build-a-bear and dancing sammi

Sammi dancing at The Children's Place...

It's been rainy and dreary all week, so the kids have been a little cooped up in the house. We've had tons of fun playing with playdough, crayons, stickers, and baking, but it was time to get out a little! A few weeks ago I got a $5 off $10 purchase (surprisingly there are several $10 stuffed animal choices for $10) at the "Build-A-Bear" store. Last night I decided that we would take $5 out of our entertainment fund and go build a bear together at the mall today to get out and do something fun! It was a blast, and well worth the trip!

First Samantha picked out a brown dog. Then she picked out a red satin heart, which she kissed before putting inside of her doggy.

Then she got to push the pedal that makes the stuffing go into the doggy!

A quick hug to make sure he's filled properly!

Then we patiently wait while he gets sewn up!

We can't take him home until he's had a bath!

And of course, we need to fill out his birth certificate before we go. (They give you a printed copy to take with you.)

My good girls and Sammi's new puppy, all wrapped up. Thank you, Build-A-Bear!

After our bear trip, we had fun looking at all of the princess stuff at the Disney store, then mommy wanted to take a quick look at the clearance racks in The Children's Place for Sammi's fall/winter wardrobe. I didn't find anything on the rack, but when I turned around, I found something much more entertaining!!!! Sammi LOOOOVES to dance, and she has learned quite the moves lately! Hope you enjoyed the videos of her in this post, as I very much enjoyed watching her in the store!!!!

Thanks, Natalie and Sammi, for being such good girls all week and giving mommy memories I will cherish forever!!!!

brand family update

What a 2-month journey! I just did about 5 blog posts (below) to catch up on everything that's been going on here! We've been SO BUSY with SO MANY things going on!!!!

We ripped out all of the flooring in our studio and had it all replaced professionally, we've designed, ordered, and hung all of the artwork (finally!), our dads have both been busy bees installing things for us, repainting baseboard, planting seed, etc, etc, etc.....!!!!

We had our first mini-open house, "Mum's Nite Out", which was a fabulous success and we were ecstatic with the turnout after lots of preparation!!!  

So what else have we been up to? We did a bridal show, are preparing for a baby & toddler expo, have about 6 weddings in a row, are preparing for our first destination wedding (photographing it) in Mexico next May, redid our entire pricelist (which is more complicated than just pulling numbers out of the air)--which is complete with really cool new products and albums and all sorts of unique stuff, and we are keeping busy with our everyday work in addition to all of the other exciting stuff happening! 

Now that our studio is complete, we feel that we can finally take a deep breath and get back to work on things that have been inadvertently avoided for quite some time. It's an awesome feeling. Awesome!!!! 

We'll have lots coming up in the next months, so I will do my best to post about everything going on, but no guarantees any of it will be posted in a timely manner! :) 

Lots of love to you!!!! Thanks for stopping by!

live like no one else

Thanks to several of our friends' encouragement, we have started attending Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. Not only are we making huge life changes and learning about money, investing, eliminating debt, and bettering our family, but we are doing it all with our amazing friends and neighbors, Joe, Lisa, and Reece. (These photos are of Reece walking Sam out to her car in the rain after the class last night.)

FPU (Financial Peace University) is a Christian-based 13-week class to teach basic financial understanding of becoming debt-free (even your mortgage!) and investing in your future. His well known saying is "Live like no one else now (meaning don't own all the gadgets and stuff that make you broke) so that you can live like no one else later (meaning you have actual money to retire on and send your kids to school without loans, etc, etc, etc)."

After the second class, Dan and I agreed that this would be a long road, but we were willing to take it because we feel like it will be worth it. Very, very worth it. 

We are making lots of changes in our life, some big, some small, some long term, some short term. Our goal is to pay off all of our personal debt, start putting more money in places that will grow over time, and most importantly, to understand exactly what our financial position is at all times. And of course, the business follows all the same principles. 

The only change I'll share in this blog post is our change in daycare. My parents have graciously offered to babysit the kids every Tuesday in addition to any weddings while we both work. Dan is going to continue to stay home on Thursdays while I work. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I am staying home during the day with the girls while Dan works then I will go in in the evenings while Dan feeds and puts the girls to bed and works from home. Dan's mom has also graciously offered to take the girls on Fridays as needed or for a week at a time each month. We couldn't be luckier to have the families we have. We are allowing over $1,000 a month to not go out the door on (part time) daycare but instead go to other more important places right now. 

It is not easy. It's hard, actually. But it's worth it. And, every so often, we'll readdress how it's working (or not working) and we'll adjust. 

Live like no one else now, so you can live like no one else later..........

first hotel stay

We spent the weekend in Evansville to celebrate my lifelong friend's son's first birthday. We also did four photo sessions with extended families of Jessie's, which was so fun! Since my parents live in Indy now, we don't have anywhere to stay when we travel to Evansville, so we booked our first hotel with the girls. At first, it was such fun!!!!!

As soon as we walked in the door, Sammi ran and jumped in the bed and got snuggled in! 

Then we had a dance party to the music on tv!

Then daddy blew up Sammi's bed and OH BOY, did she have fun jumping back and forth!!!!

We did three of the photo sessions that afternoon and Jessie's parents and family watched our girls for us --- a special thanks to all of them, as Samantha has had quite the separation problems since her last school experience! Then we were treated to some pizza for dinner (another thank you!), and went back to the hotel to "sleep". Yes, "sleep". Sam has to have a light on and Natalie has to have it dark.....one seemed to always be crying, overtired, in a new environment...do we let them cry it out when we have people on the other side of the wall or not.....do we just go to bed with them at 8pm or sit in the dark in silence.....I don't think we'll be doing any more hotel stays until Natalie is about 2.5! 

