Just some stuff

In my 100 things list I said...

46. I love to get the mail, I always say you never know when you're going to get a real letter, or a cool package...or random money!

And guess what happened? My wonderful Grandma read it and sent me a card in snail mail! And not only that, it was full of nice things about me. (63. My love language is words of affirmation)

And today we went downtown again. This time we visited the Garbage Sucking Goat. Heh. That thing is fun. So I tried to get a picture. It was hard. It sucks fast. The first two pics are me trying to time it right, one it's already sucked up and the other it's about to suck. I finally got it mid suck on the last one.

Tried some new lighting

I love love love the photography by the image is found.

I emailed Nate to ask how he lit a certain award winning photo and he wrote back!

I finally got a chance to try it myself and this is what I got.

Thoughts? (the rest of her shoot is here.)





And a couple of my other favorites from the shoot.

bff's

I got to spend the weekend with my best friend's from High School. We were inseperable then, and for the year after HS when we lived together while we went to the local community college. After that year, as we figured out our lives, we went our seperate ways.

This is us at baccalaureate in 1997.


We stayed in contact through email and occasional visits and this last weekend all three of us got together for the first time in about 7.5 years.

We had a great time! It was like no time had passed at all. Anna commented that it was like she's always known my kids (even though she met them all for the first time on Friday).

We hung out downtown. Did some browsing, then went over to the carousel for a ride. I had Gabe with me and he's never ridden the carousel before.

All of us.


Anna


Traci


Gabe sitting in front of me.


Gabe had so much fun that after we got off he was really sad. He tried his darndest to get back through the gate.





Then when I finally thwarted his hard work, he was a little upset.


Traci, Anna and I spent the evening (after getting the kids in bed and leaving them with their dads) at this really cool jazz club downtown. I can't wait to go back. Good music, good food, very cool atmosphere.

Traci got a picture there, I'll post it after she emails it to me.

The next day we just hung out and talked until Anna had to go home. Now that we're all in the Pacific Northwest again, hopefully we can do this more often!

Love you, girls!

March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb

That saying is very true around here. These pictures are of my kids playing outside. The first two at the beginning of March, the last several are from the last few days. We've been having fun walking to the park!

Aria's photography

In Kindermusik this week, Aria's assignment was to take pictures and make a little book of the pictures she took. We went to the park because it's one of her favorite places to go.

I just wanted to share a couple. She's got a good eye! I admit I helped with the timing of the second one. But she was holding the camera and pushed the shutter release!

BAAAAAA (100 things about me)

This is me, being a sheep.

Apparently folks in the blogosphere are posting 100 things about themselves. So, I'm following along. It took for.ever. But, here it is.

