My new photo goal...

Some of you have already seen on FB that I am going to try and meet a new photo goal. :) I plan on taking one picture (at least) every day of the year. It is called the 365 challenge. I wish I could remember the original link for this, but a whole ton of my scrapping friends and I were doing it last year. I only made it to the middle of February, so I am hoping to make it farther this year. Really, I just want to improve my photography significantly.  I am hoping that focusing on it more will help me improve. Anyway, here are some shots from this last week

Day 3 (Jan 3)

Poor, sad, D, begging and pleading to get my camera.

(Not going to happen! LOL)

Day 2 (Jan 2)

J ready to help with the recycling.

He put on our clam digging boots.  Sillly boy!

Day 1 (Jan 1)

I almost missed the first day,  oops!

So I ran into the kids room to snap a picture or two of them sleeping.

(Yeah, right!)

I hope to do this regularly and post each Sunday with the pictures for the week.  Wouldn't it be nice if I continued with it. :)  

Christmas

I just wanted to put up a few pictures of Christmas before too much time passed.  We had a very nice relaxing day.  We got to sleep in until about 8:30.  And then we tortured our children, by making them stay in the back bedroom for 10 more minutes while we finished getting everything ready. Bwahahaha!  We are such mean parents.  Then we lined them up in the hallway...

Heading down the hall to see their treasure.  Oh the anticipation!!!

J clearly spies his spoils first 

(and they really are spoils. :)  He got a fully decked out pirate ship)

J and D checking out the pirate ship.  D was cracking me up because he wouldn't leave the ship alone all day long.

dd-A and her stocking stuffer flash light. 

S and her stocking stuffer flashlight.  Who knew flash lights could bring such joy?

Apparently Santa did. :)

And D at his table play station.  We broke him away from the pirate ship long enough to snap a few shots at his own present. :)

While Christmas and the presents with the children were great, we really enjoyed the time spent with friends the night before where we focused on the true meaning of Christmas.  We shared dinner and dessert with some friends here.  Following dinner, we had a sweet little nativity play (I, of course, forgot my camera, so I need to snag pics from you Annaliese).  Our children were fabulous little actors, S as Mary, J as Joseph, and dd-A as a shepherd (complete with baa-ing stuffed sheep-which she baa-ed at appropriate times).   Their sweet friend, whose house we were at, kindly gave up the role as Mary for the angel, and we are grateful for that.  S was in tears multiple times that day, prior to dinner, fearing that she wouldn't get to be Mary. :) 

We are truly grateful for the greatest of all gifts, the gift of the Savior, and his sacrifice for us.   We are grateful for our many friends and family.  And hope you all had a fabulous holiday season.

Dance Recital (no pictures, but I think I figured out video)

Recital this year was crazy.  Mike out of town, so I was on my own.  In addition, we did to shows on the same day.  The studio has grown so much and because we live in a tiny little town there is no auditorium large enough for everyone who wants to come.  So we did two shows.  SIGH!!

I cannot tell you how so very proud I am of my girls.  dd-A admitted to me in the car that she was so nervous, more than normal.  Of course she should be, who wouldn't be.  My goodness, these little girls get up in front of a huge crowd and dance.  They really did great, and yes, I am biased. :)

Valuable lessons have been learned over time with my camera.  I have learned that sometimes I have to sacrifice photos to be IN the moment and not to cause more stress in crazy situations. As a result, NO pictures were taken tonight.  Which I am totally OK with because, I have also learned to compensate for the lack of photos by staging a photo shoot. :)  I will make both girls get dressed in full garb again for more photos at home. :)  So the recitals are less stressful for everyone involved.

As I mentioned, Mike was out of town for the recital.  When we spoke the morning of, he told me that he was sad that he was missing their dances.  So I decided I would try hard to record them.  I am grateful for Teresa who kept J with her during the first recital while I ran around changing costumes and making sure children were where they needed to be, and for our friends who took him during the second recital so he could play.  And I am thankful that lil D was in a good mood tonight.  And also for the church girls and our neighbor's daughter who helped change costumes and look out for my daughters to get them where they needed to be.  Everything came together to make tonight great.

The first recital was a run through for me.  We had a total of five dances (=five costume changes) and all of our dances were in the first 16 numbers.  You can do the math, I was a little busy.  hahaha!!  The second recital was awesome.  Both girls were more comfortable on the stage and remembered their dances better.  I pulled out the video camera and managed to record all but one dance.  One major downside of Mike being gone was that I was holding D while recording...I apologize in advance for the bad recording job.  It was the best I could to while holding a rascally 1 year old. :)

The second recital was optional for S's class.  The instructor wasn't going to have them in the second show, but then realizing that my dd-A was going to be in it, so dd-S was going to be there anyway, so she put them in.  Well, it looked like S was going to do a solo for the second recital.  There are only 5 girls in her class anyway, and they all had prior commitments for the evening.  In the end, S's dearest friend (her "bestest friend in the whole world" as she stated tonight) decided to go late to their party so she could come for that ONE number and dance with S.  It was so cute...

dd-S and her bestest friend in the whole world.

dd-A has always loved ballet, and this is the first year she was old enough to take a ballet only class.  She loves it.  She concentrates VERY hard to make her body balance and move like it is supposed to.  Her teacher tells her she has great pointe, and every once in a while she gets to lead her class in the bar exercises.  (That is also because she has an incredible memory and remembers what each step is in their proper name).

dd-A's ballet dance (dd-A is the tallest one, the second one from the left)

dd-S's big production number.  It was hard to get a good shot of her, but you can see her red feather hair piece bopping up and down and every once in a while get a decent glimpse of her dancing.

