Elle's Field trip

My absolutely amazing photography skills.......

Elle and her best bud Mason. LOVED his expression!

Cool stuffed animals

Elle's favorite, the polar bear

The very fast paced tour of the place.
Like I want to look at you when I have all this to look at??!!

Today Elle's preschool class went to the Museum. I was able to go with her, and it was fun. I also had a wonderful test about my photography skills......or in this case extreme lack of. I usually help take some pics for the end of the year slide show thing right? Today, being inside, and twenty plus children really tested me. Wow. I couldn't move my settings and shoot quick enough before the kids moved or the lighting changed. It was dark in several areas. So all I got was major red blur going on. I've got a ton of work to do.....

Elle loved it. They handed out cute little red binoculars to all the kids. It was very entertaining. :) Her favorite part was the polar bear. They dimmed the lights and made thunder noises and strobe lights for the lightning. **Thought for cool museum people.......why on earth would you try to scare 26 preschoolers out of their minds?!! The kids have been potty trained for how long? Their bowels are that strong yet. Nice. Smart people.

On the way home I asked Elle what her favorite parts where etc. She is telling me everything she remembered and then she said, "mom, I wasn't scared. I was brave. The lightning didn't scare me." Cute. My little scaredy cat was brave:)

**note to everyone who doesn't know Elle or have heard her talk. This is a mix of british and kid accent. Very Cute.**

And I'm kickin myself because she said a word that she hasn't ever used before. But of course I can't remember what she said for the life of me!!

Oh the LUCK

Sometimes we think I hope my kid doesn't get my nose, or I hope they get my eyelashes etc. You get my drift. We don't want them to get certain attributes. In our case, our LUCK. Or more like it.....the lack there-of. BUT.......du-du-du-don!!!!

Today, we had a break-through. For a couple of minutes......more like seconds.

I was running around this morning trying to figure out Eli's paperwork and round stuff up that he needs. Time got away from me, so I sent Eli to the bus stop with Blynn. He sent her off a minute before he got out the door.

So, when he returns back home he non-shalauntly tells me our daughter found $110 at the bus stop. Just like he would say, "hey hun, i think we are out of toilet paper." Yeah. Just like that.

What the??!! I look at him and start laughing because stuff like this does not happen to me or anyone in my family. In fact, it's just the opposite.

Then he states that he is serious and repeats what happened to me. He said he got down there and Blynn and one of the other little girls were playing in the rocks. Blynn said, "dad I found some money."
The other little girl said, "it's ten dollars". Blynn, being the smart little girl she is said, "No dad its a hundred dollars."

End of story. I think not.

Quick as that, another dad at the stop, jumped up off the grass and was at Eli's side in a heart beat. Eli had the little wad in hand. It was a hundred and a ten. The guy grabs it from Eli's hand and said he knows who it belongs to. Yes, he grabs it from him. Rips it from his hands. He tells a quick little story about how he knows who it belongs to. Thats the end. Eli comes home like nothin happened and its not his deal. It bugged me. All day. I'm laughing, but seriously, something about the whole thing bugged me bad. We would have turned it in. Promise. We wouldn't have kept it. Did I want it?? Ya. Who wouldn't? (finders keepers, losers wheepers RIGHT?!) haha! :) Maybe it was the fact how this guy reacted. Cool if he really knows who it belonged to. I would want my money returned to me! Specially now, when everyone is having hard times. But to act like that? Seriously.

Eli keeps telling me to forget about it. He just laughs. I'm trying to. (editors note* he's gonna die when he reads this. Yes babe I love ya. But I just got it off my chest!! I just wanted to know what everyone else thought when I did!!! Last of it, promise.)

Oh the luck...................

Baby Kye

This is beautiful baby Kye. He is so handsome.....and has such a mellow, calm demeanor....till you take his clothes off!! Haha!! He peed on us a couple of times to show us just how ticked he was! He is two weeks old. And my favorite part is that I get to take more pics of him this week! Thanks Gina!

Good day :)

It's raining here this morning. (It rained all night too. Why do I know that? Yup, its cuz I was awake!!) I was on my way home from the gym this morning .....haha stop laughing! Yes I finally went to the gym today! Alysia MADE me go! It was great. I feel good. I hurt though. Anyhow back to the rain. It smells so good! I didn't know it was forcasted. Its nice.

