Remember this?

In case you forgot, today is my birthday? You ask, how old? Oh just a hair over twenty-one.

(You, in the back. Stop that snickering.)

So what does one get when she turns just a hair over twenty-one?


Well, remember THIS. (If you don't want to follow the link this picture first time Mark 'remodeled' my closet. It is quite stunning.)

And then do you remember how we ended up re-working the closet to look like THIS! (THAT LINK YOU SHOULD FOLLOW BECAUSE THE DESK IS EXCELLENT!)

But, to be fair, I was never a big fan of the mixed color. So for my (just-a-hair-over-21) birthday, Mark did this:

There are a few other things in the works, but I'll have pictures of those later. I hope you have a happy birthday too!

Santa's on his way.

Are you as excited as I am for Santa to come?

Merry Christmas!

luv, the Summerills

two.

*Two months ago I told myself December would be easy street. No shoots, no clients, no stress.
Apparently the little me, inside the bigger me, that can't seem to ever say NO, didn't get the memo. Still busy here in my photog-cave.

*Two weeks ago I didn't know that people went to clubs and danced to anything other than top 40 pop. Apparently the Club Omni in Provo misguided me on that one. Clubbing at New York's Pacha was an eye-openening experience to say the least.
Now I'm wiser and cooler because I've tasted the musical delights of DJ Kaskade.

*Two days ago I would've never thought a bff from high school would get married in my front room a week before Christmas. See the trend here, people? Of course I was wrong. My bestie is engaged to a man who found out he has terminal brain cancer. Thus the speedy wedding. Unfortunately in late December there aren't a lot of open venues that are free (medical bills can put such a damper on wedding plans). So in 24 hours I'll be throwing the  biggest, bad-A, wedding my house has ever seen. For real. (please say those last two words like you're from Huntsville, Alabama)

*Two hours ago I looked at my to-do list for the next two days and wanted to die. That's for real. But with the help of some awesome PG lady friends, I think I'm going to make it through this week. Thanks gals

*Two things I still need: If you're in the mood to make a kick-A (small two-tier wedding cake) or have a darling "MR." and "Mrs." sign, would you give me a call?

Luv, erin

concrete jungle where dreams are made...

This past weekend, Mark and I went with the lovely Bjarnsons of the Pleasant Grove Bjarnsons to New York City. And I'll say, we took the city by storm...or, by foot. We walked all over Manhattan. Which was a good thing for two reasons. 

1. It helped off-set all the glorious food I shoved into my body over the course of 48 hours (see image below.)

2. NYC taxis and I do not get along so well. Motion sickness is never fun to experience when you're trying to take in the sights and smells of the big apple. (Why is it called that again? I didn't find anything apple-ish about New York.)

Being in New York during the Holiday season was exciting-cold-busy-body-to-body-packed raging fun! We went to Carmine's for italian, Junior's for cheesecake, Carnegie Deli for pastrami and corned beef, and Macaron Cafe for Macaron (yes, that's Macaron and not macaroon. So different, and so so so much better...I'm craving these delights!)

Times square, Rockefeller Plaza, Central Park, 5th Ave, Empire State Building, and (one of my favs) the MET!

 I'm so grateful for the wonderful friends that we have. We had such a blast seeing New York with the Bjarnsons and kicking it at the Kaskade concert. Believe me, Tracy and I were the modest-hottest women there. And I was dancing like it was 1999 and I was still cool.

But my favorite evening was when we ate at Joe's Pizza in Greenwich Village. I feel a bit cooler because it's supposed to be Ben Affleck's favorite pizza place in all of NYC and, as you can see from the picture below, Tracey and I became instant bffs with the guys from Joe's.

I heart NEW YORK!

And last, but certainly not least, here is a little video of us in Central Park:

The name drop of ALL name drops...

Guess who came by my house today?

That's right. Jesus.

Holla! Who's the holiest now?

That's right ya'll. 

Me!

Ok, on a not so blasphemous side note, when Clint (the real name of the above mentioned) came over, Teddy, my ever-curious four-year-old, asked him if he could walk on water, "because the real Jesus can walk on water." 

Clint said, "No." 

So Teddy proceeded to tell Clint all about Jesus. 

I just stood back and smiled bigger than I had in a long time. I love my little guys!

"A serious load of crap," I said. "That stinks," he said.

