18/365

One of my friends from middle/high school came over with her newest little bundle of joy today. I enjoyed taking his newborn pictures.

I loved meeting him and seeing his mommy again! 

17/365

Picture taken with my motorola devour. Madyn loves trees.

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16/365

Yesterday my future mother in law brought over a new Valentine's day decoration! I'm in love with it! She has one of these pretty much for every holiday.

it's got 3 different pattern fabric and 3 solid colors that correspond to the patterned fabric.

Thank you Debbie!

<3

15/365

Phew, what a morning. Got up and had breakfast with my boys. Then we got ready and headed to the park. Madyn rode his bike and we tossed the football around. We being my boys of course. I was there to enjoy and to take pictures of my boys playing and enjoying themselves. I chose one of these pictures for todays 365 picture.

I just love the way he reacted when he was catching the ball. He did catch the ball too! He had so much fun this morning and is now napping.

14/365

being that it is winter, I needed a winter treat this morning. I fixed up a cup of hot cocoa and whipped cream. I thought it was pretty in the black and white cup.

13/365

I love seeing the look of my son's face when we're playing games together. This is probably one of his favorites right now. Seen above is Madyn playing a game of hungry hungry hippos with me & Brandon. I used the timer for this shot and it is one of 20+ I took. I'll be editing more and collaging them together but tonight I just needed one for the blog.

I love the way the edit came out, and it was an accident actually. Just playing with colors and effects on picnik. :)

12/365

Today I spent a lot of quality time with my sweet little neice. She's getting bigger every time I see her! Today she had her 4 month checkup. She weighs 11 lbs 3 oz and is 23 3/4 in long! :)

I have an obsession with baby feet btw.





11/365

Curls via my straightner! Soooo cool and soo easy!

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10/365

Oh winter how I love thee.

9/365

So I'm late posting yesterdays but I promise I DID take this on January 9th, I was just exhausted and busy yesterday so it didn't make it to the blog before midnight.

This is a picture of the necklace my wonderful fiance got me for Chrismtas. I love it. It is my birthstone (Garnet). The last piece of Garnet jewelry I owned was a garnet ring that my mom gave to me when I was 12. I treasure this necklace so much.

8/365

Excuse my late posting, but I had a very busy saturday. I worked from 10:00-4, stopped by the store picked up a fruit tray, came home switched clothes had my future sister in law curl my hair and then we went to a girls night at her friends house. I really enjoyed myself.

My picture for yesterday is a picture of me and the other girls minus a couple I think.

7/365

Guess who came to visit for a little while today?

That's right! DiAnna-Jo! :)

As of now I'm going to be copyrighting my pictures. I spend too much time creating pictures to have them stolen. So excuse the purple bar above her head ;)

She is doing really well. She's 3 1/2 months old now already! and is really good at holding her head up. Madyn is still super in awe of his baby cousin. I tried taking a picture of them together but the lighting wasn't quite right so that's my goal for next time!

Anyways. Hope you all had a great friday! Tomorrow night I'm going to a party with a friend. Should be fun, it's the first time I'm going out without Brandon/Madyn in like a year!

6/365

Today we set out on an adventure. Me, Madyn & My cousin Brandi. Our adventure? To find places to do hers and her future hubby's engagement pictures (YAY!). The day yielded many photo opportunities and I took full advantage of every single one too. Which caused for quite the dilemma when trying to decide which ONE picture to use for today. In the end you'll see that I chose a picture that summed up today.

We enjoyed walking around downtown phoenix, and I really got to see how beautiful that area is. Architectural and cultural. I once lived on that side of town, but when I did it wasn't as "grown up" as it is now. I loved looking at all the buildings and just feeling the buzz of the people walking around town.

It was beautiful.

This little guy decided to hop in the water and enjoy a quick bath. He wasn't affected by me trying to snap the perfect shot either. It was really cool! :)

If you want to see more of the shots from today please check out my facebook! :)

5/365

I'm getting used to wearing my glasses again. It's definitely been weird, but I'm really enjoying being able to see the world clearly without having to squint. I spent about an hour trying to take pictures of things that had meaning but in the end it was a simple closeup picture of me with my glasses. Enjoy!

