Merry Christmas to One and All!!

Hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow!! :)

Lots of Love from the Arizona Blatchfords - Andy & Tina, Lincoln, June, Roxy & Cora!!

What a Big Girl!

Today was a big day for June! Not only did she get to make her first ever school Christmas craft, which is always exciting...



but she WROTE HER NAME on the back ALL BY HERSELF!!!!



Her teachers & I are so so proud! They say she has been working so hard on it. Writing her name by herself isn't something that they push the three year olds to do, but that she sees the older kids doing it and wants to learn how to do it as well.

All I know is that this is one craft that is definitely going in the keepsit box! :D

Just for fun

Another "power of Photoshop" post.

Isn't this amazing? It probably took me around 2hrs to do this. The head-swapping was a first for me. I think it turned out pretty well. :)

Graduation!

Last weekend I graduated from my running class! My final goal was to run an entire 5K without walking. I DID IT!

Happy Halloween!

Lol. I fell behind again. But I don't have any photos to support my post title. I totally forgot to get a picture of the kids when they were dressed up trick-or-treating. I was just happy to get us all out of the house with shoes, costumes, accessories, the wagon, plastic chairs, and candy buckets. I forgot the one thing that would document the occasion. Sigh. I told myself that we could get them dressed up again another day and take a picture then, but it has been a week and I just haven't been able to get the energy up to do it. Plus, the costumes took a beating while trick-or-treating and on the car ride home. Maybe now that I wrote it down, I will get to it sometime sooner rather than later. ;)

Pumpkin Patch

On Sunday we headed about 1.5hrs south to the Agua Linda Farms. They have a cute little family operated fall festival on a GORGEOUS estate. I would live in that house in a heartbeat if it were offered to me! If I had to get married again, I would try to get married there... Seriously it is so beautiful!

So this year we decided that only June & Roxy were going to go. Andy & Lincoln don't really enjoy pumpkin patching & Cora is still just a baby. She would have liked it, but she wouldn't get as much out of it as the older girls. Unfortunately Roxy was sick, but she didn't want to get left behind (and I didn't really want to drive that whole way, with only June). So Roxy went anyway. It was fine, but she cried & whined a lot and didn't do any of the activities that I had hoped she would. June did though, so that made it worth the effort.

June loved riding on the horse all by herself. She thought it was the best!



Then she got to ride on the wagon. I couldn't go with her & Roxy didn't want to go without me, so it was just June. She was so brave! You can tell that she was nervous in the picture. She kept biting her lip & had a death grip on the seat. But she talked about it the rest of the day so I am pretty sure she had fun. At least I know it made an impression...!



Then I tried to pry Roxy off of my leg so that I could get some cute pictures of the girls. Roxy did not want to let go of my shorts, let alone leave my side. I made it happen, but it wasn't pretty. Roxy was balling in both of these pictures. Sigh.



I always have these ideas in my head of how an outing to the pumpkin patch should be. Family fun for all, everyone happy & having fun adventures. Despite going every year since Lincoln was born, it has yet to be fun for most (if not all) of us. This year I was sure it was going to be a hit, since we ditched the boys at home. But again it was a struggle and about 30min after we got there I was ready to leave, Roxy didn't want to be there at all, and June was pretty subdued because Roxy was crying the whole time. June said she had fun, but I know it could have been so much better.

I know I say this every year, but maybe next year it will be fun...?

Nocturnal Visitor

A nocturnal visitor that we actually enjoy! Usually our nighttime visitors are various pests or creepy crawlers that come out at night, so to see this fellow was a welcome change. :)

Sorry the pictures are so grainy, but it was practically dark & I was way zoomed in with my camera to photograph him.

Hello Mr. (or Mrs.) Great-Horned Owl!

Photography

So sorry that I have been so quiet here. I can't believe that it has been almost a month since I have posted...I wonder if anyone even check this anymore? I hope so! I will try to do better, but I have just been so busy trying to get the photography stuff going...it has been sucking up all of my free time, so I haven't had any extra time to blog about our family in awhile. :(


In case you are curious, here is a little bit of what I have been up to on the photography side of things.

Three maternity sessions, two newborn sessions, two baby sessions, 1 first birthday session (Cora). Plus all kinds of business related work (watermark, accounting, website, marketing supplies & studio props). These are some of the images from my business website with watermark or header bar included. The ones of my kids you have probably seen before.