Crazy time of year

So it's been crazy busy the last month or so. I can't believe how close to Christmas we are, it's right around the corner. Last year was a completely different feeling. I was at home with my baby planning things for Christmas, this year I haven't had a second to think about it.

I started with Kiddie Kandids the week of Halloween and have basically lived there ever since. I love it there though. I won't lie, I can't wait for it to slow down after Christmas, but I'll enjoy the major overtime while it lasts. I probably won't get this much again for a while. Also, I lucked out and the company that is doing Brittney's decorations for her reception and wedding have put me on their page as a partner, that was pretty exciting for me. Go here to check it out.

Along with Kiddie Kandids, I've been doing my family's pictures, Brittney's engagements and bridals. I also have been trying to get Brittney's bridal shower together and have no idea how it is going to work out since I work every day this week and until 6 on Friday. The Bridal shower is at 7 so....hopefully I make it on time, considering it's at my house. If not, my mom will be there to set up and get everything ready for me. Now I just need to figure out what we will DO at the bridal shower.

Also, as stated in the previous post, I'm starting a wedding company. It was going to be me and my friend Amanda, but we figured out we want different things. She wants it as a hobby and I actually want a full on business. So we parted ways and decided to just stick as friends and not business partners. Instead I have my friend Niccole, who does cakes. Her cousin might be helping us with floral or we will be referring them to Amanda still. That is set to launch January 1st. We are very excited and the first wedding we do will be EXTREMELY cheap. So if you know of anyone looking for wedding planners (that need photography, cakes, floral and decorations) send them my way. :) I will post soon what the discount will be. We have been discussing doing the first wedding for just the cost of materials, and the photography fee. I'll let you know...

Jarren has slowly started adding new words and forming small sentences. He completely says "uh-oh" while forming his lips into a perfect "o" shape while saying oh. It's very cute. He also is big on saying "Bayyyybeee" or dropping his jaw and saying "ha" for hot. He's done very well with us having a fireplace and has only gone near touching it twice then says "HA!" knowing it's hot. My mom claims he has said "gramma" which I still haven't heard but I'll believe her. (love you mom) and Jake said Jarren walked over to him while he was watching tv today and put his hand on his shoulder and said "hi dadda" then plopped down on his lap.

Anyway, I will be done with updates for now. I just wanted to let you know I'm not dead, I'm still here. We are doing well and can't wait for Christmas. I'm counting down the days til summer when there is no more snow.

If I don't update before Christmas, we love you all and hope you have a very Merry Christmas.

Wedding Business

My friend Amanda and I are starting up a wedding business. I will do photography, she will do flowers and possibly cakes...if we learn how to do them. We need to find someone who can do catering. If anyone out there knows who to cook really good and fairly fast, let me know. We may just want to hire you :)

And if anyone out there knows how to do wedding cakes let me know also. That may take some stress off our hands during weddings, to not have Amanda doing both.

Happy Thanksgiving

This is the first year I've not had Thanksgiving with my family. It was ok though, we had it with Jake's. It was a lot of fun and I got to learn all of their traditions, which were a lot different from ours. They make klassuls (sp?) and blaukraut (sp?) which are both dishes from Germany since Jake's Grandma came from Germany it's just been passed down the family. It was fun.

I made:
A Turkey
pumpkin pie
peacan pie
pumpkin bars
yams
and garlic parmesan rolls

The rolls were the best thing I've ever tasted...EVER! My friend Kacy from work gave me the recipe just on Monday and I decided to make them for Dinner tonight. They were a big hit and sooooo yummy. The recipe is here.

Anyway it was a great day with Family, food and games.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Brittney's Wedding Date

It's officially official. Brittney is getting married January 9th! I did their engagement pictures today, I think they turned out pretty good, and they liked them so I'm happy!

Sharilee Anne Warner

My friends mom passed away this last tuesday. I'm going to her funeral tomorrow. I'm nervous to go because I'm not ready to say goodbye. I loved her so much. We all knew it was coming because she's had cancer but I still wasn't expecting it. I've known her family for so long, they've always been family to us.

Shari, I'm going to miss you so much. I love you.

Here is her obituary. It couldn't have been said better, she was a wonderful person.

I've been told I need to update

Wow. I've been very busy, I haven't had time to do much lately. Besides taking care of Jarren and working, I've been sleeping. I somehow picked up a cold that doesn't feel like a typical cold. My throat is killing me and my voice is gone but that's pretty much it.