Today I came home
and found not one, not two, not three, or four,
but FIVE piles of Dog doo just beyond the front door.
Poop, I say,
brown logs of non-floating crap,
My living room is the scene of a dog deposit attack.

What's this, you ask.
How can that be?
It can and it was accompanied by pee.
Pee, I say
in the form of ghastly-yellow-green
stain on the carpet beside my Christmas tree.

What beast, you ask, left the foul present for me?
A brute, a bear,
my black dog is guilty
That Damn Dog, I say.
Devil of a Lab,
I scolded him good and threw him out back.

And how did I fix this disaster more atrocious than none?
I realized my sweet hubby
was on his way home.
Poop, I said,
when he walked in the door.
Holy *)@# he said, and walked downstairs and found more.

Moral of the story,
is don't come home for lunch,
when your big black dog
has just crapped out a mountain of junk.

Sooooo worth the wait!

It's been quite awhile since I posted. No reason really. Just a near death experience, a computer crash, a smack-down with an old lady at the Walmart, and desperate hope that by leaving up my 'for sale by owner' post up for an exorbitant amount of blog-sucking time that someone, ANYONE, will buy my house.

But, I couldn't take the cyber-silence anymore. When I saw this piece of geniusness-o-lishous, I had to share. After viewing this ad, you'll wonder, what more could anyone in your family want for Christmas?

Nothing, that's what. Now, go. Enjoy. And thank me later.

FOR SALE BY ME...an awesome house

Hey all! The time has come for me to move. Well, me and the kiddos and the old man. We're selling our home in Pleasant Grove, and I'd love for your help. We want to sell our house for sale by owner, so I'm asking you to forward this post on to anyone you think might be interested.

And why would you do that? Well, I'm offering a Family Photography Session to any person who refers the BUYER of our home. We would like to have our house sold before the holidays.

Here's a few shots I took of the upper level. If you, or anyone is interested, you can email me at erinsummerill(at)gmail.com for more info.

Location: Pleasant Grove
5 bedrooms
2 1/2 bathrooms
.30 acre
Asking 235,000

Thanks, erin

Intern: what I can do for you.

Many of you may have wondered what I'm doing with an intern. I admit, I've often wondered the same thing. In fact, many a Seinfeld moment has passed as Marie and I sit in my small, cramped office, discussing my take on every day life. I've done my best to indoctrinate her into my elevated way of thinking. 

Have I succeeded? 

One can only hope. 

But one thing is for sure. Thanks to me Marie is no longer the same little high school intern. Now she is a high school intern with a rockin' senior picture!

See below:

Um...not that one. I meant look at the ones below:

And of course the next one is my favorite:

NOTICE: If you want to be my intern I'm now accepting applications for the "potty training my kid" job and the "picking boogers off the wall" job. 

2 years ago...

Two years ago today I looked like a human blotation device. This little baby girl was a week overdue and my patience expired a month before that. I wanted and waited for a little girl, and now that she was on the way, frankly, she was taking too long to come. But finally, in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, I woke up because I peed myself...well, turns out it wasn't pee but water. The amniotic kind. Of my four kiddos, she's the only one that came because the my water broke. It was totally cool, but kind of gross. 

Anyway enough grodiness. Two years have passed in a flash, and now my sweet baby is looking more like a little girl instead of a baby. Which makes me sad and happy all at once. I love my Ruby and I'm so grateful to have her in my life. She's sweet and sassy and friendly and fun. Happy Birthday sweetie. 

today=crash and burn

Today I should be:

EDITING 5 family sessions, 1 wedding, 1 senior, and a workshop. WRITING 5,000 words for NanoWrimo. PROGRAMMING the new blog for our lil' frame company. CREATING a pamphlet for said frame company. CLEANING the sticky post-Halloween guck left by 40 kid-sized fingers all over my house. SHOWERING me. EATING.

But, instead of doing all that, I'm staring at my Lame-A, bugged out, crashed, piece of $#%@ COMPUTER, wondering why, oh why, it choose today of all days to upload a virus that would send my life spiraling into a stressful oblivion of burning failure.

Son of a motherless goat!

Oh, so you snarky few out there might be wondering how I'm even posting this...I'm using my MAC laptop...the one computer that doesn't have the start of my new book on it, or the many sessions I need to edit, or the Photoshop docs that I need for the lil' frame company.

