Sleep Talking

My sister Jennifer just posted on her blog about my sleep talking. It's embarrassing to me but apparently hilarious (and annoying) to other people. To hear my latest sleep conversation click HERE and HERE. Especially click on the second one if you want to hear a Corndog compared to a Testimony.

Our 1st Anniversary

I can't believe we've been married a year. We went to the Cheesecake Factory (yummmm). That was the first week I had started feeling the baby kick, so Scott sat next to me where he could quick put his hand on my belly if I mentioned kicking.

Then we drove up to the Gateway, and Scott let me pick out a necklace at Brighton. Then I went to the bathroom and pretended that I didn't know he was buying it, and I acted surprised when he handed it to me all wrapped up in the car. He thinks he's sneaky:)

P.S. I've learned the direct approach is a good thing. A good example of the direct approach-AKA- a hint "You should buy me a necklace like he did in Marley and Me. A good time to do that would be for our anniversary because I'm pregnant and I would always remember that you gave it to me and it would be sentimental and I would love it always. There is a store called Brighton at the Gateway. This necklace is really pretty. I'm going to go to the bathroom now."






I feel so grateful to this man who decided to cherish me and who works so hard for our little family. He's been such a gift to me. We've been through a lot together this year, and I look back to our wedding day and wonder how I even thought I knew him when I know him so much more now, appreciate him more now, and can't help but love him more now.

It's Thanksgiving. Scott, get back from El Salvador already - I miss you!

Virginia

We took a trip to Virginia to visit the little nephews in October. One day we went to Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, and took Jake because the other nephews were sleeping. He was hilarious. Most of his sentences begin with "but...." or "why can I not....."

Me: Jake, do you want to hold my hand and be my little buddy?
Jake: But, don't you already have a little buddy in your belly? (pronounced "belluh")

Me: "This is the where Thomas Jefferson used to live. He died 200 years ago."
Jake: "But when's he gonna come back alive?" (He's covered the basics of resurrection.)

Then we told Jake he had to be very very quiet during the tour of Monticello. To Jake that meant a constant stream of whispered questions. Questions like:

" But why did he die in that bed? But who carried him out? But did they have lots of guys come carry him out? But where is he buried? But why did Grandma Robin just ask a question in a loud voice? She talked really loud. But why can I not see Thomas Jefferson? "

Oh my gosh I love that kid.



He's a good sharer.

We went to Colonial Williamsburg one day. Tyler loves Andrew. It's almost funny how much he loves Andrew and will go to Andrew when he doesn't really go to anyone but his mom. He kept kissing Andrew /sucking his face. Hilarious.

The stocks at Williamsburg.

Katie and Jake at Darden.

My brother Ben is in the MBA program at Darden. A beautiful campus.
Sweet Tyler with his adored Andrew

My Bir'day/It's a Boy.

Scott is a cute husband. The kind who has pink gerber daisies delivered to work for no reason and for reasons like it's your birthday, and who picks you up from work and drives you to the Sweet Tooth Fairy Bakery and lets you pick out a coconut cupcake and then happens to have candles and a lighter in his pocket, and drives you to the park you always went to while you were dating and sits under the shady tree with you and tells you you are cute while your big ol' pregnant belly is hanging out and you are stuffing a coconut cupcake in your mouth.

Also, while we were at the park the nephews called from Virginia to sing happy birthday. I told them we had 2 cupcakes at the park and were blowing out the candles. Jake asked why we only had 2 cupcakes? Scott said because we only had 2 people in our family. Jake was concerned because there were 3 people in our family (he counts the baby in the belly) and I told him the baby could taste some of mine.

Jake: "But does the baby like it?"
Me: "Yes, the baby loves cupcakes"
Jake: " But how do you know, did the baby tell you?"



Scott's dad has a birthday just a few days from mine, so we shared a birthday cake:)


I told Scott all I wanted for my birthday was to go to the Ultrasound in the Mall place. Just to make sure it was a girl, even though I already knew it was. I was 15 weeks pregnant. Scott thought it was kind of dumb to pay $60 to find out something we already knew, but since I wanted it for my birthday....

And that, my friends, is the shocked look on my face when I found out it was a boy! Oh, I am so excited for my sweet little boy to get here. He might have a lot of pink clothes and blankets, but I am so excited.

