i had high hopes for this weekend. i fully intended to clean my bathroom, which has not been cleaned in 3 weeks. i will spare you the details, but let's just say i'm not sure i'm actually getting clean when i take a shower...

i also had fully intended on washing my duvet.  again, way past due, but it didn't happen.  my cats love to sleep on my bed, so as you can imagine - it is full of cat hair after not being washed for 3 weeks! big time yuck!!

what did happen this weekend however, were 2 engagement sessions. 1 in raleigh at yates mill pond (gorgeous park, by the way!) and the other in dowtown beaufort, then atlantic beach.  these 2 sessions were entirely different, but both were so fun & great images were made.  each session was unique for the couple & fit each couple perfectly! i love when that happens! i can't wait to get these sessions edited, but it will be next week before i can get to them. i'm currently working to finish up a wedding & an engagement session from the weekend before. i have a busy week of editing ahead of me!

while no cleaning was done this weekend (other than a quick vacuum of the living room), we did make some progress on the bonus room & rivers' bathroom. one of my groom's for spring, scott, agreed to paint for us! he's such a nice guy & came over saturday afternoon after he got off work. he finished up the bonus room & i was so happy to give him a little cash & have 1 more thing crossed off my list. it looks great by the way, and i'll be sure to post a picture in my free time! ha! ;)

when we moved into our house back in 2009, it needed a little tlc. being that it was a foreclosure it mostly just needed love. the main thing was painting & replacing carpeting. we've done a lot of that. another random thing was that there was no shower curtain rod in the 2nd bathroom. not a big deal - my mom happened to have one she brought over & we had been using that. well, it was ugly & didn't want to stay in place. we finally bought a new one (that screws into the wall) and jeremy put that up this weekend. would you believe it has made a huge difference in there? amazing what such a silly little thing can do! but i found it to be quite exciting!

rivers really enjoyed his gymnastics class on saturday & i was so happy that i was able to go with him. i hadn't been in 3 weeks - jeremy has been the one to take him. i've either had something going on or i've been sick. he also enjoyed spending time with his gigi, papa, and their friends, george & marsha, who were in town visiting this past weekend.

rivers' application arrived in the mail on saturday for montessori school. i have been too busy to sit down & fill it out just yet, but i will be sure to get that back to them this week. we are really excited about him starting there next year! jeremy and i went 2 weeks ago to visit the school & watch a classroom in progress. it was such a neat environment & i can clearly see why the children enjoy learning & take initiative to learn new things. i really think rivers will love it. he has such a love for learning new things as it is. i think this will feel very natural for him. jeremy and i were just so impressed! they mix age groups in montessori classrooms, so rivers will be 3 when he starts & will share the room with 3, 4, and 5 year olds. they encourage the older kids to be good leaders & helpers to the younger kids, which i absolutely love! this also means that when rivers is the 5 year old, he'll be the one who is the role model & helper. talk about great life lessons! of course, the classroom is full of so many wonderful learning toys & activities. no tv's! (which i think is absurd that some daycares & preschools have these in the classrooms!) all in all, i feel confident that montessori will be a great start to rivers' education and i'm really excited that he'll have that opportunity!

i do so badly wish i had some pictures to share. i'm drowning in editing & can't even think about opening up a personal photos folder on my computer to edit right now. we'll have to be patient - my personal pics will come eventually! if you'd like to look at some new pics - you can head over to my photo blog. i've been a posting fool over there with more to come this week! :)

i'm sorry friends. i told you over a week ago that i'd be back the next day to tell you more. where has the past week and a half of my life gone?! let's see, i'll do my best to try to remember. first i should warn you though, i have come down with a terrible crud - be it a cold, the flu, whatever - and it has my brain feeling foggy.

let me begin with halloween weekend, which was busy, but fun. i had mini sessions on saturday october 30th which all went really well & i was so happy that i had decided to do them. mini sessions may just be my favorite because you get in and get out. but what happens is i know i'm on a time limit, so i make every minute count! the other nice thing (for me) about them is there is a 10 picture limit. now, i take much more than 10 pictures, but i narrow them down & only edit & show 10. this cuts down my editing time in a major way & makes me feel like i can accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. the other thing that i've found, is my clients don't feel so overwhelmed with too many pictures to choose from. maybe i'm on to something here?

that same weekend jeremy started painting the bonus room.  unfortunately, he ran out of paint before the job was completed & he also had an asthma attack in the process.  poor guy!  so we are now left with a half painted bonus room, which is just as bad (probably worse) than an unpainted bonus room and jeremy was left with a trip to urgent care on monday morning and diagnosed with bronchitis.  on the plus side, once the room is finally painted, it will look very nice!  its just a matter of when-the-heck-will-i-have-time-to-finish-painting-the-bonus-room?!  i'm afraid to let jeremy back up there with a paint brush for 2 reasons - 1. he always gets paint on the ceiling no matter how many times i nag him not to and 2. his lungs probably can not handle any more paint for quite some time.

do i dare share my desk with you?!  you can see here why i desperately need order & organization in our bonus room.  my desk is a disaster zone...

with sunday being halloween, it was time we carved our remaining 2 pumpkins.  while jeremy was upstairs painting, rivers and i were downstairs carving.  for the first time ever, i saved the pumpkin seeds & roasted them in the oven.  i sprinkled them with sea salt & cinnamon sugar, which made for a tasty sweet & salty treat.  jeremy really enjoyed them & asked me to make more last week.  i told him we'd need more pumpkins!  time surely did slip away from me that day & rivers did not get to bed until a little after 10 pm!

of course, sunday was halloween & to be perfectly honest i have no recollection of what we did all day sunday.  my best guess would be laundry, cleaning, editing, etc.  i do recall however, that rivers refused a nap & laid talking in his crib for at least an hour, which is so unusual for him.  gigi & papa came over for an early dinner & enjoyed seeing rivers in his costumes as well as passed out candy while we walked rivers to a few houses for trick or treating.  have i ever explained that rivers does not care for candy?  have you ever heard of such a thing?!  he saw his gigi eating a lollipop, so he thought he'd try one.  he took not but 1 lick before giving it back.  so as you can imagine, trick or treating for candy really isn't all too exciting for rivers.  we went to maybe 5 houses before we came home, dumped his bucket into our candy supply that we were passing out, and changed costumes at that point.  he sure was happy to give his candy away though!  he really enjoyed seeing all the kids coming up to our house in their costumes.  by 8:00 i was out of candy with the exception of 6 kit kat bars, which i deemed were mine, so i turned off the light & ran rivers a bath.  he was in bed by 8:30 and was quickly asleep!  here we are with our little gorilla & crayon...

to see more you can visit my smugmug page, if you haven't already!

so now that i have written you a novel about halloween weekend, i will take a break & hope to be back very soon to tell you of our visit at montessori as well as what we did this past weekend.