5k and Fidelity Summer Barbecue

Tim and I ran a 5k! Tim invited me, and being the nice wife that I am, I said yes. But normally, no. I. not. a runner. But hey, eventually I liked it a little!

After the race, we were somewhat dead.

Tim's mom came along and the kids and Nana watched us as we lapped around them. Everytime we lapped, they would cheer and clap and say, "Yay mom!!" It was incredibly amazing. I LOVE them kids o' mine.

We were so happy Nana took pictures to record the event for us too.

Then we rode the bounce houses, had a bbq, and waited in line for 60 minutes (no kidding) for balloons from a clown that popped 60 seconds later. Hadley's sad unicorn had no more horn no more. All of this was for Tim's company barbecue and 5k Fun Run with Fidelity Investments. It is such a great company and I feel so happy we are a part of it.

Friends! Family! I'm doing a photography giveaway! I want you in on this!

The importance of the FAMILY:

(I have something to say)

Every once in a while, God lets you take a little peak into your life and your heart and allows you to examine what is really going on.

And I have had the realization that I cannot have it all.

I cannot live two lifetimes in one. I cannot be the mother that I want to be and also be the career woman that I believe I can be.

It is for this reason that I have starting taking fewer clients. This is a time and season that will never come again, and I am trying to learn to balance. And isn't life about learning to balance everything anyway?

I have realized very literally that five, ten, and twenty years down the road, I will not regret not having grown my business faster, becoming more well known, or earning money for material things, but I will regret not being with my babies every waking minute that I wanted to because I had overcommitted myself. I have the rest of eternity to know my babies as adults, but never again, for the rest of this life or for eternity, will I be able to know them as children. These days will come and go with the blink of an eye, and even as much as I love photography, I’m at a season in my life where I know I need to balance my time wisely, and I've realized that in that blink I’d rather have my eyes more open to my children and their discoveries than to my camera and my computer screen.

I am so happy to take the clients that I am able to take! And I hope one day soon that will be you! I am pouring my heart into every session and doing it with all of the love and passion I have inside me for this art.

And so I'm celebrating family!

For I know family and motherhood is greater than any earthly honor I could ever achieve.

 Now let's have some fun, celebrate family together, and...

Let's do a giveaway!

All of the prizes have to do with family!

Here are the rules:

Three ways to enter! Five prizes to choose from! No limit on number of entries!

#1!

Write a comment telling us what you want to win on the Candice Andrus Photography Facebook Page. Become a fan if you aren’t already and tell us the same! Do this before midnight, MST, August 18, 2011, and your name is entered in the drawing!

#2!

Suggest to your friends they become fans of the Facebook Page, asking them to post on the Facebook Page that you sent them! THEY are then entered in the drawing themselves, and YOU are then entered in the drawing AGAIN! Every time for every friend!

#3!

Leave a comment at the bottom of a blog post on www.candiceandrus.com and your name will then be entered in the drawing AGAIN. 

Do all this before Midnight, MST, Thursday, August 18, 2011!

The possibility of times your name will be put in the drawing is endless!

The winner of the contest will have their choice of one of any of the following prizes:

#1.HALF OFF your Family, Child, or Engagement photo session with me

#2. 30-minute, on-phone, photography mentoring session

#3.  12x18 "Angelic Trumpets Shall Sound" Mounted Print

#4. 12x18 "To Heal and To Seal" Mounted Print

#5. One of your own photos, Professionally Printed and Mounted, 11x14

Details of the prizes below!

Prize Choice #1: HALF OFF your next FAMILY, child, or engagement (starting a FAMILY!) session with me! We ARE celebrating family here!

Prize Choice #2: 30-minute on-phone photography mentoring session with me. Ask me anything. You got 30 minutes!

For those who are wishing to learn more about photography; maybe you just want to take better pictures of your own FAMILY, maybe you want to get a business started, maybe your itching to know more about equipment, technique or shooting, or maybe you simply just want to pick a fellow photog's brain. It's a free for all!

(The next two images are now being released as prints!)

Prize choice #3: 12x18 "Angelic Trumpets Shall Sound" Mounted Print

Prize Choice #4: 12x18 "To Heal and To Seal" Mounted Print

Prize Choice #5: Celebrate YOUR FAMILY. An 11x14 mounted print of  one of YOUR OWN PHOTOS! Printed, mounted and UV sprayed by my professional photo lab. You send me the file, I will professionally print and  mount your photo!

So pick your prize, enter the contest AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN, and CELEBRATE FAMILIES with me.

Entries will be received until midnight, next Thursday, August 18, 2011.

Winner announced next Friday, August 19, 2011 on the Candice Andrus Photography website so check back here to see if you've won!

Have fun!!

Ice Cream Cones, Pony Tails, and Little Moments

We must really love our children if we give them ice cream cones. Still a big mess.

Hadley was eating her ice cream cone from the bottom up. 

And then from off the table!

And then sharing from off the table. :)

By the way, TIM put this pony tail in Hadley's hair!

Tim's Garden 2011

Combining the two hobbies: Candice taking pictures of Tim's garden! A good deal, eh?

This is a CAULIFLOWER from Tim's garden! Pretty impressive huh!

The path to Tim's Garden. It is a stake garden full of many members of our church from the community, and even some who do not attend or aren't members. It is actually a super cool feeling to go to the garden and see how much people love to take care of their earth and grow things, people coming together in a common hobby.

I bought Tim this little birdhouse for Easter so that he could mark his garden with it. It looks so little now!

Corn, and marigolds to keep the bad bugs away (pickle worms, aphids, leafhoppers, spider mites, harlequin bugs, imported cabbage bugs, and many other insects) and bring the good bees in. 

Squash

Onion Rows

The kids were being so good for us! I think it's because we weren't really paying attention to them. They were free to play in the dirt as they wanted!

A first pepper

Tim's cucumber trellis

A first tomato. Pretty sweet huh!

This is a celery plant that germinated from the Celery Seed we have in a spice rack! Tim planted it for fun but was really surprised it germinated because celery is supposed to be really hard to grow! Spice rack!

Happy, happy kids!

Tim really dislikes Cilantro. In fact, it's hard for him to smell it in the kitchen. But he grew some for me!!! Fresh cilantro from the garden whenever I want? I am obsessed with Cilantro! When I go to Cafe Rio, I want equal parts lettuce and cilantro in my salad, por favor!

A wide view of Tim's garden, he's holding one of his Anaheim Chilis for the San Francisco Melt sandwiches we like at the BYU Sports grill.

Sadly this is dirt, not oreo cookies. Man I must be hungry.

Tim was pretty excited because Miranda was asking Tim all about his garden. Just like photography for me, Tim loves to talk about gardens and gardening and could go on and on. We love to teach and share.

Zanahoria! (Carrots!)

Still happy kids!

Beets

Strawberries. Second try because the bare root from Walmart did NOT grow one bit!

Pumpkins. They struggled for a while because Tim transplanted them, but now they are doing better.

Thanks for stopping by!

As you walk out of the garden, one of the members planted a little wild flower garden. It is beautiful.

I wanted to throw in some pictures of Roo and i and the kids. Roo slept over for a few nights and it was lovely to have her. In fact, we would really like her to move in. She is the third parent we would really like to keep around! She loves the kids and they love to have her.