Family Pictures with the amazing Mia Reed

Mia Marisa Photography

Mia has taken our family pictures for 5 years in a row. It is wonderful to see my family grow through her lens. We count our lucky stars that we get to continue this tradition with her.

We take a lot of pictures as a family so when we hunker down for professional pictures, I like to do something more than ordinary. Be it a new and awesome location, a theme with what we wear, or bringing out the fancy threads. This year, we met at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. There's a dress I bought last year to wear to a charity dinner that I didn't end up going to. I hadn't had a chance to wear it and thought it would be fun to theme our pictures around the dress.

I took HeaBug to the salon where she got her first hair trim from our beautiful friend Rose! HeaBug LOVED the VIP treatment.

I got my makeup done by Lucy Starr at the M.A.C. Store in Cerritos. I showed her the dress. I told her she was free to go as dramatic as she liked. I told her where we were doing our pictures. And I sat nice and still. She did a great job, it was definitely dramatic and it kept freaking Mr. B out as we drove up to Santa Barbara. He said it was nice but I didn't look like the regular me (that was the point) and that he likes how I look everyday. Love. That. Man.

We didn't want to have everyone ride up in their nice clothes so we rode up comfy and literally changed in the car in the parking lot. A few elements that I'd originally thought of, I forgot to execute because we were a little frazzled. The light was quickly fading and though it was sunny our whole drive north, the clouds got a little fierce once we passed Sunnylands.

Mia is magic and talent though. This was a super fun shoot.

Love her. Thanks for these.

Happy Birthday Abby and Judith!

My cute little sisters-in-law, Mr. B's younger sisters, turned 11! Crazy how time goes by that fast. My kids love playing with them and they feel like cousins because they are so close in age. The girls get a little kick out of pulling the "I'm your Aunt" card. Hardly works.

For their birthday, we all went to Joe's Crab shack and they each ate GIANT buckets of crab!

Love these two little ladies to the moon. Booth kids rock.

Weekend visit with GK and Papa

We got to spend a weekend with GK and Papa Ton! They came to soccer on Saturday and Baseball on Sunday. We wrapped it up with a birthday lunch for Papa Ron at Super Mex!

Love these kids

 JT got a mohawk. Mr. B rocked a faux-hawk. It was cute. For a week. By the second week, I was determined that they both needed the rest of the haircut.
These guys. Love them.

 In our cleaning and organizing of the garage, HeaBug found her brother's old leapster. She was quite content to pull up a spot on the floor and play her new "game". Pexie, our almost 3 year old rottweiler, thought it looked like a good idea. They were camped here for almost and hour. Love these girls.

My sister-in-law sent me this pic of our Kalani Man. It's so hard when a part of your heart is growing up on the east coast but we love getting a steady stream of picture updates and thanks to Facebook and texting, we enjoy getting to watch him grow up. We are SO excited that he (and his mama and auntie) will be coming out to visit us for a week this Summer!! Love this boy.

St Joseph's Parish Fair

Spring nights. On this particular Saturday, it was nearing bed time but we'd gone out for a late dinner at Fusion Sushi. This amazing, lit up, no joke, school/church carnival had taken up residence for the weekend near the house. We passed it every day that week on our routes to and from school. They were obviously excited. I'm never too excited about huge crowds, price gouging and "Carnies". But thanks to us having been together for so long thus giving the ability to silently communicate (with the help of eyebrows and eye shifting), we agreed we'd surprise these munchkins with a trip to the Parish Fair. 

 And thrilled they were!! What? It's 8:30 Mom. You guys are the best ever! You mean we don't have to go home right now? We can go on rides?

Mr. B did have to climb into the kiddie fun house to retrieve Ms. HeaBug. She got scared and got stuck. She wouldn't budge. Dad rescued her. 

 Flying swings, little coasters, ferris wheels... All of which cause little knots in my stomach but I pushed that to the side in favor of allowing them to experience this fully.

 Bumper cars for Mr. B and JT. HeaBug didn't reach the height requirement so she played a $3 game to win a pink monkey that was cheap and cheesy and totally made her night.

 JT's face says it all for me. This is how I feel at the top of a ferris wheel on in a sky bucket or on a ski lift... But I kept a smile on my face and encouraged them to do so too. Once they got over the initial, WHOA... They soaked it all in with delight. (Mr. B laughed at me the whole time.)
It's great to live in such a big city and still access this small community living. Love me some LBC!