Ryan's Baptism, Photo Shoot & B-day.

This pic is just to lure you in. The rest of the photo shoot is at the bottom of the post. :)




The kids think its so funny to "Break out" of thier rooms on their birthdays.

Birthday pancakes. After we ate breakfast, we gave him his solar system light globe (he's really been into astronomy lately) then later that day, Daddy took him out shopping for a new DS game and a new x-box game. They went out to lunch then we all had pizza together for dinner, ate birthday cake and he spent the rest of the evening playing his new games. He was in Heaven that Mommy let him have so much video game time.

So here's the story of how Ryan's birthday cake came to be:  Ryan has been drawing a lot lately. Mainly these little aliens and Ninjas. One day, he drew this awesome little alien, cut it out and gave it to me as a gift. I thought it was so stinkin' cool that I asked him if he wanted me to make his birthday cake look just like it. He got really excited and thus his cake was born.  I didn't quite capture the "oval-ness" of the head that I would have liked to but it is what it is. :) 

"BITE THE CAKE!!"

RYAN'S BAPTISM:

What a special, special day.



With my Mom. So many wonderful people came. My mom, My brother, Scott and his awesome fam, My cousin, Zel and his lovely family, Our wonderful friends, Mark Brown & his fam. It made it such a special, special day. A special thanks to my niece and nephew, Tiani & Scotty for the beautiful, beautiful musical number and my mom for the special talk on the Holy Ghost.

Namma and Grandpa!! They came so far and went through so much to be here for Ryan's day. It was so fun to have them for the weekend and they helped make it so special! A special thanks for Namma for the lovely talk on baptism and thanks to Grandpa for performing the confirmation.

He was so excited for this day!

 

The "After Party"

We all headed over to the house for a special celebration after the baptism. You'll have to excuse the lack of good pics due to me rushing around.

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Meringues

"Chews the Right". {giggle}

Coconut cupcakes. {My personal fav} Another special thank you to my awesome sis, Heather for coming up with these cupcake pics for me since I didn't have my computer.

Suprisingly enough, the popcorn was the hit of the party and went SO fast.

White Chocolate dipped Oreos. I cut the fondant "Temples" out by hand using a template that I made.

Sorry this pic is so awful due to the backlighting. :(

A better view of the paper and tissue paper fans.

Playing with Namma's phone...and cars of course.

It didn't take too long for Ali to warm up to Grandpa. :)

RYAN'S PHOTOSHOOT:

AND she made me this BEAUTIFUL collage that I could display at his baptism.

So, so handsome. I can't even stand it!

So I realize that this picture is actually in the collage but I wanted you to see a close-up. The picture that he is holding is actually a picture of Jacob when he was on his LDA mission in Thailand.  I suprised Jake with this pic and he actually got a little choked up. :) So sweet.

Yup. That's my sweet, silly Ryan.

Lizzy's 9th B-day & Photo shoot

Happy, Happy Birthday to my sweet Lizzy Elizabeth. By the way, she prefers to be called "Elizabeth" now because she's so grown up. :) She turned 9 back on New Year's Eve. NINE! I can't get over that number. I think I may have a heart attack when she gets in the two-digits next year. She loves every bit of growing up but somehow manages to retain her lovely, sweet, inocence. She is so tender and caring of her friends and loves to explore, read and play with others. She amazes me every day and is getting quite the sence of humor, which I love. Here are bits of her super fun day. :)

It's not a "Shopping" birthday without a shopping bag birthday cake. :) Scroll all the way to the bottom to see the rest of the cake and her super fun photo shoot.

Still had the Christmas lights up on the pot rack so we added crete paper and balloons to suprise her and make her feel special when she woke up to her pancakes in the morning. :)

Another suprise that she woke up to. :)

Birthday tradition...Pancakes in the shapes of thier choosing.

So yummy with some homemade strawberry whipped creme.

Evidently, 'Justice' is the place to shop for 9 year-olds. :) All she wanted to do was go shopping for her b-day. {A girl after my own heart.}

More shopping...

Going out to lunch. Chinese, of course. :)

Making her wish. This is the sweet, inocent side of Lizzy Elizabeth that I was talking about. I hope she keeps that hope with her all her life.

"Bite. The. Cake!!!"

Movie night with the girls. Monte Carlo was the movie of choice.



Of course a photo shoot was in order. I was so excited to test out my new 35mm lens and create a new logo. I decided to go with the name 'Ali Lou Photography'; a combination of my two daughter's names. They are everything beautiful and lovely to me. (One of Lizzy's nicknames is Lizzy-Lou)
 I love to take photos of the kids every year around their birthday and incorporate whatever it is that they are interested that year. This year, we did a rock-star theme. While we were shopping, Lizzy just about died over this shirt. It was very much her style. When I held up this faux leather rocker jacket, she could hardly contain herself.

Oh my gosh I love this girl! Lemme tell ya, this was the funnest photoshoot I've ever done. We rocked out to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

Rock on, Lizzy. {I know, I know. This sign really means "I love you" but I couldn't correct her because it was too cute}

Peace.

This one just cracks me up. She's really into the song. haha.

Love me some black and whites. :)

This is her 'sassy face'.

More sassiness.

There's my sweet girl.