California

The bad thing about not posting for a long time is that it is more intimidating to finally post because there is so much to cover! Kind of the same excuse I use about writing in my journal! It's so much easier if you do it more often.

This summer I got to go to California on a trip with my family. Scott had to stay behind and work, which was sad. But I got to see Carmel and the Redwoods for my first time and I loved it! We went to the aquarium and the oldest seaside fair and it was fun. I was 11 weeks pregnant and fighting the nausea - not sure how much the deep fried twinkies helped:) We met up with my mom's brothers who live in Northern California, went to the Kind Tut museum - which by the way, did NOT include king Tut, and then finished the trip with In'N Out. Yummmm.


Carmel

I need more beaches in my life.

One of the beautiful beach "cottages" at Carmel.

A banana slug at the Redwoods. Bet you can guess how it got it's name.

The fam at the Redwoods.

Jen and my Dad at Carmel

more of beautiful Carmel.

We just had to give it a try

Yum?

My mom and I at the Aquarium

more Aquarium

A DELICIOUS dinner at Basil Restaurant in Carmel. We went to see Julie and Julia after this and it was very fitting. Not a deep fried twinkie in sight.



On the drive home I decided we needed to have a taste test of Bubbilicious, Bubble Yum, and Hubba Bubba to see who had the best grape gum. That killed 15 minutes of the drive. I can't remember which one won, but I did call Scott Hubba Bubba for the next few days. He appreciated it.


The cousins jumping at the beach

The Aunt the Uncle, the Mom and the Dad jumping at the beach :)

Some News....

This is going to be a mother-post because of how long it's been since I bothered to blog. Here's what we've been up to:

We moved. Just across town. It involved lots and lots of cleaning. It involved lots and lots of help from our sweet families. I feel so grateful for how willing they were to pitch in and help us.


Here's Andrew, Jennifer, and my Mom, coming to scrub out our disgustingly dirty new place before we moved in. I was so frazzled by day 4 of cleaning our disgustingly dirty old place we were moving out of, that I didn't get a picture of Scott's brother Craig and Mom Suzanne, who came to help us clean for hours upon hours. And also I didn't get any pictures of all the brothers and dads and cousins who helped us load and unload the moving truck because I was slightly distracted with Scott's trip to the ER just as everyone showed up. Yes, he sliced his hand/wrist with a razor blade while cutting packing tape. Yes, he got 7 stitches. Yes, it was his 2nd trip to the ER that week because he was also in a car accident. He's okay. He just has a Mazda symbol branded into his arm.


We painted a desk. We bought the desk for $15 of Craigslist. It was ugly, but it came with this other desk that was a beautiful antique that I fell in love with. I saw this desk at Thanksgiving Point




And thought it might be cool to try to replicate it on our ugly desk. So 4 cans of the wrong-color paint, and a couple months later, here are some before/between/ and after shots:
BEFORE:


Remember when I said ugly desk? I meant every word of it.

BETWEEN:



Blegh and Blegh. Back to the paint store...again. And again.

AFTER:




In our new house. We still need to put the rest of the handles on. I love it.


Voluumm/ my brother Andrew had another break dance competition.

My mom came to this dark noisy club in her Ann Taylor cardigan and sparkly sandals.






I love her.
Speaking of which, pretty sure my top that night was Ann Taylor too.




Scott and I celebrated our second 4th of July together:

Last year we hadn't even been on our first date but sat next to each other and talked all during the fireworks until 2 in the morning. This year we went back to the exact same place. I also wore Scott's sweatshirt - the same one he had brought for me last year in case I got cold. We're nerdy like that.

We are also nerdy because we've been commemorating things like the anniversary of our second date. We went to Sundance and rode the ski lift like we did last year:

Sundance is so beautiful.

We also browsed through the gift shops at Sundance. All of a sudden things like brightly colored blocks are really interesting because....

We're expecting. Another way of saying I'm pregnant. We've come a long way in a year. I feel so grateful every day for the chance to be married and be starting a family. I tear up about it a lot. I feel so much love. And gratitude.

I also feel a lot of nausea. Here's Jakey with his doctor kit yesterday. At my parent's house. He put bandaids and a cast on my arm, and then stuck his stethescope on my growing belly....


