My Christmas Tree

Merry Christmas

From our house to yours...

Blessed

I am pretty lucky to have two daughters, and that they are so pretty makes it even better. Here is a picture from Portland that I took at the wedding site. Really pretty location, and I had to try to get a few pics of my girls. Surprisingly enough they both look good in this one (thats pretty hard to get).

This thing called Life

School has started. My baby goes to kindergarten. She didn't even hesitate when I dropped her off the first day. Just like all the rest of them. Okay, so some parents would be thrilled if their kids went to class the first day without any drama, but I would have just liked one child, just one, to at least be a little clingy. I don't want them to cry and throw a fit, but maybe just need mom a little bit. Not to be. I'll just tell myself that I did something right in parenting to make such secure and well adjusted children. Yeah.

As if having the baby start school wasn't bad enough, Brayden started middle school. I'm not old enough for this! Well, maybe I am. Brayden seems to be really enjoying the change of pace, it's made him excited for school again. Caitlin is in 4th grade, and Aaron is in 1st.

For Labor Day weekend we went to Portland to my brother's wedding. It was a fast and furious trip, but well worth it to see Russel and Esther married.

Just to make this post a bit more interesting, here is a picture of my handsome boy Aaron.

Say "Ahhh"

I had my appointment with the Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist (or the ENT for those of us in the know) and found out my voice is just fine. Yep, nothing wrong with it. My tonsils on the other hand aren't so great. So in a few short weeks I will go and have them removed. This is so not my year. Turning 30 is going to go down in the books as the worst year ever. The upside is that I hope I will lose a few pounds since I won't be able to eat!! Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I was inspired the other day and decided to torture my husband and children with a photoshoot. I packed everyone up and went to hunt down some places to take pictures. First up was City Creek, where supposedly everyone goes. After conversing with a few of the locals (picture hairy men wearing vests that hold their beer for them, seriously) at the trailhead, we made our way into the wild. I must admit, it is quite pretty there. What I saw of it, between dodging a snake, swatting mosquitos and falling down the trail scraping up my leg and dropping my camera, it was pretty.

I managed to shoot ~300 shots. And got nothing good. Ugh! I so suck at this! I didn't realize my ISO was at 1600 so 90% of them came out grainy. I had inadvertantly turned on auto ISO about 2:30 in the morning the night before while looking up stuff on the internet and forgot to turn it off. Now you all know why I sleep late, its because I'm up all night reading about crap like this. Anywho, I was able to scrounge a few pics of the boys that are almost decent. But the poor girls, well, they didn't manage as well.

For those of you brave enough to have read this far, here are my salvaged pictures. And for those who just look for pictures, insert me sticking my tongue out at you. Seriously though, I sometimes just look at pictures too.




Is the sunspot too distracting?



Oh, and we did go to Bear Lake with my side of the family again. Here's a picture of Aaron and Keeley, I'll see if I can find some cute ones of the rest of the kiddo's.

Yo

Yo, yo, yo diggety-dog.

So far this summer has been pretty crazy. We spent 10 days camping, home for 5, then back in the motorhome for another 10. Needless to say, I was quite tired. When we've been home we've been trying to make up for everything that we missed while gone, so its a whirlwind of friends, movies, and laundry. I feel like all I ever do is laundry.

It has been brought to my attention that I might be yelling at my children too much. As if the prayer from the 7-year-old boy child that mommy wouldn't get mad and yell wasn't a big enough indicator, I went to the dr. today because I feel like I have something stuck in my throat. While he couldn't tell me exactly what was wrong he had a few ideas. Yeah. I might have pulled a muscle in my throat, causing my voice box to shift (sounds hoakey eh?) and there's a possibility that yelling could aggravate it and keep it from healing. Who knew? That was just one of the possibilities, the rest weren't quite so glamorous so I won't share.

Here are a few pictures of the kids. You can probably figure out whats going on in them...

Anyhows, I was just doing an update to let everyone know we are still alive. Enjoy your summer and enjoy the warm weather!

School's Out For Summer!

I love summer break. Seriously. I love having my kids home, I love the lack of a schedule, and I love the weather and the vacations.

I haven't posted in forever, so here is a recap:

If we go clear back to April we have the arrival of my new baby. Not a real baby, it's so much better!



My new laptop! I seriously love this thing. I'm never far from it, and thanks to the portability I am now closer (relatively speaking) to my children and husband. It's a monster though, at 17.3" monitor, it is somewhat of a pain to lug around. Did I mention that I love it? Cause I do. (And I love my hubby for buying it for me.)