So today, I will be vegging out in front of the TV and catching up on 5 years of missed All My Children episodes.

what will you be?

This past weekend Mark and I went to a halloween party. I was dressed as a TWITCH (trendy witch) and Mark a box of Wheaties.

We so totally go together, huh?

Hey, can you see my little bear cub in the back of this pic? He's a Power Ranger!

And here's my lady bug!

Now, I know our costumes are so totally inspiring, but I'm just wondering, what are you going to be?

french onion soup.

My favorite. I love, drool over, crave and must have this soup at least once during the fall and once in the winter. It's an annual tradition for my family once the weather turns cold. If you live in Utah, you know it was beastly cold yesterday, so of course I made FRENCH ONION SOUP!

I'll tell you now, this recipe is unlike any you'll ever have. My mom snagged the recipe off a burly pup owner in England years ago. FYI, did you know I was actually born there? I know, the accent gives it away.

Anyhow, it's delish. I hope you enjoy.

1. Cut the onions. And bawl like a friggin' baby. Holy cow, I had mascara streaking down my face like I was next in line to star in a KISS show.

2. Then make the onion goodness:

French Onion Soup



3-4 lbs of sweet onions, sliced thin

1/2 cup butter

4-5 Tbl. flour

6 cups chicken broth

4-5 Tbl. rice vinegar or mild vinegar 

1 loaf of sour dough bread, chopped into bite size pieces

1 pound of Swiss cheese

1. Saute onions in butter until tender, not brown.

2. Stir in flour until the aroma smells divine! (Your mixture will look light brown.)

3. Whisk in chicken broth, and then add vinegar to taste.

4. Scoop soup mixture into oven safe bowls.

5. Top with handfuls of bread cubes, and Swiss cheese.

6. Cook at 500 degrees until cheese is melted and lightly browned.

Then eat and enjoy, and think of me!

a product I cannot live without...

Tune in later to this very blog for a recipe made with PBF!

Sigh.

If I could do it all over again, I'd do it just like this...

Style. Sophistication. Simplicity.

Isn't she stunning?

What would you change about your wedding day?

another story in which I make an excellent candidate for mother of the year.

Remember the time I totally got my days confused and sort of, kind of, well almost, in all honesty I basically forgot my son's birthday? You can check out that story here. Awesome, right?

It would seem, based on the events in the last week, that I have a talent for the aforementioned birthday forgetting.

Case in Point: Teddy the Bear's birthday.

Week in Review:

Monday: Edited Photos
Tuesday: Edited Photos

*son of a...
Late Tuesday night I had the singular thought, Something's going on tomorrow that I've forgotton about. What could that be? Well, duh. Teddy's birthday. As in, the celebratory day in which I apparently forgot to buy a cake mix, candles, balloons, and presents. Pretty much, I had a whole lot of nothing planned.
At ten in the evening I made a few phone calls and begged my sweet good neighbors with young kids to bring their kiddos to my house the next day for a FABULOUS party (one of which I had not planned).

Wednesday: Rush to Target. Buy everything that resembles Halloween party supplies. Rush home. Clean house. Make cupcakes. Con good friend into helping me make salsa. Turn all photography business over to Intern. Cross fingers that kids show up.

And did they? Thank the Good Lord, YES!

So last minute, I threw the best 4-year-old Halloween party that a slack-A Mom could pull together in less than a day. We decorated pumpkins and played freeze dance to Michael Jackson's THRILLER.
All in all, it was a perfect party. And now my little guy is four. It's hard to believe how fast he's growing up. Here's a shot I made the kids take just hours before the party.

name dropping and clothes busting.

Where the devil have you been? Oh, wait a sec. Yeah, I mean where the heck have I been?

URWA

Say what? You don't know that that means. It stands for Utah Romance Writers of America. And last week I was the 'esteemed' photographer of honor. (Alright, so maybe I wasn't the esteemed guest...whatev! But I was the photographer.)
Authors, agents, editors and publishers came to the conference. I shot all day long, and learned a thing or two about writing. Mostly it was awesome. Especially when I got to see the amazing Karen Hoover, and Candace Salima, and Laurie Mclean, and Amy Moore-Benson, and Victoria Dahl, and Bree Despain, and Jessica Day George (who, I personally believe, should just go by JDG. It sounds supa' cool).