I love him so.

Went shopping for maternity clothes with my mom today. She sat down in the dressing room and handed me things to try on and hung them up when I was done, just like she did every summer when we'd go to buy school-clothes for the next grade, just like she did when I gained the freshman 15 and none of my clothes fit me, just like she did when we bought "grown-up clothes after I graduated from college, just like she did after I moved back from NY and I was so sickly skinny nothing fit me, just like she did when I was trying on outfits for dates, and wedding dresses, and now maternity clothes. Oh the giving goes on and on.

Can't Wait.

NEW WEBSITE!

Oh goodness, I haven't posted on this blog in forever. That's because I've been so busy over on my photography blog. And Guess what?!? I just got a new Photography WEBSITE! Please stop by and check it out: tarabphotography.com. I'm pretty excited about it:) And I promise to post here again soon.

David Archuleta Concert!

Kate and Jenny had their birthdays this last week, and to celebrate my dad found us 8th row tickets to the David Archuleta concert!

We decided to forego a yummy dinner to get there in time. We were so excited!

We got hyped up by taking pictures of us in front of the stage.

Then we were told that although the concert started at 7:30, he wasn't actually coming out until 9:30.

That curbed our enthusiasim a bit. But it was an excellent opportunity to clear old text messages from my phone.

Let's be honest, David is an awesome singer. And he had fun out there.

But not as much fun as my sisters did.
Happy Birthday, Kay and Jay-jay!
Best quote of the night (mom) : " I didn't realize David Archuletta's music was going to be so HARD ROCK. "

Matthew the Missionary

Yesterday my cousin Matthew entered the MTC. We took a few shots by the temple before he went in for the session. I sort of accidently went into the little meeting at the MTC. We got there early and watched about 25 church commercials, which, I am embarassed to say, make me a bit weepy despite their cheesiness. Then they showed the video about missionaries with all these fresh-faced young boys and I just felt proud and homesick for them at the same time. I love Matthew's humor, wit, and sweetness. He is going to make such a good missionary, and I felt so proud of him.

Cameron is Special

I just can't get enough of this boy! The little boys were visiting their grandma in California for a week and yesterday was a happy reunion. Cameron wore his joy school crown all day, and came to the grocery store with my mom and I. He pushed his little cart around and my mom let him put anything he wanted in his cart. He inspected the apples and got a rotisserie chicken. "Let's get one of those little turkeys for me!" And tried to sneak 7 packs of ding dongs.

My dad has been in the hospital all weekend with a weird heart thing. They still aren't sure what was wrong with him but have done enough tests to know he's not going to have a heart attack anytime soon. My poor dad looks so tired and feels so crummy.
Good thing he has these special boys to keep him company!

Want to Come?

I am so excited. I love love LOVE the end-of-the-year recital. This year's duet recital is featuring some pretty fierce ladies, some of whom I've taught for all 3 years I've been teaching at BYU. OH am I ever going to MISS YOU when you graduate!

(Thank you Beth Johnson in the photo above for being a good sport:) And a really good singer.)

Dear Emily,

Dear Emily,
Thank you for the beautiful flowers.



Thank you for being a welcoming loving sister-in-law and for the cheerful bucket of spring I found on my doorstep last Monday night. Thank you for being aware of others in the midst of your own life. It says so much about what kind of person you are. I love them, and I love you!

Tara

Jennif

I know, I know, I've been a terrible blogger this week. It's okay though, because we do have 3 Law School Apps DONE - which can probably give you a good clue as to where I've been all week.

I'm writing this as if anyone noticed I hadn't blogged in a week, but who am I kidding, I went on a blog-fast for 4months (exactly the time it took me to meet and marry scott) and everyone was just fine. I just have to say things like that every once in a while on the blog to make myself feel popular.

So here's a little tid-bit for ya
I photographed this pretty girl recently. If you want to see more pics of my pretty sister Jennifer (jen-jen, jenny, jblo,jennif, rejinef) you can click on my photo blog link on the right.