We also had Easter, along with the required Easter Egg hunts, and day at Grandma's which my children look forward to every year.



Brayden had yet another orthodontist appointment. He will really appreciate this picture someday. Maybe.


Then in May we had my birthday. Uhm. Yeah. I'm 30. But thanks to all my friends and my mom (thanks for the 30 presents, woot!), the day wasn't so bad.


Good hell, I'm fat these days. Moving right along... (Oh and thats me flashing gang signs about the 5 rotary cutter blades that I got along with my new LARGE rotary cutter.)
I won't show you pictures of the cake, because after the fire department came and blew out the candles, it didn't look so hot...

Brayden had his Arrow of Light Ceremony. We are so proud of him for accomplishing this. Can I just say my kid is awesome? (Sorry for the blurred faces, but as soon as I post someone elses kids picture on the internet I'm sure my butt's gonna get sued because their kid is in some stupid witness protection thing and now their dad is gonna find em and kill the whole family, or something. So, enjoy the blurry faces.)



Keeley suffered from some terrible bloating, resulting in her untimely demise.

And to round it all off, we spent our first weekend in Yellowstone for the year, where we experienced serious road rage and jackass rudeness like I have never seen before in my life. Luckily it was spent with my family, so there were enough nutcases around to keep things fun and lively.



There is the last few months of our life, in a nutshell. A very large nutshell that can hold lots of pictures.

Now we pack up again and get ready for more vacations. I have a feeling I'm gonna be sick of my motorhome before the summer is over, but at least I now have my baby to keep me company (hugs laptop).

A thumbsuckers thumb

Poor Keeley went to the dr. this morning to have a wart removed from her thumb. Being the evil parent that I am I chose the painful way of taking it off, good old freezing. He had another alternative to take it off that would have been less painful, but would have been stretched out over a number of weeks. I'm cheap. What can I say. I chose her discomfort instead of spending hundreds of dollars to take it off with less pain. So sign me up for the evil mean parent i.d. card, because today, I qualify.

You can see her poor little thumb there, all wrapped in duct tape. Yes, duct tape. That is what my expensive dermatologist told me to do. On the bright side, maybe she'll stop sucking her thumb. Unfortunately, the one on her other hand still is very suckable.

Spring Break

Guess what we woke up to the first morning of Spring Break? Well, what else than snow?

As you can assume, my kids haven't been loving their break. Neither have I. I really wanted to have some nice weather to send them outside to play and burn off all this energy that has been building up for the past few months. So today we decided to take them to Idaho Falls to the museum which is holding the Titanic display. Then we stopped by the temple visitor center and spent 2 hours there, and then across the river to take pictures. We had a pretty fun day, and the kids didn't want it to end.

I was able to get my camera out and practice taking pictures of "velvet" waterfalls and also pictures of the temple.

Hopefully the weather will clear up for the rest of Spring Break, or I might break some necks.

Dear Jane - 3 Blocks

Here is another Dear Jane block I finished. It's a super easy one that I don't remember even doing, I just found it in the pile. It is block D-13, Field of Dreams.

And here is another one, D-3, Jasons Jacks I believe.

A-7, Dad's Plaids

Again?!?!

Can you believe it, I've caught the cold/flu bug, again! Argh! This is the worst. I was down all day Sunday, skipped church, had to call someone else to teach my Young Women class, woke up Monday by greeting the throne god and was down all day Monday too. This is awful! Today I'm actually up and dressed, but I don't think its gonna get much further than that. I feel lightheaded and queasy whenever I walk around. Luckily my wonderful husband bought me a large supply of 7-up yesterday, so I can just sit back and sip soda and pop Sudafed all day long today.

I hope to be up and running like normal in the next day or two, but for now, I'm going back to bed.


edit: Okay, just so you can see that Craig did take a semi-decent picture of me at the cemetery, here it is. In all its *cough* photoshopped glory. Enjoy! ~ or not.