The next day was filled with meltdowns, crying, needing attention, and a very stressed mama and dada, but we made it through and we had SO MUCH fun despite the attitudes & lack of sleep!!!! 

We started with breakfast in the hotel! (It was actually very good!!!)  And Natalie ate her first scrambled eggs and cherrios!!! What a big girl!!! 

Aunt Jessie (and Uncle Bryan) :) had everything a kid could possibly want at Cooper's party!!!! Hats, toys, bracelets, candy, chocolate, cake, a HUGE bouncy house and blow-up slide, and lots of food and friends!!!!

Sammi liked the slide a lot more than Natalie! She went down many, many times, but Natalie was good with one try. :)

We all had fun in the bounce house!!!

We have lots of professional photos of Cooper that aren't ready yet, but I didn't get many with my little camera. He was the star of the party! So cute!!!! A lot of cameras were on him that day!!! (And for some reason, Jessie and I have a big problem of always forgetting to take a photo of us! :( Loved seeing you though, Jess!!!!!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COOPER! And thanks, McCools, for your hospitality!!!!!!

week without girls (continued from "painting the house")

During the first week our girls were gone, we did a lot of fun things too! During this week we worked a lot, but we also made a point to hang out with friends and do the "date night" thing. I won't have a post from our second week of the girls being in Fort Wayne, because during that week we just worked, worked, worked about 15 hours a day or more!!! 

Happy Birthday, Travis!!!! And congrats to you and your wife, Michelle, on expecting your first baby!!!!! We always love hanging out with Michelle & Travis (first photo) and of course Mike & Becky & their adorable girls! 

They had a cornhole tournament and my partner and I (not Dan) won second place!!!!! I joked with Dan that maybe I should just start entering cornhole tournaments as a second job!!!! Ha ha ha!!! (It was all beginners luck I think!)

We went to our first Colts game in the new stadium, thanks to our wonderful friends and fellow photographers, Jennifer and Kurtis, who offered us the tickets!!! We met for an awesome casual dinner at a bar with a band and then headed over to the stadium! 

Kurtis & Jennifer - you rock!!!

The view overlooking the city. Fun night! (You can see how tired we are though!)

Grandma & Grandpa Brand dropped the girls off to us just in time to go to Hailey's birthday party! Hailey is the daughter of our friends, Brian and Shannon, who we love!!! 

Sam LOVED all of the balloons with animals on them!

Natalie loved playing with all the new toys!

We all made our own pizzas, including the kids!!! It was sooo cute (and delicious!), which is to be expected with Shannon's planning! :)

Sammi, of course, also had to blow out a birthday candle!

Natalie is pulling up on everything these days, and crawling like crazy!!!! We have definitely had to pay attention to closing gates and baby-safing the house again!

I had to throw this photo in... Dan loves his girls... and they sure love him! :)

painting the house

In two different weeks in August, our girls went to stay with their gracious grandparents in Fort Wayne! In the first week we thought..."Hmmm... we have new carpet going in soon, we're tired of the (although beautiful) really dark cave-like wall color in our house, the girls are away, and we already have the primer and tools to paint...let's spend $40 & one quick eve to paint the walls a new, brighter, fun color!" Um, yeah. 4 late (LATE) nights, 4 gallons of paint, extra supplies, additional primer, and two tired time-wasting people later, we were done!

 

The couch and chair in our living area were getting replaced with some trade money we had earned through the business, and they were GROSS (14 years old, covered in dog hair, dog urine, and dirt), so we put them at the end of the drive one eve at 10pm and they were both gone 4 minutes later! This was before Dave Ramsey's classes started, and in retrospect I wish we would have sold them - even for $10 - but, at the time we just wanted them out of the way. Gosh, our way of thinking about money sure has changed a lot.

It took a lot of primer to cover the brown.

We even painted samples on the wall first, but the yellow just didn't, well....it looks a lot better in this photo than in did in real life. It was a slightly blinding actually. Yuck!

Soooo... another coat of primer, and then we went for something much more neutral. We both love it, and someday when we've saved some money for it, I am totally pumped to fill our walls with our own artwork & photos of our girls & family. That will be the "bright" in the downstairs! Until then, we are enjoying an empty, much cleaner, lighter room!

On somewhat of a sidenote, Dan has been driving this Tribute around for 140,000 miles and we've kept pumping $ into it to keep it alive without a car payment. We both joked when we signed on the dotted line for carpet that his car would obviously die as soon as we signed. About 2 weeks later it did. On the highway. It was towed and the mechanic (and 3 others via phone) told us it could be as much as an $8,000 fix and the car was only worth about $150. Dave Ramsey jokes that when you have a cash flow problem, "Murphey", as in Murphey's law, moves in with you. We are in the process to desperately trying to find Murphey a new home!!!  (By the way, Dan got a used Honda Pilot, which we hope to drive for the next 10 years and 200,000 miles!!!!!)

 

The old carpet was ripped out...

This is the new carpet going in. Blakley's was AWESOME & I would highly recommend them if you need carpet! 

Once we have the whole room done, I'll take some photos. :)

splash park

One of the most fun things that the girls got to do all summer was absolutely free! It's called the Splash Park, and it's in Fishers - close to home and work! They went to the Splash Park with grandma & grandpa & mommy, and with friends and daycare many times! Sammi absolutely LOVES it!!! It's a huge park that has water spraying in every direction! Sprinklers, waterfalls, buckets that fill & dump...you name it, it was there! They also have huge jungle gyms that the kids love playing on. It's a public park with restrooms and picnic tables for eating. We spent lots of time there!





Here is a video of Sammi's typical day at the Splash Park. And yes, each time you hear joyful screaming and screeching, it's her!!!