Monday, September 28

winter coat 2009

here's kate's latest wardrobe addition:

Saturday, September 26

a little husband bragging

any of you ladies out there that are going to watch the general relief society broadcast this evening, keep an eye out for the photos used in president eyering's talk. weston has been assisting on several shoots for these images in the last couple of weeks.

oh, how exciting! :)

Thursday, September 24

birthday extravaganza

ok, maybe extravaganza is misleading, but i had a grand birthday with my husband. he wouldn't tell me anything and, because i like surprises, i didn't pry. the only thing he told me was to take kate to his grandma's house and to pack some diapers and pajamas. that sounded like a great plan! (although we both missed her and commented on it several times throughout our evening).when i got home from pleasant grove, i thought i'd have to wait for weston to get home from work - he was already there waiting for me! he gave me the best card (one he made ... always best when they're handmade if you ask me) :)this is probably the highlight of the birthday for me - it's exactly what i asked for. a couple of weeks ago he was asking for ideas for gifts and i gave the usual, "i don't know..." followed quickly by, "wait, i know exactly what i want - i want a love letter" this is exactly what i got in the card - best.present.ever ... as long as it's all true :) can you believe we've been together nearly 13 years?

next, we left the house and he said i had a specific budget of birthday money and we could go wherever i wanted. we could go shopping in salt lake, we could go to ikea, we could go to wendover, etc :) we headed north and ended up shopping for clothes, lots and lots of clothes. i actually ran out of time. here's the loot so far:i say so far because i still have about 1/3 of my budget to spend. can you believe the score i got?!?! pretty pumped.

we had to kind of rush dinner and ended up grabbing some great burgers at astro. they were delicious, as were the fries and shake :) weston apologized that we didn't have time for someplace nice but i told him i'd rather spend the time out with him than have a fancy dinner. i thought we had to get back to pick up kate, but he had one more surprise up his sleeve.

we had a prior engagement at 9:55 in american fork. he took me to see love happens with aaron eckhart and jennifer aniston. it was really good, i loved it.
but i pretty much love anything with my girl jen :)
thanks to weston for the best birthday! i love you :)

p.s.
thanks to everyone for the facebook messages, texts, and calls. you all made it so much fun :) and a big thanks to my mom and dad for surprising me (you guys totally got me!) and taking me out to a delicious lunch and helping with my crazy daughter :)

my husband is the best

and the hottest.

Tuesday, September 22

dinner with the florez'

florez's? florezes? :)

either way, we had a great time with emily and rey.kate was infatuated with emily and her bag - lots of fun girly goodies

Monday, September 21

300th post!!!!

i guess it's fitting that i am at my 300th post as i'm nearing my 30th birthday. in honor, here is a quick rundown of some bEEEEauties! of my life in the last decade:

1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
and 2009

is this the most conceited thing you've ever seen? i really thought it might be fun to take a look at all the hairstyles and/or colors ... but as you can see, i've been fairly tame in my older years :)

denver: september 2009

i went with my mom to denver to watch andrew's kids. they were spending a few days in mexico for an anniversary trip and i offered to go along to help my mom. i just hope i was able to add to the help department and not add to the more stress department!

the week was full of washing clothes, bathing kids, feeding kids, eating ice cream, eating out, dyeing & cutting hair (not mine), going shopping, going shopping without kids (thanks tom!), visiting with family, eating more ice cream, doing more laundry, and a whole lot of driving.

i only pulled out the camera a couple of times, so the pictures are pretty lame, but we all know a blog post with lame pictures is almost always better than a blog post with no pictures.

here is one dinner out (the best with the kiddos by far at applebee's):
kate and reynolds had a grand time entertaining each otheryes, i was tired enough to allow my daughter to spit on the edge of the table. talk to me when you're that wiped out :)

and this is a quick shot from our trip to sam's club: kate had her arm around reynolds for a few minutes but of course when i got the camera out, she had moved on from offering comfort to patting him on the back.

our last night in town, we had trav & jen and their family over to visit for a bit. travis provided the fun for kate, thank goodness! :)

i am appreciative of this experience for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that i got a quick shot of what it will be like to do things with more than one kid (not any kind of announcment). at least i'll be a little more prepared for whenever that day rolls around!

Sunday, September 20

just you wait

i'll be blogging tomorrow.

Wednesday, September 16

welcome to the oc

i know this is such a dumb post, but here it is.

i have been re-watching the O.C. the last several weeks. because of it's killer first season, the network was disappointed in any kind of decline in ratings and it was canceled after 4 seasons (meaning it's pretty easy to watch in several weeks' time).

can i just tell you i love this show? it's my favorite in the genre (i have to say that because friends is still my fav in the comedy arena). what i love about this show, and why it still trumps all the knock-offs to come after (gossip girl, 90210, etc ... although to be fair they're all beverly hills 90210 knock-offs) is because it has the most clever writing, it's really funny, it has tons of heart, the show is really centered on relationships - be it romantic, family, friendships, etc., and the music supervisor kick started a fabulous trend of loading up the episodes with great tunes.the teen storylines are really well done - they take you right back to the hilarity (in hindsight, of course) and drama (oh the drama!) of being 16. of course, for tv, the issues are quite magnified, but the emotion is there, nonetheless.i think seth-summer (sethummer) are right up there with ross & rachel. they are one of those onscreen couples that have great chemistry (think julia roberts and richard gere) and are so much fun to watch and you are puzzled by the fact that they aren't still actually a couple, you know ... in real life ... where i do really live, i promise.

the ryan atwood in the story is so heartfelt - a boy trying to overcome himself once he's given a real chance to succeed. a boy trying to live with and learn to trust and love a family that adopts him as a 16 year old. the dynamics between ryan and sandy, ryan and kirsten, and especially ryan and seth are my favorite. i'll be honest, i wasn't all that sad when marissa cooper died. she was so annoying the 2nd and 3rd seasons, i was kind of glad to see her go.

the adult characters are just as, if not more so, endearing than the young kiddos. sandy and kirsten cohen are another couple of great characters that i could keep watching ... if only there were a spinoff created of their life together in berkeley. wouldn't you love to see sandy cohen in action teaching class? or kirsten raising little sophie - a girl in the house? love it! if only.

after watching the series finale this afternoon, i decided this would make an embarrassingly fun blog post. yes, it's my guilty pleasure. if the show had to end so early, they did a fantastic job on the last episode. during the last few minutes of showtime, they wrapped everyone's storylines up by jumping about 6-7 years into the future: sandy and kirsten have sweet little sophie rose, julie is raising her frank jr. and graduating from college, kaitlyn is in college, sandy teaches law at berkeley, and seth and summer finally get married. it's all montaged together with patrick park's life is a song, which i love. way to go, oc team! you did a great job and i love you for it!!!

Saturday, September 5

More from the Cottle Reunion



















(Shameless plug) Anyone out there that would like family photos like these or candid coverage of their own family event like the shots in the previous post, I am for hire. Get in touch.
weston@westoncoltonphoto.com