Let's talk about an embarassing but maybe-you've-done-this-too moment. Today I saw a PERFECT STRANGER at Target and before I could stop myself I called her by name and had a nice little conversation with her about all these details of her life and these things we had in common...because just the night before I had linked on to her blog from a friend's blog. Creepy of me, I know, but if you take that part out of it it was a lovely way to make a new friend:)

Let's also talk about this smoothie that I simply cannot stop drinking: It is brown and green and it's ingredients include spinach and kale and it is DELICIOUS! Don't believe me ask the dishes.



If you want to drink lots of green leafy vegetables and make your taste buds do backflips, here is your magic:
Blend 2 cups Spinach and 1 cup Kale with 1 cup OJ. Blend til a smooth pretty green color, and take the kale off that big stalky stem in the middle before putting it in the blender. Then add 1/2 banana, 1/2 c frozen bluberries, 1/2 frozen raspberries. Blend, then add ice, then enjoy. It tastes fruity and fresh and is low in sugar.

Let me see what else I took pictures of...
Oh yes, Cameron and Jake must have come over for another slumber party because I have a picture of this:

which is just about the cutest thing in the world. Scott loves to tell these boys bedtime stories almost as much as they like to hear them, and then they go home and tell their mom all about the details of Scott's life when he was a little boy. It is always amazing to me how many details they absorb.

This slumber party we decided it would be fun to get our jar of change and let the little boys get money out of the jar as we went around town to do things. I thought they would think it was fun to pay for things. Instead they got nervous whenever they were supposed to give their "moneys" away for things like ice-cream and dollar store toys. Cameron got really big brave eyes and handed the ice-cream guy a penny. As a result these two little stinkers had big pockets heavy with change by the time we tucked them in at night. Jake decided to put his "moneys" in his pillow for safe-keeping overnight. When he woke up the next morning they weren't there, and no matter how hard we looked we could NOT find those moneys.

Jake kept asking Cameron if he could have some of Cameron's moneys and Cameron kept flatly denying him. Jake would come to me and in the sweetest voice say "he's not givin' me moneys cuz he's MEAN" and I would tell him Cameron was a very nice boy and ask him again. After 3 go-arounds with the denying/he's mean thing I decided it was about time to pull out all the stops.

That's right, I told him about the little boy who got a bike and a new train for Christmas, and how he saw the other little boy who didn't get anything for Christmas. He decided to share and gave the unfortunate boy his new bike and train and he felt SO HAPPY. It makes us happy to share, even happier than when we have the things ourselves. It makes us happy to make other people happy.

Cameron sat and listened to that story and then got some "moneys" out of his pocket and handed them to Jake. Then he put a big grin on his face and came and sat on my lap. He remembered you were supposed to feel happy at the end of the story. I told him how proud I was of him and how happy I felt. Then he turned around and showed me his smile, threw another penny and jake, and showed me how his smile got bigger every time he tossed a penny at Jake.

Oh I'm going to miss those boys. I love those little stinkers.

Jake helped me make buttermilk pancakes with buttermilk syrup for breakfast:






cute little stinker.




Oh I have this picture on my camera, too. Which means that we made home-made spaghetti noodles last Sunday. It was kind of a disaster but it was sooo yummy.

Arizona and Valentines Day

Scott and I drove down to Arizona last Valentine's /President's Day weekend. We didn't decide to go until Friday at noon, and two hours later we were on our way. In the midst of our packing flurry, my romantic hubby decided it was a priority to surprise me with these:

because he didn't want me to "go without" on Valentines day while we were out of town. I hated having to leave those beautiful roses behind! What a nice husband. He's nice even in the middle of the night when my sleep talking wakes him up. He drives me to work so I can put my make up on in the car, drops treats off to me at work, listens to me analyze my day, tells me I'm pretty with my retainers in (I'm not), goes to the grocery store with me on Saturday nights and snuggles with me while we watch Mary Tyler Moore re-runs. I keep being surprised at how much I like this marriage thing.

Anyway, this roadtrip was fun. We hadn't been on a roadtrip since we had just started dating and went to Southern California with some friends...on the way back everyone ditched us and squished into the other car so we could be alone and we just talked and talked and talked. Scott even went 15 miles UNDER the speed limit on the way back home on that 1st roadtrip so we could have more time to talk.

I keep digressing. This was such a fun time to just sit in the car and eat sunflower seeds and see the snow melt outside our windows as we drove down to sunny AZ.