Yesterday? It was a great day! It was the day I was praying for. It was cloudy, perfect pic taking weather. Eli had an interview with Skywest. For a mechanic position. He flew up at noon and was back by 6. I was more nervous. I have no clue why!! People love him! Of course they liked him. So they gave him a job!!! WHA-HOO!!! I was so excited! Of course its depending on his backround check. We all know how squeaky clean that is! (just saying squeaky made me think that nasty little mouse! *shudder!*) So it could take days, weeks or even a month, just depending. So he calls me when he was in the terminal and he wasn't all there. I was like are you okay? He said "Yah. Elder Holland and his wife just walked in."
I was all excited:) I guess you can see anyone if your in the right spot at the right time right?! He said he would send a pic.... camera phones suck. Anyhow we finished our little conversation so he could board. Then he sends another pic of a gentleman reading the paper and says "Guess who?" Yep he was sitting next to Elder Holland and his wife! So that meant that I saw them when they got off the plane in St. George. So that was pretty cool. There were two families there waiting for their missionaries to get off and he walks in and said, "Don't worry their on there!! it was pretty funny.
Back to our great news! He will work 4- tens in Salt lake at the airport. He can fly back and forth, but that is something we need to iron out. We can't move. So we need to work something out there. Sidenote *applying for this job meant he needed to get a tool box and some more tools. So at Christmas we looked at Sears. They were having a great sale but we decided to wait. So a couple of days ago we went back to look. We ended up saving close to $250 on it. We got it. But come to find out, it won't work for the job!! HAha!! Go figure.
We will find out more about the job after all his paper work goes through. I DO KNOW......THAT WE GET SOME PRETTY SWEET FLIGHT DEALS!!!!! UM FREE!!! Sorry I guess I had to rub it in a bit!! So we are excited. Then hopefully everything will start to fall into place to get a pilot job with them! More work and sacrifice, but definately worth it. Definately.

Good job babe. I love you so much!!

Not again!

So last night I'm in one of those stupid stages of sleep where I think I'm sleeping, but in all actuality I'm wide freakin awake! (A nice dose of sleeping meds would be very welcome on those nights!!) Anyhow, all of a sudden I'm hearing a noise that sounds like the girls' doll stroller being pushed by a maniac, or a strong wind blowing the blinds around like......like.....whatever that would be compared to!! What the.... I thought at first one of the girls was up. Nope. Scared out of my freakin mind, I get up (while Eli is still off in dreamland) and start turning on some lights, moving very slowly towards the kitchen.....I flip on the light and start to peek around the corner and decide this is not for me. I go back in the bedroom and wake up Eli. He goes in and one of our unbaited mouse traps was set. And we had another stupid mouse!!! This one stepped on it and it got its leg. The little guy was trying to get in a tight corner with a block on his leg and it just wouldn't work! Eli puts it (mouse and all) in a jar and fills er up with water.

Brief commerical.................You might want to put a movie on for the kids or if you have a weak stomach, stop reading here. Serious. Its gross, inhumane, disgusting, etc.

You know on Ratatouille (the kids show) where the mouse is getting ready to drown and he opens his mouth all huge like, over and over and is trying so hard to catch some air?

Back to our program........

Well this mouse is doing the EXACT same thing!!! (Yes I know this is the worst kind of horrible thing ever to do to a animal.....even a nasty rodent like this one) Well for the love of Pete, they HAD to have drown a mouse to see what it would do!!!! We watched this poor (extremely gross varment) creature suffer for a matter of seconds before.......ya, you get the picture.

I'm cleaning like a mad woman today.................................... I can't believe I actually just told everyone that. Who really admits to having mice in their house!! Um, gross!! Seriously I clean!! Promise!

(Side note for Kacee, Catherine, Kari, and mom. Remember when we watched that show on BBC. How Clean is your House?? Need I say more!!!!??)

SIGH................... I need to post about something much cleaner...... and happier. Hopefully tomarrow afternoon I will have that great news. We are crossing our fingers. Mostly for us, but for your sake, so you want to come back and read our blog.

Their Favorite Thing!

This is something these two farts seem to never get enough of!

Elle

She's so funny.

Eli is on a later schedule with this student. So he doesn't leave until later. She absolutely loves every ounce of attention from both of us while BrookLynn is at school. It kills her to not have her buddy home. She won't let Eli lay down without wrestling him! She mauls him. We play games, cards, read books, and just chill together.

