kindergarten!!!  my baby is off to kindergarten!!!  as a lot of us know when you have a baby, you can never really fathom the love they will hold in your heart…”forever”!!!  i took raney out the week before school started to take “kindergarten” pictures and to start a new tradition every school year (oh how he will love this year after year *insert sarcasm*)!

knowing all summer long that this day was coming was very bittersweet and a very emotional concept for me to grasp.  my “only” child has taken the next step to becoming “all grown-up”…what is it we always say???  they grow up way too fast…so worth repeating over and over because they do!  its really out of any of our control and i’m gonna try and learn to accept it *sigh*!

he was completely prepared to tackle all that school life has to offer with his darth vader backpack and lunch tote and many, many “love notes” as raney calls them tucked away with each lunch from mommy.  i feel a mixture of  pride, sadness, excitement and worry…welcome to parenthood!

raney, i will continue to take all the hugs, kisses and “i love you’s” that you give and will always be right by your side when you ask for me to cuddle with you in bed until you go to sleep.  i treasure and savor each and every second watching “you” grow up, you are so funny and such a loving boy, i could never of asked for anything more!!!  you are the core of this family!  i love you!

Raney and his BFF, Callee on the first day of school!

if i wasn’t aware of how blessed i’ve been, after our past trip to cabo to renew our wedding vows this past july, i certainly do now!  kurt and i had planned on renewing our wedding vows for our 10 year anniversary for quit a long time and i couldn’t believe that it was finally here!  even though our wedding anniversary was officially on march 25, 2010, we had made plans for renewing our vows on july 24, 2010, this is when we were able to get everyone’s schedule to connect.  to be able to have our son right by our side and be included in our vow renewal is the most special moment i could of asked for.  then along with my parents, my youngest brother, his beautiful wife and the most adorable 6 month old nephew and my dear friend ann-marie join us was “almost” perfect.  we were missing my other younger brother and his beautiful pregnant wife (who will be blessing our family with another baby boy this fall).  but not so fast…..the night before, in walked my brother and sister-in-law, to say we were surprised was an understatement.  they flew in last minute just to be there for us for our special day!  family is everything to me and to have my family fly thousands of miles for me, kurt and raney…..leaves me speechless and touches our hearts beyond explanation!!!!!!  we cannot thank you ALL enough, but can tell you that we love you ALL with ALL that we have!!!

and to my husband, kurt, i love you more today than i did the day we said our official “i do’s” ten years ago, you are my lifelong partner and will forever be my friend.  you have given me the most precious gift that not even my wildest dreams could ever fathom, our most amazing light of our lives, our son.  we make a pretty darn good team, the three of us….were just “living on love” baby!  happy anniversary. xoxo

here are some beautiful pictures of our “to good to be true” day, taken by our dear, dear friend ann-marie.  thank you from the bottom of our hearts, am, for documenting our vow renewal ceremony, we love you!

…from our amazing cabo vacation, many more pictures to come from our vow renewal ceremony…

…and from all our fun in the sun!

wow, what a june we had….celebrating kurt’s 40th, father’s day and disneyland all within days of each other!  we had the time of our lives at disney once again this year and to think it had been at least 20+ years since either kurt or myself had been to disneyland….thank goodness for having kids…they take you back to the way it all should be!  raney’s go-to rides were: buzz lightyear’s astro blasters (i lost count of how many times we were on this), matterhorn, big thunder (countless times), toy story mania and monsters inc.  if you ask him about tower of terror you won’t get that great of a reaction but mom and dad loved it, i don’t think he’ll even consider on attempting this ride again until he is at the least a teenager!  here are a handful of pictures from the couple days we were there, enjoy!

i recently attended the “create better images workshop” (www.createbetterimages.com) hosted by the very talented photographers, kimberly jarman and jennifer bowen.  it was such a great hands on learning experience that i almost cannot put into words.  the skills that i learned were amazing! i had many “ah-ha” moments, but the biggest one of all was putting away my fears and jump right in and work in manual mode!

below are a select few of my favorite shots of our beautiful models that worked so hard for us during our live model shoot.  hope you enjoy!