Jarren has started saying some new words. He says "hot" "hey" and "baby", baby is his favorite. He says it like this bayyyyybeeee. It's really funny.

Work has been fun, I love my job. If I have to be away from Jarren it better be for something I love right? I'm happy I didn't go back to a corporate office. This is so much better, my day goes by so much faster. They are hiring right now, so if anyone wants to come work there it's awesome!

What a work out!

My legs are burning...my arms are burning...

I didn't realize you basically did lunges all day long for work at kiddie kandids. Then moving yours arms up and down, lifting things up and down. I love it! It's like going to the gym at work.

Proposition 8

Today in RS we had a great lesson. We weren't going to go to church cause we over slept, into sacrament meeting but I got us up and we made it in time for Sunday School.

This whole Proposition 8 thing has had me going back and forth for a while. I didn't like HOW involved the church was getting in it. It seemed like they were getting very pushy with it in California with church members. I believed the as a church we aren't supposed to get very political. We can be as individuals but I just didn't think the first presidency should be telling the members what we should do. (free agency and blah blah blah)....ANYWAY

In RS this topic got brought up, and I'm so happy it did. It's changed my entire perspective on it. Just from one sentence. When we were talking about it a lady raised her hand and said "God speaks through the prophet, if Jesus were the one going from door to door, or even just asking you to vote for it, would you say no?" That hit me really hard. I never thought about it like that and I don't know why I haven't. I've been very stupid about it all. Also another woman stated "We can love the people who struggle with same sex attraction, we just don't need to love what they do." I love all the smart ladies in my ward.

So now, I'm for proposition 8 100%. Though, I'm not going to voice my opinion all day everyday, I just don't find it necessary, I will support it.

**Edit for Kirk**
I know I do not live in California, this does not mean I cannot SUPPORT proposition 8. And, it's more like I'm supporting the church's stand on it. You can support the church no matter where you live. I'm sorry you like to keep state's separate, especially since Utah is soooo terrible. But I still stand the same. I hope everyone, everywhere in the United States takes a stand on it, one way or the other.

Kiddie Kandids...

Here I come! I got the job. I go and fill out some paper work on Friday and then I start training next week Tuesday through Thursday. I just forgot to ask how much I get paid. (At least it's something I LOVE doing, so pay doesn't matter right? haha)

I also need to find a babysitter, any takers? We will pay...

Interview..

So I have an interview tomorrow...at Kiddie Kandids! I'm so excited. I would love to work for a photography studio and do my photography on the side. It would be awesome...wish me luck!

The biggest looser

So I'm joining a competition. go here http://healthy--girls.blogspot.com/

if you are wanting to loose weight and are competitive in the least you should do it also. There is a cash prize!

Jao Photography Giveaway!

I found an awesome blog I have been following, tipjunkie, she has decided to help me out with my business. I'm going to be doing a giveaway and I'm featured on her website.

This giveaway is for Utah and Salt Lake County Residents only. If you would like to travel to one of those counties to have your pictures done, I'm more than willing to let you qualify! :)

This is the info:
TipJunkie is helping me with this giveaway. I'm so excited to be able to share my work with others. You can enter to win on her website, all you have to do is leave a comment on her blog saying which of my layouts is your favorite.

This is the giveaway:
The winner will receive: 1 free family ($55+ value), baby ($30 value), children ($45 Value) or couple ($45 Value) photo shoot.Plus 3 free Christmas Card Layouts or if you would prefer baby announcements instead you can have 3 free Baby Announcements of your choice. You could also mix and match Christmas Cards and Baby Announcements.

How to enter to win:
pick out your favorite Christmas card layout and leave a comment on TipJunkie with your favorite layout. Contest winners will be drawn October 16th by a random number generator!Please only enter once and you must have a blog to enter. (If your blog is private, please include your e-mail address with your comment.) Tip Junkie is for female bloggers, sorry men.



The original announcement of the giveaway is on my photography blog. You can find the first three announcements here and the rest of them here.

Leg warmers!

The happy moments

I'm so proud of Jake. He started this lawn care business with a little help from my family and made it something that could give us income. From the end of May until now he has had 13 clients! With hardly any advertising that is a good job!!

