Once October hit, things sure stayed crazy here at the Anderson house! In the last couple of months we attended the library's One Book celebration; Nathan and I enjoyed a night out at the Cibolo Nature Center's gala; we celebrated my birthday; us girls got together and threw a baby shower for Katy; I attended the Texas Professional Photographers' fall seminar; Ben and I enjoyed Medina's orchard and fall festival; Erica and I took our kiddos trick-or-treating; a bunch of us in the Rackspace family threw a baby shower for two of Nathan's co-workers. And all of that was in addition to the usual play dates, storytimes, music classes, Sundays at church, meetings, chores, and errands! I'm still amazed that we got it all done.

But even in addition to that, I was booked quite solid with pumpkin patch and Christmas portraits. It was exhausting just to see how many appointments I had every week. Between the actual sessions, the slide show presentations, and delivering prints, a day hardly went by when I didn't see a client. So needless to say, Shutter-Happy is doing well. I'm finally going to be able to pay off all of my equipment and feel much more secure about where this venture is heading. The portraits are beautiful and clients are thrilled. What more could I ask for?

Ben is still the sunshine in every day. He's still the sweetest little boy, giving kisses and hugs throughout the day. He's becoming extremely polite, using "please," "thank you," and even "no thank you" in his replies. His vocabulary is growing with leaps and bounds, with wonderful full sentences and thoughts flowing out of his mouth every day. His independence is really showing, with him starting to want to do most things on his own and being able to play or sit and read books for long periods by himself. And he's incredibly smart and witty, able to keep us on our toes make us laugh constantly.

"This is your life, are you who you want to be?" --Switchfoot, from This is Your Life