This day..

I keep reading how fast everyone feels June has snuck upon us. It has. There is a quote I love that keeps running through my brain.. "The days are long, but the years are short."

Isn't that so so true?

I am sitting here, listening to the quiet hum of the air conditioner. My desk is a mess. There is a book on the dangers of MSG I have yet to crack open. There are papers scattered about. My daughter left her tiny white bowl here instead of placing in the sink. She is easily distracted.. much like her mamma. The bowl has little dots of blue, red, and yellow from her handful of m&m's she was blessed with for dessert.

Sidenote... I'm a big proponent of little treats a couple of times a week. My children are happily satisfied with 20 dark chocolate chips, or the rare handful of m&m's. May it always, always be so. :)

I don't have a huge theme for this post. I was simply overwhelmed with much love for my sweet, ordinary, wonderful family. I have thoughts such as these all the time, and figured I should "pen" them lest I forget.

Thoughts like..

My pre-teen boy-man.. who is the most handsome thing I have seen. His heart is so tender.. I am already afraid of what I shall have to restrain myself from if some girl dare to break it. On the flip side, helping him not become a heartbreaker himself will be a worthy goal. Loving the fact that after a delish BBQ Chicken Salad dinner, he wanted to go play on the elliptical for 20 minutes. Loving even more that he still thinks it's playtime, and not mandatory.

My "8 year old going on 13" sassypants of a daughter, who also has a sweet tender little heart. I fear even more what I shall do to the boy who chooses to casually play with that fragile precious thing. Sometimes (read multiple times a day) her tenderness gets buried under a loud voiced tyrant.. Yay... ;) Jesus obviously knew I needed to pray more.. thus He blessed me with her. Oh what He has taught me. Love that she came home from school and put on one of her fancy dresses to get ready for a concert. She wrote her own song, put on her heels, and was too adorable for words. She is quite shy, so the fact that she feels comfortable enough to do that warms me.

My hubs, who is so stressed right now. Who melts me when he gets a certain tiny smile on his face. It's the smile that makes him look about 5, and I just want to hug his neck off when I see it. He is all man though, so he might not be too thrilled I feel that way... ;) Loving that he loves my super healthy chocolate pb banana smoothies and requests one nightly. (Recipe to follow)

Please don't mis-read. We here at the Tolson house have had more ups and downs in our 12+ years as a family unit that I would care to explain. In fact, we are in a down moment as I type. But, I am still choosing to be grateful for the great things. God's blessings can still be found, they are just harder to locate sometimes.

So, that is this day. Thanks for letting me share a little of it with you. :)

How was your day?

Chocolate PB Banana Smoothie

1 cup of Ice
1 cup of milk (we use rice milk)
2 tablespoons Organic Natural Peanut Butter
1-2 Ripe Bananas (depending on how banana-y you like it)
2 tablespoons Organic Dark Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
Dash of Stevia (optional)

That's it.. pop in a blender and blend until smooth. I came up with this as an alternative to the highly caloric Jamba Juice Chocolate PB Smoothie.

Mean Girls..

Let me paint you a picture.

7th grade. Chubby girl. First chair flute player. Thick straight frizzy hair with a wall of bangs that I made my mom perm every 6 weeks thankyouverymuch. I had such a poof on the top of my head.. girl, I was a mess. Needless to say, I was a walking target for meanies.

However, I was put into Weight Watchers at age 11, (oh, trust me.. I'm in therapy for that!) grew a few inches and over one summer became the skinny popular 8th grader. My bangs had grown out a bit, and I replaced flute with drama club. I even was class speaker at graduation.

Yep.. I peaked in the 8th grade. True story.

Sad sad sad true story.

High school was even sadder than 7th grade. My weight came back on with a venegance and I returned to the social suicide that was "Organized School Music Programs" only this time it was show choir. I mean, I could not get any hotter my people.

Debbie Downer moment, if I may.. I believe this is one of the moments when I realized that, in this twisted culture of ours, if skinny=good, then chubby=bad. Math was not my forte, but that was one simple equation I could figure out. Oh, how I desperately wish I could go back to that sweet little 15 year old and tell her a few things.

