On a side note, we are still looking for models for Saturday August 28th. Details are in the next post!

We have TWO MORE model shoots coming up on August 28th and September 11th!  We are looking for a diverse group of children for some amazing phonics curriculum that we are developing.Your child needs to be between the ages of 4-7 years old (can be older if they look little!). We will be photographing them using alphabet themes.  For your time you will receive a free 5x7 print of your child from images similar to the ones above. The model shoot will take place here in Maricopa, I'd love to see all my Maricopa friends come out! If you are interested, please email me at cindy@lilypstudio.com and we will send you the information for the shoots. If you know anyone with adorable children, feel free to pass the information along!

Please excuse the quality of that picture! I'm working from the road and short on time! I am looking for child models for a phonics curriculum that is in development.  We are looking for children between 4-7 years old. We will be taking pictures using alphabet themes.  For your time you will recieve one free 5X7 picture of your child.  We will be scheduling pictures for Wednesday,  July 28 in Mesa.  If you are interested please call Julie Allred at (480)659-3993 or email her at jewels7of9@cox.net and she will give you more information. Thanks!

How cute is this! And take a look at the table.

  I didn't really want to give a ton of direction to the girls. I don't actually like to give kids a lot of direction on any of my shoots. I try and let them do what they do, interacting with them and giving some gentle coaxing here and there. The girls were a little timid at first, but the strawberries and cookies lured them in, and I think they had a wonderful time. Here are a few images from "the teaparty."

Monica, thanks for letting me borrow your girls for the teaparty. I hope you will love and cherish these images, and this time in your girls' lives. It passes so fast, and the little moments fade so easily in our memories. It was such a fun session, I'm so thankful to be able to be inspired by the beauty around me, and capture that inspiration through my lens, and share it. I'll be adding a slideshow soon so stay tuned.

I can't decide if I like color better or black and white. I think they're both fatastic in this situation. Which do you prefer?

We went into the garden with very low expectations. We had no idea just how successful our garden would be. 

We ended up with the most gigantic zuccini and squash that I have ever seen, more tomatoes than I knew what to do with, and a love for gardening that I definitely did not expect.

 It was like therapy for me to go out each week and weed and harvest. I looooved it. So this year, I decided that one garden just wouldn't be enough. Yeah, I'm reallllly lame, and need a little plot here at the house too. We don't have much room, but I'm carving out a little space between our house and block wall.

We took some of what we learned at the garden last year, and changed things up some. We planted less zuccini and squash (I don't know that many zuccini recipes!) and branched out to try some other vegetables, like carrots and bell peppers. We discovered that we hate, hate, hate armenian cucumbers, so we are switching those out for a different variety, and trying a few different types of tomatoes, rather than having 6 cherry tomato plants.

For our home garden, I'm trying for some herbs, carrots, spinach and a salad mix (though I think the summer heat will kill them too early, but I'm an optimist). I'm also trying pumpkin at home, so we'll see how that goes. Cooper and I decided to try and grow our seeds in little dirt pots in the house (don't ask me why cause I have no good answer other than we thought it would be fun). Here is our little garden now, complete with the list of which plants are which.

It has been really fun to check on the seeds from time to time during our day, and see the progress. These are less than a week old.

We have our salad mix

Cauliflower

Spinach (though it looks a lot like onions in its infancy so I could've goofed)

sweet basil

white pumpkins (I really hope these guys make it, I have visions of a beautiful centerpiece at thanksgiving)

onions (allegedly, I think they just look like tiny salad prongs right now)

and watermelon

The rest are hopefully growing too! We'll see how we do, and how our little garden experiment shapes up. We already have some mint and strawberries growing out in pots in the back. Mint juleps (disney style- have you tried them? you should.) are on the menu later this week, so we're looking forward to pinching some leaves off for a garnish.

Really, even if nothing were to be edible, I wouldn't care. Going out with Cooper and working in the dirt somehow makes me feel happy. I think I'm going to go play in the dirt now.

If you have a garden, I'd love to hear what you are planting. And if you have any tips, send em my way!

My mom is the most fantastic lady. She successfully raised 7 children into adulthood and is the proud grandma of 13 grandchildren. And 3 of her kids haven't even started having babies! Here is a pic of 12 of the kids.....the 13th just came into the world a couple of weeks ago, and is a state away, so I haven't got a pic of him yet.

 Pretty cute kids, don't ya think? I don't think there is an ugly gene in any of them. And don't you think Kallin on the top left looks just like SJ in Blindside! He acts just like him too.

Anyway, back to my fantastic mom. She has always been so busy and so on the ball. I remember being amazed even as a teenager that she could juggle all of us kids with our various activities and clubs. She and my dad always made sure we were involved in either an activity or a sport and they came to watch us in most of them. The staff at school always knew my mom well, and so did the students and everyone genuinely loves her. Now that I'm older I depend on my mom in entirely different ways, and I am thankful for our relationship. I'm so glad that I can call her my friend as well as my mom. Mom, I love you! Happy birthday.