Halloween 2012 - A Glimpse

I know -- STOP THE PRESSES !!  I'm patting myself on the back for getting this done the night of! 

And I'm blogging about it!  Enjoy the glimpse of our night this year! 

Rock Canyon Oct 2012

 We've lived in this place since July of 1999 and just this last weekend did we actually get out and discover this amazingly gorgeous place. (Actually a few of our kids have gone on field trips up here, but Chris and I have never been up here)  I'll tell you... it will be a place that gets visited quite a bit from now on!  So, so pretty in Autumn up here.   The kids were excited and brought bags for collecting leaves, and we came home with a lot!    Once we were home a few of them attempted to make some paper plate wreaths with the leaves.  Which turned out really cute.    They also found rocks that they really liked and so we came home with a few of those too.       We got lucky that while we went up there the rain had stopped, because it was a rainy weekend.  So we might not have been able to do our family pictures this weekend, but we did get some fun pictures up in Rock Canyon.   It's just East of the Provo LDS Temple in Provo, Utah.   I'm not into rock climbing but there are fantastic places to do that up there too.   So many people were there.     So here are some fun memories... some pictures by me, and some by Kaylee.   

  I love this picture below!! So many fun colors to see, its just so gorgeous and heavenly!

Look who's a year already!

I can hardly believe she's already 1! 

I decided to do an unplanned photo shoot with her this morning that

lasted for about 10 minutes.  And I finally feel like I have a keeper image! 

I wish she would have one of those all out smiles, but she's still

cute like this. 

Maybe next time!

I love this little girl! 

My handsome 5 year old!!

I love this little boy so much and can hardly believe that he's old enough for Kindergarten already!  It's a bit lonely even though I still have Esther (his 1 year old sister) at home.

But he is so excited to be going to school finally and everyday he gets too impatient about having

to wait till 12:10pm to go to school.  Yep, he has afternoon Kindergarten.

But he's loving it, and today just happens to be "Orange" day at school. 

 

Happy 1st Birthday Esther!!!

A year ago today I was in the hospital waiting to have this precious little girl !  I can hardly believe that it's been a year already!  She started walking nearly 2 weeks ago, and has been so excited about it, that she actually tries to "run".   She now has 6 teeth that have broken through the gums.  

She likes cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, grapes. 

Bread, animal crackers, cereal.  

She sleeps from about 7:30pm at night till about 7am in the morning.  

Takes two naps a day still. 

She loves playing with her "drum" toy. 

She uses the baby sign for "more",  and "milk", "eat/food".  

She has the prettiest eye lashes that go with the perfectly round, wide open eyes!  

She sometimes will answer "yes/no" questions when asked them, with the 

appropriate head movement. 

She loves being outside! She loves our dog Amber. And now, calls 

every animal "amba"  

She says, "Mama"  and "dada" very well. 

and says a word that sounds like "brea" for "bread". 

Ethan has a special bond with her.  Pretty much from the beginning.  He beams when he sees her, and her eyes light up and a big smile flash across her face when he comes into the room.  He can seriously make her do the "belly laugh".   

She likes to grab mommy's keys, play with the "phones".  She likes anything that plays music. 

I love this little lady!  She's been an absolute blessing to our family. And she has so many people that love and adore her!  I look forward to this upcoming year and all the milestones she'll reach by the time she's 2! 

September 6, 2011 

September 6, 2012

A few teasers....

I've been a  LITTLE busy lately. 

But that's okay. 

I feel ALIVE.  Probably for a few reasons 1) getting out and walking the last few days a few times a day to take my children to and from school.  2) I've been busy behind my camera once again.  And I LOVE IT!! 

I've gone from having 6 kids home all day for summer, to having just 2 until next Wednesday the 29th!

Life is good! 

I have desires to keep this blog up more frequently now that my baby is not such a newborn anymore.

I have goals and ideas and someday I'll achieve most, if not all of them.

Here's a snapshot of some things I've been busy with.  

