Grab a cup of coffee and get cozy…

I’ve been reading it all over Facebook and Blogs…is it really 2011 already?!?!  Where did December go??  Every fall I have dreams of December being relaxing and low key.  This year I’ve realized that December will always be busy and a bit crazy.  That’s the holiday season…and today I’ve decided to just embrace the crazy.  January seems to be the more “chill” month of the year, so I know there’s rest ahead.  But I have a load of new memories and sweet times spent with family and friends that I am thankful for from the previous month.  My husband and I have an amazing group of friends that we go back to teen years with.  Though a couple of these sweet friends have moved away, we all just pick up where we left off when we are together.  And we’ve GROWN over the past few years with the blessings of spouses and little ones:

And I hope our kiddos will get to have the same life long friendships.

So, Christmas.  When my hubby and I got married, we started a stocking tradition between the two of us.  On Christmas Eve after all the family festivities, we would exchange our goodie filled stockings with each other before bed.  They are mostly just filled with randomness and stuff that will make your teeth rot, but it’s fun for us.  Hubby didn’t skimp on the teeth rotting stuff:

But there was one thing that got me even MORE excited than my chocolate.  I know, I know…could there even be such an item???  Yes.  There is:
I admit it.  I’m a total post-it junkie.  They make me happy.

And have ya’ll seen the movie Tangled??  Super cute.  My girlie loved it and we saw it…twice.  For Christmas she got Rapunzel the doll.  Really, there IS a doll in there somewhere.

But beyond the goodies and get togethers, this was the thought in my mind throughout December.  So so thankful.

And because it’s the end of a year, I think it’s only appropriate that there’s some Digs and Overs in this post:

1. Some of my favorite reads from this year:  Arena by Karen Hancock was AMAZING!  Thanks Doni for introducing me to the incredible story telling talents of Karen Hancock!  I’m already knee deep in Legends of the Guardian-King series and love the way she weaves words to paint pictures in my head.  So Over My Head by Jenny B Jones completed the Charmed Life Series this year and I also backtracked to Ms. Jones’s first 3-book series A Katie Parker Production.  LOVED them all!  Even though I’m a NOOK girl now (thank you, Santa), the physical copies of these books will stay on my shelf for my daughter to read when she’s older.  JBJ, I’m forever a fan and CANNOT WAIT for Save the Date to hit book stores in February!!  Randy Alcorn and Ted Dekker both have me hooked and I’ll be reading more of each in 2011.  And finally, The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.  I stayed up waaaaaaay too late a many a nights with these reads.  So so good.  What were some of your favorite reads???
2. Soundtracks of my little world in 2010:  Manic Drive, Chasen, Brooke Fraser, Skillet, Jason Castro, Fireflight… oh, so many more.  You know how you hear a song and it usually has certain memories attached to it.  Like whenever I hear I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing (Aerosmith) I’m instantly transported back to sophomore homecoming dance…and I’m pretty sure I still had a good three inches on most of the guys I knew back then.  Seriously, why do girls get their growth spurts so much earlier than guys?  I think I’ve been 5′9″ since I was in like the fifth grade.  Annnnyways… makes me wonder which memories from this year will pop in my head when I hear these songs again 10 years from now???  What bands/musicians were you diggin this year???
3. I was making my way through Costco two days before Christmas.  On a mission.  And moving at the speed of snail.  I’m pretty sure they were approaching the fire code limit with the amount of people shuffling though the aisles. Anyway, I was ONLY to grab the items on the list.  I’m trying to keep tunnel vision as I {slooooooowly} head for the dairy freezer and suddenly there’s a cup of something being handed to me and then everything goes into slow motion from there.  I take a sip of something heavenly, freeze, turn, and completely ditch my cart to cut through the mob that stands between me and my own Costco sized jug of this:

1. The verdict is still out on these.  Not completely “over it” because they are my kids “pets” for now.  And I don’t have to poopey-scoop, so these are sort of ideal “pets”.  They just make these crazy little noises sorta randomly sometimes, like at night, when you are walking down a dark hallway.  FREAKS me out!!
2. These I’m SO completely over!  They come in bundles by the hundreds and you just can’t get rid of them.  No joke, I thought I had thrown all of them away and found these yesterday…all in different locations.  I don’t even know what they are called???  Happy Bandz or Silly Bandz, something like that.  And kids love them.  Not just girls…i’ve seen boys wearing them too.  They’re everywhere!  It’s madness!!  And completely brilliant.
3. Remotes.  For one TV.  I’ll just let the photographic evidence speak my frustrations:

