Kira's Dance Recital!

I've been lacking on blogging lately so I figured while I was on here I'd post a few things I missed in December.

Kira's Dance Recital - She's doing better and is so fun to watch. She cracks me up. Teaching dance for 13 years and now watching as a parent really gives me perspective. Oh little girls, they are a handful. But I wouldn't have it any other way!

Resolutions

Warning - this post is mainly for myself to track my goals, keep reading if you want.

Well with the new year comes resolutions, right? I haven't thought too much about resolutions until tonight and it's officially the first of January. Andy and I talked a little about resolutions last night but didn't really come up with any, we just weren't sure what we wanted to try to accomplish this year. So after the first day of 2014 I've come up with a list for myself. I'm putting them on my blog because it makes me own up to them without blasting them over Facebook or instagram so this post is really only for myself but your welcome to keep reading and see to it that I keep my resolutions for 2014.

New Years Resolutions 2014

1. Take more photos of my personal life. My goal is to post a photo a week of myself, Andy, Kira, Family or Friends. Documenting my life is just as important as helping others to document theirs and lately I've been lacking. I typically hit major events like trips and holidays but this year I even missed Christmas. Must get better!
2. Loose weight - cliche I know. But it's valid and I need to. I lost 40 lbs about 5 years ago, I can do it again. 
3. Take my pills - Personal kinda but I need to own up to it. I used to take my thyroid medication religiously for 16 years. Somewhere along the way I've deviated and it's been about 2 years or more since I've kept up on my pills for more than a month. This year that WILL BE DIFFERENT! 
4. Do something fun for Andy on every service trip he goes on. I literally just said goodbye to him for the first time this year and I snuck a photo of the three of us in his luggage with a note on the back. I'd like to sneak him a quick surprise on each trip or do something at home for him. I can't imagine traveling that much. It typically sounds like a nice job until you live with someone that travels that much or have to do it yourself. It really wears on a person. I'm hoping to help that guy out just a little buy bringing part of his home life with him or making it easier for him to come home and have less to do here. 
5. Find more time for myself. I know it sounds like I have a lot of time to myself with Andy gone but the truth is when I'm not working at Hycomp there's a VERY good chance I'm taking photos or editing photos. Don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoy both of my jobs (and I used to teach dance too) but sometimes I get caught up in doing so much for others and keeping myself busy that I loose track of doing something for myself. I think this one will help me make time for the gym, reading a good book (I did get the book series I wanted from Andy and Angela for Christmas!), catching up with old friends, making new friends, visiting my sister in Texas, playing with Collin and Shayna more, spending more lunch dates with my mom, helping my dad out on projects, playing make overs with Kira, Snowmobiling with Andy and even getting more sleep. 
6. Soda Limitations - This one is going to be HARD! Keep my soda intake to ONE soda a day or less. Oh man, just saying makes me cringe. There are days at work I drink two or three Mt Dews. Yikes I'm in for a major overhaul on this one. I can do it, I can do it. A while back I had a resolution of no carbonated drinks and I stuck to it the entire year. This is much easier and obtainable... I think I can I think I can. 

Well 6 isn't too bad. I'm sure there are others I should write down but that's all this blog is going to get. I have a few others but they are even more personal then those listed above. Hopefully if you are still reading this you too have set your new years resolutions. We can do this. Resolutions are meant to be broken, I mean Kept. They are meant to be KEPT! and writing them down makes you far more likely to keep them than if you just say them out loud or keep them in your head. 

Happy New Year

New Years Eve this year was a lot of fun. It was a busy night. We wanted to make it to a few other parties before 8 pm but just ran out of time so we missed out on seeing everyone we wanted to. We did have a great time with our friends though. We met new friends and had a blast with all our closest friends. Glad to see everyone and I was even happier today when I found my camera to look through the photos Ryan took for me. Since I've been doing photography in all my spare time I tend to pick up the camera for my personal life much much less than I used to. Ryan pulled out the camera and took a bunch of photos (most I did not post, ha!) But some were very good. Everyone looks genuinely happy in these photos and it proves to be a successful evening at the Hansen/Moss residence. (Hum, not sure what to call our house since we have two different names, ideas anyone??) Thanks again Ryan for taking the pictures! 

Snow Fun!

I'm doing a Christmas Photo contest for my photography page and this is the photo I took of Kira this weekend. LOVE!

More photos are found here: http://photographybystaceymoss.blogspot.com/2013/12/kiras-fun-session-in-snow.html

Picture Frame Craft!

I actually made this last year for Christmas. I have one in Green/Red and one in Blue/White. They are SO easy and fun! Hang them on your wall, from a stand or lean against the wall somewhere. It's a fun and unique way to decorate for the Holidays. 

What you'll need:

Picture Frame

Paint

Ornaments

Ribbon/String

Stapler / Glue Gun

What I did:

1. Paint the picture frame a color of your choice. This one is a deep red. My other one is a sky blue. My other frame is also very skinny compared to this one. This red one measures about 11x14 but really you can make whatever size you want, you'll just need more or less ornaments and longer or shorter ribbons. 
2. Tie ribbon/string to the ornaments in different lengths. I did this as I started to hang them on the picture frame so I could see where they would hang. I arranged them by color and size. The ribbon is stapled/hot glued to the frame in a 3 inch area on the back. I left room to hang the frame from it's original hanging bracket. Some of my ribbon worked well with staples and others didn't hold so I used a mixture of the staples and glue. The ornaments I used were all ones I had at my house that I use on my tree. I learned that using glass/breakable ones is hard to store them, so just beware it's not the easiest decoration to store. My blue one broke an ornament over the summer but the one pictured was fully in tact. 
3. Once everything was attached to the frame I turned it around and inspected the lengths and positions and adjusted as needed. Keep in mind it isn't going to hang just right so let it be a little off, it gives it character! 
4. Hang up on the wall and wallah! Your done. 

Very simple and super cute decor. 

Being Thankful

I have a lot of things to be thankful for in life. With this time of year and being November/Thanksgiving it makes me think of how lucky I am to have the life, job, family, friends, and home that I do. I've really been blessed this year. I took on a new position at work, traveled to about 6 amazing places this year alone, purchased a new home, have great family and friends and I've tripled the amount of business I've done in Photography this year. I'm truly humbled to be doing so well. Read more here: http://www.photographybystaceymoss.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-im-thankful-for.html

Darling Dancers

Kira is a darling dancer. She takes dance at La Shars where her mom teaches. We got to go watch her dance for their Halloween showcase. They each got to dress up in a Halloween costume. I had only found out that Kira needed to dress up in a custom the night before at about bedtime so we just went with something we already had. I let her pick Cinderella or Ariel and she picked Ariel. Pretty cute little mermaid if you ask me. She knew her dances and paid attention a lot better than at last years performances I saw so that was fun. She also danced next to a little girl who's dad works with Andy and I so that was fun to see them together. We hung out in the parking lot with Andy's sister, nephew and brother in law for a bit and then went over to Andy's parents for breakfast. Super fun. 

A Spooktacular Halloween at Hycomp

Halloween is one of those days you don't want to miss if you work at Hycomp (or at least I don't want to miss). We dress up every year and go to lunch. It's a Hycomp Tradition that's been going on the entire duration of my employement. I actually counted all the Halloween luncheon's I've been to and there are 10! Amazing and funny. I pulled up all the group shots and put them in a time line to see how much Hycomp has grown over the years... those are at the bottom of this post. 

This year did not disappoint. There were some good costumes! A few of my favorite were: Marty as the Tooth Fairy and Brian L as Mad Hadder. 

 Andy and I actually dressed up together. 

A little bit of Halloween History!

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012