thanksgiving

I know, I know- it has been too long since the last post. We had a great Thanksgiving in Denver! Here are the highlights:

Rockband party-
you may recognize my costume from harryween, one of my friends said "woah, hermione went punk rock" but Drew and I went as characters from School of Rock. He was Jack Black and I was one of the back up singers. Kirst was a rap video girl and Adam was a rapper. good times (the kids ended up hanging out with Lita and Papa, but bruke looked fab in his mini rapper costume!)

 Yummy food! you have to try this recipe

 Photo shoots! I love going to Denver because I get to do photo shoots! It is SO fun to get to practice.

the lovely wagner family:

sweet baby reese:

my aunt and cousins:

and, of course, the gentrys:

we also (finally!) got a family pic:

and a sweet one of the cousins:

happy thanksgiving everyone!

happy birthday kirsty!

Kirst you are:

my favorite person to craft with
my sounding box
my friend I call about one little thing and get off the phone with an hour later
my inspiration to love people
my voice of wisdom
my constant assurance that I am loved
my reminder that God is in control and that He is worth pursuing.
my evidence of grace
my encouragement to be a good mom
my best brainstorming buddy
my motivation to save money
my supporter
my bff

I am so thankful for you. Hope your day is fabulous...and full of free chick-fil-a!

last day

Hi guys! there has been TONS of response for the free cards! I just wanted to remind you that if you are planning on ordering you cards and getting the free prints, I will need your photos by sunday at the very latest so that I can make your card, send you a proof and get it to the printer by their deadline of November 30th.

There are tons of you that have said you are ordering them, and I would hate for you to miss out!


If you miss the free 100 deal, you can still order your card design through kojodesigns (even into the new year) and I will be sure to let you know of the best places online to score deals on your cards and envelopes!

heros and princesses

Max's 4th birthday party was a blast! "Heros and Princesses" was the theme so everyone got to dress up! (Max was Bumblebee, the transformer- but he took his Helmet off a couple minutes into the party)

We are those weird parents that interpret everything to be international- so Kead was an Indian Princess (a married one- many people pointed out- because of the dot)

we actually got this outfit in Oman- but TONS of Indians live there and so there is TONS of fun Indian stuff in the stores.

Sayla rocked the Moroccan dress. Also- the head tilt is her new pose for the camera. too cute:

I mean, who doesn't love a party with Batgirl and sweet Ella princess:

and I LOVE this one of the kids waiting to do the pinata. It was A LOT of fun, even for the little kids! ( I wish you could hear Ella getting all the kids to scream in unison- so funny!)


Happy Birthday, Max- we love you and hope it was as fun for you as it was for us!

how I love the fall

One bonus of living in lubbock is that we have a very drawn out autumn. As I am sure you remember, it is my favorite season, so I love seeing the leaves gradually change from yellow to orange and then from orange to deep red and slowly fall off the trees. We are at the end of fall, so we trekked down to a park that actually has trees (the down side to living in lubbock is the lack of trees...) and took some pics of the beautiful leaves. I know once the girls are old enough to remember we won't be living somewhere that they get to experience fall every year, so I will be able to show them these pictures and tell them how great God is to create such a beautiful season.

aaand, one of keadryn tackling sayla "cause she was gonna go in the water!" of course I grabbed for my camera instead of pulling kead off of sayla. that's what all moms do:

FREE FREE FREE!

Ok, I really apologize that my personal blog has been one big kojodesigns advertisement for the past month, but I know you'll really want to hear this!

Remember the photocard designs we are now selling in our etsy shop? Well, kirst scored us a major deal and now through NOVEMBER 30th, if you purchase a photocard design from us you will get 100 5X7 cards with envelopes FREE with your purchase!

Yep, you read correctly- purchase the design for $15.00 and get 100 5X7 photos with envelopes included!

****UPDATE- Our printer just started charging for shipping, so that will also cost $6.00***

This will only be available until Nov. 30th, so hurry on over and get your cards! Just mention that you saw this deal on my blog and you are set!

this is what happens...

when you let a one year old and two year old decorate your tree:

I adore it, and wouldn't change it for anything.
(we did finish decorating the tree, but the clump-o-ornaments at the bottom remains)

photo cards

Where have I been?!, you ask. Well, making juju shoes, and cooking pumpkin (a whole different post) and decorating for Christmas too early, and trying to make some sense of my craft room, and learning photoshop through an online course, which is the main subject of this post.

I have really really enjoyed my tuesday/thursday "class" time while the girls are at school. I go to a coffee shop and sit by myself and do online tutorials about photoshop. I started at the beginning of the semester and have been taking it way more seriously than anyone in the history of online (free) tutorials. I even gave myself an amount of "absences" that I can take so that I don't flake out on it. seriously. I have missed 2 times and have one more for remainder of the semester. I know myself and know that something else will always come up if I don't put up boundries. It's been so much fun! I love creating and designing so it is perfect. On a side note- I wish I would have realized how much I love photography and graphic design before I went to college. (I knew I loved art but thought it would be too impractical, so I majored in Spanish, which has proven so helpful in the Middle East and as a mom...oh well.)

Ok so on the to good stuff- if you haven't already ordered Christmas cards we are selling customized photo cards (design by moi, with my new skills!) in the kojodesigns etsy shop now! They are super fun and the best part is that I will just send you the digital file and you can have them printed where ever you want!

dress giveaway

I love these dresses kirst made for the girls. They are my favorite outfit we own. Isn't she great for making TWO of them for me? I kind of hope she never has girls so that she will keep using my girls for all her fun girly projects. :) Anyway- over at the kojo blog we are giving away one of these little darlings for free this month! whoohoo! Click here to enter to win.

disciplined cookies

Kead loves baking these days and asks all the time if we can cook. I have actually gotten pretty good at my chocolate chip cookies, despite how awful I am at baking. Kead has always liked to help, but it wasn't until recently that she had been interested in helping start to finish.

A couple days ago she was helping me put the cookie dough on the sheet and was cracking me up. I would give her a ball of dough and she would cradle it in her hand and say "Hi cookie!" and then depending on the cookies "response" she would either set the dough in a clump with the rest of the cookies or she would say a slew of thing I always say like: "No, Ma'am" or "Look at my eyes when I'm talking to you" or "That is not you job" and then inevitably she would say: "You go in time out!"

Those poor little misbehaving cookies were placed on the far side of the cookie sheet, away from all their cookie friends! Isn't she a hoot? Can we say bossy?