Just a little cuteness for you

p.s. I just posted a few of my handmade goods for sale on my Etsy shop yesterday if you want to take a peek.

here is the link

http://www.etsy.com/shop/catherinejust?ref=ss_profile

I'll be posting more artwork and journals soon!

Aren't you Curious?*

Don't you want to see the photos Max took the other day????

If you missed the blog post - the re-cap is that Max watched me taking self portraits and jumped on his chance to be a little self portrait photographer himself.

Here is the video again if you haven't seen it...or if you just can't help but take a peek at it again. It's so cute and amazing - don't you wanna see it again?
ok I'll stop gushing here is the link

http://hang-on-little-tomato.blogspot.com/2011/06/max-learns-how-to-take-self-portrait.html

The photos below are all the ones that he took from that day. The video didn't show how long he went taking photos......

Well there you go! I'm so impressed! I cannot wait to do this again with him.
His two photographer parents are so proud!

So much more to share but you will have to just come back again and see what Max has been up to......more video!....... Yep. see ya'll soon!

Do What You Love Ecourse

photo taken during an assignment from "do what you love" e-course. This fence is on the street I live on but I didn't know it was there until I went on this walk. Lovely isn't it.

I've been taking an eCourse called "Do what you Love"
here is the link
http://dowhatyouloveforlife.com/e-course/

It's one of the best eCourses I've taken.

I just completed one of the assignments which was to write out our Real Wild Bio. Not our Resume of where we've worked but what things we've done in our lifetime from 0-now that mean the most to us. The milestones - the pillars - the wild journeys and amazing accomplishments. After you write all that out - pick the top 5 and that is your REAL WILD BIO.

ok so I couldn't pick just 5. And luckily I wasn't the only one in class who had such luck!

Here is my list for everyone to see - including me. I do think that there are more substantial emotional events that I could have written as well - but this is a great start to see where I've been and the decisions I've made that made the biggest impact on me in my life:

1. Taking an art class in my freshman year in high school – and after my art teacher told me I had talent – taking that same art class ( it was the only one at our small school ) every year until I graduated. Little did I know that it would be life changing.

2. Checking myself in to drug and alcohol treatment when I was 18 years old. Right after I graduated High school. And staying sober for the rest of my Real Wild Bio so far. 23 years sober so far. ( quitting smoking needs to be on this list too - so I'm sneaking it in here )

3. Moving to Minneapolis right after treatment for extended treatment and then going to a 4 year art school MCAD and studying photography, film and video. All because of the seed that was planted by my high school art teacher that I had talent and needed to go for it.

4. Moving to San Diego to study with Miguel Ruiz and working with him and for him. Practicing the Toltec work with his spiritual community for 5 years, and helping Miguel run his Power Journeys. Doing the advanced Dreaming work with him.

5. Starting my own Photography Business

6. When I was diagnosed with Lupus in 2003 I signed immediately up for team in training and trained for and completed a triathlon. ( I changed my diet and no longer have symptoms of Lupus and it no longer comes up in blood tests! Hooray! )

7. Marrying Jerry and giving birth our son Max ( they should both get their own live but for this purpose I am putting them together. ) And staying home the first three years to be with Max and not putting him into daycare. ( and starting this blog for him. )

8. All of my moves and all of my travel:
Moves: Los Angeles, San Diego, Minneapolis, Ashland and Portland Oregon, back to San Diego, Back to Los Angeles, Salt Lake City.
travels: Hawaii many many times, Maui on our honeymoon, Spain, England twice, France, Germany, Italy twice, Chicago, Seattle, Arizona, Teotihuacan,Mexico 3 times, Coba, Tulum, Chichen Itza, New Mexico, Toronto Canada.

9. Creating retreats for women and doing my first one in Manzanita Oregon last year. I learned a lot about myself and others and was a magical adventure!

10. Developing my e-course called Soul*Full right now.
( with the help and inspiration from the Spark Kit, This e-course, Kelly Rae Roberts, Andrea Scher, Dyana Valentine, Amy Meszaros, My dear husband Jerry, the Darling Tree, Susannah Conway, The Aquarian Twins, Maria Forleo, Kris Carr, Miguel Ruiz, My High school Art teacher, Mondo Beyondo, Deb, Valerie Landsburg, The gals from the morning call, The Tuesday night Meeting.

I could make a real wild Bio - just about my adventures raising Max! I think I'll try that one out later - for now I must get going and get to the next assignment. I LOVE taking online classes that inspire me! And this one certainly does.

Max learns how to take a self portrait!

Max was watching me take self portraits in the backyard with my camera set on self timer. I'm actually taking a class online that is all about self portraits. You can find out more about it here if you like. After a few of these he wanted in on the action so he started to push the button and run over to me and look at the camera. SO CUTE. He must have run back and forth about 10 times or more!

More news from Cottonwood Heights

Untitled from Catherine Just on Vimeo.

Here is another Physical Therapy session with Michael Workman
This time we met at Canyon Rim Park. I love that he introduces us to a new area of town and a new park every time we meet. He rearranged his schedule so that Jerry could join us. I cannot say enough good things about this guy! He is funny on top of it so I am laughing almost the entire session.

This session he introduced Max to a wagon. I have always been afraid to put him in a wagon - I just imagined him not being into it and jumping out. But - the opposite is true. He smiles the entire time or is so entranced with the car toy he is playing with he doesn't notice that he is working his abs to stay sitting up straight in the wagon. That Michael is sneaky how he gets Max to exercise without him knowing it.

