Happy Birthday to Ry!

My little brother turned 22 last week! We celebrated at my parent's house. Here are all the guys teasing my poor nephew Drew...he takes it like a champ!

Already teaching Corgan a love for football. As my grandpa would say, he's definitely a Webb.

The Nate Dogg and me

Ry's awesome friend, Jake, helped us celebrate. They both played with Ryan's new TomTom navigation system most of the night.

Ry with all the grandkids. I took several pictures and not ONE of them had all the grandkids looking at the camera. So I thought I'd post one that not one of them was looking!

My sister Angie made Ryan this awesome bunny cake!

Happy birthday Ry! What a fun night. I love spending time with family!

Signing Times

Can I just say the I L-O-V-E "Baby Signing Time"? For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a DVD, well two DVDs, that teaches your baby actual ASL sign language. It's awesome and man does Claire love it. We've got four signs down (well, she'll do them most of the time): all done, more, food, and cracker. When she was sick last week it was the only thing that would make her forget she was sick. AND its a great way for us to communicate with her before she can talk.

Here is a pic of her watching it yesterday...

(every time the little frog comes on the screen, Claire will start giggling)

Cousin Drew was over yesterday, so he watched it with us too. Can you tell he liked it too?

So to all you new and expecting moms out there, I highly recommend investing in these DVDs. They've definitely worked with Claire!

Sick.

Sorry once again for the lack of posts. We've all been sick. :( It all started with Nate. He came down with a high fever and chills on Monday. It's probably the sickest I have ever seen Nate. Then it spread to Claire. Her temperature got up to 104 degrees on Tuesday. So I took her into the doctor where she tested positive for Influenza Type A. The dreaded flu. The poor girl even got a flu shot this year. Then it spread to me on Wednesday night. Luckily for me it didn't last as long as the other two. I hate being sick! I had so many things to do this week and NONE of it got done! :( Oh well. At least I got to lie around in bed re-reading the Twilight series.

Well, to brighten this post up a bit, here is a photo I took of Claire for my photography class earlier this week.

Nate has taught Claire to do this face on command when he says "Home Alone". It's not consistent yet, but when she does do it she is SO proud of herself.

Stephenie Meyer is coming to Utah!

That's right! She is doing a book signing and discussion on her new book, The Host, which comes out May 6. Yay! Here are the dates and details about her tour:

Friday, May 16, 2008, 7:00 p.m.

DISCUSSION AND SIGNING

TICKETS AVAILABLE MAY 6th!

Ticketed event held at The Showbarn at Thanksgiving Point, 3003 North Thanksgiving Way, Lehi, UT 84043. Ticket price includes $10 admission fee and one copy of The Host. Tickets are available at Borders Provo (4801 North University Ave., Provo, UT, 84107; phone: 801/224-2720) and Borders Murray (132 E. Winchester, Murray, UT 84107; phone: 801/313-1020) beginning on May 6th. Call Borders Provo or Borders Murray for event guidelines and details. Please do not call the event venue.

OR

Saturday, May 17, 2008, 1:00 p.m.

DISCUSSION AND SIGNING

TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW!

Ticketed event held at Highland High School Auditorium, 2166 S 1700 E, Salt Lake City, UT. Tickets are available by stopping by King's English (1511 South 15th East, Salt Lake City, UT 84105 or by phone 801/484-9100). $30.00 ticket price includes a copy of The Host. Doors open at noon.

Anyone want to go with me? All I have to say is that The Host better be as good as the Twilight series or I'm going to be depressed!

Drew turns one!

Wow, a whole week without a post...this is a first since the blog began. :( Last week was crazy! I think I had something every night of the week. I had four baby showers, started a photography class (which has been AWESOME, I'll post some pics later), did a couple photo shoots, designed some wedding invitations for a co-worker, and I think Claire was teething last week because she was not her happy self. Whew! I'm tired.

On a much brighter note, my nephew, Drew, turned one on March 1! I cannot believe he is already one year old. This also means that Claire only has two months until she is one! We had a party for him this past weekend. Here are some of my favorite pics from the partay.

Grandma and Claire

Drew's first golf club set and the sunglasses Claire gave him.

Ryan being crazy with cute Corgan and Brad in the background. Then a normal picture of Ryan (one of the only ones I have) with Drew in the cute Nike outfit Ry gave him.

Drew did not like his party hat and Claire just wanted to pull off the shiny strings.

Me and my sweet girl...aren't her little pigtails hilarious? (I was just SO excited that I can finally do something with her hair!) And Claire eating Drew's golf ball.

The first birthday cake! "Mom, I get to eat all of this?!" YUM!

