my sweet Grammy

My Grammy with her older sister my Great Aunt Jean

My Grammy died on September 10th. We went to Moab, UT to be with family and to help with and attend her funeral services. I felt really proud of my family. The services were perfect. We had a viewing, a traditional funeral at the graveside, and a family memorial service up at Warner Lake. Warner was the place she loved. She said being there filled her soul. We told stories about her. More that made us laugh than made us cry. It seems she made everyone feel like family, and accepted us all in spite of our differences. I loved her very much. She was a huge influencing factor in my life. I feel different now. I have to be more of a grown up now. I am going to take some time and try to make my home look slightly more grown up. That sounds so funny, but I'm serious. Hopefully I'm capable of having a grown up house. I think some of the old college paintings might have to come down. Grammy was always one to get things done. I think I definitely inherited that. But I'm going to take some time to make sure I'm moving forward and getting the best things done. Move forward with a specific purpose. So I may be a little quiet here on my blog for a bit longer.

I'm thankful for many, many good memories. I'm especially thankful that I chose to live with her the summer after my freshman year in college. We had a lovely time together and she taught me to quilt, one of her greatest passions in life.

this weekend

We hunted for treasure, and found it.

We got to be a part of something wonderful! We went back to Knoxville for Addison's baptism.

I had to laugh when I was taking these pictures I told Ryan and Add to just talk to each other and interact. Ryan then gave Addison a hug and then he said in the sweetest, most natural way, "Now hug me on the other side." Now you can tell his wife (my dear friend Heather) is awesome about taking great pictures of her family.

I miss these guys! But I'm glad we live within driving distance.

And I sewed! Finally got a little done on Chickie girl's quilt.

What did you do?

new frontiers

I just put Andrea Larsen Photo on Facebook! How exciting. You can become a fan and make my day! Right now I have 2 fans and one of them is me. Hopefully I will have a few more by the end of the day. I'm also running a special. You ready for this? If you book in September $150 for a 1 hour photo shoot with 10-15 edited images in color and black and white on a disc! Editing makes all the difference my friends. I may throw in all the un-edited images as well. I can't decide if it's more overwhelming to get a disc with 100+ images or if people would rather just have the really great ones. Any thoughts?

Milk

It does a body good. And ya know what else does a body good? Drawing! And a lot of it my friends.

Aleena Jean

I love this image. It's my favorite. I love the streak of red in her hair. The color of her hair. Her amber eyes. And last but not least...thank you wind!
This is my cousin Aleena. She is a senior this year from Seattle, WA...ish. And this little photo shoot was a bright spot in a difficult week for us in UT. Our poor Grammy. I was so down in the dumps this day. But we had planned this already, and by the end we were having a total blast!









She's cute, right!

making lemonade

Figuratively speaking that is....

Sometimes life hands you big fat lemons. I feel like I've been getting too many of them lately. Don't you hate it when life feels like LIFE? Do you know what I mean? Sometimes life is just day to day enjoyable everyday silly problems. And sometimes you have to deal with the big things that aren't any fun at all. Like my Dad's mom (mamaw) dying. And my Dad's mom (Grammy) has what looks like a very aggressive cancer on top of failing kidneys. (I have two great dad's and I call them both Dad. It gets confusing.) I've been baking a lot this week. It's how I deal with things like that. Not good. We ran out of flour and had to go to Gigi's today. Had to. I don't want to do any more dishes.

The lemonade...a surprisingly fun post-funeral photoshoot with my cousin Jordy. He's one good lookin dude. When we were kids he was always making movies with my little sisters. Now he's in LA doing the actor thing.

As for the lemonade in the situation with my beloved Grammy...I'm going to see her Monday. So that's good. We were made from the same cloth. Two peas in a pod. I get her, she gets me. I only wish I were by her side already. Chris is going to brave it alone with the kids. He'll probably have everything in tip top shape. Can't say the same for what they may eat....now that's a scary thought. If you see my kids please sneak them a fruit or vegetable.

More lemons...my job with Lindsay Jane Photography. A super hard situation, because I love Todd and Lindsay so much and all their family. Lindsay taught me a lot and I will always be thankful for her in my life. Hopefully I'll be able to reciprocate in some way. But the job wasn't what we needed it to be. So I quit. Big fat depressing bummer. I was trying to wallow in my own pathetic situation, but no one would let me. And when my lawyer told me I needed to "move on with my life" well that was the last straw. I guess sometimes the people pleasing can be a hindrance. Who knew?

The lemonade... andrea larsen photo. Never in a million years did I see this one in my future. But people started calling me. And I have to have somewhere to put the pictures, right? So it's fun. Actually I've been having a blast. It's not quite done yet (the website, or anything else for that matter). It's pretty ghetto at this point, but it's a start. And the good news is that I've been busy. I had a newborn shoot this week, and a small family, and tomorrow I have a family of 33! Yikes. How I got this busy already??? A blessing.

Yes. Life is weird. Why can't things just work out like you planned them? Maybe this was too melancholy of an announcement? But I guess there is no helping that at this point. Too sum up: new job stuff, good. family stuff, bad. Must make lemonade tomorrow...and possibly lemon bars.

broadway babies

Today I took Olivia's first official head shots. We are lucky enough to be living in this awesome place! One of the lady's that we go to church with is donating her talents to the little girls. They have a two week Drama Camp that ends with a show this Friday! They are doing the Jungle Book this year. And I got to do their sweet little head shots! It was such a blast. I wanted to share a few. I love it when I get a genuine expression. Olivia has two little teeth hanging on by a mere thread. But she's so not about pulling them.


Isn't she darling!


Alyse is in the class I teach on Sunday's. I was worried about how her pictures turned out until I looked through them on the computer. I think they were the best ones of the day.


One of his buddies was making him laugh. Classic.


Here is our assistant-director. She is very serious about her job. Today was her birthday. She didn't want to have her picture made. But I got her to smile when I told her I heard she stayed up till 3 am playing barbies with her little nieces. This is the smile of someone guilty as charged and kinda pleased with herself about it!


Bentley had fun too. He camped out on a blanket with a movie and some fig newtons. See the crumbs! He charmed a little moth/butterfly.

I'm thankful for today. It was fun.