Why the outpouring of emotions tonight on my unsuspecting blog?? Well, for one, I am in the full throes of pms. Yay! TMI?? Secondly, my sweet squishy 8 year old daughter is dealing with a mean girl of her own. And boy, I have never wanted to pick a fight with a mean girl more than I do right now, even if she is only 9.

The short of it.. this little girl has been harassing my little girl for almost 2 years, off and on. We have constantly tried to encourage our bubba to stand up for herself in hopes we can teach her some life lessons about how life is hard, Love is the answer.. blah blah blah.. and up until this point, it was mostly playground hierarchy.

However, when said mean girl gets an entire table of 2nd graders to make fun of my daughter over her lunch contents? And my daughter comes home telling me an entire table accused her of passing gas because she was eating a smelley hard boiled egg?? And she doesn't want to eat eggs ever again?? And mean girl told people at the table to smell my daughter's booty?? Umm.. Mamma Bear (and Papa Bear for that matter) are. on. it. On it!

I hate...HATE...that my lovebug has to suffer this inevitable? girlhood tragedy this young.

I implore you to tell your sweet things they are precious and loved and safe.

And that the God of the universe finds them beautiful and captivating.

And He is simply thrilled over them, and has been since the day He created them.

I am absolutely positive of this fact.. if every girl knew these things without a doubt, our world would change radically. I know my world would have been vastly different had I understood that a little earlier.

Please.. let's do our part to stop the meaness.

He's 10..

My son just turned 10 this month, which means I have been a parent for that long.

Wow..

I just had to pause for a moment to let that sink in.

My husband rocked his father's hat and planned a huge Halo Wars party, complete with a Training Mission, a "fill up your own bag" candy bar, and Dye Wars Battle.

Side Note.... Squirt Guns+White T-shirts+Many Bottles of Red and Blue food coloring+the wild abandon of 8 ten year old boys running amuck=Dye Wars.

I have never seen that many boys running around with that much food coloring on their person. Needless to say, though the parents were forewarned, they looked a little shocked at the deep blue and vibrant red hands their boys were sporting. :)

The sound of my sweet boy squealing like a girl (don't tell him I said that) and continuously hugging his dad was all the thanks I needed. T3 is one of the most kindhearted, loyal, faithful and sarcastic 10 year olds I have ever known. I say this every year, but I am so proud of him...and delight that God ordained him a Tolson and we get to spend a lifetime loving on that kid.


Fun was had by all.. especially my boy. He is certainly going to remember the time his daddy planned a great day for him.


Of course you have to see his 10 year old portrait...Happiest of Birthday's My 10 year old!


Love Birthdays..

San Diego photography presents Random Thought time..

Some things I am not excited about...

- Chickenpox and Pinkeye and the Flu.... Basically the amazing ability that my children have of picking up every sickness that runs through our school.... T3 just got over pink eye and I was so thankful that we were able to prevent anyone else from getting it. However, my sweet daughter woke up this morning covered with little pink spots all over..

- Having to re-schedule photoshoots because of above sicknesses, or the migraines that have been ripping through my brain on a weekly basis...

- The completely confusing template I have been trying to work on... I am so overwhelmed by trying to figure it all out that I have sort of given it up for now. Truth be told, I have been taking care of sick kiddos so much that I haven't had time.... I really need to get to it yo! This is why I haven't been posting much...

- Girl drama that continues to go on... I am so desiring a community of women that has each other's backs instead of stabbing one another in that same area! Why do we do that to ourselves?? Safety and acceptance ladies!

And because I am so motivated to have the positives outweigh the negatives.. I will add a bunch of things I am excited about these days..

- Umm.. have you even tried the Gluten Free Valencia Orange Cake from Starby's?? For someone who hasn't purposely ingested gluten (the protein found in wheat) for over 6 months... it is a little slice of Orange.Scented.HEAVEN!! I die!

- Learning the Hoedown Throwdown in the parking lot last night with the small group I lead... I am a complete dork when it comes to dancing.. but it was fun and fab nonetheless! Come on.. you know you want to pop it, lock it, polka dot it!

- The wonderful client who sent me Starby's card! Kim... you rock.. and you know me so well! My favorite get away.. Cappucino in hand+browsing through the thousands of books=Perfection.