Now that lawn care season is approaching us quickly he decided to jump into WFG with my dad. This was completely his decision! I told him if he didn't want to he didn't need to. But he also knew we needed the money, so I'm sure that helped push him quite a bit! Well, in WFG you have to get several licenses. First there is your life license, then your mortgage license and then your securities licenses. YESTERDAY, Jake passed his life license test!! I am SOOOO Proud of him! It isn't the easiest test, the testing center makes it tricky. I took it twice and failed both times, someone on my dad's team took it 11 times and then passed it! You have to have some real determination to pass this test. There are some people that pass it on their first try, more power to them! Anyway, Jake passed! I'm so proud of him. He's so determined to help our family financially and I'm so happy with him.

Anyway, that's my public spill on how good Jake is doing and how much I LOVE him!

4 more days

And then I can eat normal food...basically.

By sunday hopefully I will have my before photos from the doctor and you can see what HCG Shots do.

Journaling updates

Over the last few weeks we have been working on many projects, so if you don't like long posts or you don't like a lot of pictures, don't keep reading - this will be both.

Remember my post with this LOVELY wallpaper? Well soon (hopefully) it will no longer be there. I've gotten about a full wall of it off, that took me about 4 hours. I started last Saturday and haven't had time to continue since then...so my goal is to have it completely off and painted before Christmas. I will keep you up to date and take several during and after pictures.

Next on the list of my projects --- the pantry! I found this post on tipjunkie's blog. I was inspired...or really tired of having a non-organized pantry.

Before:

I went to the dollar store and walmart in search of the cheapest containers I could find. Now it is organized :) Labels and all.

After:

Today while Jarren was running around upstairs instead of in his "cage" in the living room, he discovered what he could do when you pull down the dishwasher door. I went to hurry and get my camera to take a picture and when I came back he had this face....he wasn't sure if he was being cute or if he was in trouble.

Yesterday, I found out from Jake that because of how stressed out I have felt this last week, he and rob were going to take Jarren all day and he bought me a massage at a salon in American Fork, it's called seven salon & spa. I had a swedish massage for an hour, it was heaven.

Anyway, while I was sleeping in this morning and Rob had Jarren, they stole my camera and had some fun. The next two pictures are from that.

Isn't he getting SO big!?

The last couple of weeks we have been trying to work on our front yard, with some help from Rob and my parents we are coming along...slowly. I know we are going to have to get it done before it gets cold, but since it's our only day to really get anything done together it's hard to focus on one project...especially since it is now BYU football season, Jake has to see some part of the game, if not the whole thing.

Anyway, there were TONS of weeds in the front island area and the side of our yard next to the highway was like 10 bush/trees combined into one big one. So we went to work on it.

Here is my man piling branches into the trailer that Rob and my dad cut down.

Here is Rob...don't mess with him and his saw.

This is the side tree/bush thing.

And another angle:

This is the island that my mom and I worked on, you should have seen my mom jump backward 5 ft in one jump when she found wilbur, the snake. I won't even mention how many pregnant wolf spiders we found in there that creeped me out. Ok maybe I will...where my mom is standing there was like a whole village of them.

This picture is the some-what after picture of the side. It looks even better now, these pictures are from about 3 weeks ago.

This is the island some-what. It is now missing half that dirt, we moved it over to the tree/bush area.

And last but not least on my journaling updates: There was a big case lot sale and Maceys, Kohlers, Albertsons and Smiths this weekend. So we went through all the ads to find the cheapest things at each place and went to hit all the sales. We bought stuff from each place since each place had better deals than the others. It took us like 3 hours but we had a lot of good savings. Now my dungeon closet actually looks like a cold storage! Some what... and what cold storage could go without a million boxes of XanGo? Not ours ha.

That is the end of our updates..for now.

Except...again, I will advertise for myself. If you know anyone who needs photography done please send them here or here. Thanks!

Happy Harvest

So I randomly bought a "Good Housekeeping" Magazine off the rack the other day since I've been feeling really crafty lately. I found this article in there. I thought it would be fun to try the pumpkins in a bowl.

I headed to walmart, my one stop cheap place. I bought a decorative bowl, some pumpkins, purple, green and black ribbon, and some "maple leaf" garland to put around the bowl.

Next I hot glued the ribbon around the pumpkins and put them in the bowl. The article actually says to use double sided tape but I like my hot glue gun. It's a really cute center piece on the table, I think I might go buy some more pumpkins to add to it though, so it's more of a "heap" like the article says.

I think I just might buy a good housekeeping magazine more often!

