1.This week has flown by:)  And I’m not complaining at allll!  Haven’t been able to get as much done around the house or with my pictures as I was hoping to but it’s been a really great week so far!

2.  Lots coming up in the next few weeks!  My sister, Haley is turning 22 on Saturday!  I’m beyond proud of her as you have all heard a hundred times and so bummed that I can’t be in Greenville, NC to celebrate with her!  BUTTTT, I will be in North Carolina sooon:)  My mom decided that she’d had enough and needed to see her grandbaby but couldn’t work out a time to fly out here so they are flying Lily and myself to them in December!  I’ll be in town from the 11th to the 17th and I am crazy excited! 

3.  The trip is going to be stressful, flying with Lillian all by myself.  But, my mom worked the itenerary so that we are on the shortest flight to and from possible.  And I will be bringing the DVD player in my carry on;) 

4.  While I’m in NC I’m going to be doing some pictures for my sister and her room mate and working on new logo and branding designs for the business launch in February!  Verrrry excited for that ball to start rolling!

5.  Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  I have decided that this Whitten household  w i l l  be celebrating traditional style!  I’m going to attempt to cook my first ever Thanksgiving dinner for my little family!  I bought a little turkey breast [no need to be wasteful and cook a whole bird;)] and a small ham.  We’re pretty picky eaters so we’re just going to have some corn on the cob, green beans and mashed potatoes as sides.  Deviled eggs as an appetizer since they are my favorite part of Thanksgiving.  Anddd I will be making my first apple pie.  From scratch.  With some brownies, from a box just in case i fail miserably with the pie;)  All in all I’m praying for success!

6.  I’m tossing around a few ideas for the blog.  I’m wanting to do more weekly posts.  Like Ten on Tuesday, I’m thinking of doing a Macro Monday, Family Friday and a Self Portrait Saturday.  These are all subjects that I want to high light more in my photography.  I have a gorgeous macro lens that was gifted to me that I barely touch.  Being so far from all of our family now, I’m wanting to dust off my trrpod and wireless remote and start taking pictures of the three of us together.  And the self portrait one… well, that’s the one I’m the most hesitant about.  I feel like I get lost behind the camera and notice that I don’t have many pictures with Lily, or of myself in general.  Some weeks I’ll be done up with hair and make up.  Some weeks I’ll be cuddling or playing or cooking with my little girl.  Who knows.  But, there will be pictures of me that I hope my baby girl will cherish many years from now.

7.  And speaking of cherishing someone.  I need to give my hubby a shout out.  2009 has been a rough year for us.  This move has been rough on us.  But without a word, every night, my husband is in the kitchen cleaning up and doing dishes after I cook dinner.  He is a rare breed of man.  I honestly think that he has become a man all on his own.  There is no one to credit for who he is besides himself.  He has decided what he thinks is right, what he thinks is wrong, what he will and won’t live with, what he wants from his career, his family and ultimately his life despite the life he had as a child and he does what it takes to make things happen.  He is an amazing provider for his family.  He loves Lillian like I have never seen a father love a child ahe loves me in spite of everything about me that no one else could ever love.  He is an amazing man and even though I lose sight of it at times, I’m a damn lucky woman to still have him at my side<3

8.  It’s 2:00 in the morning.  I’ve had two all nighters in a row and I think my brain is a little mushy and it’s spilling out into this post.  Sorry about all of that.  But he reads this and I needed him to know all of that.  [love you<3]

9.  Onto lighter things. . .  Lily is even more amazing with every new day.  She is learning so much these last few days.  She knows where her nose, eyes, ears and belly button are now!  She dances a lot.  She loves to put things together, like bowls and lids or tops on water bottles.  And she’s getting the hang of eating with utensils pretty well.

10.  But, she’s a screamer!  She’s at the stage where she loves to hear her own voice.  And the louder the better.  She doesn’t really throw fits, but you would think someone was branding her or something the way she screams!  And it’s almost constant at this point lol.  But I’ve been told that every kid does it and that it will run it’s course. 

11.  She’s also pretty annoying about following me around the house saying “mam” every 2 seconds.  Or “Bop”.  For a while everything is a “bop”.  She’ll just walk around “bop”ing and “mam”ing at anyone or anything.  Thomas gets a laugh out of it.  But the silly man isn’t home with the Bop Monster for 10 hours everyday.  And luckily, he realizes that after a little while and helps distract her for me.

