Our October photoshoot...

I felt a little disappointed with whole quick late afternoon photo shoot.  I shot them with different settings than I usually use, so I was flustered a bit.  The kids were great, but I was frustrated with my camera's limitations in dealing with low light and in the end they all have a lot on camera noise.  But like I said, I am OK with them.  I also wish we had a bit of sunlight that would create better lighting effects than the blah look of the overcast. :)  These are all pretty much right out of the camera...no photoshop, or if I used it, it was just to correct the white balance.

dd-A was awesome!  She was happy and helpful and even posed herself a few times. :)  Love her!   I love that I caught a few nice pictures with her big chip in her tooth. (it is now filled).  And I love that I have a few of her not smiling.  I think she is growing up to be quite a beauty!

D was, well, a three year old, off in his own world, funny, goofy, and silly.  I think a caught a few that I like.

J started out grumpy and worried about the spiders that he saw around the building, but once I got him away from the building a bit he was great!  WOW!!  He is growing up so fast!!  It is a little scary how fast time has gone.  Also, I am amazed that he was not OVERLY goofy. :D

 The only thing that would convince S to take some pictures this day was the big sunflower.  She wanted very little to do with me or the camera, just the sunflower!  hahaa!  She is her own little thinker and did her own thing...I just got to follow her and laugh as she let her personality show.  I think the overcast day effected her skin tones the most.   They seem a little off to me but I didn't photoshop them so this is the way they are. :)

 

Then I tried to get some with all four.  D wasn't really having it, but he participated in a few. :)

and then he ditched us. :)

They were troopers.  My poor kids...this is what they get to deal with as their mom tries to improve her photography skills.

As I look at these pictures I am just reminded of how different my kiddos are and also how much I love them all.  They are my joy! my heart! my world!  I am beyond blessed to have them in my life.  I was reminded this weekend of how much they really are NOT mine.  Our Heavenly Father has kindly, somehow, allowed Mike and I to have them in our lives for now.  He has not turned them over to us.  He still is their Father.  He still is very interested in what we do and what we teach His children.  I am humbled to think that He has allowed me to teach and raise His children.   I feel so unworthy at times and so lost as I make mistakes.  Luckily, these four special people love me, forgive me, and teach me.  Life is good...very good!

and my girls!

lovin them too!

and Dawn--in the last photos, D had just eaten a Suzie-Q (thanks to the discovery of Mike's hunting bin that had all the "food" he ate while he was away...Suzie-Qs, chips, cheetos, fruit snacks, cherry pies, chips a hoy cookies, fudge stripes, grandma sycamore's white bread, soda, granola bars, etc.  oh, there were apples in there, too. :)

my boys...

Just my boys!  Loving them!! :D

Happy soon to be Halloween...

Here are the kidlets...

They all had their Halloween parties at school.  All their costumes are finished, and it is 2 days BEFORE Halloween.  Amazing!! (for me)  hee hee!  We have our ward Trunk or Treat tomorrow night and they are looking forward to it, because they only get to hand out the candy at our house on the REAL Halloween.  (One of the cons of not living in UT- Sunday Halloweens are still celebrated on Sunday.)

So here they are...

A is an owl.  She decided a while ago what she wanted to be and totally had her heart set on it.  So what do we do when we can't find an owl costume to buy...We (and by "we" I mean "I") get to cut out 240 plus feathers and make her one.  We both love it, (I might love it more than she does).

D is our resident viking, Hiccup, from the movie How to Train a Dragon.  Although, I think he didn't understand the main part of the movie...he still thinks Hiccup kills dragons. ;)  I whipped this little costume up (other than the hat and shield) this morning.  I HEART it!  and think he looks so so cute!!

I guess I am not quite 100% finished with all the costumes.  I still need to put some sort of stuffing/foam in the hat so it will stay on his head better. :)

His scary viking face!

