Sake-Bombing and Photos!

It's kind of been awhile since I've posted last but I've been super busy! School has started and so far it's not bad! I only go on Tuesdays for now and the homework load is a little heavier than I initially thought but I only have that one class so I think I can handle it :)

I still haven't had a Dr. Pepper yet, that makes 2 weeks! I have slacked off a little this week by not being able to go to the gym but I'm still doing ok. My eating habits aren't necessarily healthier I'm just eating less and not eating fast food at all pretty much (one or two nights with family in the past 2 weeks is all). Brett and I have packed our lunch every day and have eaten dinner at home instead of fast food! So yay for us :)

Photography is still going strong...I have officially booked 3 weddings! HOLY COW! 1 in April, 1 in May, and 1 in July! The wedding in May I will only be at for 2-3 hours. She has a friend who has offered to do her photos for free but she would love to have me there for just a little bit. She told me I have a great "artistic eye" which is an awesome compliment, so I'm excited to be apart of her day and that she even thought of me! I've learned so much from my first wedding and I'm really excited to step up to the plate with more experience this time around! I also just finished Brooks' newborn photos (which I'll let Kelly post) but doing those taught me a little lesson as well. Babies like the warmth. So my next photography investment will be in a space heater! Last weekend Brett's cousins came in town and I did their family photos and their oldest daughters senior photos. She was such a trooper, it was freezing outside and the ground was still covered in snow but she did an awesome job!

This weekend we we went out for the KUStores long overdue "Christmas Party." We decided to go sake bombing and out to a bar afterward....bad idea. I'm not a drinker so I

was not looking forward to trying my first sake bomb. They kept telling me it's just like chugging a beer, well I don't drink beer...let alone chug it. Yet somehow within 45 mins I had downed 6 sake bombs. I felt great the rest of the night until we headed home. Once I sat on the couch and stopped moving around the rest of the room started spinning and I had to make a mad dash to the bathroom. After throwing up my dinner and the 6 sake bombs I went straight to bed. A nice reminder as to why I don't drink like that anymore!

I think that is about it for now, I'll post more of the Mansfields' family photos as soon as I get some edited but for now here are 2 of Gable's unedited ones!

Here are some from Sake Bombing (before my date with toilet)!

P.S. I put a new song on my playlist, the one your hearing right now. It's John Mayer doing a cover of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin" and it is amazing...put it on your iPod!

Random photos

Just a few random photos from the past week...I also put up some winter photos around Lawrence/campus on the photo blog so don't forget to check those out...

Kaden wanting his picture taken while I was taking his brothers

At Kristen's wedding...

And finally the new furniture...still need to get a side table, some pillows and a tv stand.

Kaden wearing uncle Brett's boxing gloves, he kept saying, "put 'em up put 'em up!"

More Kaden Videos & New Years!

First I want to say...that I have had my Apple desktop set up now for a little over 2 weeks and I LOVE IT! I was kind of nervous I wouldn't like it because I was so use to Windows but now I don't know how I lived with out it! It's 10 times faster, so many convenient applications I use everyday, really easy to work, I just love it! We also got our furniture!!! It looks soooo good! I have just a few more things to get up and than I promise I will post pictures!

We spent our New Years with Brett, Kristy, Shannon, and DJ. We went to RA Sushi and it was AMAZING (if you like sushi :))! I still couldn't get Brett to try anything but my salmon roll and Krisy's Las Vegas roll were super yummy! I really wish Brett would just try it, I've become pretty adventurous when it comes to trying new foods and I've discovered a lot more things! And sushi is just one of those things that you have to try before you say "eww gross." So after dinner we went back to Brett and Kristy's, changed into sweats and had a relaxing night of Mario World on the Wii and some drinking games! They also got a new pug puppy as well so now they have two...Berkley and Bryant!

This morning I headed over to Kelly's for Brooks's newborn photos. Here is one little preview...

Brett and I got Kaden some basketball shorts to go with his jersey so I brought those over and he was super excited and had to change right away! After that he kept asking Kelly if she would "introduce" him...like they do the Jayhawks at the beginning of the game! It was so cute...he would wait at the top of the stairs while Kelly introduced him and as soon as she said his name he would come around the corner, big smile, jumping up and down with his hands in the air making the "#1" sign! The video below is from later that night at Brett's moms (don't forget to turn the radio off at the bottom).