And finally, a little slideshow from 2010.  Thank you, thank you , thank you to all of you who invite me to photograph such precious moments for you.  You are a blessing to me!  Also THRILLED to have obtained permission to use When I’m With You by the wonderfully talented JJ Heller on my portrait website this year.  LOVE LOVE LOVE this song.  Sorry if the slideshow is a little wonky…I may have crammed a few too many adorable faces into the show

And coming to the blog soon…three little angels that didn’t want to miss out on Christmas this last year!

God bless you and your family this new year.

Joyfully, Erin

How in the world did we ever survive childhood… I mean without things like DVD players in the minivan!!  My kids know nothing different.  To them, being able to watch their show while we’re cruising is just part of a lengthy drive.  Crazy.  I believe my brothers and I entertained ourselves by constantly re-establishing the “do not cross into my seat territory” line and then dishing out dead arms to perpetrators.  Now, since my kids are all under 4, a good deal of the entertainment comes from the good folks at Big Idea, otherwise known as Veggie Tales.  I would like to thank the good folks at Big Idea for creating such catchy songs that they STICK IN YOUR HEAD AND NEVER LEAVE!!  Songs about belly buttons, hairbrushes, lips… not to mention a very entertaining Lord of the Rings Beans parody.  And that is why Veggie Tales have made it into a blog post.  We were driving from point A to point B the other day and my kids are watching another installment of the cutesy, surprisingly witty, life lesson world of singing vegetables, when I’m suddenly having a moment of conviction… from a talking asparagus no less.  Singing about a thankful heart being a happy heart.  And so that you can too can get the song stuck in your head experience this very important message for happy living, here is a cute little girl that I found on youtube singing the Thankful Heart Song.  Just wondering how dad was able to get all that on video AND drive… now that’s talent!  Now the the real fun will be seeing my kids in Sunday School as they refer to the Old Testament characters of Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego as Rack, Shack, & Benny.

Since it’s Monday, I’m thinking it’s a Diggin’ It, Over It kinda day… aaaaaand because there are lots of things I’m DIGGIN and OVER.   And to keep on the Thankful theme, there’s going to be FOUR digs and only two overs.  I may have to re-balance the universe next time with more things that are irksome.

1. Vampires.  Let me clarify… Stephenie Meyer’s vampires.  They have officially made pasty fashionable.  I was completely baffled as a teenager by the fact that many of my friends would turn into bronze goddesses in the sun, and I would end up resembling Bob the Tomato.  I realized there’s this stuff in our skin that makes a tan happen and well, I just have sprinkles of it here and there.  Those would be my freckles.  Since my skin doesn’t darken in the sun, I had a Li-Lo style stint with the bottle tanners and then just decided white was better than Oompa Loompa orange.  I’ve learned to just own my pastiness and make best friends with SPF.  And now, thanks to sparkly vamps, it’s kinda cool to be pale.  
2. Jamie the Very Worst Missionary.  Anyone that can so eloquently convey the depths of a true procrastinator and even give it a more appropriate name, officially makes my Google Reader.  Warning:  not for those who are easily offended.
3. Post-its!  If you’ve been around my blog for any amount of time, you’ve heard me talk about Mom Brain.  Though I’m convinced having children makes the space left in your brain for everything non-child related significantly smaller, I refuse to let that be my cop out.  So my solution… POST ITS!  I’m telling ya… not only do Post-It crazed folk like myself keep that company in the black, but I’m pretty sure the CEO has a yacht and summer home in the Bahamas from the profits of Mom-Brain induced bulk buying of sticky little pieces of paper.  If I don’t keep up on the “to-do’s”, my office area could very well look like this:  
4. My minivan.  When I had my first child, it was like wearing this adorable little hip-accessorie wherever I went.  I drove around in a cute and sporty Kia Sorento and had a stylish little diaper bag with just a few diapers, wipes, and Hooter Hider inside.  Well, two kids later, a beach bag for a diaper bag, and the realization that three car seats don’t fit into zippy little Sorentos, I had to swallow my pride.  I swore I would never be a minivan mom because that just stereotypes you as a frumpy, been-in-the same-outfit-since-yesterday, on my way to soccer practice, all I am is a mom kinda mom.  Truth is, some of that is true.  I am still in the same outfit as yesterday as I type this and most days I’m sporting the frumpy look.  But remember our lesson from our Veggie Tales friends today… a thankful heart if a happy heart?  So I’m declaring here and now, I officially dig my minivan.  It’s a reminder of the three little blessings that require such a vehicle and I wouldn’t trade it for the world… frump and all.  Now sing it with me… “a thankful heart is a happy heart, I’m glad for what I have, it’s an easy way to start…”