Last week was funny. Eli grabbed a water bottle and dropped some on me. We laughed and Elle kept bugging Eli he turned his back and I dumped some on Eli. This brought on a true water fight in the living room. Elle's reaction was shock. She was processing everything. Eli was trying to dump water on me. I was laughing so hard at him and his reaction that Elle wasn't sure if I was in trouble or hurt. It was so dang funny she was half-laughing, half-wondering what was going on. Then all of a sudden she pipes up and said, "Santa is watching you guys!!!". Simply hilarious. Maybe it was one of those you-had-to-be-there moments. She is always saying the funniest things.

Its fun to have the one on one time.

Not so foreign anymore

What a great day! I'm so excited to announce that the buttons on my camera are not crazy unknown symbols in a different language!! Yea!
The workshop went great and I'm really excited to put all I've learned to good use! It's still going to take practice to really figure it out and make it look great, but its so awesome to semi-know what I'm doing!!
Not only that, I'm looking for new lenses!! Hoorah! hahaha! I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon, but I have goals to look forward to making that happen!
I feel like I can manipulate sp? everything and start getting some fun pics. I found that my lens is not a quick lens and there are others that are pretty sweet!
I hope that I can start getting better pics and do less photoshopping to make them look better! So off I go to play....HA! It's back to reality now. Grouchy girls that don't want to eat dinner, laundry to do, singing time to plan....you get it!!
Thanks Buff and Cam for watching the girls so I could be there! And to you mystery person.....Thanks!!! I owe you SO BIG!

You've been SHOT!!

I'm so excited!! Tonight was the first night of the photography workshop. It was alot of review of basic things but I learned more functions on my camera and think it will make a huge difference in the way I take pics from here on out!! Wha-hoo!! There are about 24 people. We did our introductions etc. and moved on to learn the basic things about the important functions on our cameras. Over half of the women (yes no boys!) have the Rebel camera. But I got to see what a sweet camera looks like! :) haha! *don't worry Eli, I won't want a new one for a while:)* He thinks I like to change my mind a lot... and often at that!!! Don't know where he gets those ideas!! So, on saturday we will be on the same page about the functions, where to find them and how to change or adjust them!
Anyhow, to me, its fun to see the differences between the two women putting it on. What and how they like to shoot! We even learned how to hold the camera the "right" way! I thought that was pretty funny.....maybe because I hold mine wrong.
So I'm super pumped for Saturday. I will study and practice to be and stay on the same page! This is so exciting....which leads me to once again thank whoever is behind this.
I haven't figured it out yet, but I hope to. But if they read this, I want them to know how grateful I am. It's something that I want to be able to do so much better. A hobby/future? Its a great out for me that I love. I really appreciate whoever is behind this. Thank you! Thanks to the Barnes' who watched my hooligans so I could go! Your awesome!
I will let everyone know how Saturday goes and start taking appointments.....haha jk!

ps- the title for the workshop is you've been shot! :)

So excited!!

I have to thank somebody.....big time.

Here's what happened. I get a call the other day. Missed it. But the person left a voice mail. She said she was a photographer in town and said one of my friends in town wanted to thank me for taking their pics. (um, I have only taken three families pics. Toughy? Not really! :))
So they registered me for a workshop! She is putting it on with another photographer in town. I'm ecstatic! She just needed to know if I could go or not.

It's two days. I talked to her today and one of the first things she said is that my friends wanted to remain anonymous. I laughed!

I'm pretty sure I know who it is, so if you read this THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! You are in so big trouble. But thanks alot!!! I should be able to take better pics of your fam next time! :)
I'm so excited. Nervous, ya. Why should I be nervous? I don't know. Just am. No real knowledge of photography stuff, but I am very eager to learn!

I'll let ya know how it goes!!

WHA-HOO!!!!

I tried. I really did.

I tried. I did. My little farts just weren't in the mood. So this is what I got. I laugh because they will hate them when they get bigger!! hehe!! It was kind of a last minute thing. We wanted to go see the new President Hinkley movie at the visitors center. But we ended up watching two shorter movies. Both of which were really good!! (The Stonecutter and A Pioneer Miracle) The girls were done, so we decided to go find some good places for pics. He mentioned The Jacob Hamblin home. They would be closing in a half hour (the Brigham Young home likes you to take pics before or after business hours, so we assumed they would be the same) So we took the tour :) and took like 5 pics. The lighting was already bad. like the gum in the mouth?

I wished these would have turned out!!! I loved this place!