Then of course he wanted to introduce everyone else! But everyone had his last name... Ballard....Stephanie Ballard...Amber Ballard...granny Ballard :)

When we went to Destin in the summer, I brought some movies for the kids to watch and The Wizard of Oz was one of them and now Kaden loves it! Which makes me happy because Brett hates it and Stephanie doesn't like it either, but it is one of my all time favorites! So here is his impression of a few of the characters!

Hope everyone had a great New Years and I'll post soon with pictures of the furniture :)

Christmas 09

We had another great Christmas this year!  It came and went really fast!  I had no time to shop before Christmas so I had to do it all on xmas eve day which was really a pain...shopping, snowing, extreme wind, a dessert to make, shower, and church by 5:30!  But I made it!  We spent xmas eve with Brett family, went to church and than headed to the house for dinner and gifts.  

Kaden playing granny's piano

Basketball shorts we got him

Opening his cowboy boots from us!

Now he is just like his dad and uncle Brett!

If you don't already know Debbie lost her mom in November and her dad 2 years ago (I think 2 years ago...) so for her gift I (secretly) edited and retouched what I think is maybe an engagement photo, printed an 8 x 10 and framed it.  When she got a peek of what it was she was really touched and shed quite a few tears...understandably! 

That's about it for xmas eve! Oh I almost forgot...we had blizzard conditions that night as well!  It was freezing...EXTREMELY windy...and there was lots of snow!  Normally we go to midnight mass with my family but it was just too bad out so it was cancelled.  So the next morning we went to Brett and Kelly's house to watch Kaden open his gifts, which was great and entertaining!  Then we went to my parents house (those pictures are on my parents camera, I'll post later) for presents and breakfast!  Again we had a great time and got lots of great stuff!  We then went back to Brett and Kelly's for their EARLY dinner and then all took naps!  THEN we went BACK to my parents house for their LATE dinner! Back and fourth and eat and eat!  Dinner was great and then me, Brett, my mom and dad, Danielle, and Taylor all played a very competitive game of SPOONS and some card games after that.  So we had a great xmas eve and day and we are really blessed to have such amazing family and to be able to BE with that family during the holidays.  

Colby!  He is doing pretty well since his accident...can't see or hear very well but he is still my little man :)

The day after xmas Brett and I headed to Nebraska Furniture Mart to get new furniture!! YAY!!  It had continued to snow throughout the night so we woke up to this on our front patio!  Anyway I'm so excited for our couch and ottoman to get here so I can finally get the rest of the living room stuff out of boxes! And I'm just excited for new furniture!  I'll be sure to post pictures once it's all here and put together...same with the guest room (we just need to get a bed in there and hang stuff) and the rest of the house!

We went to the mall after NFM and did some exchanging/shopping and finally headed home around 5.  It took us an hour to get home because of all the snow.  Maisy loves the snow so we took her out to play, she really just goes crazy...pounces through it like a little deer...chases after snowballs and plows her face in the snow!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Video of Kaden...

Brett and I babysat Kaden and Brooks today and after playing some basketball with uncle Brett Kaden wanted to dance to his little snow globe. Be sure to turn up your volume and turn off the radio at the bottom of the blog. AND wait till the very end of the video...ok watch...

Don't worry he only cried for about 2 seconds, I didn't think it was that funny at the time but after watching this video I laughed so hard! Sorry Kaden! But now it's funny now!

Here are a few more pictures from my regular camera!

That's all for now!

new nephew!

Well we have nephew #2! Brooks Mason was a little early (4 weeks) but he is healthly and doing great! He weighed in at 5 pounds 11 ounces and looks exactly like Kaden when he was born! Can't wait to take on some babysitting duties! Congrats to Brett and Kelly!

In other exciting news...I BOOKED 2 MORE WEDDINGS!!! Holy moly! That is really really exciting for me and I'm so thankful for these opportunities. Moving back to Lawrence has been the best thing Brett and I could have done for ourselves so far...it's given me SO many more photography clients and Andrea Hudy has been so helpful to Brett and given him so many more opportunities. He is designing a workout room for Ben Gordon! Ladies if you don't know who that is ask your boyfriend/hubby....I had to :) But anyway it's something that would look REALLY good on his resume, and working for Hudy in general is a great resume booster! So things have been going good.

Our town home is almost unpacked..ugh. We are getting new furniture for the living room (!) after Christmas so thing haven't been hung up on the walls yet. The bedroom is all unpacked, the guest room is a mess...we need to get a bed in there and I'm about to start refinishing a desk so I can finally set up my Apple but other than that we are pretty much unpacked.

I think that's about it for now, I don't have pictures from my camera upload yet so I just have Brett's iPhone pictures...enjoy!

Where to start...