12.  Hmmm, number 12!?  I think I’m going to call it a night.  Go crawl in bed without having gotten any work done besides this post and read New Moon for a little while.  Then I’m going to spoon my handsome husband and actually get more than 3 hours of sleep before I have to wake up:)  [and yea, I'm reading New Moon for the 2nd time because I won't be seeing it until I go to NC and I'm bummed about it and need to read it again so that I feel like I'm not totally missing out, even though I am!  And yes, my handsome husband likes to be the "little spoon" sometimes!  You didn't think he could get a whole topic gushing about him without something at the end to let out some of that air I just blew into that ego of his, did you!?  silly;)]   GOODNIGHTLOVES<3

I’m doing better about using the point and shoot. But, I’m not using my other camera as much. The last week was really busy so it was just easier to grab the little camera when Lily was cute. I’m still not happy with the quality of the pictures I get with it… but hey, at least I have pictures of my cutie being cute:)

These are all from yesterday and today. Lily loves to play in our shower. I know it doesn’t look like the safest place. But I’m sure you all trust that I’m a good mother and that I don’t need to explain anything to you. She also loves belts. Well, any straplike thing really! So this was an extra special combo for her lol! She’s also learning to eat with plates and bowls and forks and spoons. It’s new but she’s having fun and catching on! She also loves to snuggle. With Thomas. With me. With the dog. With anything really. So I grabbed a quick one of her snuggling her Daddy while they watched cartoons in bed. And then there are some of her running around the living room being silly in her pajamas and with crazy pigtales. Her hair is getting really long! I’m thinking it miiiiiight be time for a hair cut! We’ll see though;)

The drive cross country was less exciting than I thought it would be. I thought we would seeee more. I thought I would be awake more. I ended up getting sick and sleeping through the first half of the trip. We drove through the mountains of NC in the middle of the night. But the stars through the sun/moon/star roof of our car were amazing:) I did manage to get some fall leaves in a picture while we were in Arkansas. I think Oklahoma was definitely the most beautiful state we drove through, but I was too sick to even think about taking pictures.

Anyways, these are some shots from the first leg of the trip and a few of Lillian in the hotel room being silly with my cell phone. [Oh, and how is it that Lily can have that black berry for five seconds and all ready have the cover off and be dragging it all over crumby surfaces, but when I need to take the battery off it takes me foreverrr to get the cover off!? I don't know. But, I do know that when I need the cover off I now hand it to my 14 month old;P]

These are a few of the last pictures from North Carolina before we left to drive cross country.  I actually have a few more but they were on a different memory card than this batch, so they will get processed and edited later.  These are more special to me and my family than anything else.  There are a few of Lillian playing with her Pop Pop [my dad] and his hat right before we loaded up and left and then there are a few pictures of us and my family in the driveway.  These were all shot on auto and were barely edited, if even at all.  But are loved nonetheless;)

And lastly, my family waving good-bye to us as we were driving away<3

Good-bye, Carolina. We love you and miss you.

1.  I’m not sure how interesting this ToT will be for everyone.  I think I just need to type and get things out of my head.  Bare with me.  and thank you<3.

2.  I don’t know what I’m waiting for with this photography business.  I am itching to shoot so badly.  But I just continue to find one reason or another to put it off.  I’m scared I think.  I know that business in North Carolina would have been fairly easy for me.  I was comfortable there.  I had contacts and support and locations!  It is beyond beautiful around here but I have no idea where I am half of the time or what area is safe or restricted or teaming with poisonous creatures.  Locations are my number one fear. 

3.  There is so much that goes into starting a business.  Licenses and taxes and finding a lab to print through and marketing materials.  I have a million ideas running through my head… almost daily.  But I still have no real timeline so they just sit in my head.  I’m getting antsy;)

4.  The goal was to launch in early February.  A nice 24th birthday present to myself.  I have been doubting it though.  With the move and the slow pace we are taking getting the house set up.  But I know that I just need to commit to it and get my butt in gear.  I am done second guessing myself.  I know that I have a million things to learn.  There will always be a million new things to learn in photography and photo editing and business owning.  But I can’t put this off any longer.  

5.  So, I am officially announcing that Heather Whitten Photography will launch in February of 2010!

6.  Yay!

7.  Now, onto the regular stuff.

8.  Lily has started  R U N N I N G !   My God, it’s ridiculous!  She is fast and agile.  She still stumbles once she starts really picking up speed but you should see her go!  It’s truly amazing. 