4/365

Woot Woot, getting #4 out of the way early in the day!
My little man decided he was going to be a super hero today, and wanted to wear a cape. We had so much fun playing outside and enjoying our beautiful weather today.
Here's Madyn's sweet little smile as my 4th picture of the year.

Oh how I love this smile of his. He truely melts my heart in his own super hero way!

Have a good day all.

3/365

So yes its almost midnight and I'm rushing to post this picture so I don't fall behind!

Here is pic 3 out of 365:

Its Me, without my glasses. Which happened to come in today. Look for more pics with my glasses!!! :)

2/365

I didn't really make any New Years Resolutions this year, but I do want to try to cook more, and with this I think I'll achieve my goal. :)

If I use a recipe I'll make sure to post here which one I tried. I love this cookbook and can't WAIT to crack into it!

Tried to do it last year but failed! (1/365)

Now that is a new year I'm going to try again with this project!

Last year I tried to do the "365" project but got all mixed up when we went to Ryan's wedding and then at Memorial day. So this year I'm going to give it another try. So this blog will now become my "365" blog! :D

Here is day one!

So the coloring is really weird, and yeah I kinda airbrushed my skin because i was REALLY red and no makeup, but its me and my baby. Today.

I'm really looking forward to this new year and all that it has in store. Hope everyone had a safe New Years and look forward to seeing you guys around!

Christmas and other random thoughts. . .

So this year has been a roller coaster that's for sure, but the end is definitely the topper. Christmas was AMAZING with Brandon & Madyn. He was so excited for every present, and loves that Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk. It was so amazing seeing his reaction to his presents. He loved every part of it and lasted through all of our different stops we had to do except the last one.

My neice, DiAnna-Jo ended up in the hospital on Christmas day this year. She would NOT stop screaming and was in pain, so my sister and her future mother in law and the babies dad all went to the hospital and they admitted her (DiAnna-Jo). The dr's brought in a GI specialist today and they did an upper GI test and found out she has acid reflux, and is now on a special formula that is basically amino acids. The valve on her stomach doesn't close all the way, which is why she spits up a lot! I went to see her today and she looked so much better then she's looked since she was born. She's starting to really use her hands, and really focused on them. She goes cross eyed when looking at them. Such a little sweetheart. I love her so much and she's only 3 months old tomorrow! It's CRAZY! lol

So, Madyn got a bike for Christmas!! He went and rode it today for the first time. From what I heard he only fell once, but he didn't cry! I wasn't able to see him ride it unfortunately since I went to be with my neice today, but daddy took video of it and if I can figure out how to get it on the computer i'll try and post it!

Madyn is getting so big, and I can hardly believe in about 8 months I'll have a kindergartener. Seems like just yesterday I was walking up to this GIANT blue door myself covered in teddy bear stickers with other kids names on it as well as my own starting this adventure. I am so nervous for this adventure to start, and find myself being a little selfish with him. He's such a sweetheart and definitely a momma's boy & I not-so-secretly hope that doesn't ever change.

Anyways, I am looking forward to the new year, lots of new things happening this year! Hope everyone out there had a wonderful holiday season, even if you didn't celebrate Christmas, I hope you guys enjoyed all the family time and all of the memories that were made were good ones :)

Get ready for a lot of updates! :)

So its been 2 months since I've updated my readers. Lets just say things have been beyond crazy and exciting all at the same time.

September 12, we attended my fiance's youngest cousin's birthday!

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September 22nd My sister, her fiance and I all went to the park and I took her last maternity pictures before my beautiful neice was born. Here's the pictures

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On September 27, while at her doctors office getting checked out her water broke so she was sent to the hospital to have her baby at 8 am. DiAnna-Jo Nicole Steinbauer was born at 5:06 PM weighing 6 lbs 4 oz and was 18.5 in long. She was so beautiful instantly. It was so amazing to watch the birth. My sister did an AMAZING job. Didn't cry once during the entire labor process, nor did she yell or scream. She received an epidural at 8 cm dialated and shortly after having the epi she was ready to push. In just a few short pushes DiAnna-Jo came into this world. Brittany was in the hospital for another 3 weeks with complications after the birth of DiAnna. She went home 4 short days of a month. I'm proud of her and she is my hero.