Then Drew got really mad when my sister Angie tried to take his cupcake away.

Finally, a family pic of the Haugens.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DREW! WE LOVE YOU!

Thanks so much!

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last post! I'm really excited to start taking everyone's portraits! I filled every slot. Yay! Can't wait to start clicking my camera!
Today is a very special day...my 100th post!

Yah for my blogging addiction!

And what would any post be without a picture of Claire? Love this girl!

Here we go...

As many of you already know, photography has been a hobby of mine for a few years now. I have taken many a class and am starting another one this Tuesday. I love taking pictures any chance I get…especially when my subject is a cute baby! Well, thanks to the encouragement of friends and family, I have finally decided to delve a bit more into the professional photography world.

For those of you who have been so encouraging (and for anyone else I might not even know) here’s your chance to help me out. I’m giving away eight free one-hour portrait sessions. That’s right, totally free. You will get the best 20-30 edited pictures on CD with a copyright release so you can print the photos at whatever lab you choose. Here are the different groups I need:

One Newborn session– four weeks or younger FILLED!
Two Baby sessions – age two and under - FILLED!
Two Children sessions FILLED!
Two Couples sessions - FILLED!
One Family session – up to six people FILLED!

I will take photos of the newborns at the “studio” (using the term very loosely) at my house and the others will be at various outdoor locations around the valley. I’d like to have these shoots done within the next three or so weeks….hopefully the weather will cooperate!
So the first people to email me with what type of session they’d like will get a free photo shoot! Email: melissaplowman {at} gmail {dot} com.

Thanks and good luck!

Ohhh Baby Baby

My cute friend, Marie, had her second baby on Saturday so Claire and I went up to visit them yesterday. Little Allison is so beautiful!

Marie, Allison, me, Claire

I had to snap a few photos of Marie's two little girls - Olivia and Allison. Don't you love Livvy's hair? She was definitely playing the role of big sister.

Marie was my roommate all through college and one of my best friends in the world. We met our husbands within weeks of each other and the four of us hung out non-stop. We even went on a few trips to Cali together during college. Lots of fun times with the Doughertys!
I'm so happy for them! Congratulations!

Photo Dump

We've been busy the last few days and I have been seriously slacking on posting pics. I thought I'd do a little photo dump for all Claire's fans...(namely her Grandmas)

Here's Claire just waking up from a nap. Every time I walk into her room she gets this huge smile on her face!


We got Claire this little walker to practice walking with and I was so excited to give it to her. At first, I think she liked all the toys and noises it made, but then it started moving and she did NOT like that.


On Valentines Day, we met Nate for lunch at Goodwood Barbeque (so yummy). Claire was on her best behavior, which is a first, at the restaurant.

I love her face in this one...she looks like she's a little confused, but still wants to smile.

I couldn't get her to look at the camera.

That night Nate had to go to the temple with the Young Men in our ward (seriously, who scheduled a Young Men activity on Valentines Day at 6 pm?! Luckily not Nate...or he would have been in big trouble). So my little brother, Brandon, came over and made sugar cookies with Claire and me. Or should I say I made sugar cookies while they played. She absolutely LOVES her Uncle B-man. Here's a pic of them dancing.

She also discovered the dishwasher that night...excellent.

Nate and I went out the next night to celebrate V-Day. He really wanted to go spend a night away, so we had our first night without Claire. How did I do this you say? I'm still not sure. Let's just say it was a lot harder on me than it was on her. She stayed at my mom's and did awesome. (Thanks again Mom!) Nate and I stayed at the same place we spent our first married night together...the Marriott Downtown. Its right next to the Wells Fargo Building, where we had our reception. We had SO much fun! In fact, we had so much fun that I only got two pics the whole night:

This is the other pic - this sign was right outside the elevator and I loved how it explained what the alarm sounds like...

Here's a random photo of Claire getting in the bath. That girl's got rolls everywhere.

Last night we celebrated my sis-in-law's, E'shell, bday. Of course, I didn't get any pictures of her, just millions of the grandkids. They were all in their white onesies together which screams photo-op. Here is Drew, Corgan and Claire:

Close-up of sweet little Corgan...(the poor kid has scratched himself up!)

And finally, I couldn't finish off this photo dump without an Edward moment. Summit Entertainment finished casting the main characters of Twilight the movie!! Here is the entire Cullen Family: Emmett, Rosalie, Esme, Edward, Carlisle, Alice and Jasper. I think they did a pretty good job on casting the right people except Emmett. I thought he was supposed to be "bear-like"?

Anyway, that was our week! Whew.