We stayed with my cousin Kelly and her family:

(to see more of their family pics visit my photography blog, link on the right)


Here's us with Kelly's kids Daimon and Ellie at one of the many many restaurants we went to while there. The best thing about AZ, besides the sun and getting to show Scott where I went to high school and seeing my dorky pictures on the choir wall with the "Rachel from friends" haircut which I thought was SO awesome, was the FOOD. We ate and ate and ate and when we were so full we didn't think we could stuff another bite in, we went to Grimaldi's and got a pizza. Yes, Grimaldi's has a franchise in ARIZONA!!! I HAD NO IDEA!!!!!!!!!!I've craved that pizza at least 3 times a week since I moved away from NY 3 years ago.

We also saw Confessions of a Shopaholic (loved it, loved the book) and helped Kelly pick out new perfume:


Here's Kelly smelling my Gum Package to clear her nasal passage between sniffs:



And here's my Valentine, loving every minute of this gum sniffing exhibition.



A couple days into our trip, my parents heard we were having so much fun that they decided to fly down. Good thing, too, because my mom found 2 awesome tables at Dillards for a quarter of the price Thanksgiving Point and Dear Lizzie are selling them for. We made quite a scene at Dillards packing them up, and Scott and I drove them back up to Utah, and now I have one sitting in my living room. Thanks, Mom:)


BTW here is my new yellow purse, happy president's day to me:) TJ MAXX is better in AZ, too.


Apparently AZ really misses my sister Katie because they named a store after her:

I'm jealous, KaBloom.

We also checked out a Phoenix School of Law before we headed home:


Miss you, sunny Arizona!

Mickey's Stupid Clubhouse

A couple weeks ago Cameron and Jake took my mom and I on a date to go see Mickey's Clubhouse at the Energy Solutions Arena. We piled into the car, buckled them in their carseats armed with snacks and pull-ups and almost 2 hours later, we STILL hadn't gotten there because of a massive wreck on the freeway. Poor little boys.

And not that I have anything against Disney, because I don't, but the show was kinda dumb. Although who am I to complain because more than a few unsuspecting Japanese kids had to sit through our dumb show at Tokyo Disneyland when they could have been on the rides.

All in all I'm glad I got to go on a double date -Me and Cameron, Mom and Jake...I love spending time with these little boys and my mom.

Butler Family Pics

A few Sundays ago, before Scott's brother Mitch left on his mission, we took some Butler Family Pictures. My sister Katie was nice enough to come and hold the camera so I could be in some of them. I was looking through the pictures and this made me laugh out loud - Katie sat in for me while I adjusted the settings on my camera....



And here's the "rill dill"

It's Over.

It's Really Over. Months and months of studying this:

And in approximately 2 hours and 4 minutes I will be getting a call from Scott as he walks out of the test. Right now I'm trying not to think about it because I am so nervous for him, that's why I'm blogging about it:)

Yesterday we spent the day at Mike and Andrea's Wedding and the ensuing celebrations. Mike was cracking me up all day:

Make Me Happy!

The family reunion this summer was at the beach. The first day we took Jakey down to show him the waves and he ran along the shore shouting "MAKE ME HAPPY!!!" It doesn't take much for that kid. He is so vivacious and grateful and throws himself excitedly into every new thing.

I am really going to miss these little boys. Ben got accepted to Business Schools in Austin and Virginia, and wait-listed at Wharton, and who know where Scott and I will be in the Fall, so anyway the dice turns I'm not going to be seeing much of "the littles" come September. I don' think it actually sunk in until last week that they would be leaving and I stayed up late crying about it. I couldn't help it! These little boys have been such a bright spot in my life these past few years. They are so simple and wise and sweet and happy and they just take your mind off hard things. I will forever remember Cameron taking me on a "date" one very dark day. What am I going to do without these little Stinkers?

I went to my parents house last weekend and walked into this:



I mean what am I going to do without being able to walk in and see little Cam Cam playing "monster eye" with Grandma Robin? Especially when he has that cowlick sticking straight up in the back.

And it will be so weird on birthdays to only light the candles once instead of 20 times to let the boys sing and blow over and over again cuz its so fun.

Oh well.

Not that it's any substitute, but at least I'll have these

and these


to MAKE ME HAPPY.
(Thanks, honey)

And LOVE YOU, LITTLE BOYS.