1. Humidity.  So much for “at least it’s a dry heat” when monsoons come to town.  We’ve actually had very little rain, but that’s because it’s all sticking to the air.  Shay and I got to go visit my SIL Lori over in FL a couple weeks ago… going from hot & humid to humid & hot.  Now, my biggest beef with humidity is not that it makes your clothes stick to your body like you’re trying to win a wet t-shirt contest, not the profuse amount of sweating that occurs without an ounce of physical activity… my beef is the evil thing it does to my HAIR.  All I can say is I feel for you Monica.  Chia-heads unite!  
2. AT&T.  I love my iPhone.  Confused by the service.  Dear AT&T, how is it that I can go from 4 bars to 1 just by moving two steps to the left?

I love doing these posts… it’s therapy for me.  If you find something great, you gotta share it right!  And if you are irked, sometimes you just gotta get it out.  Got anything you are diggin’ or over’?? (that’s what the comment section is for)

Alright, I’ll be back tomorrow to talk business.  Newsletter subscribers already got the scoop (sign up HERE if you want to be in the loop early next time), but I’ll be getting the rest of cyber-space up to speed all thing EMP related here on the blog.  Hope your Monday is fantabulous.

Joyfully, Erin

Yesterday was Independence Day.  I think I have mostly taken this holiday for granted for the majority of my life, but today I pondered.  What would like be like without our freedoms?  And it left me with one major emotion:  thankfulness.  I spent the evening at church with my family, ate dinner with them, went home to tuck my kids into bed, and then did some editing and blogging for this little business that I’m free to own.  Freedom is a wonderful thing.  And I’m thankful.

So I was talking to a dear friend of mine the other day and she mentioned “Diggin It!, Over It!”.  So here’s another installment of the best and the worst.  Love ya Tara!

1. Indie flicks and music.  It’s a hit and miss sorta genre, but when you find a good one, it’s like stumbling on a golden nugget.  When you spend as much time as we photographers do in the editing chair, a little distraction is necessary!  Sometimes it’s music, sometimes podcasts, and sometimes it’s the “watch instantly” feature from Netflix.
2. Dictionary.com Alright, I’m admitting a bit of my quirky geekiness here, but almost anytime I’m writing and even blogging, this spiffy little site is an open web window.  You know how a word sounds like it fits in a sentence and then you actually look it up and it’s not even close.  Yeah, I do that a lot.
3. Candid Motherhood Blog The author of this fabulous blog is a childhood friend of mine and storyteller extraordinaire… Karis Murray.  The truth is, well, motherhood is unpredictable, messy, embarrassing, overflowing joy, end of your rope, laugh at yourself kind of wonderful.  And Karis’s stories will make you laugh, whether you are a mom or not.  Thanks for reassuring me that I’m normal Mrs. Murray

1. A little exercise program called Satan’s workout P90X.  Actually, it’s only on the “Over It!” list because it’s kicking my butt.  I’m sure once I can do it consistently without having to take a 3 day break after each workout, I’m going to have abs I can wash my clothes on!  I’m more on the P365X program if you will.
2. 100 + degree days.  My hubby says I’m not happy unless it’s a perfect 80 degrees, but I know I’m not alone in feeling like we are living in an oven right now.  We’re actually headed for a cool down this week.  Only 105 tomorrow!  Forgive me if this is a staple on the over it! list.
3. Calories.  I heard they don’t count on weekends.

And here’s some sneaky peeks of posts to come…

Hope you had a wonderful July 4th!  I’ll be back later this week with some client posts!

Joyfully, Erin