you cant have just one

anna: heather, can i have some more freckles?
heather: freckles? what?
anna: um, those (pointing to the table with misc food)
me: oh, do you mean RUFFLES?
anna: yes, ruffles

on heather’s homemade salsa that we LOVE

anna: i LOVE hawaii salsa
(heard at 7am when she was getting the tupperware out of the fridge and we were still asleep-said to herself)

heather are there more i am forgetting?

and we wouldnt have it any other way!

i want to post a recap including pictures later today or early tomorrow (but i have to get the bags out of the car first-or bribe jeff to do it)

first i want to post some updates on business stuff.

if you emailed me last year to be added to my interest list, i have not forgotten about you! my plans to get organized in december went slighty awry (hmmm, am i really surprised by that? december? crazy?) so i will be getting in touch sometime in the next week. i will also be getting back to everyone who emailed while i was away.

look for updates coming soon to my website www.tarawhitney.com. i am going to be working with chris ford again to make some small changes and tweaks including new photos in the galleries and a new splash! i think i love tweaking and re-arranging almost as much as my friend margie.

some of the updates will be on my packages. the prices may go up slightly or change (nothing too drastic) to accommodate the changes i want to make. like new options and add ons…

the amount of traveling i will be doing is going to be cut quite a bit. last year was an experiment and very educational for me to figure out what i can handle and what i should not even attempt to handle. i want to give the very very best of me to my family and clients and when i am stretched too thin that just cant happen. i LOVED getting to see new places and i seriously met some of the coolest people on my trips. people that i now call friends after having spent time with them, so i dont regret a thing. ill be looking this year to make travel fit into my life. instead of having my life fit around travel. spreading it out a bit more or perhaps staying in one place a bit longer to fit in more sessions. i know for certain i will be going up north again to the bay area (san francisco, east bay, etc) at least once. other than that, i am just not sure right now. i do have every email saved that requested a location, so if i will be coming to one of them i will get in touch to let you know the who’s, what’s, and when’s. and of course, i will update my website and blog too.

on that same note, i have decided to stop writing my perspective column for simple scrapbooks magazine. i believe my last one will be may/june. i so appreciate the opportunity to have something like that-tara eleven years ago just starting out in scrapbooking would never have believed such a thing could ever come to fruition-but its another case of “not being able to give my best to everyone” so i have to cut something out. i hope to continue contributing to books and articles when i can.

and last but not least, a little funny. the first time we checked in on how miss mckenna mac was doing my brother told us that the minute we left the car after our goodbyes and walked into the airport mckenna climbed into the front seat with him and said, “FINALLY! they are all gone!” we laughed so much at that and every time we called to check in we just heard about how happy and content she was to be the only one in charge of the remote control (no one to scream at her when she rewinds the same 30 seconds of tv over and over for fifteen minutes), to be the only one to choose the music in the car (i am sure kidz bop christmas got really old REALLY fast), and to pretty much be treated like a princess on vacation. any qualms at all about going without her were squelched with that very first phone call. it just brought back to me how happy she was last summer when the other three kids went to my moms for a week (she had summer school). she was seriously like a different person without the noise and activity of the other three kids overwhelming her. its something we are going to have to work on-that overwhelming thing-because its not like i can make us all disappear forever! but maybe one day when she is older we can compromise and build her a little granny flat in the backyard-with her own remote, her own stockpile of kidzbop, wiggles CDs, and catalogs, and of course a microwave for frozen fettucini alfredo.