Honeymoon

Scott is finishing up (yet another) practice LSAT. I put some rice on the stove to go with dinner and decided I would quick do a blogpost while it cooked. So now I am sitting in a house that smells like smoke since I burned said rice while doing said blogpost. Not sure if I was trying to burn us out or freeze us out of home - now all the doors are open and it's COOLD.

Our camera died on our honeymoon. I forgot that we'd taken a few before it died so I was excited to find these: I obviously didn't know we were low in battery or we probably wouldn't have a dozen shots of our feet on top of stars in Hollywood. We saw Wicked our first night in LA, then went to Coronado Island and spent a couple days at Hotel Del, then spent a day at Disneyland. (No I did not convince Scott to wear Mickey Mouse Groom ears. But we did go for sentimental reasons - we went to southern california on a road trip with some friends early in our dating, and Scott managed to get just the two of us to Disneyland for a day.)


href="http://i467.photobucket.com/albums/rr35/tarabloomfieldbutler/Honeymoon-2.jpg">
WICKED! Scott loved it, much to his surprise.

The husband himself, downtown LA.



We have a half dozen pictures like this(above) and this (below) and then our battery died. Good thing, because it would have been really sad to have wasted our camera battery life on something unimportant! I mean, imagine going on a honeymoon and not having one picture of your feet on stars names, that would be sad....



Mike (Scott's Brother) is marrying the lovely Andrea this Friday, and
Scott takes the LSAT on Saturday. We are READY for this mad studying to be over.
Hurrah!

snowflake cookies

It was snowing outside and inside yesterday.
These were for my mom's Young Women New Beginnings night. Aren't they beautiful?
(I tried frosting a few and then was given the "special" job of silver ball putter-onner)

Scott's Birthday

Scott blew out 29 candles last week.


His Dad and Brother Craig cut the cake:


His Mom made the cake (and the delicious homemade chicken noodle soup over mashed potatoes dumplings - are you kidding me, yum!!!!!) His sister Emily gave him a beautiful picture of the San Diego temple



The nephews made him cupcakes and delivered them


Scott played with his Birthday i-phone courtesy our moms and dads.


And I pitched in and kissed him on the forehead


All in all, it was a great bday week for the great scottie b.

There is a dance move named after him....

Yes, there is. In the archival legends of EFY counselors everywhere, there is a certain dance move named "The Scottie B". I'm so proud.


Scott originally did it as a joke at EFY. I somehow talked him into doing this at one of Drew's break dance competitions (above), and don't you worry that the dance move even manifest itself at our wedding.



Love you, Scottie B.

Happy New Year!

We went to Tucanos for New Years Eve dinner. Too bad I wasn't on the ball enough to write the thoughtful "goodbye 2008, hello 2009" lists. I'm a little behind the game.

However, THANK YOU 2008. I like you. You gave me my husband, finally:
So I will always love you, 2008. And 2009, I'm so excited for all that you hold.

Happy Birthday, Mommy

It was this Girl's Birthday on Dec 30th.


I love celebrating my mom's birthday. It falls right between Christmas and New Years and is such a festive time of year. My mom is such a generous, compassionate, creative and funny person and I've been so lucky to have her as a mom. You feel so motivated and understood after talking to her. Perhaps that's why so many people feel comfortable talking to her and value her opinion. She's somehow able to make everyone feel important.

We planned on going to Zinn Bistro in Salt Lake for her Birthday. In fact, we drove to Zinn Bistro several times this Holiday season, and it has become a bit of a joke in our family, because we never actually eat there. It is a delicious family run restaurant in Salt Lake, and the food is YUMMY. The fact that they are still in business is a testament to how good the food is, because they are SO rude it is hilarious. The first time we drove up they told us they had run out of food (It was 1pm and we were there for lunch) They kept repeating the line "we cook fresh every day" which somehow was supposed to make us feel better about having taken time off to drive all the way up there. Don't most restaurants cook fresh everyday? A few days later we called ahead to make sure they were open (the answering service said they were), coordinated 8 schedules to get all of us up there, the sign on the door said they were OPEN, but mix those letters around abit and NOPE! , they weren't! I've actually only eaten there once and have tried 7 or 8 times. That one time I felt like they hated me for being there and actually daring to come to their restaurant and taste their food. The kicker is that a few days after this series of tries, we get a call from ZINN saying they had a reservation for us and why weren't we there? Then we were firmly scolded - "is there a REASON why you didn't call to cancel?" Sorry Zinn Bistro we've tried... a lot.

