Why do I go so long between blogs?

I mean, I know you guys are just DYING, day to day, to see the exciting goings~on of my life! Well, last time I blogged, it was all about the hub, well, it was a little about me, but it was meant to be all about him, but without me there is no him, and that goes the other way around too! *INDIVIDUALLY UNIQUE, TOGETHER COMPLETE* ahhhh Love! 

             So this is love...la la la la...so THIS is loooove....so thiiiiiiiis is what makes life, diviiiiine <3

Okay that was fun!

Now, onto the crafty side of things! 

I LOVE me some hot chocolate {with peppermint!} on a cold winter day...

Who's with me? You? You? Well, I found this tin of hot chocolate 

back in December and I thought, aww...thats cute! So I bought it & we drank it !

{ Brysonn, Kaydenn & Zachary}

Well, the hot chocolate is gone, and I'm left with this adorable tin!

 Isnt it darling? OH the possibilities! 

After going through some scrap paper And ALL my scrapbook supplies, I chose the paper I wanted to wrap it with, lathered it up with glue stick {thank you BRYSONN <3}

And applied. then I wrapped it with fun ribbons, added some DARLING BoBunny stickers and some glossy accent and here you have it:

Complete transformation!

Isnt it adorable? Now, what to do with it...I could gift it, cause I know one little lady that already has her eye on it and i JUST made it yesterday! Or I could keep it for myself =]

I was thinking it would look cute If I made some of those pens with the giant flowers on the end and it would look like a fun piece of home decor when in all actuality it would be serving a purpose...holding my pens =]

I have 5 more, no wait, 6 more tins, different than this one, that I am about to cover and I'll photograph them and blog them when I'm done! So now, I challenge YOU...yes YOU to find something in your house and repurpose it, then blog about it! Then leave me a comment with a link back to your blog so I can see your creations! Yay! FUN! Ready? GOOOOOOOO!

The Hub...

Pretty sure I coined the term "THE HUB" and now all my girls...and their girls...use it and I LOVE it! I'm feeling the love tonight for the hub. Not that its unusual for me to feel the hub love, but tonight he is on my mind more than usual so I thought I'd sit and blog about his awesomeness!

After we put the kids to bed a little while ago, we were sitting on the couch together, watching some army movie which was boring to me but thats his kind of movie so thats what was on. He was eating ice cream {his happy place...kinda like me & nachos} which is not on our diet. I told him "are you having ice cream?" He said..."HEY! I used a small bowl!" we shared a minute of the giggles and went onto watching the boring army movie. 

I got to looking around the house...admiring my new "office" I have built for myself by splitting the living room in half, and using the empty half as the new dining room, and using the dining room area as my "PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE". I was noticing the little this's & that's that I have created. 12x12 shadow boxes with scrapped pages that I love, altered coffee tins that are darling...wood letters that I covered with paper spelling out the word HOME, pillows on my couch, 4 massive curtain panels...which, by the way, are DONE!!...my photography equipment, and amazing images I have produced with said equipment...and a thought floated through my mind. I have an AMAZING husband! Why, you ask, did that thought about the amazingness of the hub cross my mind when I was noticing all of my crafts? Well, SIMPLY because, if he wasnt the supportive, encouraging, work~a~holic lover of the LORD that he is, I wouldnt be so blessed to lead the life that I live. I am able to stay at home with my children...something TOO MANY mothers arent able to do. And because I'm able to stay home while my husband goes to work 12 hours a day, I am ABLE to indulge myself in the things that I love!

I LOVE photography...it's not 'what I do'...it's WHO I AM. I am so passionate about it, that I SEE in rectangles! Really! I can be anywhere, and if something catches my eye, I AUTOMATICALLY see it in photograph format! Thats kinda weird...cant believe I just told that to... whoever is reading =]

I always joke and say that my camera is like an appendage. And it is, it's an extension of my arm!

What I love about the fact that I'm a photographer and the hub has a 'thing' for guns, is that we are both shooters!! HaHa...I know, I know...corny =] But it makes my heart flutter to think that we are the same, even though we shoot different weapons, we still have a passion for shooting!

I also LOVE scrapbooking/papercrafting! I spend entirely too much money on scrapbook stuff. I have so much stuff that I literally am running out of space for it all! Anyone have stuff you want to trade? We can have a crop swap at my house one of these weekends. We all bring stuff we have but know that we'll never use and swap it while we crop! FUN! And a reason I am ABLE to plan things like this to happen at my home is because the HUB will take our children and go out of the house for a while so that I can host stuff like this. I dont do it often, but I still think thats pretty amazing of him! Also, by me being able to stay home because of my hard working man, I have TIME to do these things in which I love so dearly.

