Sutton's Language

Sutton has a pretty extensive vocabulary. Unfortunately a lot of the time, Adam and I are the only ones who have any idea what he's saying. Many of his words are intelligible, but many are not. For example:

"nanny" = banana
"mimi" = blankie
"wawa" = pacifier
"nini" = naked
"AH" = hot

This morning, he was running around in his diaper and fixing his airplane. This airplane constantly needs to be fixed.

I gave him his 4th haircut this week, and it's still questionable. I just cut the sides and back short and left the top long. I like it, but Adam doesn't. Any tips on cutting the top of his his hair? I want to keep it long, but my longest clipper attachment is too short.

Do you see how tall he is? I pretty much have a teenager. What happened. :)

Well

Adam's dad has been digging a well for us behind my studio. Adam wants to keep our backyard looking great by using well water to water it. He also insisted that the well-digging was blog worthy, so I was forced to document it. :)

They had to put this huge pipe down there to get deep enough to dig out all the dirt and sand.

For some reason, Adam felt the need to stick out his tongue whenever I was taking photos of him.

Sutton was very curious about what was going on. I think he wanted to help.

There you go, Adam. It's on the blog. :) (Love you.)

Tornadoes at a Wedding

I posted this on my photography blog, but figured I'd share it here as well:

We live in Kansas…so I guess it was inevitable.

Even so, I never dreamed the events of last night would really happen. But they did, and it was crazy, but pretty amazing at the same time.

Last night, I was photographing Katie and Chris’s gorgeous wedding in Salina (full wedding blog post will come soon). All day, we’d been battling wind and rain, and we’d heard that tornadoes might make an appearance in the evening. Katie and Chris were AWESOME and totally embraced the attitude of “We can’t do anything about it, so why freak out?” They were so calm and easy-going about it all.

Shortly after arriving at their reception, the DJ announced that there was a tornado headed our way and that we all needed to take shelter in the basement locker rooms and golf club cart storage rooms. All 200+ guests and vendors headed to the basement of the country club, where we proceeded to spend the next 40 minutes waiting it out. I took a photo of the bride and I while we were hunkered down, talking about how great this story will be for their kids.

Wasn’t Katie a beautiful bride?!

Everything passed very anti-climatically, and we were all so thankful. Dinner and dancing resumed, and everyone had an amazing time. Just as my time there came to an end, I received several texts and voicemails from my family telling me to get out of Salina now or to spend the night there. I chose to speed home.

After I’d been on the highway about an hour, surrounded by crazy fast winds and un-ending lightning, I found I was sandwiched in between storms, and there was a second one headed towards Salina, and one on the way to Wichita. I made sure my husband Adam and baby Sutton were safe in our basement and stopped midway between the storms in Newton, where I ended up having to stay the night to avoid driving straight into a tornado warning.

I heard reports that 80-90 tornadoes were confirmed in Kansas yesterday, with the biggest one touching down in Wichita. There was some damage, but thank God no one was killed. Salina inhabitants were lucky as well, and I got a couple texts from Katie saying her night was fantastic and everyone was there good.

Craziness…but definitely a night no one will ever forget!

Happy Birthday Diesel

Happy birthday to my Diesel dog, who turns 7 years old today! Even more thankful for him in light of what just happened with Rory. He's been getting lots of extra snuggles. Today's been rainy and stormy, and he was so scared of the thunder and kept trying to crawl up my leg. Sweet little puppydog.

Today is my work day, so Sutton's hanging out with Ginger and I brought the puppy dogs into the studio to hangout while I work. They cuddled up together for Diesel's birthday.

Rory

My parents' beloved Corgi Rory had to be put down today.

If you read my last post, then you kinda know what was going on. At his vet visit today, they did an x-ray and found that his lungs were full of cancer...which is why he was having trouble breathing. Poor little puppydog. He was such a good boy...he gave my parents 11 years of unconditional love. My heart breaks for them as they had to say goodbye to their little guy today. I'm so glad we got to spend Easter with him and I'll always have the memory of him laying on top of my feet under the table as I ate Easter lunch. We'll always miss him!

Easter {2012}

We started Easter a little early and went to church last night. Our pastor had a great Easter message...the thing that always gets me now about Jesus' death (after having a son of my own) is how much God loves us: that He would let His Son DIE a horrific death for us. I sat in my seat, tearing up thinking about losing Sutton and how I could never imagine that pain, but how God did it willingly for me. Such an ultimate sacrifice.

Sutton got a quick snack in his Easter best (we're a casual bunch) before church and then we snapped a family Easter photo. I can't tell you how much I love my little family. :)

Then we went to IHOP for a little Easter dinner (did I mention, we're casual?) with just the three of us. Side note...on the way home, Sutton took off his shoes in the backseat and OMG, he already has the worst stinky feet! I thought that wasn't supposed to happen til he was a teenager. Ah, well. I digress.

Then we just spent the rest of the evening before Sutton's bedtime hanging out in our backyard, playing with the dogs. This is really the first spring/summer that Sutton's been old enough to appreciate our amazing lawn that his daddy planted while he was just a little baby. We love spending time out here!

Throwing the ball at for Sadie.

This child has music flowing in his blood. Any time's a good time for dancing. Such as, while holding a soccer ball.

We asked him to put his hands in his pockets (which Adam taught him awhile back) but his pockets were positioned a little different than on his jeans, so he needed some help.

And now you will see the progression of how we got to the super cute Easter photo from the previous post. Lots of excitement from us parents and asking him to say "Cheese!" The many faces of Sutton...

Crazy.

Sweet.

GQ.

 

Awesome.

Today, Easter morning didn't start off as planned. This is Rory. He's my parents beloved puppydog. They got him when I was a sophomore in high school, which makes him over 11 years old. He's a good dog. But he's old, and he's been having back problems. Well, he hadn't eaten in several days and was breathing really heavy. So my mom decided to bring him to Wichita to the ER vet this morning and I went to be there with them.

 

After about an hour there, they told us that he had a bulging disc in his back and was in a lot of pain, which would cause his symptoms. They did blood work and it all came back great, especially in light of his old age. So they put him on pain medicine and an antibiotic. He still wasn't doing so good today, so they'll probably take him back to their vet tomorrow for a more in-depth exam. Rough morning for my parents.

After the vet visit, we headed to Newton to their house for Easter lunch. We started things off with Sutton's first Easter egg hunt.

I really wonder what he thought when he found all these surprises just laying around the yard. :) He would find them, pick them up, and put them in his bag like a pro.

"Oh wow...what is that I see? Could it be??!"

"It is! It is! An Easter egg filled with cheese balls! Hooray!"

So then all we heard for the rest of the hunt was "Chee ba? Chee ba?" They're his fave.

Oh wait, back to the cheese balls.

Adam's parents also came over and had lunch with us, so Sutton was extra spoiled by having all four of his grandparents doting on him.

Easter Preview

We went to church this evening in order to free up our Sunday a bit for family stuff. So I took some photos of Sutton in his cute church outfit. Here's my favorite.

Hands in his pockets? Cutest thing ever. Happy Easter! We're remembering Jesus' sacrifice to save the world and celebrating His resurrection!