sunshine! YAY!

Fun and busy week.  Mike left and went to Lake Powell for fishing. So I was on my own.  Mike and the boys had fun as well as some challenges at Powell, but they always love the fishing!

My week was normal...tball, baseball, dance, Scouts, more dance, some senior pictures, more baseball, more tball, and more baseball, oh,  and Young Authors.

Our week in photos

the Harbor view from my kitchen, on a cold, windy, and very choppy day.

We finally had some sunshine stick around longer than an hour or so. :)  So we enjoyed MOST of our free time outdoors this week.  So much so, that J and A didn't get homework done all week.  Oops (we caught up this weekend though)!

S, giving me her "game face"

If you have kids that watch Ben Ten Alien Force then you know what this is. I was just whipped my son up an omnitrix this day, cuz I am crafty like that. While he was excited for the first little while, he became disappointed when the aliens didn't proceed to come out of it when he called their names.

super cute new pair of shoes. They are little flats. I LOVE them

S just chillin on the grass

playing in the water

My Mother's Day breakfast in bed. Mike was out of town and the kids were so bummed that they had no help in doing Mother's Day. One child, A, actually was in tears over it many time, so I decided that we'd go to the store. The kids made a list and had free reign (within reason). They picked stuff out for breakfast for me as well as a potted plant. (I told them no to the $60.00 flower arrangement.) they took the alarm from the guest bedroom and A set it. In the morning, they proceeded to make breakfast with strict instructions that they could only use the toaster oven and microwave. It originally came to me without a plate, but I asked for one so I could put the syrup on my waffle. and yes, that is an ice-cream cone. :)

While the entire thing was cold (it took A 30 minutes or so to figure out the hot cocoa in the microwave, and it bubbled all over, so she had to clean it up and start over, and then I think she was worried, so she didn't heat it up enough) I have to admit is was definitely a step in the right direction after last year. See this post for a recap of last year's breakfast

 I really only wanted one thing (other than a new camera lens :) ) for Mother's Day and that was a photo with my kids.  Since Mike was gone, we had to come up with another option.  Everyone looked good after church, so J and A were the photographers.  I set up the exposure and coached them through the picture taking.  and these are the results. :)  Not bad, if I do say so myself.

This is an extra one of S, just because I love it. :)  

She had bumped her elbow and needed some comfort, and J kept shooting. 

Nice moment captured!

And then S wanted a turn taking some pictures.  She has never taken any with my camera before.  I coached her and this was the first one.  Not bad, not bad at all. :)

Her first picture ever on the SLR. :) 

this is me giving her directions, "push the button just a little, oops, not that much, see the red dot, put the dot on mommy's eye, then be sure it beeps when the red dot is there, then push it down the rest of the way."

Robin...some senior pictures

Did some senior pictures yesterday for an AWESOME gal from our church.  We love her.  I am pretty pleased with how they turned out. :)

(Sorry if you get this via email and don't care about these photos, but they are fun and I wanted to share)

Here they are:
The first one is just normal editing...fixing color, making it pop a bit, etc.  then the following ones are some fun editing I did.  Sometimes I like the first one best other times I like the edited one.

She is beautiful and is such a sweetheart!  Good Times!

all caught up!

photos for this last week...

The kiddos found some of my old preschool books!  They love them.

Although, they promised me they would put them away after they were finished reading/looking at them.  

This picture was taken the morning after. :)  They DID clean them up after school. :)

This is Misty's Dallin.  He is the cutest, chubbiest, sweetest, little thing around.  This was the night Misty brought Ty to me so I could watch him for her while she went to Women's Conference.  I think I should have gone with her. :)

and here is Ty, sitting playing nicely with the horses.

Ty and D veggin' out watching a movie on the imac while I was exercising.  Note, the car in Ty's hand.  he had one, two, or three of them just about as often as he could.

Ty's O2 tanks.  Although his lungs have gotten better, he still is on oxygen at night.  The first night was miserable, but it was my fault because I put the monitor on wrong.  I think it woke me up beeping every 30 minutes for the first four hours of the night.  Then I figured out I had put it on incorrectly, I fixed it, and it was smooth sailing after that. :)

J has become quite the little runner.  

He and A ran with Mike at his facilities Relay for Life run two Saturdays ago.  J surprised us by taking first place in the 5k.   So, Mike got up early this past Saturday and took him to run in another race.  Again, he took first overall. :)  He is one proud little boy.  

It makes me smile.

Changing the battery in our fire alarm.  :)

And now I am caught up! :)

still catching up...

There has been lot and lots of things going on in our neck of the woods. Just a quick bit...

* Mike is busy with the remodel of his building for work. It is pretty exciting. The building looks so great, and we can't wait to see the finished result.

* I have been doing some extra things with the school (field trips and stuff). I love being involved with the kids and their teachers. It keeps me busy, since I go in two mornings a week, I feel very useful for the teachers in their classroom. I get to use my education degree a bit as well, doing a variety of tasks with the kids. :)

* We had our Primary Activity, which I was in charge of, so that also kept me busy planning for a week or so, I think it went pretty good. I love having my kids in the Primary. I ask them if the things I did were fun, boring, stupid, lame, or too hard to understand, etc. It is good to get their feedback. And let me tell you, my little A does not hold back. My first Sharing Time I did she told me was boring. hahahaa!! I have improved since then. :)

* kids had their school music concert. They did well.

* J and S have started baseball. J is in full swing and is on two teams (one being a traveling team) S is in t-ball and is still just practicing, but is proving to be a little tom boy. And Mike is helping coach both teams.

* We are nearing the end of dance this year and gearing up for the recital, which is one day of pure madness for me.

* had a guest, a co worker of Mike's who is training with the company, stay with us for a week, Mike said he would invite a visitor every week it it kept me cooking dinner and breakfast like I did the week he was visiting.

* had my nephew, Ty, with me for a 4 days. He missed his mommy and Dallin terribly, the first day they were gone he woke up and wandered around the house saying, "find Mommy, find Dallin." He got lots of snuggles from us, and when he was sad my A was always so good to do a little more with him and love him and give him some extra attention.

* did some digital scrapbooking stuff, etc. If you care about this stuff check my facebook page...

*and in all that I have kept taking pictures, just not posting them, not bad.

J and A one day when I picked them up from school.

D was hanging out on the couch eating cheetos and ritz crackers with Luis.

D munching on morning donuts.

I love how his little nose is all scrinched up as he is biting the BIG donut.

field trip to the bird refuge.

This is a peregrine falcon that came by as we were leaving.

Me torturing D as he was crying over something dumb. haha.

Instead of comforting him, I grabbed my camera to get a shot.

Ribbons and ribbons and ribbons.

Working on ribbon stuff for a digital scrapbooking thing.

D playing peek-a-boo with me.

And, yes, Misty, I did notice it was a D heavy camera week. These were two weeks ago pictures by the way. I am hoping to do this weeks tomorrow and then I'll be all caught up! :)