I am a sewer. I love my sewing machine. I have been able to make so many gifts for people that I love because of my sewing machine. And although I came into this AWESOME relationship already owning the machine and he didnt have to buy it for me, he still supports me in my sewing adventures, offers his opinion when I ask for it, and he video tapes my chonies hanging out of the back of my pants when I am on the floor arranging patterns =] Gotta love him <3

The list of things I am ABLE to do because of my man goes on and on...I'm so thankful for him!

okay, now to get serious...when Chance and I first met, we couldnt have been more opposite. He was 'gangsta' and I was preppy. He was angry at the world, and I have pretty much always been happy at the world. The first night we met, I was so turned off by him and his behavior. But the next day, I couldnt get him off my mind. To this day, I cant tell you what it was about him. We had mutual friends so we saw each other the next day...and then every day after! Chance was working at Discount Tire {still is} and he had a 5 year old daughter Cecilia, & at the time, I was working at Chili's, and my son Brysonn was 2. He would come into Chili's for lunch and when I would see him walk through the doors, or seated at my table {which he always requested} my heart would skip a beat and I would get weak in the knees! Everything happened so fast with us. 2 weeks after we met, he moved in with me. 2 & 1/2 months later, we were engaged. A month later, we were expecting Zac. 5 months later we bought our house together. 4 months later we had Zachary. 7 months later we were married on the beach on Maui, Hawaii. 16 months later we had Kaydenn. There was SOOO much stuff that happened in that time frame. good and bad...at certain points, bad was BAD. But then we let GOD in, and bad got better...better got good...good got great...and great is now AMAZING! 

I look at our life together. I see where we are in life now, and I see where we came from. I have seen GOD move mightily in our life, in our marriage. He brought us out of some dark, ugly places...on the verge of divorce, and shone his light so strongly on us that now we bask in the GLORY THAT IS GOD!  Although we still have some bumps in the road,and not everything is peaches & cream, we have come leaps and bounds from where & who we were when we first met. I look at our marriage, and believe that when God put the 2 of us together, HE worked a MIRACLE. Thats right people! You dont believe in miracles? Well, you're reading about a real life GOD issued MIRACLE right now! PRAISE JESUS! 

The hub LOVES the Lord, he LOVES me, he LOVES our children...in that order, and to say that I'm grateful for Chance, doesnt seem enough. The words thankful & grateful dont even scratch the surface of the depth of gratitude & appreciation I have for this man that GOD created JUST FOR ME.

We understand each other...we GET each other! And there is no greater feeling in the world, than the feeling of being 'gotten'.

I love you Chance...from the depths of my depth!

i HEART faces...

So, I have been stalking this i heart faces blog for a really long time...I entered once about a year ago and then stopped cause it seemed like all the entries I looked at were amazing and I just never felt like my photographs measured up. But this week @ i <3 faces, the challenge is TEXTURES. & I happen to have an image that I LOVE that i added texture to! I know that I've shown you this picture before, when I edited it cause I was so proud of the outcome, but I am posting again for the challenge! I am in complete love with this picture! Seriously!

As you all know this is one of BFFLs Edith & her new hub Lonnie. They are perfect for each other in every way! When I look at this picture I can literally FEEL the love! Can't you?

Trying Times...

We all go through them. The question is, do we let them break us? Or do we chose to learn from them. I've had a rough week. Probably one of the roughest weeks of my life. I'll blog about my particular situation in a later post. I just want to say that when times get tough, we NEED to look ^ up to GOD for comfort & answers. Today in church we learned about Jesus feeding the multitude. All he had was 5 loafs of bread and 2 fish, and with that he fed thousands. If we GIVE IT ALL TO GOD, and trust in his will for our lives, then all will be good.  LOVE this verse, and actually, this is my photo for Jan 8th of my project 365, which, I know, have not been posting! This is Jeremiah 29:11...

"...to give you a future, and a HOPE!" What a powerful verse. Gods word never disappoints! We serve an awesome God huh? Yes, yes we do!

I had chosen SIMPLE as my word of the year, but I think that it has changed. I'll reveal it later, along with a project I built around my new word. For now, I'm going to bed..gotta rest up, I have a shoot tomorrow =]

HOME sweet HOME!!

There has been so much coming and going in the Clark household the last few months. I am happy to say that we are here to stay for at least the rest of January!

2010...can't believe it's here. I know this is going to be a great year...I can feel it in the depths of my depth! SOOOOO many amazing events to look forward to! I know that you are sitting there on the edge of your seat just waiting to hear about all the exciting goings on that will be happening in my life this year, so go ahead, grab your coffee, sit back and enjoy the ride through todays post, I think it may be a long one =] But then again, it might not!