All of us were impressed with Max's interest in climbing up a very steep hill - here he is in action:


Untitled from Catherine Just on Vimeo.

And he kept on going. I'd say this was the best Max has done in a session - as far as really being motivated to keep on going - and being focused on the task presented to him. GO MAX!

In other news - it's Summer break for the kids that live on the block. 2 doors down is a 12 year old named Brooke and she brought her 3 friends over 3 times in one day to see if Max was up from his nap. Luckily for Max he woke up in time to hang out with the ladies. They LOVE him and he isn't too bummed having all of this attention I must say!

here they all are in our kitchen hovering over Max while he tries to explain his lunch menu to them

Max appears to hate the attention! HA!

This is the grandson of Carol and Richard who live next door. He is the oldest of three kids that get dropped off to play with their grandparents during Summer break.

Here's Max snoozing in the back seat as I drove him back to the house after a morning of fun at Liberty Park.

We went out to an Art Fair on Saturday to visit our friend Deb who was selling her beautiful photography out there. We purchased one of her pieces for our new home and Max got to play with Deb for a while. They just LOVE spending time together - and it's a good thing since she is one of my favorite people in Salt Lake City! I'm now calling her Auntie Deb because she feels like family and she is so interested in knowing Max and meeting him where he is at - meaning - she learned the signs that he uses so that they can communicate. How cool is that? She plays ball with him and we went to her office one day and Max played with her cats and ran around the entire place for about an hour. I think we may be seeing those kitties as often as possible - but I think that's more for ME than for Max. I'm still missing my sweet "Pretty Girl".

This one I took a while back as I looked out the bedroom window one day You get an idea of how large that mountain is when you see the tiny houses at the bottom of it. However - those houses are actually BIG houses - so that mountain is GIGANTIC people. I mean enormous. I can't believe that is our view!

I took a walk down our street yesterday with my camera and took photos of things that made me happy. Here are just a few: - Above is the next door neighbors front yard. Zen. Love it.

This is a TREE! it smells incredible. (If Brandon is reading this - do you know what this tree is?)

There are quail all over. I love watching them walk around. This one was in the driveway one morning.

pinecone.

cute flower

I like these shapes

the fence at the end of our block. I live on a pretty street - this morning I woke up and listened to a dove cooing or purring or whatever it is they do. It was wonderful. We live in the country - but we are 1/2 a mile from super target and whole foods! It's amazing.

We've been writing down all the sign language that Max knows these days. Right now we are up to a count of 76 signs! Incredible.

We want to video tape him signing all of these but of course - he isn't a trained dog so it hasn't been working along our time frame! We'll keep trying to get all of this on video or on several shorter videos and post that shortly.

We are slowly but surely getting unpacked and settled in - this weekend we tackled our office and next weekend we will head into the garage and the giant pile of boxes in there. Feels great to get things organized - it's feeling more like OUR house and we look forward to having friends and family over regularly.

ok - off to bed!
xoxoxoxoxoxox
*c

Yep! We are in our new house and LOVE IT!

Untitled from Catherine Just on Vimeo.
So here is the next appointment we had with Max's Physical Therapist. This time we all met at Liberty Park and Michael taught us how to have fun with Max while giving him a killer Ab workout. Here are some video clips.

Untitled from Catherine Just on Vimeo.

ok - this color on the wall just isn't working. It's much more greenish blue than the photo shows. SO I have blue paint chips taped all over the wall to see what might work better. So far we are considering something called " Slightly Sapphire" which is super rich and vibrant. We might be having a painting party soon. Wanna join us?

I love taking these nap photos. And I love napping with Max! Some of the best moments of my LIFE!

I found that cute sitting bench at a consignment store and fell in love. The seat opens and we put our mail in there so it doesn't clutter our counters in the kitchen. I cannot believe how perfectly it fits right there.

I noticed on Wednesday that Max's tongue was covered in what looked like crumbs from a cracker. But it didn't come off. So I took him to the Dr. and he told me it's Thrush. Thrush is a yeast infection on your tongue and intestines. Um...GROSSSSSS. he said there is really no way to know where he got this from or why. We started him on the medication he gave us and Max has a HORRIBLE time with it. He felt WORSE on the medication than with a yeast filled tongue. He was up all night throwing up everywhere and the works...I'll just leave it at that. Luckily it was only the first night. The Thrush is clearing up and he is eating more and more ( he wouldn't drink or eat much because it hurt ) Here is the morning after the bad night.

We saw this rainbow and it looked like it was right at our house - so we hopped in the car from the Home Depot about 1/2 mile from home and drove toward the rainbow. This is one of the photos I took about a mile or two away from our house. I've never been so close to one before. It was stunning!

Yep - Max got a TERRIBLE hair cut. aka. BUZZ CUT. note to self...don't do that again. We like the "little boy" hair cut much better.

We are still in AWE that we live here. Jerry and I still think we are in a vacation home - it's so pretty - so comfortable - and such a big difference from the house in LA. We do love that LA house too - but the room here - the quiet - etc...The light that comes in the windows is unlike anywhere I've ever lived before. Still unpacking - and luckily Grandma Marty comes over to play with Max on weekends so that Jerry and I can focus on unpacking. Weekdays we don't really unpack. Too much to do with Max. I love seeing quail in my yard, and there is a cat that looks JUST LIKE my Pretty girl that loves me and lives somewhere on the street. I needed to have a cool cat on the block! ok - off to help Max take his nap and maybe take one myself!

a blast from Max's past. Not sure how old he is here. I remember when he started to laugh like this and how we were so thrilled to get it on video!


Untitled from Catherine Just on Vimeo.