Whoa, breathe. That was one heck of a name drop. Am I cooler now? Am I? (Fingers crossed you'll say yes, but if you say no that's ok too because the rest of this post is for you... I am SO. NOT. COOL! Read on, and you'll see why.)

THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR:

Remember a paragraph and a half back when I said "mostly" awesome? Here's the small, miniscule, nothing to worry about part of the conference that was definitely NOT awesome. At. All.

While shooting headshots of all the amazing conference attendees, I met an older gentleman who was sporting quite the manly goatee. I asked him what he wrote. (That's what non-published-aspiring-writers mostly talk about) The goatee-wearing man said, "I write erotica."

My jaw dropped to the floor. "Um, yes, well. That's nice, and lovely. And I'm sure it's very interesting." And then I put the camera in front of my face and started shooting. There was nothing coherent left to say.

That evening, at the conference dinner I wore the new blouse I purchased earlier in the day at JCREW. (So maybe I wasn't shooting the entire time of the conference.) While I was looking for my seat, the goatee-gentleman waved me over. When I reached where he was sitting, I placed my hand on his table and leaned over to talk to him.

SNAP is what I should've heard. But I didn't. Those top three devil buttons on my blouse came undone on their own without so much of a warning noise. In front of Erotica-writing goatee-gentleman, my top three buttons popped open to expose my hot pink brazier. (The white one was dirty.)

He looked at me, then looked at, um...you know. And he said, "Looks like you're coming undone."

In that moment, I wanted to DIE.

Did I? Of course not. That's why I'm writing this extremely long post on why I am so, so, so not cool. I'm just a person who as of late is not published and happens to expose fluorescent undergarments at Erotica-writing, goatee-sporting gentleman.

Intern: total sicko

Intern called texted in that she was sick today. And you know what that made me think of? These darn kids and all their texting.

Back in my day, which might I add wasn't too long ago, kids didn't text. Heck, most kids didn't even have a cell phone. That could be because they were the size of a brick and weighed close to the same, but whatev. In fact, since I started working with youngun's like Intern, my texting has increased. I used to have the 200 text plan, and now I'm going to have to bump it.

This is a grief I'd planned on laying on Intern. Now that she's not here, I have no one to complain to. My home is too quiet. And my hair is too thin. Where is Intern with her thick, lucious locks?

Not here, that's where.

Get better soon Intern, lest I spend all my money on hair extensions so I have something to brush out and take pictures of.

rain and kissing.

The thunder boomed so loudly in the sky that it shook my entire house, and my tv screen flashed on and off. Creepy! And wee bit romantic. I do love me a good thunder storm, and thanks to the Good Lord, this summer has been full of them.

On days like this, I drawn into making autumn inspired food...even if it is just a spice cake mix, an egg and a can of pumpkin, and a mass load of chocolate chips. (Seriously though, try it. Cook these pumpkin cookies at 375 for 15 min.)

But there was no cooking today because I had a lot of editing to do. I know, what's new, right? Blah, blah, blah. I'm sure by now you want to gouge your eyes out when I talk about photography. I hope to end all that soon. See, one day I plan to never take another picture again, and spend my time as a pop-culture information specialist employing my days in front of the television as way of research.

However, until then...

Photography it is. Here's a rain shot that makes up for the no cooking day. I love kissing in the rain. Even when I'm not the one doing it. Sigh.

oh, for the love.

Remember yesterday's cookies? Not so yummy. In fact, when all was said and done I only ate two. Maybe if you suffer from anorexia then you're thinking two is a lot, but the rest of the stay-at-home mommy world know that two cookies from an entire batch is exercising seriously self-control. Except, there wasn't much to control because those cookies tasted one step up from butt.

Tammy, the other momiva (mom+diva), took pity on my motheticness (mom+patheticness) and brought over the yummiest cookies seen here:

Notice there are only four on the plate. Um, that's because I may or may not have eaten two or quite a bit more. Even without Betty Crocker's assimilated frosting product, they tasted divine.

And then, to top off my evening. I got to shoot me a hunky senior in front of my TRUCK!

Truck, truck, bo buck, banana fana fo TRUCK! I love it. And I love this cute senior boy...who is not nearly as cute as my main man, Mark! (That's alliteration for you babe cause I luv ya. wink)