FIRST AND FOREMOST:  This little Lady is now 11 months old (when the picture was take just a few weeks ago). She's gotten so grown up so fast.  She'll be one in just two weeks!!  She is such a precious sweetheart though.   And we love her tons.   (This is my daughter Esther)   

Here's a recent family shoot I did.  They happen to be family and it was fun spending time with them, that I wouldn't otherwise have gotten.  There kids are so cute. And along with being cute, they were really wiggly too.  So we didn't get too many pictures before the little guy fell into the water.  And I probably would have really tried for more things, but I felt bad for him, because he was so cold and wet.  It was still lots of fun though.  Thanks Christensen Family!

Here's a little Princess who I offered to take pictures of for her parents since I knew her mother at college back in the days of Ricks College (1997-1998) living on College Avenue in Rexburg, Idaho.  Fun times. 

And this photo shoot was still fun despite not being able to use the location they intially wanted because of some construction. Luckily this spot was right across the street.  And even though there were other groups that were busy doing pictures too, we still managed to get some family shots that turned out cute. 

 Or at least I think so.  

Not to mention my other children that needed me as well. But one of these days I'll get the hang of being super mom!

We've been a little MIA ....

I've been trying to access blogger from Internet Explorer and have nothing but problems.  So after weeks of being frustrated I've gone to Firefox... and guess what ???    It's letting me do a new post!!  YAY!!! 

Might not be a big deal to any of you, but to me, it's HUGE!!!   So many days I've wanted to blog about something but because I wasn't able to access it at the time, it's gone to the back of my priority list. 

So here's a family update: 

Chris.... still busy working as an accountant at his job, and he's been there for almost 7 years come this July.

Wendy .... taking on the yearbook project for the school our children currently attend and has announced this is the last year she'll be doing it.  

(We've now lived in our home for 11 years!!  As of the beginning of March) and now we're in the process of doing an addition.  Next step.... either test for asbestos and lead and/or  find someone to draw up our plans for the addition that we'd like to do.   We'll get back to that after our little rendezvous in California to see my brother get married.  

Kaylee ... She's less than a month away from turning 13!!!  I seriously can't believe it!   And if you get a moment and know my daughter  --- we're creating a surprise book for her at the end of the month and any advice, memories, favorite book lists, recipes  -- really anything you'd like to share with her that she might know how many people are pulling for her and support her, that she can refer to over and over again through the next several years would be awesome.   Remember SHHHHH!!!!! 

But she's also involved with an after school ballroom class and loves doing that.  She's also really great with her baby sister.

Katherine.... She's also involved with the after school ballroom class, and has a really fun time with that.  She also loves to read!  She's reading all the time, I sometimes have to force a book out of her hands just to get her to come help me with dinner.

Heidi ... Just finished up performing a one night program talking about the history of Utah with the rest of the 4th grade students at her school.  And is finally participating in a sport --- soccer!  She picked it and asked if she could play and we agreed.  So now, I'm quickly trying to learn all about soccer because I don't know very much.  But the good thing is, she's a rather natural player and is doing good as a forward. She's pretty aggressive with it and we're looking forward to seeing her grow in this sport.

Thomas ... Now 7 years old and has been since January is busy playing soccer as well.  He's a different kind of  player than Heidi and seems to be geared more as a defensive player.  And his reading has been improving a great deal as we've been reading scriptures regularly now for nearly 2 months.

Ethan ... He is so ANXIOUS and gives an "evil" laugh every day when he counts down how many more days until his birthday.  (April 10)  We dyed eggs for Easter the other night and he got so wowed by the simplest things and get really excited.  I love seeing how he thinks about those around him and the things around him. He's constantly asking questions and learning lots.

Esther ... Nearly 7 months old has reached so many milestones this last month.  She's crawling and sitting up on her own, she claps her hands, eating food more regularly, she's starting to sit up while in her bed, and sleeps on her tummy.   My favorite thing that she does lately, she gets her hands on the floor and has her feet on the floor with her bum in the air and then she puts her head on the floor between her hands as if to do a somersault.  She's getting so big so fast and I'm trying to soak up every moment of it.


We've been without our cable subscription for nearly 2 months and it's been AWESOME!!  As a couple Chris and I are becoming closer and we're a team all the way!  We're reading scriptures as a family and I can tell a difference in attitudes.  However, with all the good things, we still have some night owls -- yes, you know the kind, the ones who don't want to go to bed.  Yeah, we're working on that still.   So there's a little update on us.  And more posts to come with pictures later.