-Seasame Street... My 7 year old is sitting here enthralled. It is timeless, I must say. :-) Who wouldn't love Elmo and the Pipe Organ number of the day excitement!!! What number will it be??

- My new blogsite... it will be so fine! (Once I get it working the way I want..)

- Great photography friends who are so willing to help one another out.. That is community!

- A husband who continues to take care of.. well.. everything. He is a wonder and I don't know what I would without him..

- The new orange rugs I bought for my front bathroom.. I love them. But.. so does my cat! We fight about the ownership of said rugs alot!!

- A Palm Springs getaway with the hubster next week.. hopefully the pox will have abated so I can go... I'm thinking positive!!



There's my list. What's on yours??


Love polka dotting it..

San Diego photography presents A girl turning 7...

If you have read any of my blog... You must have heard me moan and complain a time or two about the bittersweet-ness of birthdays... I love the celebration of the day.. I love baking favorite goodies and taking the birthday person out for a special dinner. But, my kiddos getting a year older.. that I could do without. Each year marks another milestone closer to when those little babies of mine fly the coop... Dang! I wish I could freeze time.

But I can't.. so I will just tell you that I love this little girl of mine so much it hurts. She turned 7 and is full of joy, sass, and attitude. It is a daily effort to teach her how to say what she needs nicely..

Also you need to know that she has the softest cheeks I have ever felt, and I caress them every single night.

Happy Birthday baby...




A shot of the two my my squishes...




Love hurts..

San Diego Photography Presents Portland Part 1

I had such fun on my little getaway a few weeks ago, and with the busy-ness of the holidays, I haven't been able to post these!

So here are a few from our first full day there. :)

My beautiful sis and bff with her cute beanie!


Where we had a beautiful luncheon...


Pumpkin Risotto with Fried Sage... I die!


French Onion Soup with about a mile of cheese on it.. (it was my sister's)


The best dessert ever...


All of us after lunch.. And I didn't take the picture, so don't blame me for the blurriness!!


And finally.. some really cool textures and scenery that I couldn't resist taking a few snaps of..


>

Stay tuned for more Portland Wedding pics.... :)

Love family..

San Diego Photography presents When our family had nothing....

When we didn't have grocery money, people gave it...

When we didn't know how we would buy our kiddos a gift or 2 for Christmas, people gave it...

When we weren't sure we could pay our rent, people gave it...

And the Tolson family doesn't ever want to stop giving... ever! So, I am asking for you to nominate a deserving family for an absolutely free Portrait session with me. Because my Christmas portrait season is nearly over, this will be done in January. It must be someone who doesn't have the ability to use my services at this time, and you can't nominate yourself. Shoot me an email and tell me their story.. hurry though.. the nominee will be chosen on Christmas Day! :) (I have been known to give the nominating party a free session as well.. hint, hint...)


Here are a few more people who are listening to the true meaning of the season and giving to those who are in need....

She gave a goat...

They are donating cans galore for every comment they receive... Go!


So.. do you know a family who has nothing, and is in need. I am here willing to help them catch a memory..Please email me at contactme@sarahtolsonphotography.com and tell me about them. :)

People...Give it!


Love Blessing..

Advent Conspiracy

I saw this video last night, and thought it was well put together, and really summed up the way I feel about the Christmas Season. Take 2 minutes to watch it, and then go here and do it !! :)

What they were...

Yes, I am late to the party.. but that is not new. This is really posted so grandmas and aunties can take a look at my bubbas decked out in Halloween glory. :)

My Ninja and my Bumblebee....







Love Family..

Overheard Conversations..

My two children.. in the kitchen...planning to sell some tea to our neighbors.

"Brother, you have to put more agave in the tea so people will buy it..
Can I stir it??"

"Hannah, I am good at stirring it."

"Oh yeah, wait, you're the business dude."

"I hope we can make 5 dollars a day, and Mom, you get 25% for being such a good mom."

"Brother, don't drink all the tea because it is for our customers."

"This is the goodest tea ever."

So, my heart was melted, but then I looked at my kitchen, and it is destroyed. I need some prayer so I don't ruin their business venture with my yelling. :)

I am all about being real...

And so.. I turned 32.