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After DiAnna got here things were busy, with all of the family helping bradley out to watch DiAnna so he could work and sleep. I loved the times when DiAnna-Jo would come to visit and took many opportunities to photograph her.


October brought halloween fun!

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And now we're into november. Look for more updates soon! :)

September 10, 2010

Took Madyn outside for some play time & Captured quite a few cute pictures!
Enjoy :)

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Cardinals Training Camp

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Grand Canyon 2010

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Madyn February-July of 2010

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July 2010

So I'm a couple months behind, but I want to make sure this gets posted.

July was quite an exciting month. At the beginning, Brandon, Madyn and I celebrated 4th of July right from home. The fireworks pictures are ones that I took off the TV.

The next day we got up pretty early and went up north to go to Brandon's grandma's cabin. We took his sisters quad up there and all rode around. It was so much fun. I spent 90% of the day on a quad. It was the first time I had ever ridden one, let a lone drive it. We had lunch up there, and then headed back down town at around 5, making it back home safe and sound at around 8.

July 6th, 2010, was Madyn's 4th birthday! I couldn't believe it when I woke up that morning, but my son was 4!! He's such a joy, and so amazing! I had planned on going to breakfast and he got a free rooty tooty jr from IHOP, only he didn't like this plan. Instead, he woke up and was cranky about almost everything. I finally got him to calm down, and then we got into my mom's van and she had tried really hard to hide part of his present..(a yellow smiley face balloon) behind the back seat, but the little stinker saw it and got all upset once again!! So the rest of the ride to Ihop was loud! He unfortunately is still a temper tantrum throwing little boy.

Once we actually got to Ihop and the balloon was placed in those little hands all was right with the world again. We got in, waited to be seated and listened to madyn talk nonstop. Its so much fun hearing all about what is in his brain. We were seated shortly after and all chaos ensued once again. Madyn did NOT want to sit still, and only wanted to see what else his grams had brought for him. So after calming him down once again, we gave him the present. He started tearing tissue after tissue out of the bag, to reveal at the bottom a toy story sticker book, an eric carle board game, and a new toy story jump rope! He was so happy! ...So happy that he didn't want to eat any of the breakfast that was picked out for him. We finished breakfast and headed home. We needed some rest to refuel, from the morning we had just had.

That afternoon when Brandon got home we opened the gift I picked out for him. A package of action figures, a yo-yo, some temporary tattoos, and a stuffed caterpillar. He loved all of them! Then we headed to dinner, which was Madyn's choice. We went to Grimaldi's, a really nice pizza restaurant! It was my first time there and it was so yummy! Madyn agreed! After that we headed to every little boys favorite place....Toys R Us! Madyn got to pick out some new toys! It was so fun to see him picking out what he wanted. Then we went home for the day.

I think overall Madyn had a very good birthday, and I hope he enjoyed himself. :)

Twas a good day!

So today didn't go quite as planned, but nonetheless it was a good day. Madyn and I got to see my mom and my sister today. We hung around the apartment, and enjoyed a two hour nap, and then went swimming. We both love the pool so this was nice. I couldn't imagine being in arizona without a pool or sprinkler/water hose near by!

Brandon's getting sick, and I feel bad because I can't help him much except to keep Madyn busy so he is able to rest. Hopefully it will go away soon though! I hate when he's sick. :(

Tomorrow I am hanging out with my friend Heaven and her little girl (possibly her husband too but not sure!). I'm going to be taking 1st birthday pictures of her. I am super excited for this opportunity! I love being able to do this for my friends. Photography is my main hobby.

Saturday and sunday I may or may not work, who knows. Even if I'm scheduled I could get called off, or get called in early. Its so funny how it works, but I love my job. Monday we're going up north to see Brandons grandma, and enjoy some time with family up there. Madyn may get to ride a quad for the first time, who konws though. It will be an excellent time to take pictures! On Tuesday is Madyn's 4th birthday, so again...More pictures!!! Keep your eyes pealed for picture blogs coming up! This next week will be fun for sure!

Hope that all my readers/family/friends have a great and safe independence day weekend! Those in Arizona, stay cool!!!! :)

Half way through the year already?