Sneak Peek

My Cousin who got married in May let me practice taking bridals with her. I am pleased with how they turned out. We did some in-studio and some on-location. Jake was a good sport and tagged along to help with the reflector when needed. I love him :)

Anyway if you are interested in seeing how some of them turned out. Click here.

I'm in love..

..with the Dollar store in American Fork. I believe it's called Dollar Tree? It's amazing. I've found many dollar stores that aren't even worth going into, but this one has everything you would want from a dollar store.

I just though I would announce my new love to the world.

My sugar playing in the sugar

We have created a studio in the front room of our house. This way I will have somewhere to do photography during the winter, I will still do "on location" but with the cloudy utah sky during winter time it will be more difficult. I set up one of my backdrops, bought some gumdrops and a candy jar and let Jarren go at it while I took pictures. He can be such a ham for the camera. Click HERE for more pics.

Studio

It's official...I have an in-home studio. WOOT!

A few new things..

Besides my camera, I should probably post a few more updates.

First off, a Photography note, if you have any family, couple, baby or children photography done by me starting now until December 1st, you will receive 3 free Christmas Card layouts of your choice. So Schedule an appointment now. Either, leave comments, email me (jao.photography08@gmail.com) or call me, for those of you that know my number.

A Jarren note. I think that I'm never going to get my child out of my bed. EVER...well maybe when he turns 19 we will have to ween him from our bed so he can go on a mission. He goes to bed in his own bed around 9:30 and by 2am he is awake again, unless we give him a bottle and lay him in bed with us, he is up for hours! So I give in, get his bottle and put him inbetween us. The problem with this is...well one, we don't get our own bed but mostly...I don't get a bed. Either he turns sideways inbetween me and Jake and kicks me out of the bed with his feet (He doesn't do that to Jake), or he just keeps rolling into me until I move, and takes over my side. See below, these are two of his favorite positions in my bed. Both on my side. If he isn't on exactly my side he is laying sideways taking up both of our sides so I end up laying sideways on the bed with my head half hanging off and my feet dangling off Jake's side. Jake leaves for work around 2 or 3 each morning, so he doesn't get included in this morning ritual. I swear it will never end. It started when we moved into the house, which is when he got his own room. I've tried everything, including trying to let him cry it out...he will just cry and cry and cry and cry..you get the point. I gave up. Any ideas are appreciated.

On a ME note, I got my hair done. I wanted to keep the length cause I'm trying to grow it out, but I needed a change. So I went darker, once again. I also added bangs and more layers that I can make messy and cute. It's fun, I'm just trying to get used to looking in the mirror and seeing hair in my face...I haven't had bangs for almost 3 years now. Even then, they weren't this thick.

On a Me and Jake note...Lawn care is slowly coming to an end. We loved the extra income while it lasted, but now we are going to jump back into WFG. Jake's determined to get a few promotions by December. I'm proud of him. (It helps that I bribed him with a 4 day trip to NY to see his buffalo bills play live and stay in buffalo for 2 days and then go to New York City for 2 days...ok ok some of it is for my enjoyment also, I want to take pictures there so bad!)

My new baby

I haven't had enough time to fully play around with her yet, but I got my new baby last night.

Yes...my new digital camera. It's beautiful. All of the reviews on this camera are nothing but wonderful. I'm so excited to not have to use my film camera anymore.

google it!

Google it!

Go to google images and type in your own answers for the topics below. Pick your favorite image on the first 3 pages of results and post.

1. First Name: Jessica 2. Middle Name: Ann

3. Last Name: Oliverson (My baby was on there!)
4. Bad Habit: chewing gum?

5. What am I doing right now: Cooking Dinner

6. Grandma's Name: Zena

7. A pet I have had: Sugar

45. My first job: Kountry Korner Grill

34. My age: 22

379. Where I grew up: Highland, UT

23. A past love: snowboarding

1. One of my best friends nicknames: Nickikit

It gave me pictures from my blog

2983472. One of my favorite places: Hawaii

tag others:

Kirk

Jenn

Jessica

And anyone else who wants to do it that reads my blog.

Spoons!

Today Jarren ate his breakfast with a spoon. I know this isn't that exciting, but it's taken a lot of work to get this stubborn boy to do it. I did have to help him scoop up the food because he couldn't get the angle right, but then he would stick it straight into his mouth. He did this for like 5 minutes and then got bored and went back to his hands ha.