One thing I HOPE to accomplish EVERYDAY throughout 2010 {cant believe it!} is the Project 365. This is a Photo a Day for 365 days...YIKES! Just thinking about it makes me a little anxious! It's a big commitment! But one that I want to STRIVE to do from start to finish. Hopefully this project will give me inspiration to think outside the box and expand my thinking when it comes to my Photography. I'm not sure how, but I want to add a photo album to the sidebar with my daily photos. I'll have to do some research to figure out how! I know that it's already the 4th, and I havent posted any photos yet. I have been out of town, got home last night, and emptied my memory card into my computer this morning. So even though they arent posted yet, I DID take pictures the past 3 days! Go me =]

Here's my 01*01*10 image :

01*02*10

01*03*10

We had another amazing time at dads over New Years! There was lots of family there.

And I got to meet my brothers new baby, my nephew Jude...just the sweetest squishiest little guy ever!

 

We went to White Sands New Mexico and even though it was kinda cold, and some of the sand was frozen, we had a BLAST!! We slid down the dunes on plastic sleds! Chance took a video of me taking the very first slide down, but I cant figure out how to get it into the computer...sad face. Once I do I will blog it!

I'm still trying to pick my word of the year. I have it narrowed down to 3:

TRUTH

SIMPLE

POWER

I need to meditate on them and see which is for me!

I'm goint to the eye doctor today. It's been 2 years since  my last visit due to not being able to afford to go last year, but here it is 2010 {cant believe it!} and it is TIME! Maybe this will be the solution to these migraines! *okay, so I went to the eye doctor and he told me that my prescription hasnt changed so it might be something else causing my migraines. Looks like I need to get my head checked! UGH.

On a crafty note, I will be attending Inspiration Unlimited 2010 in September with my friend Stephanie and I am just so stoked about it that I could just PEE!! And I'm hoping and praying to be able to go to Brave Girls Camp in October but we'll have to wait and see about that one!

I'm also hoping to go to my cousins wedding in April, but that is up in the air right now too.

The new year, and new decade brings on the desire to lose weight. I'm just gonna put myself out there and tell whoever is reading this, that I weigh 184 lbs. Time to get control AMBROSIA!!!!! Luckily, the hub wants to lose some weight to make it easier for him to climb the mountains while he's hunting, so hopefully we can be each others motivation! Day one...so far, so good.

Okay, so this post isnt as long as I thought it might be, but I still need to take my day 4 picture and I need to start getting dinner ready and such. Thanks for stopping by though! Leave me a comment and let me know you were here!!! I love to know whos reading =]

Christmas is over. Can you believe it? All that anticipation and its over! XM radio has even taken away the Holiday Traditions station on my TV! I went to put it on last night around 11 and it was no where to be found =[

I havent blogged in a while so lets recap. My dad came into AZ on Sunday the 20th. It was a great visit! There he is, right there in the center of the grandkids. Not all of them, but most of them! He was in his happy place.

Me, my daddy, my older sissy Amethyst, and my younger sister Ciera. It has been AGES since we have all 4 been in a picture together. So this is precious to me. It will most likely make it into a frame on the shelf.

That same night was our second annual 'Early Christmas Dinner' for all the guys at Discount Tire.

Its really important for Chance & I to make sure these guys and their wives/girlfriends know how much we appreciate them. They work really REALLY hard! They spend 12 hours a day at Discount Tire with each other. They see each other more than they see us wives! And thats the truth! They are like family to us. We love them and we KNOW that without them working so hard Chance would not be where he is at in the company. We like to take of them the best that we can. I made a turkey & a ham and I packed up 6 boxes of baked goods, and we got them each a gift card for the movie theater. 2 of the guys were'nt able to make it, but the ones that did had a good time *I hope*.

One of my BEST friends, and Sister in God, Becca, came home for Christmas with her 3 precious children, Kylie, Keaton & the Joey. Her husband Ray is on his 4th deployment, so it was great that she was able to come home and spend time with her mother and family while she was home. We went off and did a mini session on Wednesday. It was way too cold, but the lighting was beautiful! I love the outcome of these images and I really hope that Becca loves them too! Havent asked her yet so we'll see!

We went to Christmas Eve service at Calvary Chapel. We just really love our church family! It was over crowded with zero parking and people standing in the foyer once we ran out of chairs for them and standing down the hallways too. Once the new sanctuary is finished being built it will be sooooo nice!

Christmas Eve, once the kids were fast asleep, Chance and I stayed up till 1 wrapping, since we hadent had a chance to wrap anything! Boy were we tired! But we got it done and the tree was loaded!

The kids woke us bright and early with such excitement about Santa coming and bringing them tons of awesome stuff! Here is the only picture I snapped with all 4 of them in it.

Chance got a new camcorder!!! So fun! He has been wanting one so he was really happy about it!!

I got a new camera bag, and an EXTERNAL FLASH for my Canon 50D!!!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!!!!!! The hub knows me.  Being able to bounce the light off the ceiling makes such a HUGE difference as opposed to aiming it right at my subject...