Last week, I celebrated my birthday, and I had such a great day! The Friday before my wonderful man surprised me with an Iphone. I had wanted one, but was not thinking I would get it for a while. I heart my phone!! It is amazing. :) Thanks love!

On the day of my birth, I went out to sushi (my absolute fave.. and still raw!)with 2 of my sisters, 2 of my nephews, and my Momma and Dad. Just so you know.. that isn't even half of my family.

I was also checking out this well recommended sushi place for a client meeting I have coming up..

We had the best time.. laughing at nothing.. harmonizing to the birthday song.. and eating some good food. They even gave us our desserts for free.. Isn't that too cool?? My parents weren't brave enough to try the sushi, but they did fill up on tempura and teriyaki. :) Here are just the girls (and we are missing a sister!!)


Wait.. Fried Ice Cream and Banana's Foster isn't raw!!?? WHAT!!... It has bananas....


Yeah.. I didn't stick to my raw plan that day. ;)



This place had the coolest walls.. I just felt like showing you all. :) I wonder if Todd would let me put this in our bedroom.. Can't you just see this guy over our bed.. protecting us while we sleep....

No?



I also had the absolute delight of not having to cook (or un-cook for me) a single meal that day!

Sidenote time... I love to cook, but when you prepare meals for 2-4 people on a daily basis, 3 times a day, for over 10 years.. It gets a little tedious. :)

Umm.. Can I get a witness??

Anyone???


Thanks to all who made my birthday such a special day. I mean it when I say that I felt very loved and celebrated. :) Big hugs to you all!!

And the winner is...

Christina!!!

The battle was a hard one to win apparently.. even people who don't comment on my blog made an appearance. Thank you for all of your effort, and please stay tuned as I love to give away free gift cards frequently. :)

Extra cool points if you know the whole song or if you watch the whole intro... we will be friends for life!!

Ohh.. my son turned 9 last week...

Well.. it keeps happening. Every stinkin' year, the kids get another year older. I try as much as I can, to prevent their birthday from happening.. but I am not able. :( It ticks me off greatly.... I just don't like the loud time clock that reminds me, as soon as I shut my eyes for a second, my child will be heading off to college...

But see.. here's the weirdness... I actually love celebrating the actual day my child came into this world. Since I was able to talk, I have wanted to be a mom, so it is no surprise to me that I love making my kiddos favorite cake, and picking out the perfect present for them, and making their favorite breakfast, and just making the day all about them...

And they get all this for the low price of $19.99!!!!

Sorry.. I got carried away when I re-read that last paragragh. It sounded a bit like an infomercial, so I just went with it....

We made sure the day was special for him... Here's the rundown of what he requested...
Breakfast - Donuts (Yay.. I didn't have to cook)
Present - Money for gameboy games (Yay.. I didn't have to think)
Cake - Chocolate with Chocolate Frosting (Yay.. oh wait.. I actually had to work on this one.. FYI, I made a Dark Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with a layer of Peanut Butter Frosting followed by a layer of Chocolate Ganache courtesy of Food and Wine magazine.. I know.. I went a little crazy... What's new my people!)
Dinner - American Food with family.. so we picked Red Robin as it was halfway between here and where most of my family lives... (and again Yay.. I didn't have to cook!!)

Here are a few pictures to commerate the day.


My handsome men...



My brother and beautiful sis-in-law... who were laughing at the silly birthday card, which made them blurry. :)


Trust me... it was that good!



And lastly..sniff, sniff.. my sweet bubba's birthday portrait, complete with a Fauxhawk. I love it!! He..well, not so much.. but there is a bright, shiny, silver lining to this post...

..He still listens to me when I style his hair.


For now.

Oh.. and lastly.. he requested some more laser tag with Daddy and friends, so he still has that to look forward too. He is a lucky dude.. and so are we. We love you buddy!!

A new project..

So, I have lots of pictures to post from last week, as it was my son's 9th birthday.. but I will get to that later.

For a few months now, I have been collecting and sorting through images to make a huge photo wall in my living room, and it has been hard. I have taken a lot of pictures, but not very many are making it into my folder. The pictures don't have to be recent, but they do need to speak of our family, so that when people see the entire wall.. they get the message. :) I will be posting lots of contenders for my wall in the next few weeks... Feel free to tell me if you think they shouldn't make the wall!