About me

I figured I should blog something actually about me. Lately it's been Jarren and Photography. (Thanks to everyone who sent people my way for pictures, I've been booked! I'm going to have to start charging now though.) Anyway, this morning I was super excited. I put on my pair of pants that is a size smaller than what I usually wear, and they FIT! FINALLY! After a year and a half of not being able to wear them. I'm not going to lie, I've been trying them on periodically to see if I can squeeze into them and I would get them buckled up but if I bent over my butt would fall out. This time I didn't have to squeeze and I actually had to use a belt!

It feels good to loose weight. I've officially made it below my pre-pregnancy weight, but I still have what...like 40 more lbs to go. I'm determined. It. Will. Happen.

Best Ever

I did some pictures tonight of my friends baby. She was adorable. This is by far the cutest picture I've ever taken.

It looks like a back drop behind her, but really those were the clouds in the sky, it turned out pretty cool. The rest of her pictures are on my photo blog, there some really cool pictures from the photo shoot.

Happy birthday to me.

Yes...it's true, today is my birthday. 22 years! I know that's not old, but it seems like it was just yesterday I met Jake (14 years old) or even got my license.

I'm hoping today goes well. The last 7 years something bad has always happened on my birthday.
16 years old- my friends mom died on my birthday, very emotional, hard day

17 years old- Had a big fight with my then boyfriend, ended up slapping him cause he called me names that were uncalled for and then got a very irritating call from his dad that night saying no matter what his son did I shouldn't have slapped him and he should call the cops on me...it's alright I don't like that whole family anymore.

18 years old - I moved out the day before my 18th birthday so there was no party or happy birthday's or anything. College started like the next day or something...it was just a night of me sitting at my apt with people I didn't know ... not so fun.

19 years old - Had knee surgery 3 days before and was on heavy pain killers in bed all day

20 years old- Just got back from my honeymoon, had ulcers and had to have a colonoscopy...which meant I had to drink a gallon of laxitive that night. AND a close family friend in our ward died...(people like to die on my birthday)

21 years old - It wasn't necessarily BAD, but I had just had a baby and couldn't really do much since I had a c-section I was still healing.

So all my friends, family and loved ones out there...please do not die today ... or call the cops on me, and maybe I'll have a good one this year and break the cycle.

First Kiss

A Baby Story: First Kiss

Here's my Jarren

Jarren meet Jackie

They became fast friends

Jackie wanted to kiss

Jarren just wanted to hold hands.....

Jackie went for it anyway!!

He's not too sure if he is fond of that.

The end.

a few of my favs

I took a few pictures of Jarren and Jake after church on sunday, here are a couple of my favorites, the rest (and soon to be more) are on my photography blog. If anyone wants to see them.

subjects needed

Here is an email I sent out to friends and family...if I didn't include you on the email it is because I didn't have your email on that account. But the same applies to you.

Hi Everyone,
I figure if I'm going to start my business by word of mouth, family and friends are the best way to do that! After several years of photography I've decided to start my own little business,on the side, doing what I love!
I need to get some more experience in certain fields though, and in order to do that I'm offering to do some stuff for free. If any of you know anyone in Utah who need the following types of photographs taken or would just be willing to be my guinea pigs I would love for you to give them my contact information!
Here is what I need some practice in and I will do the sessions for free! Next to the type of photography is the number of different families I need.
3 Family Photo sessions (including couples only)
2 Weddings
2 Bridals
2 Engagements (I already have one lined up, but 2 others would still be nice)
2 Children (baby photos included)
2 Custom (Could be sports, senior pictures, bands etc.)

I also do baby announcements, and since I'm trying to get experience in the "baby category" I will do a 2 layouts for them for $10.

I don't do the printing...yet :) so what I do is put everything on a CD and then they can get the specific pictures they want developed wherever they want. If any of you want any of these photos done for you let me know as soon as possible because I would love to do them for free for you!

My website is www.jaophotography.blogspot.com I will constantly update with new photos on there. That way you can see my type of photography.

Anyway, my contact information for Jao Photography is:

(I had my phone number here but I'm not listing it on a website so email me if you want to talk on the phone and I will email it back to you)
jao.photography08@gmail.com

Let me know as soon as possible!
Love,
Jessica


I will be doing photography anyday in the evenings and on Saturdays. Thanks everyone!!

REALLY EXCITED!!

So I sent the pictures to my friend that I took of her baby and she showed them to her mom who owns a scrapbooking store. Her mom said that she LOVED my pictures and wants to promote my photography in her store. I need to pick two pictures that I like best for her to put out on display, please vote and tell me which numbers you like best!

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