Wow, I can't believe tomorrow is June 30th already! This year is flying by me. In a matter of a week I will have a 4 year old. It doesn't seem real to me, but time is a passing and I can't do anything about it.

I had my application appointment with the headstart for Madyn last week or the week before, and have decided that I am just going to "homeschool" him this year to get him ready for Kindergarden next year. I think this will be better then sending him to an actual school this year, because I am his mom and I have succeeded in teaching him what he already knows now, and because we can do it at our own pace and not worry about him getting behind. He is a really smart boy and I know that we'll have fun doing this together.

Also, Brandon has planned a camping trip next month and I'm super excited! I haven't been camping in ages. We're going to go to the Grand Canyon!! Madyn and I have never been there, and the last time Brandon went was a while ago, so it will be a great vacation for all of us!! I'll have lots of fun and interesting pictures to share when we get back I'm sure!

This weekend Brandon spruced up our master bathroom and I'm in love with it! He completely surprised me when I came home from work on saturday. It was nice. He put some shelves up, but I'm not quite sure what to put on them. I wanted to put candles, but since our wall slopes out the shelves aren't secure enough to hold candles on them. If you have any suggestions let me know!

So yes. I love my bathroom now!!

My Dream House

While I'm up late tonight I am watching HGTV and dreaming up my perfect house. I absolutely love HGTV and am counting the days until I am picking out wall colors, and planning bedroom themes for our house, and while I'm not sure when that will be, I'll just keep dreaming. So without further explanation here's what my dream house would consist of:

In the kitchen there would be cabinets like this:

It would have an island similar to this:

however the countertops would have blackgalaxy granite tops instead:

I would have the walls painted this color:

In the living room there would be giant windows similar to these. If it was one giant window from floor to ceiling it would be even more perfect. The floors would be wooden to make it completely perfect.

The paint in the living room would be a nice happy shade of yellow, not to bright and not baby yellow.

In the living room we would have lots of bright accents around the room. I'm thinking bright orange gerber daisies, Yellow couch cushions, and other complimentary colors/accents around the room.

There would be at least two bedrooms, but hopefully 3. We would have 2 bathrooms. One in the master suite, and a guest bathroom. I would love to decorate the guest bathroom in something very simple, but clean.

The color of this wall is what I think would look good in a guest bathroom, with white accents:

White towels, tissue boxes in blue, and other bathroom accessories would complete the clean look.

In the master bedroom, I want a lot of space. I am a big fan of vaulted ceilings:

and of course the more natural light that is let in the room, the better!

As for the rest of the house, thats another day.

I think I'm gonna have a great summer!

Today I finally took Madyn to the pool for the first time since it started being steadily 90 degrees plus! It was SO much fun. We spent about an hour and a half there. Even though I thoroughly applied sunscreen I still managed to burn on my shoulders and possibly my face. Oh well. I can tell you it won't be the last! I love the water. Its probably the only part about summer that I look forward to right now.

After swimming we ate lunch and got ready for our consultation appointment with a pediatric surgeon. We spent one and half hours in the waiting room and then got back into a room where 5 minutes later we were done. I'm now waiting for my insurance to "approve" the surgery and then we'll schedule a date to have the hernia removed. I'm so glad that this isn't hurting Madyn at all.

All in all today was amazing! The weather was hot, but we still managed to stay cool. As I plan on doing a lot this summer!

Tomorrow I have an application appointment with a headstart to see if I qualify. I want to get Madyn started with some kind of education this year. If I qualify but the school is too far from home, we have decided I will just essentially home school! Which is kind of exciting to me! I do think I would do well teaching him what he needs to know before Kindergarten next fall (YIKES!), considering I'm his mom and he knows me! However, we'll have to see what tomorrow holds!

Hope everyone had a great tuesday! We're halfway through the week!

Today was a good day!

Today was such a good day for us. Brandon went up north to work on his grandma's cabin and I went to work. Luckily Brandon's mom was able to watch my munchkin. I had really really awesome customers, who were more than happy with the pictures I took, and my service, which is always SO good to hear! It makes the whole job worth it, because I know that I'm creating pictures that will last a lifetime! I got to see an old friend from high school that I haven't seen in like 5 years! She is now married and has a BEAUTIFUL little girl. I'm really looking forward to seeing little Catelynn grow up! Chrystenn your daughter is adorable!

