the gift that keeps giving

a few years ago, i became obsessed with the movie, waitress.

tell me you saw the wonderfulness that it is! the movie itself gives me goosebumps. i love it. the tragic true story of the writer/director breaks my heart. 😦

chris being the total stud gift giver that he is, enrolled me in a local pie class, taught by penny of penny's pies. penny taught a private class at her home for kira and i and we came home with 3 pies and a quiche. our lives have been changed. penny is an awesome teacher, very easy to love. 🙂 i love making my own crust, i feel so betty crocker 🙂 quiche is a pretty regular thing around here, i think this last one was probably my best crust yet. (phone pics)

heavenly! i wish i had some leftovers now! so like i said. chris was pretty smart to give me a gift of a pie class. our family will continue to reap from it's lesson 🙂

January 19, 2010 21

awfully fond (because addicted and obsessed sound so negative)

http://www.etsy.com/etsy_mini.jsnew EtsyNameSpace.Mini(88895, ‘favorites’,’thumbnail’,5,4).renderIframe();
of spending massive amounts of time on etsy these days. wishing i was creative to come up with something to sell. will settle for browsing and adding to my favorites… while laying in bed with sickie elsie and eating trader joes bakery made granola.

(image from here. totally interesting blog!)
heaven. now only if this head cold would fade away.

November 5, 2009 5

bye bunny!

i'm sorta embarrassed to say elsie found this easter bunny in the freezer today. 🙂

and she ate it 🙂

not the whole thing, though she really wanted to! i had to portion him out for the next few days! 🙂

i also wanted to update y'all and say that i am temporarily saying goodbye to twitter and facebook. i think twitter will be completely gone but facebook will make it's way back in my life in a week or so?? i just found them to suck so much time out of my day and i was feeling horribly guilty. i'm hoping to not have my phone attached to my hip– just be free of it and use it for what it's really for! i knew even BEFORE i got the iphone it'd be addicting and i was right! it's been allllmost a week and it's felt wonderful 🙂 i realize that facebook can be a great tool- if i can keep a realistic balance. twitter, i find a hard time envisioning a balance as i am the kind of person to have all my emails read and unchecked within minutes of receiving them. with twitter, i can't stand to have more than a few 'tweets' that i haven't read. see the addiction? i'll have to break it to cam's teacher (who is trying twitter for the first time with his class' parents) that one of his 2 followers will no longer be following him, LOL…. chris and i felt so hip when we raised our hands in class that we knew what twitter was. 🙂

so there should be lots of updates via blog and scrapbooking from me, with all that free time and all 🙂 and perhaps it's time to start sending letters in the mail, like real mail through the postal system- everyone loves happy mail for no reason, right?

ps: isn't it sad that it's october and we are still sporting sundresses and tank tops?! wah!

October 1, 2009 11

new york via iphone

we spent a few days in new york for a wedding recently and i was naughty and only took photos with my iphone 🙂 chris took some film and polaroids so we'll have to wait for those. the thought of bringing my big camera out in the city with the sometimes rain just didn't appeal to me 🙂
looooove stone paved streets. sigh.

just cute.
so excited to walk pass her little place here!

i wasn't crazy about the subway.

skinny, tall alleys that remind me of italy.

we were very tired from shooting 10.5 hour wedding so when we reached this bridge, i knew i didn't have much in me to make it all the way across and then back. i am very happy we only went 1/4 way across 🙂

we arrived in soho a little early. the streets were very quiet.
mid afternoon stop for a latte. loved the view from where i was sitting. i love all the tall apartments and fire escapes. this neighborhood made me plan on moving here when all of the kids are on their own. i loved it!

thank goodness for iphones! chris remembered eating at this other little cafe once so he googled, eggs in a bowl, soho and we found our way 🙂 i am totally fascinated by apartment living in NY. part of me wants to take the kids out of school for a year just to expose ourselves to living in NY- just for a year, then we'd come back and they'd finish back at home!

the wedding was an hour out of the city. the greenery along the freeway made me think of living in virginia, we miss that kind of scenery when driving along!

a little glimpse of the wedding site, their home. we love that google is how this lovely couple found us. she was dating a jamie waters and googled him, this blog here came up and she followed it for quite awhile. and when he proposed, she thought it fitting that jamie waters in california come shoot jamie waters in new york. we can't wait to share their wedding pics, we adore them! 🙂

one day i had about 4 hours alone, walking the streets with my iphone map to guide me 🙂 i remembered that the last time i was there, i was pregnant with kira. so long ago! i don't spend a whole lot of time alone in the first place so i tried to not be too much of a chicken 🙂 we laughed that in a taxi we were watching the weather forecast and it said adjectives like, sticky. muggy. ha- we don't have those kind of forecasts here… but the weather was surprisingly nice, one afternoon we came out of the subway to buckets of rain. it was kinda fun, running to our next destination in the rain! and on the day of the wedding, it poured all morning and afternoon…. and stopped just as the lovely bride walked down the aisle, and the sun came out. it was truly amazing. another great trip for our books 🙂

August 24, 2009 10

new york city and australia

i love trips! 🙂
we have 2 exciting trips planned this year! chris is in the early
stages of planning a trip to NYC first week of june (2-4). if you are
interested in a shoot of any kind, family or engagement, contact us at
info at jacshoot dot com.

then, the waters six clan is heading to Australia. chris is from australia and most of his family still lives there, we started this blog in 05 specifically to keep in touch with our kids as just chris and i went to AUS and we've long wanted to take the kids down there to see where he was born. we are so excited!

we'll be in melbourne and surrounding suburbs for the first three weeks of july. we've had some interest in shoots while we are there- contact me, we'd love to do some! i'm also planning on teaching a scrapbooking class while we're down there, more details to follow:)