1. I'm often motivated by guilt
2. I hate to exercise
3. I'm the oldest of 5 kids
4. I play the piano (started at age 4)
5. I play the flute (started at age 10)
6. I used to play the tenor sax
7. I hate to cook
8. I hate to clean
9. I feel bad for my kids because they have to eat my cooking
10. I want to be a midwife when I grow up
11. I also want to be a psychologist
12. And I want a degree in world religions
13. I wonder what the odds are that I'll do any of those things
14. I've never had a cavity
15. I've been to Japan twice
16. I was the drum major of my High School marching band for 2 years
17. I have a minor phone phobia - just making phone calls. I love answering the phone.
18. If I can accomplish the communication through email, I'll always try that first.
19. I love being choir director at church, it's my favorite calling (shh...don't tell!)
20. I have mild PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome)
21. I feel invisible a lot of the time.
22. 12:34 is my favorite time. Almost daily since I was a kid I've happened to look at the clock at 12:34
23. I'm really bad at small talk
24. I hate Settlers of Catan
25. I like fast paced games
26. My all time favorite game is Nertz
27. I'm a night owl
28. I hate confrontation
29. I've hiked to the top of the matterhorn (tallest peak in the wallowas) several times
30. I'm a hippy at heart
31. I've been working on this list for a week and I'm only on #31
32. All I ever wanted to be is a Mom
33. I didn't know I liked photography until I was a freshman in college
34. I don't do crafts
35. I purposely avoid a lot of Mormon "culture"
36. But, I love Anita Stansfield and a lot of other LDS fiction novels
37. I make decisions based more on feeling than logic
38. I have horrible posture
39. In 6th grade the spine checker person thought I had something wrong, but never told anyone but me, so nothing was done about it
40. I'm a big believer in natural remedies
41. I want to homebirth my next child
42. I don't think I'm a very good decorator. I know what I like, I just don't execute it very well
43. I love jazz
44. I was in 2 different jazz bands in high school
45. I love to read
46. I love to get the mail, I always say you never know when you're going to get a real letter, or a cool package...or random money!
47. I love nature and being outside
48. I don't really like to swim
49. I'm afraid of the dark...more accurately, it's not the dark itself, but the people/animals that roam about after dark.
50. I love to dance
51. I really, really want to take ballroom dance classes with my husband
52. I have a bad habit of procrastinating
53. I want to adopt at least one, preferably 2 kids.
54. I love anything chocolate/peanut butter
55. Tillamook makes the best ch/pb ice cream
56. I'm 5'10" and I love to wear heels
57. One of my favorite foods is Yakisoba
58. I don't have a favorite color, I love them all at different times/moods
59. I don't cry easily
60. Except when I'm pregnant. Then I could be laughing and suddenly I'm sobbing.
61. I've never broken a bone
62. My natural tendency is to follow rules, especially in games
63. My love language is words of affirmation
64. I love change as long as I'm in control of it. Otherwise, I don't like it.
65. I guess that makes me a control freak
66. I'm quiet, especially in big groups
67. People tell me that because I'm quiet, I come across as a snob at first impression
68. In small groups of people that I know well, I talk a lot more
69. I have a lot of self confidence
70. I can not wait for Harry Potter 7 to come out in July.
71. I'm shooting a wedding that day, so I can't stay up all night reading it.
72. I love Smallville and Heroes
73. I'm a dreamer with a vivid imagination
74. I used to sit at the picture window when I was little and if there was a rainbow I'd watch and watch hoping to see Rainbow Brite ride over.
75. I believe in Santa Clause
76. I'm a glass half full kinda person
77. I'm incapable of organizing. It doesn't make sense to me.
78. I do have my own system that apparently doesn't make sense to anyone else.
79. I crack my knuckles
80. I like to study "deep doctrine"
81. Some of my favorite times growing up were talking doctrine with my dad.
82. I collect jewelry more than I wear it. (although, I'm starting to wear it a lot more)
83. Besides a few special occasions, I've worn the same pair of small hoop earrings, night and day, for 7 1/2 years
84. I like big dogs.
85. Not so fond of small ones
86. I've always wanted a horse. Still do.
87. I hate wearing shoes
88. I hate wearing socks even more than I hate wearing shoes. My feet can't breath in them.
89. I definitely can not sleep with socks on
90. I've never not had a music related calling in church.
91. Once I was the Young Womens secretary, but I was also the choir pianist
92. I took three years of Japanese in High School and 1 in college
93. I remember very, very little of it now
94. I've been pregnant 4 times
95. I had a miscarriage between Aria and Gabe
96. I'm a country girl at heart
97. I know I already said I'm a hippy at heart. I'm both. :P
98. I have the oldest child syndrome and like to fix peoples problems
99. I like dark chocolate
100. I love my sisters and want SO bad to have a girl so Aria has a sister

That was a joke

So, uh...just because 10 years ago, I played flute in the pit orchestra for Bye Bye Birdie, and I was good, DOES NOT MEAN that now I could pick up the music and play it again.

In case you were wondering.

Cause I just went to the first practice for a stake production of Bye, Bye, Birdie and I played maybe 1/8 of the notes. lol. Looks like I'll be practicing a lot the next 6 weeks!

PS...Thanks to my wonderful friend Traci, who agreed to pick her clarinet back up after 10 years and join me in the pit. Love ya!

This oughtta be, uh, fun.

Conversations with Gabe

Gabe is 16 months and just starting to try to talk to us. He has a handful of words, but he's entered the babbling stage where he just goes on and on and seems to know exactly what he's talking about.

Like the other day:

Gabe: MA!
Me: What?
Gabe: ah ja baba go di no ba goh nunu la. (all said with a very serious look)
Me: Really?!?!
Gabe: Yeah.

I *heart* that kid.

Inspirational moments

Today at church we had a fantastic Relief Society lesson. It began with one of those inspirational stories you hear about kids. It was true and very sweet.

Since I fasted today, for the first time in I don't know how long, I was feeling rather spiritually heightened. What better time than to read the Friend with Aria and create one of those inspirational "faith of a child" moments to reflect back on, right?

So, we read a story about keeping the sabbath day holy. About a boy who chose to skip his championship baseball game because it was on sunday. We finished, I'm thinking what a nice lesson I just taught her and I say "what did you think about that story?"

She immediately said "bad."

Dave snickered from across the room so I tried to salvage the teaching moment.

"Aria, do you know what that story was about?"
"Yeah, church."
"Well, what did the boy choose to do?"
"uh...the right."

Ok, not going so well. I ask if she wants another story and she picks one. It's a short one about honesty so I decide to try again.

After reading it...

"Aria, what did you think about that story?"
"It was short."
"Ok, but what did you learn from it?"
"Nothing."

Right. We went ahead and read a few more stories, but lost the questions.

Inspirational moments, not so much.