If only I would have known this sooner

It's funny what happens when you turn 33.  At least, for me it was.  And it's not like on my birthday I had this great epiphany, it had been happening for a while before.  But tonight, as I was putting my baby girl to bed, in the quiet of her room where I just sit and think, I thought about the person I was a few years ago, compared to the person I am now.  I was pretty insecure, worried about what other people thought, unsure of my abilities as a mother and as a wife, and of course, self-conscious of how I looked.  But after I had Lucy, those thoughts slowly began to go out the window and I have to see it has been the most freeing experience.  Unlike after I had my first two children, where I was so worried about how I looked compared to all of the other very cute, thin, girls in my neighborhood, after I had Lucy those thoughts didn't even cross my mind. I finally realized that I just had a baby and my body is awesome for doing that!  So what if I gained a few (50 pounds), at least I have this amazing baby girl to show for it.  But, that doesn't mean I stopped being healthy.  In fact, I started working out sooner than with the other two, but not because I wanted to be skinny, it was because I wanted to be the healthiest person I could be for these amazing people: 

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Yes, I know I'm in the picture, but I am pretty amazing.  Anyway, exercise was no longer a means to an end, meaning the end being skinny.  Now, there was no longer an end.  If you have ever been in my house, you would see all of my girls' one-month pictures on my wall.  When I would exercise at night, after a really long day of being a new mom to three kids and never being so tired in my whole entire life, I would look at their pictures while I worked out and remember that I wasn't doing this for me anymore, it was for them.  My family being my focus, instead of myself, has helped me so much.  

Also, my somewhat epiphany has made me come to the realization that I'm no longer in my 20's, my metabolism is much slower than it once was, having three kids really stretches out your skin, and "bouncing back" is no longer a phrase in my lexicon.  My body is different, which isn't bad, just different.  But I can say that I have never been healthier in my life than I am now.  I go running in the mornings, I try to eat as healthily as I can, although I do love Kraft Mac & Cheese, and I have recently stopped drinking soda which has been so difficult, but I feel like it's been worth it. Because I have been blessed with girls, it has become so important for them to never feel like how they look is bad, to never think of themselves as fat, to not associate the size of your jeans with how happy you'll allow yourself to be, and to just love who they are because they are incredible.  And I know that as they get older, these feelings will come, but they will never see their mother on a scale looking disappointed and talking about how her belly hangs over her pants.  In fact, if they ever comment about anything that has to do with my body that they think looks funny, I always reply with, "Isn't is awesome how my body made you guys?" 

Sure, it's not awesome no longer being in my 20's, but I am loving my 30's because I feel like I'm finally becoming who I was always meant to be.  I just wish it didn't take 33 years to finally feel like myself.  

Assignment #4

Because my pictures for assignment 3 were kind of lame, I skipped putting them up, but I have loved doing our week 4 assignment which deals with two functions on my camera: The TV and AV function. When the camera is on the TV function, you control the shutter speed, but the camera controls the aperture. It's actually quite nice taking the guess work out of doing that. And when the camera is on the AV function, you control the aperture and the camera controls the shutter speed. I didn't like that one as much, but still fun to experiment with. But here they are:

Photography Class Assignment 2

Our assignment for last week was to work with flash, shadow, and more color composition. I will just be honest, I hate flash. I think it makes pictures and more importantly people look very washed out, so I never use it, therefore I didn't do a picture with flash. Whew. I'm so glad I finally got that off my chest. But I did do shadow and the color comp and it was so much fun. So here is my assignment.

Photography class

About a month ago, Hubert was glancing through the newspaper and saw that at the local high school there was a photography class that was being offered and he asked if I wanted to do it and of course I said yes! I have loved going and learning how to not only use my camera properly, but to also learn how to take a good picture because there is so much more thought involved than just pointing your camera at something and pushing the button. So last week, we had our first assignment which included depth of field, the rule of thirds, and color contrast. I cannot express the fun I had taking these pictures, and granted it's only three pictures, but I really enjoyed the time I spent working on them. So here they are!