So here's us at another yummy restaurant at the mouth of little cottonwood canyon...we look happy enough for a bunch of foodies!

Dad Mom, me and my brother Ben.

We rented Cameron and Jake for a slumber party last Friday, and boy did we have fun.

We started with a roaring game of Simon Says



Jake didn't quite get the rules of red light/green light, he just ran as fast as he could

Then we played "tackle Scott"





Which resulted in being hauled to the kitchen

Jake waited patiently for his treat. "Tara, I NEED something!" What do you need Jakey? I NEED ICE-CREAM!"

So I gave it to them.

Their very handsome Uncle Scott put on a video

And they had treats and watched



Until they finally dozed off....with visions of the "spend-the night" fairy dancing in their ice cream filled heads.

They left their boots out for the spend the night fairy to fill.

Scott left early to take a practice LSAT and I woke to two little boys calling "where are you guys" and wandering around the house holding boots full of candy. Being the responsible aunt that I am, I let them get in bed with me and eat all of their candy while they watched the rest of the video from the night before. Chocolate on the sheets but it was a great way to start the day:) Love you Cam and Jake!

Elder Mitchell Butler

Scott's youngest brother is going into the MTC on Wednesday. That makes 4 Butler boys who have gone on missions and it is a proud day, albeit bittersweet to have to say goodbye for 2 years. We took some Butler family pictures to mark the big event.
Here's Mitch

And Reed and Suzanne

Marry Christmas

Yes, It's January 9th. Yes, I took my Christmas Tree down yesterday. Yes, I start teaching again on Monday, and Yes, it's been over 4 months since I updated this blog.

During which time I got married.

So I decided it was maybe time to put this out.



And yes, I spelled Marry like that on purpose.
It was a lovely Christmas break and I'm sad to see it end.

Visit my Photography Blog!

This is where I post my latest shoots....

tarabutlerphotography.blogspot.com

Tyler's Blessing

This little booger was blessed on Sunday,

He's all smiles and adorable-ness and it was hard to take these pictures because all I wanted to do was throw the camera down and pick him up and cuddle him and kiss those chubby cheeks.

My brother Andrew, and then Cameron and Jake were also blessed in this little outfit. All the girls on my mom's side of the family were blessed in the same dress my Grandma was blessed in...which leads me Olive, Sadie's unborn girl chil', who will wear the dress next. I decided that we needed to document Olive-in-the-Womb and Sadie and Dan's 1st anniversary so I took some pictures that look like engagement pictures...only slightly scandalous engagement pictures since, yes, Sadie is pregnant. And, I have to add here that I spent a few days with Sadie in a swimsuit on the Beach and she gets the "i still look better than most people ever will in a swimsuit even though I am seven months pregnant" award.
Then Cameron saw that I was snapping his picture and all on his own scooted over and put his arms around Jakey like he had seen Sadie and Dan do.
Dan was whining about getting his picture taken, and Scott felt to mention that I had brought my camera on our first date - (we were hiking, okay? What was I supposed to do, leave it at home????!!!) Dan's response was "I'm surprised there was a second date" My comeback was:
So there, Dan.


And besides, Scott's gotten pretty good at posing for my pictures.

We love you, Tyler.

Independence Day

Yes, I am just now posting about the 4th of July. But you won't be sorry because that means you get to see that Ben's neighborhood had an Independence Day Parade and those peeps go all out for the Yoo Ess of Aaay:






Here's the Bloomfield contribution:



Good thing my mom had that red shirt on. Because otherwise you might have thought she forgot her USA cape. Or her flag balloon helmet.

Scott and Sheri's family was in town and they came for the big parade, too: Here's Preston being all hardcore with his beard and Tyler
Smiley Mark pushing Jakey

Pretty Paige with Ty
My pretty Aunt Sheri - I snapped a pic with her next to Ben...
and Uncle Scott decided he needed one too....haha.

Happy Fourth of July! (A month ago)