IN THE ASPEN TREES

Last weekend I had a wedding and my sweetheart Crystal came with me to be my second shooter. We had a very long drive through some absolutely beautiful parts of Utah that I didn't even know existed. After seeing like 20 awesome photo spots and talking about our love for bare Aspen trees, we finally just stopped and took some pictures. It was great to have a little break. Now, I am trying really hard not to talk bad about myself, but when I look at these pictures of me trying to be young and sassy...all I see is a total mom trying to be cool. I feel even worse next to sassy Crystal, but I think these are still worth sharing. I obviously took all of the ones of hottie Crystal and a couple of the tree shots and Crystal took all the pictures of the mom in the pink sweater (me).

SALLAY ACCOMMODATIONS NEWS

Announcing the newest addition to the Sallay Accommodations Family. Our basement guest room is open and ready for visitors. Michelle Sallay, president and CEO of Sallay Accommodations is thrilled to be able to give her guests their own private space including a full -sized bathroom. "Before the finished basement, guests would have to stay upstairs with us. It wasn't a big deal until Stella was born and started to take over the upstairs bathroom. We started finding ourselves keeping guests up late just so Stella could take a bath." Brent Sallay, co-founder and CFO told us, "Now that we have this extra space, we can walk around naked upstairs when people stay over and they won't even know."

The Douglas family from Orange County, California was the first family to try out the new space. "The room was very fashionably decorated with a modern flare," explained mom Christy. She added, "The kids slept great and the room was the perfect size." Her husband Geoff told us, "I found the beds very comfortable, and my stay was exceptional." When 3-year old Aedan was asked if he liked staying in the room downstairs, he said, "Yeah. I did."

Michelle says that although the decorating is on the right track she still has more plans for the room. "I am definitely going to add some pictures that I have taken or perhaps a painting or two. I will have Brent hang them though because I hate putting nails in my walls."

Both Brent and Michelle feel really lucky to be able to share this extra space with the people they love, and look forward to hearing what future guests have to say about the new addition in the years to come.

The Douglas family shares a family moment in the new guest room. Photo taken by CEO Michelle Sallay.

LOVE TO THE CAMERA

Having Christy with me this weekend was too fun. It has been almost 10 years since she came into my life as a little sister missionary fresh from the MTC ready for me to teach her how to be a cool missionary. It was kind of love at first sight, and I adore her. I love her little kid giggle that usually helps her to get what she wants and her love for all things girly. Plus she is an awesome friend. Christy is one of my number one photo supporters and she also loves to take pictures, so like me she is often behind the camera. It has been a while since we got a picture of the two of us, so I made her husband Geoff take some pictures of us modeling this morning. Christy and her family are now on their way back to California, and I miss them already. However, I am looking forward to going to sleep at normal times again and not being tempted to stay up until 4 am sharing sizzling gossip.

THREE AMIGOS

Stella is having another awesome weekend. Her friends Cali and Aedan are here and she is having so much fun. We all went to church this morning and Stella and Cali looked adorable in their brown dresses. Getting all of the kids to pose at once is rather tricky so we used some flowers to keep them still for more than one second. Later in the evening we had a little birthday party for Miss Cali who is two today. It was really fun and the kids loved their cake.

HAWAIIAN BABIES

My mom bought Ava and Stella matching dresses from Hawaii a long time ago. She wanted pictures of the girls together in their outfits. It took me a long time to do it because even though I love both of these girls more than anything, just thinking about taking pictures of them together gives me a headache. Last week, Ash and I buckled down and did it. Ava lost interest in posing quite quickly while Stella just stared at the camera looking confused. So we only got one of the girls sitting together where they both look okay. However, there were still some real winners in the mix. The love they have for each other is obvious, and I am glad we captured that forever.

BREAKFAST WITH APPLESAUCE

Stella has a book about sea creatures. Whenever we read it to her, we tell her the names of the animals and she repeats them. Once when we asked her to say "octopus," she couldn't say it and said "applesauce" instead. This made her parents laugh like crazy, so of course Stella now thinks that the word "applesauce" is this hilarious joke that everyone thinks is funny.

While Cy and Catcher were here last month, there was a ton of "You're applesauce! No, you're applesauce!" going back and forth. It was about that same time that she got a little stuffed lion from Taco Time, and what did we name him? Would you be shocked to hear that his name is Applesauce?

Stella is always too cute with her kitchen. This morning she took some of her crackers, put them in a saucepan, heated them up, put them on her table, and ate them with a spoon. It was pretty adorable. Then the action got even cuter when she shared her hot meal with Applesauce.

GREAT VISIT

My grandparents came to town for a couple of days. The girls had tons of fun entertaining them and showing off all of their tricks. Yesterday was my grandma's birthday, so went to breakfast and hung out at my house for a bit. I took a few quick pictures of the girls with their great-grands.

PONY

I have a very strong dislike for most chores that require being repeated day after day. I can't get out of many of them like brushing teeth or doing dishes. One I do avoid most often is styling my hair. I wash it, walk outside with wet hair, and put it in a pony tail after it dries. It is lazy, and perhaps not that flattering.

I always laugh when people ask me if I curl Stella's hair. "Do I look like I would take the extra time to curl my daughter's hair?" is always my response. I always feel bad when I see little girls with no real hair to work with, but their mommies have at least tried to make them extra cute using an elastic or two. So the other day I tried giving Stella a "pony." Um...she loved it, and kept looking in the mirror at her adorable pony.

So I ask you: Why when I put my hair in a pony does it make me look lazy and less cute, but then if I put Stella's hair in a pony it looks like I am a mom on top of my game, and she looks...dare I say it...even cuter with her pony? It is a great mystery, my friends, that is for sure.

COMPLETE

The basement is finished. Just what we needed--more space! Anyway, we are happy about it even though it does seem like more room than we need right now. As you can see, Brent has already moved some (not all) of his precious DVD collection down to his new shelves. Which I guess means that he really wanted them, and I suppose it is okay that we came to a compromise. (In case you are wondering, I didn't want any built-in shelves, and I wanted to use antiques, while Brent didn't want his vast collection to be housed in my "rickety old antiques.") The shelves we built are about a third as big as Brent originally wanted, and the DVDs that don't fit on the shelves are going in antiques. How is that for mature, adult behavior?

We also have a guest room with a full bathroom. They are connected to each other so when people stay over they can really have their own space and don't have to feel like they are getting kicked out of the bathroom by Stella.

The yellow paint was free from a previous job that my dad did. The strong yellow has been somewhat controversial, but I like it. Especially since it was the only thing that was free. (Also, it doesn't really look as yellow in person as it does in some of these pictures. That's just how the light hit the camera.)

And if this wasn't enough home improvement news for you, I also had our contractor install a new faucet in my kitchen sink. I had been hating my old one for three years now. It was too low and did not have a sprayer. So I am feeling pretty fancy (and poor) these days.