Sweet Baby Boy... Announcing Baby Ben!!

So after more than a year without a single post.. a friend of mine "found" my blog and pointed out that I hadn't updated forever. (Thanks liz! This post is for you!) So, not that I can promise I can catch up but for tonight - here's the most important announcement: Benjamin Samuel Fisher was born on January 27th, 2011 at 6:53am. He was 7 lbs 12 oz and 19 inches long. Such a sweet little guy and is absolutely adored by his siblings! We had some absolutely beautiful and AMAZING newborn portraits taken, which you can view HERE.
So while you stare at this sweet face (hopefully not for months and years this time) I will work on some catch up posts.

The big 9

Michael turned 9 on Feb 4. Here's also a few photos from his actual birthday.. he's been into Diary of a Wimpy Kid (books) so he got the entire set for his birthday. He thought that was pretty cool!

Mr. Smarty Pants

Luke won an academic award near the end of January for doing so well in Spelling and Math - he aces nearly all his spelling tests, including all the bonus words. He loves being so smart and likes to rub it in! He was pretty proud of this award but I think he was actually more excited for the gift certificate for Wingers he got as a result of getting the award!

Pottery Barn Kids Inspired Floral canopy

My Inspiration: (This was a photo from a PBK magazine)

I basically just used a craft wreath base and wrapped with with 2 inch satin white ribbon, then I hot glued the heck out of the flowers. It still looks like it's missing something and I'm not sure how much I like the ribbons hanging down.. they almost look kind of awkward. Maybe I need to shorten them a bit and add a few more?! What do you think? Brynley loves it and it adds a perfect princess feel to her room!

Korean Exchange Student - Haemin

We got a flyer from the boys' school about a Korean exhange program. We thought it would be a good experience for the kids to experience another culture. It was for about 6 weeks and he would attend the same grade school as the boys. It was fun, but there were a lot of cultural differences that made it difficult at times to fit him in with us. The kids had a lot of fun with him and miss him, but we were happy when the time came to say goodbye and be back to just the 5 of us again. I think it definately benefited Haemin to learn what it was like to be a little more independant and part of a different family. My kids definately learned some things NOT to do :)

I learned that a 9 year old is far to young to go on an exchange. My experience has always been with high school exchange students and a student this young is definately takes a lot more energy and work! There' a blog I started (and didn't totally finish.. ) with quite a few pics on it if you want to take a look: http://haeminsadventuresinidaho.blogspot.com

Christmas 2010

AND.. Last but not least...My Favorite Photo of these three kids - They are SOOO cute!

Halloween with Darth Vader, Black Spiderman and Alice in Wonderland

Punkin carving

This face TOTALLY cracks me up.. I guess Michael's not too fond of pumpkin guts! :)

Girl always has gum!

Luke has NO problem with guts!

Family Photos - October 2009

The family pictures were taken by our friends, Kevin & Maria Draper - who are in Nyssa, Oregon.

The PUMPKIN Patch!!!

October has been a blur! We started off with Luke being sick for an entire week (just tummyache, nausea and a little throwing up about every other day.. but no fever or upper respiratory stuff like in the the flu), then Brynley with a fever of 102-103 for 6 days, me not feeling too well (but not "flu" like) and I think we are finally DONE being sick for now! We finally found a day that we were all healthy, and it wasn't raining.. to hit the pumpkin patch! Time was limited since it was getting dark (and starting to rain), but we had fun and grabbed some great pumpkins! Here's a few pics from the day (this is also one of my first attempts at going manual with my camera - not too shabby, but certainly some room for improvement!):

We also had family pics taken this past week by our friends the Drapers, and hope to be posting the results here soon! We have one preview pic of Brynley back that they posted on Facebook (if you're a "fan" of mine on facebook check it out on my page, and if you're not a fan - request me and you'll see it there!)

It's been difficult to keep my head above water with school and kids being sick. It definately didn't slow down enough for me even though the kids were sick.. now I'm FINALLy starting to feel like I got caught up and and where I need to be! I can't WAIT for Thanksgiving and Christmas to get a bit of a break! It's been fun, but exhausting!

Last week I ALSO got an opportunity to visit with a fun photographer - Carly Carlson. That girl ROCKS! I did a mentoring session with her and am excited to get to share my journey in photography with her as time permits. She suggested starting a photo journal to track my progress, so don't be suprised when a few random pics show up - i'll just be super excited to share! I can't wait to buy photoshop and get moving on editing skills! (In case you ddin't know - it's a little less than $200 for the "student version" of photoshop - such an AWESOME deal! I'm totally buying it while I'm still a student and save myself some money!)