If you know me (and my daughter) we love to snuggle. If we are having a bad day, you might find us in my bed, under the covers, snuggling together. It makes everything better! And I truly cherish the ability to do that with my bubba.

So, my point is that I have this picture in my head of Hannah's face while we are snuggling... Her eyes are usually closed, so all I see is looong dark eyelashes. And this girl has the most kissable cheeks you have ever seen!! And, I don't know if this makes me a bad photographer (ahhhh!!) but I haven't been able to capture that moment to my liking.. mostly because I am not about to whip out the camera when we are snuggle bugs.. I have to re-create it later.

Apparently though.. I did... almost 3 years ago... I found this picture this morning....

No words needed....

Off to see the Wizard...

Not really.. but my hubby and I are going to Rancho Mirage today to lead worship for a marriage retreat and to hang out with friends and relax! It should be super fun, but I wanted to let you know that if you leave me an email, it won't get returned until Monday. Ok!! :)

Not wanting to leave you without a picture or two.. I just had to also share what we did for Father's Day. My husband is a pretty easy going guy when it comes to holidays, in that... he doesn't care if we celebrate them or not. I, however, am a huge holiday fan, and can't let one go by without some remembrance.

So this year, while Daddy was at church, we created a hallway of.. well this is where Todd and I argued.. I wanted to call it a hallway of blessing, but he thought that was lame, and wanted to call it a hallway of awesomeness. So you get to choose which hallway name you prefer, and we will move on from there. :) It was basically a bunch of notes that we decorated and hung up for him to read as he walked down the hallway.. and interactive Father's Day card, if you will. And we also made him his favorite dinner... meat! Yep, he's a man. :)





He is a great Daddy, and we just love him.

The staff huddle I have been longing for....

So my husband works at a great church and though there are many reasons why it is a great church, I am only sharing one with you tonight.

Since Journey has been around, Mike Burns, the senior pastor, has taken the current staff for a mini retreat somewhere in the desert. He does this to build the team, provide a rest for the staff, and communicate where the church is headed. In all the churches that Todd and I have worked at.. Journey is the only one that does this. It was sooo needed. I took my camera, but was having such a great time relaxing that I didn't get it out much.

I did happen to capture a few pics from our last night there. Mike took all 40+ of us to Kobe, a Japanese steak house ala Bennyhana's...meaning, the crazy chef cooks your food at the table and does fancy tricks and such. I am all about the experience and had way too much fun. :)


Here is the chef pouring a lovely ginger sauce into our little bowls.. I just liked the way everything was lined up.




Here is our teaching pastor and wife, Ed and Linda looking in awe at a fancy fire trick.... Oooooooo....



We were all sitting in groups of 6, and we kept hearing the occasional sad "aww.. man" coming from the other tables. One of the tricks the chef does is to pop a piece of shrimp into the customers mouth with his spatula. I am proud to say that all of our guys caught them.. There were no aww...man's at our table! And seeing as how you probably get out much more that I do, you probably already knew all this.. but I didn't... Let the simple girl live a little!! :)

Here are Rod and Jason looking lovely! And for the record, my man also was on the top of his game.. but he was too close for me to photograph...





A close up fancy fire trick... I am easily impressed. Oooooooo.. oh wait, I already said that.



Tara took a snap of Todd and I, and seeing as my husband doesn't like his picture taken, I am always happy when we get something... anything... even grainy, dark, ones like this. I am rocking my glasses, after trying very hard to be super cool all day with my Hollywood shades...but my contacts were starting to glue themselves to my eyeballs, so out they went. I am sure the 108 degree weather didn't help....



Thanks so much Mike. You don't even know how much we love being back in the family!! :)

And for all you couples whom I photographed as we were waiting, send me your email in a comment, and I will forward your picture to you.

And.. if you work at a church that doesn't take yearly retreats as a staff... get on it!!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Random Thought Time!!

- I have have been a momma for 9 years... weird to think that almost a decade has gone by. I sure hope I have learned a few things...

