He called her what?

Yesterday my friend Christine hosted a wonderful Christmas party for her kids and some of their friends. Cameron was lucky enough to be invited. Christine also left it up to the parents if they wanted to stay and play or they could drop the kids off and come back later. I was the only one who stayed. Cameron can get a little overwhelmed in big crowds of rowdy kids and I thought for sure she would appreciate some help. Let me say, I get overwhelmed in big crowds of rowdy kids . . . but I did just fine. Cameron was the second youngest there and the youngest boy by about 4 years. During dinner all the kids were sitting around the table and talking. This was cute, listening from the kitchen as the kids discussed certain things. At one point they were taking a poll, by a show of hands, of how old everyone was. Christine and I were enjoying a conversation of our own in the kitchen when we heard a child crying. Christine went to investigate and the little girl sitting next to Cameron was in tears and inconsolable and Cameron looked shocked. Christine scooped the child up into a loving embrace and asked what happened. "He called me one" she cried. The little girl was crying deeply into Christine's shoulder, I had to ask what happened. Christine replied, straight faced "he called her one". My response was "one what?". "Just one" Christine explained. As if that were in fact an explanation. I repeated myself "one", yup "one" she confirmed. Confused and slightly bewildered I confirmed again "like the number?" Not well versed in young girl drama/emotions I didn't know what kind of insult being called "one" was. I made Cameron apologize for hurting the girls feelings and we excused the kids to play, so we could clean up dinner before the cookie decorating. I told Christine "I'm not really a girly girl, nor am I very sensitive. I also have a rough and tumble boy, so I don't really understand what happened" she then explained "girls of that age don't like to be referred to an age younger then they are. That little girl is 6 so to be called 'one' is a 'major' insult. They also do not like to be called 'baby'". This got me to thinking. I wonder what age it is, as a female, that you WANT to be called an age younger then you really are. At 21 your dieing to show off your ID and at 40 your like 'seriously'. For me, I really don't care. I think your as young as you feel. But let this be known when dealing with sensitive girls, "one" is just about the biggest insult there is. Again, I thank GOD for my boy!!

5th Annual Gingerbread Night!

Well tonight was the 5th annual Gingerbread Night! As always I would say it was a major success! There was only 6 builders this year, by far our smallest group, but we had a great time!!! This was Cameron's first year actually making his own gingerbread house and he did way better then we thought he would! We thought he would spend a few minutes, use a little icing, get frustrated when the candy didn't stick and then be done with it. But NO the kid sat there for 2.5 hours!!! Handling a pastry bag like a pro decorated his house amazingly and with such care and love!! He was SO proud of the finished product!! And I have to say we are too! He is becoming such a big boy! And so smart!

Today, pre-gingerbread, Larry and Cameron were working in the backyard. Larry moved our deck box and disturbed some mice (tis the season :( so he set some sticky mice traps. To lure the mice to them he placed M&M's on the traps. When Larry wasn't looking, Bernadette, our dog, decided to sneak some of the M&M's off the traps. Larry was worried that there could be something on the traps that could harm Bernadette. Cameron looked at him and said "why don't you call animal control and see if they are harmful to dogs?" AAAHHH from the mouths of babes! What a smart 4 year old!

Back to gingerbread night. So even though the only builders were me, Larry, Cameron, Jessica, Ashley and Christopher the whole family came out to watch. Then we topped off the evening with pizza and buffalo wings and watched White Christmas and Elf. I would say it was the perfect start to the Christmas season!

Here are some pictures of our houses

Front of Cameron's house (notice the wreath? Also the yellow thing is a tire swing)



One side


The Back


The other side



My house


Larry's train

A Wicked Good Time

Larry had worked several days during those fires that swept through Southern California a couple of weeks ago. In fact he was supposed to be off for 10 days and well . . . it just didn't happen. When he did come home we decided we needed a family day so we loaded up and headed to Legoland for a few hours. Being that we are pass holders to Legoland, this is a fun little get away. While standing in line and thinking of the week ahead I realized that we were both off the next day which was Friday. Lately a day where we are both off is very rare. I looked at him and asked, "If I can line up all the childcare, can we go to Wicked tomorrow?" This was probably the most random thing. I mean we hadn't even been talking about it or had we talked about it in weeks. He was like "what?" then I repeated myself. He asked how much he thought it would cost and I said I honestly don't know, but if it's the next day they would rather sell the seats for less than not sell them at all. So I made some calls, lined up the care, got great seats at a killer rate and off to LA we went! Poor Larry had an 'idea' of what Hollywood would look like. He was wrong! It's dirty and there are bums everywhere and freaks walk around freely without handlers. Desiring to see something of what he thought "LA" would look like, we went into Beverly Hills, where I think his faith was restored . . . somewhat.

Wicked was AMAZING!!! It closes in January and if you have the chance, go see it! It's well worth the trip!! Afterwards we found out that the cast comes out and signs autographs, so we got to meet almost the entire cast!

The only person we didn't meet was Megan Hilty she was visiting with family backstage and was going to be awhile. Seeing that it was already midnight and we had at least an hour and half drive, we left.

The outside of the Pantages



Us before the show


It's Wicked baby!


Us, aren't we cute?


