking out to see the chicken coops. (Becky asked if we wanted to go see the chicken coop and Samantha excitedly said, "I wanna go see the chicken poop!") Whatever floats your boat I guess...

We chased chickens and strutted like roosters!

Sam and Bree chasing chickens!

Look at all the other pretty cows. 

Trader's Point Creamery also has a cute restaurant. We had to stop in to try some of the homemade (fresh from the cows) treats! Look at the shelves of cheese! Wow!

We had a hard time choosing, but Sam finally decided on sweet cream ice cream. 

She shared with her sister too - so nice! Natalie wasn't so sure on this first bite, but she wanted more, more, more!

Becky, thank you so much for inviting us! We had so much fun seeing you and the girls and the creamery was neat to see and fun to play! 

halloween part II - trick or treat!

It's become a 3-year tradition to do Halloween with Joe, Lisa, and Reece! After donuts we all came home for a quick bite to eat and changed into a football player, fairy princess, and sock monkey! 

Natalie looked mighty cute in her sock monkey costume! Thanks, Kathe! And thanks, Joe & Lisa, for letting us borrow your actual sock monkey too!

Sam and Reece loved going door to door for candy! 

I got ridiculed for "only" giving Sammi a small purse to carry for candy, so she got to take a Target bag too - silly!

The men took the kids out first while Lisa, Natalie, and I stayed home to give out candy.

Then we switched and the women took the kids around while the men stayed home. (Within 5 minutes they were inside watching the game - wimps!)

Busted, Joe!

Evaluating our candy collections at the end of the night...

Mmmmmm! Good choice!

Friends enjoying their chosen two pieces of candy for the night! (That was a rule for the kids only!)

"I'm going to magic you!" (As Sammi would say.)

A quick stop by grandma & grandpa's before calling it a night!

A princess can't go to bed without her princess pajamas on...

Sammi wanted Natalie to wear one of her tutus to bed, so she had fun crawling around in it for a while!

We had a very fun Halloween! Thanks to everyone who shared in the fun with us!!!