Well it's been almost a month since I last posted and a lot has happened! Let me start way back when we moved from Eudora....here goes...

We had all of our boxes packed and were planning on staying at my parents house for the week until our new town home was ready and Maisy was going to go stay with Steph and her best bud Mox. Well the last night we were in Eudora I was playing fetch with Maisy outside (at night) and I threw the ball and she ran to get it and I heard a really loud yelp and she came back holding her left paw up. Nothing was stuck in her paw and she would let me feel her leg and she didn't seem to be in any pain when I did but when I felt her "pinkie toe" she would pull away fast. So over the next 30 mins or so it started to swell up pretty big and she was walking around on 3 legs only. Called the vet and he thought she probably broke her toe. It was pretty swollen and stuck out pretty far so with a broken toe there was no way we could take her to be with Mox, it would just be too hard to keep them separated and we didn't want to her to make it worse by playing with Mox so she had to come to my parents with us. So we all lived at my parents house for a few days!

Than Wednesday came and we were able to move in! Brett was working that day so I pretty much moved everything in myself...all the boxes...the dining room table...everything besides the mattress. My mom came and helped me get the kitchen completely unpacked, Steph helped me move the last bit of stuff, and Kelly brought us dinner! It was a long day but we got it all done. Thanks so much for you help everyone! Than the weekend came and Brett went to Texas and my parents and Taylor went to Boston...our place was still a disaster, except the kitchen and bathroom, so I stayed at my parents while everyone was gone. Our living room is a mess of boxes, we don't have any furniture in there yet so I can't unpack any decorations because I don't know where they will go, so that is a mess...I got rid of my dresser when we moved back from Texas so now I have no place to put my clothes so they are still in boxes in our room. We just got our washer and dryer moved in a few days ago so I hadn't been able to do laundry, not that it matters because I don't have a dresser to put them in! We still have no TV or internet.

That Sunday I got a call from Stephanie telling me that Brett's granny (Debbie's mother) was in the hospital and not doing well. A few hours later I got another phone call saying she had passed. Brett was at the Cowboys game during this time so once Debbie finally got a hold of him and told him, he decided to fly home that night. Monday we left for Phillipsburg, got in late afternoon and saw all the family. We were able to see her and say our goodbyes before she was cremated. The funeral was Tuesday, they had a beautiful service at the church and a small service at the grave site just for family. After some dinner back at the house we headed home.

Wednesday there was a men's game so we had to work, than I went home and made 2 pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving day with my family, Taylor was home and Danielle brought one of her teammates home! Her name is Sabine, she is a very sweet girl, she is from Russia so she has a very heavy accent which makes everything she says pretty funny :) After a great dinner we went to Brett's grandparents to see everyone, Taylor and Josh were in town with there new baby girl Raegan! She was such a good baby and was super cute! So we had a great Thanksgiving overall!

Friday morning...by morning I mean 2:30am...Brett and I headed to Best Buy to wait in line for a new TV. Pretty sure that will be the last time I do that but we got a new TV so now we are just waiting for Sunflower to come set us up. Which is why I haven't posted in forever because we have no internet. Friday at work started the "getting prepared for inventory/big bosses in town" weekend. Our bosses were coming in on Monday for the annual inventory. Friday we had a men's game so the real work started on Saturday. We stayed at work until midnight getting as far as we could, we came back Sunday and stayed until around 8. Than this week our bosses were here and so on and so on. It has just been one thing after the other and we have had no time to officially be unpacked and actually moved in. Hopefully it will happen soon after this weekend when things start to slow down...but we are just exhausted.

One of the more exciting things I did this week was going to see WICKED!!!!!! I can't tell you how AMAZING it was...I'm officially obsessed with it! We had great seats, 8 rows back from the stage, the sets were awesome, the dancing was great, and the singing was spectacular! The wicked witch of west was the original actress from the New York broadway play so she was unbelievable, her voice was so powerful and ugh I just love it. Glinda the good witch was so funny and she had an amazing voice as well, they could both belt it out! I would LOVE to see it again and again and again. It was awesome...it's all I talk about...ask Brett :)

Soooo that is all that has happened over the past couple of weeks...I don't think I forgot anything! Once we "officially" get unpacked and all settled in I will post pictures but this is it for now!

Why we don't buy her stuffed toys...this was a new toy 10 mins before this picture.

Maisy's broken toe...

Look what I found in my parents closet...my old old old Starter jacket! Just in time for the Nebraska/Texas Big 12 game!! :)

I have no pictures from Wicked because they don't allow flash photography during the show :(