After much worry and stress, J decided he is going to be a secret FBI agent.  Halloween is HARD for this age of boys, because they want to be something cool, maybe even gory, but they are still just a little too young, and the schools still frown at it a bit.  But they are definitely too old for "cute" costumes.  I think he did alright, and it was cheap (since we already have the suit).  We went to Ross and picked up some sun glasses and a wallet for him, he borrowed one of Dad's ear pieces, and has some extra spy gadgets that we snagged from the dollar tree!

S decided to be a bee. :)  Originally, she wanted to be a flower.  We (and again, by "we" I mean "I", but the girls think if they say, "We can just make it..." that I'll be sold on the idea or something.  LOL!) were going to make it.  But after realizing how much work the owl was going to take, I decided that she needed to go a different route.  So we found this adorable bee costume, and I glam-ed it up a bit for her, so she'd feel a little extra something with it.  I think tomorrow we may add a stinger to her bum, just because it will be cute!

I definitely need to get more pictures of her tomorrow, these were all taken in her class today and the lighting was not so hot!

We're up to no good! ;)

as usual. :)  Just Kidding!!

Well, Mike's building's survey is over.  YAY!!  We have a Daddy and hubby again. :)  They did well, relatively speaking,   So thanks for all the positive thoughts and prayers.  It was a long week and a half of late nights,  early mornings, and lots of stress.

the rest of us are just pluggin' along with our fall!  J and A are finally swimming well, like really swimming!  YAY!!  We are so so happy, it really relieves some of my stupid and irrational fears with living in an area surrounded by water. :)

The other day I picked the kids up from school, the sun was shining, and it was gorgeous.  We had 3.5 hours until we needed to be somewhere, so I decided we needed to go to the pumpkin patch before the rain hit again.  I suggested to the kiddos that they put their sad puppy dog eyes and pouty lips as we stopped by Mike's work to see if he could come with us.  He wasn't able to right then, but he could in 30 minutes.  We went home real quick and ate snacks and then went back and picked Mike up and then off to the pumpkin patch we went!

and they are off 

D quickly claimed his pumpkin!

S did too, they were both super excited.

D taking a rest on a pumpkin.

Here, D is "cha chink, cha chink, cha chinking" at me with his imaginary camera. :)  hahaa!

S and J running to a section with BIG pumpkins.

D is off wandering, and singing!

another pumpkin break!

D has officially found HIS pumpkin

He is lovingly admiring his bright orange pumpkin.

Dad standing by his pumpkin pick!

A is chilling in the wagon with the pumpkins and my camera bag.

S has discovered the Cinderella pumpkins.  She was caressing it. hahaaa

This is HER pumpkin pick!

pumpkins

So, sometimes one has NO idea what awesome true to life treasure one captures on film. :)  These next set of photos are some of my favorite. :)  but you have to watch the series closely....  Can you guess what happened? I'll tell you on my next post...  (if you read FB, hush!! )

OK, so look VERY carefully at the next few photos.  Look...

Look...

Keep looking...

Finally, they are all happy and messing around. :)

Heading back to the barn.

The pumpkin loot.  We also went home with about 20 ears of fresh picked corn!  MMM!

The state has arrived at Mike's building, so some extra prayers on for him and his staff and the surveyors would be much appreciated!!  Thanks!

A few more pictures:

Our neighbors cut down a tree this last year and opened up a bit more of our view. :) 

Picking blackberries with our neighbor.  They have really missed them while they have been away this summer. 

 D has decided that he prefers to sleep in J's bed with him.  J has decided that D is a bed hog. hahaa!!

Just wanted to fiddle with the awesome lighting that was hitting our deck. :)

need to work on back lighting a bit more. :)  But S looks cute!!  we were about to take off for swimming.

D got a ...

"fur cut".  He has an Elmo book that talks about Elmo getting a fur cut, so that is what he calls it.  I think it is right on considering how long I always let his hair get. :)

and here it is. :)

yep he's cute!

(and healthy)