Beautiful Iniside and Out

I have been blessed with a beautiful daughter. Caitlin is so amazing in so many ways. She turned 9 a few weeks ago and I didn't mention it on my blog then, so I'm gonna talk about her now. This child is the funnest person I know. She loves to have fun and is always having a good time. She is also our social butterfly and has more friends than I can keep track of. Her first two years in school about bankrupted us with all the birthday invitations she received every week. She's very smart and works really hard in school. Shes also a fighter, which in my book is a good thing. We knew from day one that our lives would never be the same after she was born, but we had no idea what a huge blessing she would be.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

Or so someone once said. Here is something not many people know about me. I LOVE the idea of being organized and time managed and having a clean house. Notice I said the idea of it. The actual doing is a bit different. I can sit and make beautiful cleaning charts that are wonderfully organized, and I love doing that. I print them out, sometimes on pretty paper, sometimes I am going for the utilitarian look and its just plain white, and I never ever follow them. But I love making them. I love looking on a piece of paper and seeing my day divided up into little half hour increments showing where everyone should be and what they should be doing. It gives me shivers up my spine. I love the idea of knowing that at 8:00 I jump in the shower, dressed and ready by 9. At noon its lunch with it cleaned up at 12:30, and at 4:00 every day I start dinner. At least thats how it looks on paper.

Reality is, I shower whenever I can find the will to do it, we eat lunch when my kids are complaining about starving to death (their words, not mine), and I start dinner about 10 minutes before a hungry child is do at an activity. Oh, and the cleaning up part? Well, thats why it takes me so long to start dinner, because I'm cleaning up from dinner last night and lunch before I can cook tonight. I know I'm not the only one that lives this way, but I am the only one that will probably be brave enough to tell the truth about it. Other people can have their dream worlds where dinners at 5, kids baths at 6, bed by 7, and mom and dad have a nice relaxing evening before drifting off into uninterrupted sleep for 8 hours at 10:00.

Maybe someday, I'll live in that dream world too. Until then, I'll keep sending hungry kids to gymnastics, laundry won't always be done on Monday, and I will keep making my beautiful schedules. But this is who I am, and you can either love me or not. Judge me if you want to, but in the end I'm pretty happy with me.

Wildlife Photography

That title might be a bit misleading. No, its really misleading. I said that I'd upload some more pictures from our cemetery adventure, and here they are. Yeah, thats a squirrel. But he's really cute! And there were about 20 of them swarming us, and trying to eat my shoes. Obviously someone has made sure they are well fed and friendly. I seriously expected to get bit on the butt by one, and made Craig stand behind me while I got down on the ground to take pictures.

Now, if my brothers happen to read this, don't laugh. I know you guys get beautiful pictures of real wildlife like bald eagles, and elk, and deer, and cool crap like that, but hey! I live in the city and well, cities have lots of squirrels. So, thats what I photographed. And, I think the pictures turned out kinda neat.

So I'll be proud of my city squirrel photos, and everyone else can be proud of their awesome real wildlife photos. Just so you guys know, I'm learning and soon I'll be taking great photos of moose and elk and deer and buffalo and everything else too. After all, we spend weeks in Yellowstone so I'll have plenty of opportunities.

So my dear brothers, watch out, baby sister might pass you up.

I Love My Camera

It was finally a nice enough day today to get outside a bit. I convinced Craig that going to the cemetery would be a ton of fun and would have some cool things to take pictures of. Guess what? I was right! We left the kids home to fend for themselves (I love having a child old enough to babysit), and spent a few hours at the cemetery. We had a lot of fun, and saw some really neat graves and mausoleums, crypts, or whatever they are called (I'll never be rich enough or important enough to have one, so no reason to know the official term). And of course, got some great photos. Craig even took some photos of me that turned out decent, and I got a few of him as well. Here is my favorite of the day. I'll try to post a few more in the next few days.

Cause I Stink At Titles

I'm not gonna give one. So there. Nothing witty, nothing brilliant. Really. Nothing.

The kids have their Valentines Day parties tomorrow, so tonight we had the mad rush getting Valentines made. Caitlin, the smart one, made hers about a week ago. She got out her scrapbook paper and cut out paper hearts for everyone in her class. Very sweet. She never even asked for me to go buy her some, she just knew how she wanted them done, and she did it. Brayden on the other hand comes home from school today and doesn't say a word. He sits on the computer for 3!! hours. (This is a big no-no in our house, they only get one hour a day.) And then we tell him to get off, and then the panic sets in. Tomorrow he has to have Valentines! He hasn't given them a thought, so it must be an emergency situation! Now imagine this...Craig has been painting the pantry doors in my kitchen, so its layered in black plastic and paint drips everywhere. Caitlin has to be at gymnastics at 6:00, Craig has band practice at 6:30, and I'm trying to start dinner, which will take 55 minutes to cook instead of the 15 I head originally thought (read your recipes all the way through, not just the first line). And Brayden is in the kitchen having a fit about going to the store and buying Valentines at 5:47. Needless to say I lost my temper a bit and yelled at him. Ugh. Kids do not get that while mom is cooking dinner, its really not a good idea to approach her with your demands. So he went downstairs deflated, thinking his mom is evil. But alas, I redeem myself and whip him up some really cool Valentines in Photoshop, and made Aaron a set while I was at it. I must say, I really like their Valentines better than anything from a store.

