easter outfits

we got two cute shots...and...then this happened:

nash went crazy, jumping and running in circles. haven gave me the stink-eye, threw a mini-fit, then told me she needed to go poo-poo (see her look of concern and her stance complete with her hand on her privates?).

what can i say? my kids hate the camera. at least when i'm the one behind it.

havey's little silver dress kills me-i love the flapper vibe. and do you see her little lace leggings? cutest things ever. nash's shorts were the only gray bottoms i could find-grandpa laughed at them and said nash will be mad at me when he's older for making him wear them (?). i think they're dang cute-am i'm totally off? 

a close-up of their accessories:



i made nash's toddler tie from a man's tie. easiest thing ever. measure, cut, a little origami, one stitch, and voila! and it's a real big boy tie-no clips or elastic here! haven's little headband is just some purple and silver satin, beads, and black ostrich feather on a pre-made black satin headband. stevie wore a new purple tie too. i had nothing. i forgot that we don't actually have church on easter sunday because of general conference so i wasn't prepared yet. i was planning to make myself a fancy skirt with pockets. now that the moment has passed we'll see if i actually do it.


***DON'T FORGET TO CHECK OUT MY NEW PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE AND ENTER THE GIVEAWAY FOR A FREE PHOTO SESSION!!! DETAILS BELOW, SCROLL DOWN***

liz anderson photography

it's up, it's up!!!



please go take a look and tell me what you think: www.lizandersonphotography.com

to celebrate this big step, i'm going to give away one free session!!! newborn, family, engagement, just-for-fun, you name it (except wedding, sorry, that would be just a little too much.) to enter, do one or more of the following. each one will count as an entry. you've got up to six chances to win:

1. leave a comment here telling me what you like about the site or your favorite photo (please include contact info in case you're the winner)
2. blog about my new website and the free session giveaway (link to it) 
3. put a link to my site and/or this blog post as your facebook status
4. subscribe to my newsletters (at the bottom of the "reach out" section of the website-you don't have to fill out the whole form, just the subscribe box at the very bottom!)
5. become a liz anderson photography fan on facebook 
6. ask me a question on formspring 

in order for me to count each entry, you must leave an additional comment on this blog per step for steps 2-6. so, if you become a facebook fan leave a comment here saying "i'm a facebook fan!". and then, if you also subscribe to the newsletters leave a comment here saying "i subscribed!", etc. i hope that makes sense. one comment per step, so ultimately you would leave six comments here on my blog. 

the fine print: entries must be submitted by sunday, april 4th at 12:00 AM (midnight) MST. winner will be randomly selected and announced right here on april 5th, 2010.
session can be transferred. session must be completed in utah (utah county or salt lake county) before july 31st, 2010 OR in the las vegas area after september 15th, 2010. pennsylvania sessions possible july, 2010. free session does not include prints, travel fee (if applicable), or location fee (if applicable). 

good luck!

oh, and just a heads-up: this blog will be undergoing some changes later this week. i'm doing away with my photography blog (i know, most of you forgot about it anyway) and will be sharing my photography adventures here along with everything else!

4/4 edited to add: i've disabled comments on this post since the deadline for entries has passed. if you want to leave a comment, just do it on another post. thanks!

the business

remember how i went to vegas two weeks ago and have barely said a thing since my return? well, it's because i finally got the motivation and inspiration i needed to get my photography business up and running. like, for real. i've been working my tail off on a new website, branding, the works. and i'm not even close to done. so, what do i do when i need a little more motivation? i commit to a deadline and share it with someone. so here i am committing: i will finish by monday. i will launch on monday. will you come back? i might have a little somethin' somethin' to give away...if you'll come back.

*photo from my most-recent family session. it was a blast. more to come...on monday, of course. 

the roof over our heads

last night as we were falling asleep, i heard a noise. again...and again. a little thud. steve and i got up and slowly walked through the house until the noise led us to the fireplace. i figured haven must have been up and was kicking the wall-her room is right below the fireplace. i hurried down to find her fast asleep, the crib pulled away from the wall. it couldn't be her. so steve ran outside while i watched from inside. i heard him, "hello?" and then he ran across the yard. what the heck? there was a creature on our roof. bigger than a cat. steve started throwing rocks and it moved slowly, heavily. then i saw it's profile in the moonlight, a pointy little face and a huge bushy tail. it was definitely not a cat. probably a racoon. that bugger wasn't about to leave our roof and after calling police dispatch in search of animal control (who will pretty much only come out if you've got a cougar on the premises) we decided it would probably go away on it's own sometime in the night. it did. but it left us with this:

that little monster tore through two layers of shingles, through the shake, and down to the boards. in two places. it's supposed to rain today. so, steve left school, sent this picture to his professor as proof of the emergency, and now he's on the roof banging away. 


here, here to home-ownership! 


edited to add: i've been researching raccoons and how to repel them and it looks like this was most likely the work of a pregnant raccoon looking for a place to nest and birth her litter of 3-5 babes. once they find a home (attics are a favorite), they are nearly impossible to get rid of, so it looks like we're lucky that she didn't manage to get through those boards and that steve got the holes sealed up quickly. she'll be devastated upon her return, hopefully she moves along. oh, and she pooped on our roof-it looks like the work of a human. nash has been saying "it's not hooman poop" since he overheard our conversation. 

we like dirt

some of us more than others:



i love her face in the second photo-it's so "haven." hope you're out playing and getting dirty, too. i got my first sunburn of the year yesterday and plan to add to the burn today before the cold weather comes back.