This is what my living room looked like when all the unwrapping was done, and the playing began.

Oh, and note the large piles of clean laundry that is taking over the couch. That is a result of my washer and drier breaking, at the same time, and me not being able to wash our clothes for nearly a week. I wont even go into details about how that whole situation unfolded, but I will say that, because of my MOST awesome hub, I was able to was ALL the laundry, about 10 loads, in less than 24 hours, with THESE:

& they are RED!!! He really knows me! <3

The rest of Christmas day was spent at my moms house. The kids had a great time! I made Paula Deens macaroni, and can I just say YUM! This is me, my mom, my younger sister Ciera, & my older sissy Amethyst.

Everything was going great. We were getting ready to leave when Kaydenn came in CRYING , barely breathing in pain! Some how, he managed to slam his ear, of all things, in the screen door and it sliced the back of his ear right open! We rushed him to the ER, where they  glued it instead of stitching it. It burned, he cried, but he was brave and tough. He's only 3! We took him to get a Sonic orange cream slush, and that made it all better! Not to mention the 3 glove hand balloons the nurses made him =] Its really hard to tell from the picture, but t was not pretty =[

Then Chance had to take our daughter Cecilia to the ER at 1:30 in the morning case she was getting croup and wheezing. She needed a breathing treatment...they didnt get home till 5:30 this morning, and then CHance had to go to work today. Poor guy. After work he will be going to church to teach the youth group tonight, THEN he will be able to come home and rest! He is an AMAZING man!

All in all, we had a blessed Christmas! Its always a great time when we are worshipping our Lord! And to celebrate his birthday is just the icing on the cake!

{You can click on each picture to enlarge them}

~ Ambrosia

Lets talk CHRISTmas!

Just for fun!!!!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Mmmm... peppermint Hot Cocoa!

2. Does Santa wrap the presents or just set them under the tree? It has to be wrapped!!

3. Colored or white lights on the tree/house? I prefer white, and we only decorate the tree and inside the house. We havent ever put them on the outside, although, someday I would like to!

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nah, We get plenty of kisses without it :) 

5. When do you put up your decorations? I wish we did it the day after Thanksgiving, but since we go out of town the first weekend in December every year, and we always have a real tree, we usually wait till the second weekend in December to put them up.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? I do love the Turkey!I also really like green bean casserole.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? I remeber baking with my mom. She always had my sisters and I unwrap the hersheys kisses for the peanut blossoms. I had my kids do that yesterday while I was baking, and it all came rushing back to me!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I think we were grocery shopping in the commissary.  I dont remember how the convo went, but i remember the devastation!

9. Do you open gifts on Christmas Eve? We dont have any kind of tradition, but *sometimes* its fun to get a treat!

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? White lights, & snowflakes! There are bulbs that go onto, but i LOVE snowflakes! 

11. Snow! Love or Dread it? I like it. I like that it snows on our mountains, and we can drive up for the day and play in it and then come home to no snow. It's fun I guess, but I don love fake snowflakes =]

12. Can you ice skate? I tried once in high school. We went to the ice skating place in Tucson before Prom my senior year, I fell a few times, but it was fun trying! I think I would go again!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? This might sound corny & cliche', but the best gift i have is my family. The love that my husband displays to me is unmatched, and unconditional. the joy on my kids faces...there are no words <3 

14. What is the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Celebrating the birth of Jesus! And doing my best to make sure that my children understand that, while the presents are fun, the reason we have this holiday is because of HIM.

15. Favorite holiday dessert? Chocolate Pie!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We always pick out a real tree. Then we come home and my 4 kids decorate it while we istent o CHRISTmas music! Such fun! And this year will mark our 2nd annual Discount Tire CHRISTmas dinner, hosted by Chance & I. We know that Chances boss Tony, and Chance would not be in the position they are in at Discount without the hard working guys under them! So this is my way of making sure they know that we care about them and that we love them! We will have all 7 full timers and their wives/girlfriends, and their children over on Sunday for a CHRISTmas dinner. I will be making a Turkey, a ham, mashed potatoes & gravy, green bean casserole, and pie. The guys will all bring sides and drinks. It will be a blast! I have special gifts for each of them. I spent the day baking yesterday, and I have more to do today. All the cookies will be boxed up special for each family as our gift to them. Hope they like it!!! These guys are family! <3

17. What tops your tree? A giant snowflake =]

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? I'm not gonna lie, I like both! But I mostly love giving.It warms the cockles of my heart to see the face of someone who opens a gift I have made for them. 

19. What is your favorite Christmas song? Baby Its Cold Outside

20. Candy Canes? love 'em!

WOW!! That was fun! So, if you are reading this, and you are a blogger, I would love for you to copy & paste this into your blog and fill it in with your answers! Then leave me a comment here with a ink to your blog so I can learn more about you! 

~Ambrosia