Yesterday I made a self-binding baby quilt. This is pretty fast, and I like the result quite a bit. My corners on this first one aren't perfect, but now I know how to make them better next time. I just need someone to have a baby girl so I can give it to them! I have a nephew on the way, but no girls. And since my mom has already made like 10 of these for him, there is no reason for me to.

Aaron is a hard kid to photograph. Nothing I take of him ever looks that great. Needless to say I was surprised when he made me take a picture of him on his 100th day of school and it came out pretty cute! I like it because he doesn't have some goofy grin, his eyes aren't bugging out, he isn't doing a stupid pose, its just Aaron. Oh, and just so ya know, he made me Photoshop out the 2 sores that are about the size of a freckle he had on his face. He said they made him look icky. So yeah, hes 6 and we are already airbrushing his photos. Insert Eye Roll here.

Getting the Mojo Back...maybe

Last night I actually had a desire to go into my sewing room. I cleaned it up a bit and then I started and finished a little pencil pouch for my church bag. I also made a twirly skirt for Keeley. I've had the fabric to do this for like ever. I've been such a lazy mom I hadn't started it. I got Caitlins made, but never Keeleys. I got it all done except for the elastic and she was already asleep when I went down to measure her waist, so this morning I jumped up and finished it. Here is the Squealy in her new skirt, and yeah, she's really that cute.

Craigs birthday was on Saturday, and lucky for me his mom makes his cake! Yeah! He always gets worried that I'm gonna be upset that he asks her instead of me, but hello! Why would I want more to do? Here he is with his parents. We have been playing Pinochle with them for about a year now, and his mom and I thorougly whooped the boys' butts that night! Go us!

And last but not least, we were finally able to get a picture of Caitlin doing her back handspring. Proof that they are actually teaching her something at gymnastics.

Hopefully I can start feeling better and get back to myself. I came down with a bit of a cold about a week and a half ago, and I've just been yucky since then. I am still running a low grade fever, so I think I might need to make a dr. appointment. I hate going to the dr. Not to mention our new insurance Sucks, with a capital S.

Craig is home all week, our first week of unpaid vacation. 1 down 3 to go. As badly as it sucks to have to take 4 weeks without pay the first half of the year, I'm extremely grateful he has a job. Our family has everything we need. Not everything we want, but need. And really, thats enough. Times like this really make you re-evaluate whats important. Being able to stay home and play a game of Clue with the kids is more important than Craig and I going out and seeing the latest movie in the theatre. My husband and kids are whats important, having a new outfit, getting my nails done, having the kids in 20 different activities, it all takes away from what matters. Family. I'm grateful for my family. Although I may gripe about it, I am grateful for my husbands job. I'm grateful that because of him and his hard work, I am able to be home with my children, where I'm supposed to be. And if that means having ratty fingernails and un-trendy clothes, well, thats a sacrifice thats pretty easy to make.

Winter Blahs

I have had a case of the winter blahs, it's hit me a bit earlier this year than usual. I have no desire to do anything. I don't want to sew, I don't want to scrapbook, I don't want to play on the computer, I don't want to clean, I don't want to read a book, I just don't want to do anything! Usually there is something that I can find to do to keep me entertained. I hope that it'll pass in a few weeks, instead of months.

I'm sure our financial situation with hubby's work isn't helping matters. We have cut out all spending except on absolutely necessary items. No more dinners out without the kids, no more movies and popcorn on the spur of the moment. No more Dr. Pepper and Snickers. Sheesh I sound like such a cry baby right about now. I guess its a good time for me to go do some service for someone. Thats the best way to beat the "Wo me's". Hopefully I'll be back to my old self soon.

edit: Just so you all don't think I'm a total stick in the mud and as evil of a mommy as my kids would like you to think, here is a picture from Sunday when big beautiful snowflakes were coming down. Who can resist catching some? We couldn't. So in all my bathrobe glory, heres to catching snowflakes.