9.  Here’s a quick snap of Lily being silly at lunch last week.  She was trying to crawl under the table but couldn’t reach:)

10. Hoping to finish the living area this week. Have all of the painting and decorating done so I can get some before and after pictures posted for you all to see! I’m excited. I think it’s coming together really well! So stay tuned for those anddd I hope you have a beautiful week<3

Just a quick few of Lily with my parents<3

Lily has her very own back pack that we use as her diaper bag so that Mommy can have her very own purse again;) She loves to carry [read: drag] it around when we’re out. My mom dressed her in her favorite footie pajamas and we were off to her Aunt Hunter’s volleyball game! She roamed all around the gym with her Grammy Chelle looking all cute and grown up:)

Anddd, one of her and her PopPop [or Pappaw, it hasn't been determined quite yet:p] playing in their back yard<3

For our last “free” weekend in Fayetteville we took a little time to walk around downtown together. It’s small, but it’s beautiful and full of neat shops. I’ve always loved going to the downtown areas of cities. You can stroll and take your time and there is art and culture, even if in the tiniest of amounts, it’s still there. There aren’t chain restaurants or fad stores. I love small businesses. Anyways, it was a fun afternoon for us. Lily got to run around and be silly. We had an amazing Italian dinner and just enjoyed relaxing together before life got hectic. Here are a few from our afternoon<3

And a quick shot of the gorgeous fall colors that were starting to show in our front yard when we got home that evening…

My younger sister, Haley and I got tattoos together a few days before I moved to Arizona. We’ve talked about doing it for a long time but never really committed to anything. I texted her a few days before I was going to be in Jacksonville and asked if she wanted to get tatted and she said yes. We decided just to do our own things. Not be matchie matchie. But it did end up that we got the tattoos in roughly the same place.

It was an amazing experience. This was her first and my third so it was nice not to be nervous about it and feel like I could be “solid” for my little sis! She was a champ though!

Haley went with a feather for a hundred wonderful and personal reasons. I think it turned out beautifully. She loves it:)

I am very proud that this is a collaboration post. My sister did the photography while I was getting my tattoo done.

…and I honestly think she did a better job:)

My tattoo is a branch of three dogwood flowers. The dogwood is the state flower for North Carolina. And there are three of them to represent me and my two sisters. I miss North Carolina and them so much and am beyond thrilled that I have this little piece to represent that!

It’s amazing to think back on my relationship with Haley and see how far we’ve come. We were typical sisters growing up. We fought a lot and were convinced that we had absolutely nothing in common. Now we are in similar career fields with her being a graphic design major and me a photographer [well, one day;)]. Every time we talk we find some other similarity be it in music, art, movies, books or our contemplation of our family and our lives. She is so much a part of me now. I look forward to growing even closer to her through the rest of the years of our lives and eventually sharing this same kind of relationship with our youngest sister, Hunter one day!

I try and try and try to remember to bring my point and shoot camera with me when we go out. I bought a Canon Powershot over the summer so that I wouldn’t have to risk carrying my DSLR around in the diaper bag. But that’s easier said than done. I don’t think that I get quality pictures on the Auto mode and in my opinion, if I’m going to have to be worrying about settings, I’d rather be worrying about them on my DSLR since I know that I’ll get good pictures with it! But, I still throw the point and shoot in my purse as often as I can remember to.
These are a few of the pictures from last month.

Lily and Daddy reading the newspaper at the Pope clinic waiting room.

Lily and Mommy waiting for the Pediatrician.

Lily roaming around the room, checking everything out.

Lily, not very happy, after her 4 shots:(

Lily and Hailey cuddling on the couch, watching a movie together at Adalynn’s! [We realllly miss them:/]

Lily’s first time coloring with Crayons:)

Anddd… grumpy butt Lily, cuddling with Mommy before bedtime<3

OK. I’m getting some work done today! Taking care of Lily, setting up the house, painting, editing and blogging are all piled up on top of me right now and it’s actually harder to find time for each of them than I thought it would be. But, I made some progress today while Lily was napping! I’m trying out a bit of a new editing technique. It’s just curve adjustments but I took a class online last night and learned a little more about curves so today I tried it out. Hopefully I’ll be faster on the rest of the pictures [these one's were badly exposed so it didn't turn out how I would have liked it to on most of them:/ my bad.] and will be able to post a lot more over the weekend! But we’ll see;)

[Favorite picture^]
We took Lillian to a local pumpkin patch last month while we were still living in North Carolina! Unfortunately, it was more of a farmer’s market. All of the pumpkins had already been harvested and were sitting in the barn on bales of hay. That bummed me out a little. I was envisioning Thomas chasing Lily through the rows of pumpkins and had a million pictures planned out. But, it was still a good time!

Lily wasn’t very sure of the hay at first. She didn’t really want to sit on it or have her picture taken.

But she warmed up to it after a few minutes:)

She had a ball running through the barn grabbing pumpkins and helping Daddy pick out her very first one:)

We ran around and played with all of the toys and play stations the farm had set up for the children. We walked her past all of the farm animals. Which was not OK with her! She was scared of them all… bunnies, turkeys, chickens, sheep. and this guy…

Not so bad right!?
Wrong.

Lillian screamed her head off until her Daddy picked her up and carried her away from him! The donkey just stared at her… he probably gets it a lot. But I thought he was precious<3.