April 2, 2009 25

cha one day

on sunday, i spent a day at cha- browsing the booths and catching up with friends, meeting new ones, oohing and aaahing over paper and stickers 🙂 i always feel funny busting out the camera so here are a few things that caught my eye.
at heidi swapp's booth:

one of my favorite things to do is see demos with new product. i shop 99% of my supplies online so if i don't see an example of how to use something, i probably won't buy it. but i got to see and try this new product out and i can't wait to get my hands on it! (invisible line by heidi)

her examples were phenomenal and inspires me to dig in my existing HS stash.
i always love the anna griffin booth. the classy feel of it just makes me happy! this is my favorite of their new releases, riley. they even had chairs upholstered with the circus print! cuuuute!
it was a joy to see this photo i took of the hero bunch at last year's cha- blown up near their booth..as always their make and take tables were packed because they always host the cutest projects!

for my fellow owl friends:

loved the butterflies at hambly!!! and you can see a little bit of the onesies in the upper left hand corner. their booth was of course beaming with happiness!

i adore these letter stickers from Prima! they might be hard to see but the way they look on paper afterwards is adorable! there's a little bit of a peek at the top of the photo.

one of my favorite lines– just happy and cutesy- and called mommy and me! how cute is that!!! from prima..

love the new lines from bella blvd- they had the yummiest displays! stephanie is so creative!

im not a big project person but i KNOW i am going to make one of these for our {JAC} studio! how cute would it be to display our different brides on this turny thing?! adorable!

love the teen lines at making memories- appropriate and tasteful and cute without being overly cutesy.. as is their new travel line!

my mind's eye never disappoints- this penny lane is too cute! i want it all! 🙂

a gooobery pic of me being a nerd about product 🙂 girl friday by cosmo cricket- love it all. so excited to use it.

and i really wish my walls at home looked like this- i want a giant spinner and framed paper 🙂

a lot of the booths had frames like this but sass's whole booth rocked. i love the new mix of brad packs and the papers and embellies- all so cute. look what they had outside their booth. loved it!!

and of course one of my favorite things about CHA- seeing what the marvelous Kim Sabel at KI Memories comes up with 🙂 they have some super cute lines coming out- love the fresh fonts and colors- and the new packaging!!!

this also took my breath away– seeing my friend's layouts covering a wall-(shannon tidwell) she truly out did herself! i think she needs to do this in her own home!
i thought i was going to be able to go to the 2p social- but i got my days mixed up.. bummer! i had a great time walking the floors and have the shoulder ache to prove it! some others i loved but didn't get pics of: doodlebugs new lines- the braddies and papers are adorable! and jenni bowlin has some cuuute embellishments! american crafts also didn't disappoint- consistently good stuff coming from them! and i didn't have the patience to sit and view paris- there were too many (taller) people ahead of me, lol :) i am sure there are more but i can't recall as i had very little sleep last night. i love this hobbY!!! 🙂

January 26, 2009 23

iWant :)

iWill listen to this song all day on it. linked on our jacshoot blog 🙂

September 9, 2008 6

london

i didn’t realize how little photos we took in london till i was looking thru them now. i think we were SO tired by this time.. we opted to do the red tour bus thing for our one day in london. we left the hotel bright and early and came home late.

we were so glad the sun came out for us that day.. the night before we came in to rain.. went to notting hill in the rain so didn’t get to really see it much or take pics. i want to go back!

this was taken outside of the national gallery where we checked out some van gogh and monet’s.. lovely. i fell in love with vincent’s yellow chair.

outside buckingham palace:

chris with a bit of guards behind him. teeny.

ben and a cathedral

and we ended our day with this.. there were so many good shows playing, it was hard to pick but this was spectacular! i’d love to take kira- she’d love it!

and the view from our hotel room. i am a hotel freak. i spent hours researching hotels.. and was sooo pleased that ours was clean and lovely and when we go back, im totally staying here again. earl’s court, we love you!

thanks for all the sweet annivesary comments… i need chris to get our yosemite pics off his laptop so i can blog those. we had a blast 🙂

July 1, 2008 11

torn

today i cut off over 10 inches of my hair.

im going to send it to locks of love. that's a good thing. i know. but now it's short. shorter than i requested. i think the whole reason i let my hair go so long is because i have yet to find someone who cuts my hair right. i have thick hair and to cut it you need to know what you're doing. this is today's cut.

not really how i wanted it, especially since i said i wanted it to go past my shoulders. im glad it's short because it's so hot already.. but im already missing it long. im wondering why i just didnt go in and ask for 5 inches off instead of the whole chunk?

i know. it'll grow back.

good news today: the new coldplay is out. 🙂

June 17, 2008 54

italy part II

it was so worth it to me to buy a new charger.. even though we don't need one here at home. we have 4 now. lol. i will cherish my trip pictures. how's this for an opening post? hello heavenly gelato!

em and her fam in anacapri:

riding up a solo chair lift in capri. yes i am scared of heights so i was a tad nervous.

leaving capri

entering the lovely sorrento..see that hill on the right? yeah we climbed stairs up that. ouuuuuuuuuch.

pompeii… this is the day our camera died.

then the next day we happened upon a excavated roman resort.. no one in sight.. no tourists or souveniers.. just the guide and us. what a treasure.

chris will have to clarify what carmena is doing here

how amazing is it to walk down streets like this. so gorgeous.

the walls and doors everywhere. so lovely.

chris became quite the expert on self portraits

i probably will post one more italy batch before i take on london. which is basically a lot of pics of me and chris holding out the camera in front of us. 🙂

(i posted tonight for you, mihan. xoxo)

June 11, 2008 20