I'm about to fix dinner for the little and me. Its just us until tomorrow. I'll be at work when my fiance gets home. I am really looking forward to cuddling with Madyn before bed tonight. He's sooo sweet. I love times when its just us.

Hope everyone had a wonderful day! :)

TGITSF :)

I have been waiting for today forever it seems. The day when my favorite movie (part 3!!) came out! I also love that it happened today, on a friday. So not only is today friday, its Toy Story Premier date! Woohoo! Thank goodness its toy story friday. hahah. Okay so I totally made that up, but I am definitely thankful that today is friday. Yes tomorrow brandon will be out of town and I'll be working, but at least its the weekend!

This week was nice. I got to see my mom/sister twice this week. Monday Brittany had an ultrasound & I got to go to that, which was SO awesome. It was short, but it was awesome. and then wednesday they came over to just hang out. I love my family so much!

Also, I got to see a friend yesterday that I haven't seen in ages!! I hope that she had fun because I know madyn & I did.

I've been trying to take more pictures of Madyn lately, but as usual he doesn't like being in front of the camera, but instead begs to be the one to take the pictures.

The weather lately has been HOT, which isn't unusual for Arizona in June, but the "oficial Monsoon season" is in full swing and we have no rain. Odd huh?

I am going to be an AUNT!

I'm not sure why but I haven't mentioned that I am going to be an aunt! My sister is pregnant and is due October 11, 2010! She is having a little girl and her name will be DiAnna (pronounced Deanna) Nicole S*********. We are very excited. We've known she was pregnant since she was 6 weeks pregnant. I just haven't posted anything about this.

She is registered at Walmart, babiesrus, Target & Baby depot inside burlington coat factory. I went with her to register at target & Baby depot. It was a lot of fun and we were able to visit and enjoy each others company.

Today I went with her to the first ultrasound since she found out she was pregnant. She is 23 weeks along. DiAnna had been pretty still through the first part of the ultrasound when the technician was doing the measurements but when myself & our mom came in the room she started wiggling around and it was so much fun to see her. Unfortunately she didn't get any pictures printed because it was inside the hospital but it was just SO amazing to see my neice!

I am SO excited for october!

Memorial Day 2010

Memorial Day
2010

May 31, 2010 was a fun day. Although it didn't happen as I had planned it, my boy and I still had a blast.

We had planned for us to go to my aunts house in the morning, and then leave at 11:45 and go to my MIL's house for the afternoon, and eat there at about 2.

What happened was as soon as I was about to leave the house with Madyn, my mom calls me and lets me know that my aunt wasn't going to be ready for company until noon. So with a quick revision in plans we headed to fry's and picked up some whipped cream and a small chocolate milk for Madyn. We now had an extra 2 hours to kill until we headed to Debbie's house, so we sat down and watched an episode of farscape.

At around 11:30 we loaded up and went over to my Mil's house to have some lunch and relax. The food was good, we had grilled hamburgers and madyn ate a whole (hot dog bun and all)! After eating Madyn & I went to my aunts house where everyone was already about to finish eating. It was nice to see my aunt/cousins, because I don't see them that much. While we were there we enjoyed lots of swimming, socializing and soaking up some rays with the music playing in the background. We didn't leave there until almost 6 monday.

All in all it was a wonderful memorial day! Thank you again to all the MANY past men & women who have fought for our country. Also a thank you to my cousin & the other many men & women who are fighting currently across the world for us!

<3

PS. HAVE YOU TRIED SWAGBUCKS YET? ;)

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/Mandaraye89

june 1st already?!

so today is june 1 2010 which means we're halfway through this year!! It also means that my darling little boy is a month and 5 days away from being FOUR!!! I am anticipating this age, and hoping that it will bring about a whole new attitude change for him. Also, I'm hoping he'll stop wearing pullups at night. He reverted after we got back from california in december and I wasn't too happy. I spent 8 months last year working with madyn to be completely dry at night and now he's back to needing pullups :( gr.

Anyways, I'm still doing swagbucks! Wishing id get more referrals so that I can earn points faster! I have a goal to use my points for my neice and baby things aren't cheap which means I need lots more points.

(450 points=$5 amazon gift card!) :)