Kari and Cody

I had a really fun time taking these pictures of Todd's cousin, Kari, and her fiance, Cody! I had fun trying some poses I have seen done by favorite photographers and enjoyed playing with the scenery provided! I am learning to enjoy taking pictures instead of stressing over taking the "right" picture and I believe it makes a great difference when I'm on a shoot. I am still a LONG way from where I want to be, but I'm starting to have fun getting there! Thanks for the fun shoot Kari and Cody, I hope you were pleased!

I have started a blog for my photography so see more of these pictures and more coming soon at

www.tamiyoungphotography.blogspot.com

Montgomery Reunion

While I was in Salt Lake last week I was able to go to the Montgomery reunion. It's too bad I don't know that whole side of the family better (since this is my grandpa's siblings and down), but it was a really good time! They focused on the kiddos as much as the adults with a fish pond and marshmallow shooters (those things were a BIG hit!) For the teens and adults there was an egg toss (they were nice and hard boiled the eggs, all except one... that was kind of messy), sack hop, three legged race, and tug o' war. They talked me into the three legged race, but mostly Aaron carried me the last half! I was impressed by Liv's desire to play too! She joined in on the sack hop, that was precious, and practiced walking around tied to Aaron, that was silly! I was really glad to be able to spend time with the family while playing fun games!

Amber's Bridals

I am happy to say I have been asked to take pictures for a life-long friend's wedding! Anthony and Amber will be getting married September 19th, and I'm so happy he's finally found someone he wants to settle down with! I had a good time taking bridal pictures of Amber, and I hope she is pleased with them (here's your sneak preview Amber)!

Curly-haired Liv

I know, it's been forever... but here I am again, ready to get to posting often (I hope) once more! It's been a busy August enjoying the last bit of summer while getting Liv and Todd ready to go back to school (and trying to decide if I would be returning with them, which I won't be, not in the traditional sense). I als0 broke my camera lens and let a rock take a bite out of my tire, so it's been a costly month as well. But it's also been fun! The other day Liv and I decided to put curlers in her hair. I am so grateful that I do have a daughter that wants her hair done and sits so patiently, or else I would never even try since I wasn't like that at all! The after picture doesn't do the curls justice at all, but I still wanted to share my darling daughter with you all! I was amazed out how short the curls got her hair to be, her hair goes to the mid back. She didn't like it at first, not at all, but she warmed up to it after we all loved it so much :)

Birthdays

This last week has been a busy one because Liv and I celebrated our birthdays!!  Liv, the lucky duck, has gotten to celebrate throughout a whole week!  This last weekend we went to Salt Lake again so I could meet the two new babies (Jaxton Hansen and Annalisa Lynn Taylor)!  While we were up there we got to celebrate our birthdays together with my dad, Linda, and Aaron! 

 On the 14th, her actual birthday, she got to unwrap presents from her mom and dad as well as her grandma and grandpa Young!  Then we had cake and ice cream, yum!  I have to say, though, I absolutely LOVE how Liv blows out her

 candles... she stays as far away as possible and then gives little tufts of air!  Eventually someone has to help her, but it gets done!

Then today we had a "Butterfly Tea Party" with what Liv calls "Juice-Tea"!  Her friends came over late 

morning to make their own butterflies, had sandwiches as well has cake and ice cream (and none of the kids wanted sandwiches, just the good stuff)!  And, of course, a super cute butterfly pinata!  The girls loved beating that thing, and I was very impressed by some of their swings.  Liv was as gentle as ever, she tried to 

"kill it with kindness" 

as we always call it!  So it was a great week for the two of us!  Another year down, and a new one beginning!

Lake Powell '09

This year's trip to Lake Powell was the most enjoyable I've had for a long time!  I think that has a lot to do with Linda... Liv was her constant shadow and Linda welcomed it happily!  Those two spent a lot of time looking for seashells and playing games with the family!  Every boat ride we went on the kids wanted to sit on Grandma's lap, and Linda made it work so both grandkids could sit.  Since she was willing to play with the kids it took a lot of stress off of me so I was actually able to relax from time to time!  Todd was there for the first few days, yay!  We actually went a day early and camped on a beach.  We were to find a beach to park the houseboat on for the week, but that turned out to be a difficult job!  It was a packed weekend!  But we were very pleased with the beach we ended up on (Kris and Lyle, the usual beach finders, eventually found it for us!)  But Todd headed home on Tuesday because summer session of school was starting :(  I was very proud of him for being responsible, though, and skipping the rest of the trip to take care of business!  But I was devastated to discover that earlier that day somehow all of my pictures had been deleted off of the memory card :(  I still have no idea how this happened, and it honestly wouldn't surprise me if Gary Boy had somehow pressed the buttons necessary to do this.  So you'll see little pictures of Todd because of this, totally bums me out!

The Baby Blankets

So remember those baby blankets I was going on about back in like January?  Well now that they have been delivered I can finally post the last couple I made:

The blue and white one was specially ordered and made for my sister-in-law, Kolbi, to be given to her recently arrived baby Ryker!  This is not my favorite blanket to make, in fact after I finished the first one I made I swore I'd never make it again.... but when Kolbi asked for this 

one there was no way I'd turn her down!  The body of the blanket is actually really simple and gets done quite quickly.  The difficult part is stitching in the lines, when

 working in the center rows it's bulky and awkward.  In the end, though, I'm very happy with it.  It matches Ryker's nursery well and Kolbi was very happy to receive it on his behalf!

The white blanket with spirals was time consuming but I love how it turned out!  It's different than other patterns I have done, but I'm glad I took the challenge because the look is worth the work!  I think it's very elegant and playful at the same time!  I gave this blanket to Jenny Hansen for her recently arrived baby Jaxton (He was delivered yesterday!)  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to give it to her myself, but I'm hoping she was pleased.