- Being married to a pastor means we celebrate Mother's Day on Saturday usually. However, last night our family was volunteering for Journey Up Babysitting to raise money for the church, so I get Monday!! I will take it. :)

- We have decided to stay in our condo for now. We just didn't find the right fit anywhere else, and feel good about some changes we are going to make around here! Most notably the rats...the Rodent man's a'coming tomorra!!

- I was very excited to grab myself a Soy Chai and enjoy our church service today. My daughter (and the devil??) decided to steal my joy by throwing a huge fit. I missed my nephew's baby dedication and most of the worship and walked in the WC sooooo frustrated... But just was overwhelmed by Ed's message. I needed to hear everything he had to say today. Whoo.. I am fired up!

- And lastly... My man and I watched the last bit of "Carrie" by Stephen King (while the kiddos were resting in their rooms)..... It was at the part where she locks everyone in the gym, and I was not creeped out by anything until her mother tried to kill her. I was very disturbed that someone would run that movie on this day!! Ummm.. also didn't like the hand coming out of the ground at the end. Ohh.. or the scary Jesus crucifix eyes... but other than that... I am ok. I will let you know how my sleep goes tomorrow!

And I am leaving you with a picture.. because I am not taking any today!! Don't worry, I picked a clean picture of Carrie.. before she goes all psycho!




Blessings to all you momma's out there. The sacrifice that you make on a daily basis does not go unnoticed.

My latest acceptance...

As we were driving home from lunch a few weeks ago, I saw a strawberry stand and nearly wrecked the car in an effort to procur some delightful berries. :) I used to live in Camarillo, where the air is perfumed with essence of strawberry... well, to be honest.. sometimes cow manure too.....

But, the strawberries were just from the heavenlies.. the hugest things you have ever seen, sweet and melt in your mouth. So, you can understand my excitement when I saw the fruit stand, and yes we paid $23 for a huge flat of them. It was soooo worth it.





Come on... I know you want some. And, so did Istockphoto.com. Here's hoping I will make my $23 back. :)

Park day...

We went to the park today... I had a mini baby photoshoot... I will post those pics later. My kiddos were along for the ride because any day that they get to go to a park is a good day.

If you have been to my house, you know that I have a huge black and white canvas of my kiddos in my hallway. It was taken almost two years ago, and while I love it, I need to get a newer picture up.... So, here are a few canidates. Let me know which one is your fave!

Both of my kiddos are in this new phase of being hyper aware of who is looking at them and such, and they were a bit embarassed about mommy taking pictures of them... so these were the best I got. You can tell T3 is a little ticked in a few of these. But I love their sparkling eyes and their sweet cheeks!!






Oh.. and not only are they black and white because I love it, but also because the clothing style of my children left a lot to be desired. T3 was sporting a yellow and green tye-dye deal, while Princess H was in a pink and white flowered dress. Not exactly complimentary colors....

Help...

I used to work out to these people when I was in high school.... They are happy and bubbly aren't they??




So, we live in a busy part of town, and have never had much of a problem with our condo backed up to a business alley....

Well... there was that one incident where 3 drunk kids were causing a ruckus in the alley at midnight, so Todd went down to talk to them, and ended up having to call 911because one of the punks had alcohol poisoning.... They were all 13 years old...

So, this morning I was awakened at 5:45am to loud screams from the alley, and I again thought Todd would have to go help someone out. Umm, it wasn't drunk kids.... It is a personal training facilty that apparently likes to use loud music and torture to whip their clients bodies into shape. I have no ill will towards people who work out, but when you involve me when I don't want to be involved, we have problems. I have tolerated their 8am class for almost a year, but at 8am when I am already up, it isn't a big deal. I am not usually up at 5:45am, thus I am blogging, and a little, make that alot grumpy.

I actually found their website and gave them a call to ask if they could shut their back door...they did right away.... it didn't help. I mean, seriously, it is so loud I can hear exactly what song is being played, and how many counts are left in their repetitions. How do I know... well because the lady is repeatedly yelling them into a MICROPHONE!!!! at 5:45am.....

I don't want to call the police on dedicated, working-out people...or probably dedicated, working-out, buff people...I really don't, so what do you think I should do???


Maybe I will contact my buddies Denise, and Richard and see what the etiquette of am workouts are....