hair today, gone tomorrow

i'll be gone for a few days...some friends and i are headed to vegas for a photography convention. we are really excited. four days kid-free! which only makes me love them (the kids) more, of course. oh, and learning about photography might be fun too ;)

until i return, here's a little hint as to what i now look like (oh, yes i did):



yes, i have wavy hair. it gets curlier after each child. after #3 i should look like a poodle. and, yes, the hair will make a lovely wig for a deserving cancer patient. i'm so philanthropic ;) 


em says i look like a mom now (i think that's supposed to be a good thing) and not a twelve-year old.

speaking of twelve-year olds, 

this is what i don't look like. of course, even at twelve i didn't look like this. well, maybe that one time i got talked into a rhinestoned pair of knock-offs during pregnancy #1, but you can you blame a pregnant girl for wanting to "look good" and for taking some bad advice? (i'm glad i'm not the only one that feels this way about those kind of jeans).

irish soda bread

i remember eating irish soda bread as a kid. fresh out of the oven with butter slathered all over it. melting and soaking in. later we'd toast it and slather it with...butter. it's great on it's own, but there's something about that butter...salty + sweet. i took a loaf as a gift to my first-grade teacher and she loved it. she even asked for the recipe (which i, at the time must have thought was really neat, since i still remember it).


that was when we lived at 5036 harvest lane, gibsonia, pa. we rode bikes in the "dirt hills" across the street. that's where i first had reese's pieces on my daddy-daughter date to E.T. i wore pink chuck taylors and a side pony-tail. it's where we used to walk around with a little radio singing "bomb in the U.S.A." we drank root beer out of baby bottles because we thought it was cool (i can still remember the way the taste of the root beer mixed with the latex bottle nipples). it's where i hid under the rocking chair (sobbing) because they were taking harry away and how could they do that? where emilie wore winter boots in the summer. with twinkly eyes and a diaper. where jessica, whose mother gave us this recipe, lived. i can still remember how she smelled. three of us shared a room; elizabeth (i was still elizabeth back then), emilie, and andy bob. don't ask me how. we also fit in a volkswagen rabbit and mom swears we didn't fight that much. i got my ears pierced there and i remember twisting the green stones as i got off the school bus, just like they told me to do, thinking i was pretty grown-up. i remember our easter dresses and picnics in the side yard in the spring. afternoons where mom would make us take naps while she watched 'little house on the prairie." and i was usually pretending to be asleep-i thought i was so convincing. where santa delivered a new, special crayon set one night. it fell from the sky and landed on our porch-just in time for scripture coloring. its where i learned to ride a banana-seat bike. and crashed into a boat and got my first black eye. it's where i stole a piece of grape bubble gum and was so terrified at what i'd done that i hid it in the downstairs bathroom hamper. until mom found it and made me take it back. to the store where she used to leave us in the car while she'd run in for a quick few items. which led to my having nightmares about the car starting on it's own. i would have to drive it and save my siblings. that was a heavy weight. it's where we'd take little family trips to crooked creek and sing mares eat oats and let's go catch their underwears while we drove along the windy road. and it's where em and i swear we saw a boy with a backward bottom. there was the blue bookmobile. shirts with ice cream cones, hearts, and rainbows on them. seersucker. and the smell of a little shop where my mom bought her wheat to grind for homemade bread.

back to bread.

i don't know why i thought of this the other day, but i pulled out the recipe and whipped up a loaf. it's been a long time since i've had it. but, wow, it's even better than i remembered...it's amazing what a loaf of bread can stir up.



Irish Soda Bread

Mix: 4 c. all-purpose flour
        1/2 c. granulated sugar
        1 t. salt
        1 t. baking powder
Cut In : 1/4 c. butter
             1 c. raisins
Mix & Add: 1 1/2 c. buttermilk*
                     1 t. baking soda
                     1 egg


Knead batter with hands until well mixed. Grease & flour round loaf pan (7" souffle)**. Shape loaf and place in pan, making sure it's compact. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hr + 15-30 minutes***. Done when toothpick inserted comes out clean and sides begin to pull away from pan. 


*I rarely, if ever, have buttermilk on hand and I'm all about substitutes. Try this: 1 1/2 c. milk + 1 1/2 t. white vinegar. Mix first and allow to sit while you start mixing the rest of the batter. Then measure out 1 1/2 cups of the mixture to use in the recipe. 
**I also don't have a round loaf or souffle pan, so i used a round glass casserole and it worked just fine. 
***Not sure if it was the pan or the altitude, but I only had to bake for about an hour. 


and please excuse the terrible photos, bad light + no contacts + lumpy bread  = really weird focusing

house updates, part 2: our bedroom

our bedroom is finally done. i need to scrounge up the "before" pictures because you would die. it was horrible. when we moved in the walls were pink, the carpet was blue (and disgusting), and the room is just tiny. that right there stopped me in my tracks for way too long. we re-carpeted the weekend we moved in, replaced the light fixture with a ceiling fan, and eventually painted the walls tan. a color i would never choose, but one which we had on hand from the previous owners. the bed was under the windows, covered in dark green silk bedding, and not a thing graced the walls. dingy. i hated this room. i never came in here unless i was going to bed. the majority of my clothes was strewn on the floor at any given moment because i was so quick to escape this 'room of doom'. my children's closets are organized and perfect, and it's been no secret that doing this for myself was at the bottom of my priority list. but now? now that the room is finished? rearranged and functional (and cute)? my clothes are right where they belong at all times. my bed is made and the blinds are opened before i'm even out of jammies (wait, that's still a problem-i stay in my jammies till lunch!). i am one step closer to total organization. just months before we move. go figure.

p.s. do you see nash's drawing, framed and displayed? oh, i love love love it. i cannot get enough of it.