DJ and Sara family photos

Last time I took pictures of DJ and Sara's family my favorite lens was in the shop and the pictures weren't what I was hoping for.  This shoot was my chance to redeem myself and they turned out great!  Not that I can take all the credit.  Those are some cute kids!

Nora Maternity shoot

Nora was born to be a mother and now she has the sweetest little baby girl Maggie who is already a few months old.  But Nora was adorable pregnant too.  It's funny seeing her hair long here because after Maggie was born she chopped several inches.  New life, new hair.  I did the same thing after Avery was born.

Julie maternity shoot

Lately I have been blessed to take pictures of some of my favorite people!  Here are some of my beautiful sister before Jason was born.   It's hard to believe Jason is already 5 weeks old.  He was a surprise gender and also the biggest grand baby.  At 37 weeks Julie is just glowing.

November snapshots

Today is Andrew's birthday!  He turned  33, which sounds like a good number don't you think?  This is going to be a great year!  In November I turned 28 (yay!), we went off sugar, again, until Thanksgiving, I made my first lattice pie, Ruth and Ammon announced they're expecting, us sisters threw Julie a baby shower, Maggie had her baby blessing, Elliot's teacher called and said he has better handwriting than her (awesome!), we celebrated Guy Fawkes Day, and Andrew learned how to tile.  The kitchen has been a big focus these past few weeks and will continue to be for a while.  It's looking great though!

October snapshots

Let's just say this year has flown by really fast!  October was great because we got to play with Elliot a whole week during October break.  During that time Andrew was in D.C. for work and got strep throat that lasted until the end of the month.  But the end of the month ended with a bang with the birth of a Julie's baby and Halloween! We were off sugar the whole month until Halloween day so Andrew and I especially looked forward to Halloween.  Next week is our birthday week, Thanksgiving, and Andrew took the whole week off so we're going on a lot of dates and having fun getting into the holidays!

 

book review: Eat & Run

It's been a while since I've done a book review but this book was too good not to share.  Eat & Run shares some of Scott Jurek's most challenging ultra marathon races, his journey to running, his journey to healthy eating, and everything in between.  If you don't know already, an ultra marathon is any running race with a distance greater than a marathon (26.2 miles), but are often 50 miles, 100 miles, or more.

Scott mentions that most good marathon runners "hit a wall" during a race, or after it, but ultra runners hit wall after wall after wall and still continue to run.  These walls are often mental.  Scott wanted to challenge his body as far to the edge of physical/emotional limit without going over the edge and won many ultra marathon races.  An astounding fact is that he is Vegan, so he had to find ways to get plenty of protein in his diet without meat and eggs.  Each chapter shares a Vegan recipe he would eat before, during, or after his races.

Scott also mentions a woman who ran the Wasatch Back ultra marathon 8 weeks after having a baby, nursed her baby at every water station, and finished the race with a new women's record.  Crazy!

I don't plan on being an ultra marathon runner, or even become Vegan, but this book fascinated me and inspired me to run harder and realize that what I eat affects my runs.  Over that last several weeks I have had a goal to run a certain number of miles each week.  I started out at 4 miles accumulative by the end of the week and now I'm at 13 miles and use an app called Run Keeper to keep track of my miles/pace.  With a triathlon and turkey trot next month and plans to do a half marathon in February it's great to see progress!

September snapshots

This month Avery and Andrew went on their first daddy-daughter camp out, Zara continuously made new funny faces, Elliot started climbing in the tree again, and I have been working on making meal plans, and sticking to them!  We look forward to all the great weather and activities October has to offer us.