We are cute


Me and Derrek Williams "Fiyero"


Us and "Fiyero"


Me and Angel Reda "Elphaba"


Us and "Elphaba"


Larry & "Elphaba"

Happy Thanksgiving week!

Wow can you believe it is already the week of Thanksgiving 2008?! Where did the year go?! Well today is Monday Nov. 24 and it is WAY early in the morning, 12:24 am to be exact. I was up late this evening getting some stuff ready for tomorrow. If you didn't know, I am homeschooling Cameron. This is something we are working on and getting into a groove, if you will. It is taking some what of an adjustment balancing home, family, business and school . . . but I am up for the task and blessed that I can do it. But because he doesn't get school functions I joined a wonderful group called "Hemet Moms and Wives of Faith". There is a message board for us for discussions and our group organizers organize play dates and get togethers for the kids and the moms. It's been a great thing for Cameron, he has met some really great little friends. And as an only child, he needs as much exposure to sharing as he can get! Well today is our Thanksgiving party/play date and I volunteered to host! We are having it at a big park and everyone is bringing something. I decided to make special turkey cookies. We did this last year for Cameron's preschool class. Anyway, I wanted to share some pictures of our cookies before they got gobbled up!

Cameron Halloween pictures!

Here is a picture of Cameron in his Halloween costume that I made. He was the cutest little scarecrow I have ever seen!

Traditions

I'm really into traditions! I love the idea of creating traditions for Cameron for him to look forward to every year. We started our first tradition with him his very first Christmas. We hosted a a gingerbread house building night! It was fabulous! Candy, food, candy, gingerbread, candy, drinks, dessert, candy (I think you get the idea). Well this quickly became our family's favorite tradition! In fact the 5th annual gingerbread night is coming up here in a couple of weeks! We are so excited. I got our gingerbread structures last year after Christmas for 99 cents! We don't eat them . . . so I'm not too concerned about them being old! I say structures, because I bought two trains and a house. So it will be exciting to see which one Cameron picks.

Another tradition we started and have been excited to keep up on is apple picking. Every year we load up and head up to Oak Glen for apple picking followed by a couple of days of canning. We make applesauce, apple pie filling and "red apple butter", it has red hots in it! This would be Larry's favorite, he will sit down with a jar and a spoon and go to town.

And probably our oldest tradition would be baking. This is something that we don't reserve just for the holiday's but we bake all year long. Cameron will ask to bake cookies. So instead of baking three or four dozen cookies. We make the dough as normal but only bake a few cookies and then freeze the rest of the dough in ball form so all I have to do is drop and bake!

As the holiday's approach I am SO looking forward to participating in our regular traditions and maybe even making new ones!

Welcome to our Blog!

Well, lets see. How do you start a blog? It's November 9, 2008! Where did the year go?!?!? I am sitting at my computer, which is where I spend so much of my time these days. Larry is snuggled in with Cameron doing their nightly ritual while I take a hold of a few quiet minutes. I love the night! Not that I don't love the day time and all the things that that brings. But I love night when my house is calm, clean and quiet. There usually isn't a lot of traffic at night, which is very different from the day. And we don't have television, so there is no noise in the background. Just quiet! So I will take a few minutes, to inform those of you who care, what is going on in the land of Zay.

I don't know who is going to be reading this. It will probably be family, friends maybe some clients (who are becoming friends!) maybe strangers, I don't know! I've never done this before. So I will tell you who we are. Larry is the head of our house. He is a firefighter and LOVES what he does! I am Kammy, I am co-owner of All Yours Photography! I didn't choose photography as a profession, I fell into it and boy am I glad! I LOVE what I do! It rarely takes me away from my family for long periods of time and I LOVE being able to capture other peoples memories! Cameron is our oh so adorable red headed son! And for all the frustration he brings, it's not a drop in the bucket to the amount of joy he brings! I am blessed to be his mommy! He is so cute and so smart and even though it's hard, it is SO worth every minute! Even those frustrating, I'm going to pull my hair out if you don't listen moments! We have been in our home almost 10 years! We finished landscaping the backyard and are starting to move inside as well as the front. We did a temporary landscape out front because we knew they were putting in sidewalks, but now that they just finished that, we will need to redesign it. But not today! I think the inside needs a face lift first. What do I care about curb appeal, I don't live in the front! LOL

Lets see . . . I have had a very busy week that is preceding a very busy week. I am blessed beyond measure! It's amazing that at this time in our economic condition, that we are not only in business, but growing! I just want to take a second to thank our customers for that! If it weren't for them, we wouldn't be in business, doing what we love! It's nice to have something of my own. Something that I helped create that eventually could provide a real income for us. I can honestly say it doesn't feel like work! We just did three shoots on the beach yesterday. By far, these are my favorite shoots. I would rather be shooting at the beach than anywhere! We have a saying in our family, that a bad day at the beach, still beats a bad day anywhere else! We are off to Lake Elsinore tomorrow to see the estate for a party we are shooting on Thursday. Now fill in with play date, bunco, swim lessons, school time (that is a whole other blog) and photo shoots, we are going to have a busy week indeed. So as I finish up my last few minutes of quiet (I really need to use this time to finish cleaning my office) I just wanted to say that I hope you enjoy reading this, it's kind of therapeutic in some weird way. Oh and not to freak you out but Christmas is 45 days! YIKES