A Moment...with Meagan

I haven't done this in a while and maybe because it feels like every moment I have is flying by because life seems so busy. But I feel like I'm having an off day, well, maybe an off week. Olivia isn't sleeping through the night and waking up at 6:00 am and doesn't really want to nap anymore and as I type this, she's throwing her bracelets onto the ground and yelling until I pick them up. Ellie had discovered her "sass," meaning that when I ask her to do something, her reply is often, "sorry mom, I don't want to." Hey, at least she prefaced it with a sorry, right? And although we love our house, it feels like it's getting smaller and smaller everyday and what we thought might be an opportunity to move into a bigger home presented itself, it might be off the table. There are other things, but there is no need to type them right now. But as I sit here wallowing in my self-loathing, wishing for a bigger house, Olivia to sleep, Ellie to be more cooperative, more money so that Hubert can go back to school to get his Masters, and to have Heidi Klum's body, it is unbelievable how much I have in my life that's good. My husband has an incredible job which has not been affected by this down economy, we are both very healthy, my "baboon's heart," as my brother Jake likes to refer to it as, is, according to my cardiologist, "healthier than most healthy hearts," my daughters and are healthy, happy, silly, girly, loving, giving, beautiful, unique, and wonderful. My house is in the best neighborhood anyone could ever ask for. I have amazing friends and a more amazing family. We have an incredible support system that is so undeserving sometimes. So even though some of those other things aren't going so great, sometimes I just need to take a moment and realize that I have a pretty wonderful life. Now, I am done complaining. And anyway, how can I be mad at this face?

If you're interested...

When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a photographer. I was intrigued with pictures in Time Magazine and National Geographic and wanted to be the person behind the camera. This dream of mine has never gone away. I took photography classes in high school and when I first started college, photography was my major. Unfortunately, I soon found out that as a photog major, I was required to take other classes, such as drawing and painting and unlike my artistic brothers before me, that was not something I was at all skilled in. So, needless to say, I dropped that major and finished with English, which is something I really loved. But, the love for the camera never went away and about a year ago, Hubert bought me a very nice camera and I decided that instead of paying someone to take pictures of my girls, I will take them myself. And then I decided to take pictures of my friends kids and then it went on from there. So I am going to post some pictures that I have taken of friends and family. Here they are:

If you don't know, this is my brother, Jake's, family. His beautiful wife and dear friend, Ashley, and their awesome boys, Milo and Eli. This was a fun shoot not only because they all did so well, but because I love them so much.

This is the family of Matt and Jenny Meese. Matt was our neighbor when we moved to Utah and he has been like a brother to me ever since. And his beautiful wife, Jenny, is someone I consider to be one of my best friends. And their very handsome twin boys, Graham and Harrison, are two of the sweetest boys you will ever meet.

This is the Ogden family. Clay, Valerie, and their beautiful little girl, Charlotte, are in our Branch and have become extremely good friends of ours and Valerie asked if I would take her family's pictures. This is the first time I have been asked by someone who is not a member of my family to take their pictures, so I was both flattered and TERRIFIED! But they are a terrific family and all of them are so photogenic that it was so easy.

So there you go! That's what I have been up to and I have absolutely loved doing it. And, if anyone is interested, I am pretty cheap! So if you need any pictures and you like what you see, either e-mail me or call me. If anything, you are just indulging me.

And a year later....

I know, I know, it's been almost an entire year since I did my last post and I kept thinking about all of the things that have happened in the last year and as I was thinking, all of my thoughts and memories came back to my girls. So, instead of posting things that aren't that important, I am going to post some of my favorite pictures of the ladies. Here they are in the summer when everything was so green because of all of the rain.

And here they are in the fall, because nothing is more beautiful that Utah in the fall.