If any of you know my dd-A you know she does not like things to change once she has them set in her mind.  Flexibility is something we continually discuss.  At the same time, her need for structure is something I am continually reminding myself.  Well, this was a great moment for her.  After dressing in her costume she discovered that she only had ONE of the proper tap shoes (luckily she left her old ones in her bag).  To her, the mental process would go something like..."I don't have my tap shoe, we have to have the right tap shoe or we can't dance...I don't have my right tap shoe so I am not going to be able to dance..."  Then the tears would come.  We discussed how there were NO options, and she would need to wear her old tap shoes.  Not ONE tear was shed, and I was bracing for at least a stream. :)  Her dance was hard and fast.  She did great.

dd-A's tap dance (she is the one all the way on the right)

All in all it was a good night. :)

Quick photos

So we were trying to get some family pictures taken this last week, and it finally worked out that we had about an hour after lil D woke up from his nap and before Mike had to take off for a business trip.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get very many shots and it was getting too dark outside for good natural light.  Also I felt a little bummed that dd-S had a little break down right before we took the pictures, but because the sun was going down and because Mike had to leave, we couldn't wait.  I really wish I could have gotten some super fab pics of all my kids all dressed nice, but I was only able to click a few shots.  Oh well,  here are a few of the shots.

I think Mike and I are two of the luckiest people in the world. :)

Feeling busy and a little out of sorts...

Well, tis the season to be busy! We have just been doing normal things, but school seems to have extra activities, as do the youth in the church and so does Mike's facility, so, we have twice as many things to to do in the evenings (so it seems) and not twice as much time to do it.

Mike was out of town quite a bit in November which left me with many sleepless nights. (I do not sleep well without him home.) He had some good trips though. He went to Eastern WA for a business trip and then stayed the weekend to do some pheasant hunting. WHICH HE LOVED!! He brought back some tail feathers for the kids and they are their prized possessions. then he made a business trip to UT to do some recruiting from BYU for his company. We decided to send dd-A with him, and she got to spend some great time with Grandma. She hasn't stopped singing High School Musical since she got home. LOL!!

Then we had Thanksgiving. Which is always fun, good food, great company and a handful of lazy days!! Misty, my sister, and her hubby Phil and Ty, their super smiley baby, came for the whole weekend! WAHOOO!!! I love having them around. It is fun to watch Ty interact with my kids and especially fun to see him and lil D getting along more and more. You can visit her blog and read her stuff for thanksgiving, she updates better than me and with pictures. LOL!! I don't know if I am going to have time for pictures today. I am trying to speed type while D is asleep.

Mike and Phil played in two Turkey Bowls, and I am grateful that they came home injured, but still walking. They had a good time. One of the games was against the high school football team and some of the recents graduates. So they were playing the young and spry.

They came home and we had a few hours until my massive 24 lb turkey was going to be finished. We did turkey, home made stuffing, home made rolls (thanks to Misty and her mad roll making skills), mashed (or SMOOSHED as dd-S says) potatoes, corn, green bean casserole (which was definitely the favorite of the meal), and some sparkling cider. My kids were horrified that we were going to have alcohol to drink. hahaha!! Until they realized that it ws just fizzy juice, then they were alright with it. Dinner was very yummy!!

Chris and Vanessa and super cute Bobby came up that night and spent the next day with us. I told them that it was lame they were only spending a day with us, they agreed. LOL!! But they had a temple trip with the youth in their ward to get back for, so I guess that is a legit excuse. :) Bobby adores J. He laughs at him and follows him around. I love it.

December is looking to be nutsy for us. :) We have dance rehearsals, recitals, and pictures, school music concerts and sing alongs, youth Christmas parties and caroling, and then Mike's big work shin dig. So...

TTFN!!!!

wow--is Novemeber really half done?

***decided to post my drafts: they are unfinished works, but it gives you a little glimpse into our November. :)***

Where did time go this month? HMMM?? let's see. Mike out of town, home, hunting, family visiting, Mike and A out of town, parent/ teacher conferences, kids having half days of school for a week, helping out in two elementary schools, shampooing carpets, ripping down wall paper. I have been busy this month.

I started volunteering at J's school too now. I have been volunteering at A's school for the whole year. I just decided that I could keep better tabs on J and know what was going on at school a bit more if I was volunteering. It has been good. I go and read with kids that are struggling with reading a bit.

We had parent/teacher conferences.  Both kids did really great.  Their teachers say they are model students.  And both received some 4's which their teachers say they hardly ever give out.  I was pleased.

Funny things My kiddos Say: October Edition

I haven't been very good about jotting them down this month, but here are a few.

**DD-S was "reading" a little book about the creation and "read", "Heavenly Father gave us the water so we can drink and the fish can swim. He gave us the birds so we can shoot them and eat them." That is what I get for marrying a hunter. haha! (31 Oct)

**we have our three older kids together in one room for sleeping purposes, and they do a bit more playing than sleeping at night. So, ds-J comes out one night saying, "I know what you can get to watch us better when we are in the room. You know those things they use on the TV to see the deer at night, you could get one of those." He is referring to something he has seen advertised on the outdoor channels; it is like night vision, but recording the deer. Silly boy!

** Kids are supposed to be cleaning, dd-S says, "Mom, my Spirit keeps distracting me, so it is VERY hard to clean." (3 Oct)

**dd-S, trying to convince her sister that she had already seen 101 Dalmations 2, "Yes, I saw it, in Mom's belly, you weren't there. Mom's belly has a dvd player in it. " (1 Oct)