Santa

I took the kids to the mall a couple weeks ago. Last year they all sat on Santas lap for the first time ever. But this year...we got about 30 feet away and Nathan and Aria stopped in their tracks with worried looks on their faces. Gabe just started screaming "NOOOOOO! NO SANTA!"

So we didn't see Santa.

But at the ward Christmas party, he was there, and I was the photographer for the santa room.

I prepped Nathan and Aria so they were good.

Nathan did his weird, new picture face that he's been doing lately.


Aria was just excited to get a polar express bell from him.


Gabe was not so excited. I basically made him sit there so I could take the sad picture because they're such classics.




Clara was her normal, unemotional, go with the flow self.


We'll see what next year brings!

More blessings and gratitude.

I've been thinking over the last month about how absolutely blessed I am to have been born into the family I was born into. Not just my parents and siblings, but my extended family.

For as long as I can remember I've attended a summertime family reunion (usually a camping trip somewhere) and a Christmas celebration every year with my Dad's family. My Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Second Cousins, Great Aunts, Great Uncles, etc, etc. Not everybody made it for both gatherings every year, but we all made it to enough of them (and still do) to stay close.

We love any excuse to play games, eat, talk, eat and play more games.

We do our best to attend big events of each other. Baptisms, graduations, baby blessings, weddings, mission farewells, etc, etc.

In short, we love each other, we support each other and we're lucky to all have been born into this family.

Here's the guy who started it all, the coolest Grandpa ever.


with a little help from Grandma. (okay, a lot of help, lol)


Here they are with the 5 great grandbabies that were born between October and May last year.


Here we have some cousins. My brother (in the middle) had his mission farewell that weekend and this was the night before he was set apart as a missionary. He went out with the Young Single Adults to the ice rink. My sister and I crashed the party. With us is a cousin and a second cousin (or something...his mom is my second cousin...but I've always thought of her as an Aunt, so there ya go).


Here's a small portion of the Grandkids and Great Grandkids at the youngest grandchild's baptism a couple weeks ago.


I love that whenever one of us is near another one of us, we try to get together. I love that we keep in touch between the big get togethers. I love that my Grandparents love us each individually, regardless of the choices we're making at that time in our life. I love that my Grandpa will do everything in his power to love and support us when others might have written us off as a lost cause.

I challenge all my blogging family members out there to blog a memory of Grandma and Grandpa or one of our many family gatherings.

Love you all! And I'll see most of you in a couple weeks at Grandma's Christmas!

This is why I love taking pictures of kids the most.

You just don't get this kind of stuff with grown-ups.

30 years

My parents just celebrated their 30th anniversary (and if you're doing the math...yes, I was a honeymoon baby, lol).

I have to say, I'm so lucky to have them for my parents. Some reasons why...

-It was my house that all my friends wanted to hang out at.

-My parents went to all their kids activities. They even went to high school football games just for the half time show because I was in the band.

-My mom is the best cook ever.

-My dad knows so much about gospel topics and some of my favorite memories are learning from him.

-We went camping and hiking and skiing all the time.

-They let me go to Japan. Twice. (the first time I was twelve. Now that I have kids I realize how scary that must have been to send me across the world...even with a school group.)

-They taught me the value of work.

-They were (and are) great examples of people to look up to.

I could go on, but I have to drive Dave to work. lol.

But, lookie! Aren't they cute?

Naughty or nice

Today Nathan said "I'm worried I might be on the naughty list, Mom." Poor kid is being extra nice lately and it's so cute.

Gabe also informed me that he doesn't want Santa to bring him anything because he's scared of Santa. If I ask him what he wants from Santa he'll say nothing. If I ask him what he wants from me he'll say a soccer ball. :)

Bowling

We went bowling over the weekend with my brother and his family.

It was a big hit with the kids. Gabe was especially excited.



We try to pound into our kids heads that everyone's a winner and we need to just have fun and be good sports and stuff...but being my spawn, they're competitive.

So when it's over Nathan says "I know we all had fun and we're all winners. But I got the most points." *grin*

Projects

So I don't really know how to sew. And I don't believe in patterns. They freak me out. But I like to look at fabric...and with some basic measurements, and the little bit of sewing knowledge that I retained from my moms teachings 20 years ago...

I was able to make skirts for my nieces and daughters.

Jess and Aria both got a twirl skirt. I finished them at 4 AM the night before we left for Christmathanks at my parents house.



The babies got fabric to open that morning. I finished their skirts (just Mae and Jovie, Clara wore her old one) right before our fancy Christmathanks dinner.

Jovie's was a little big, so April had the brilliant idea to treat it like a dress. Look how cute!




This is how Jovie feels about me, though. April left her with me one time. I was the first person besides my mom (who she lives with) and her other grandma to ever babysit. She's still holding a grudge.


All 3 babies.

Several days of random

I have about a million blogs to post, so I'll be trying to just randomly throw them up over the next several days. And since I'm oh so diligent at following through (you did notice I didn't get far on the daily gratitude stuff, right?) just keep in mind that I have 4 kids to feed and keep alive, a dh wanting to make the switch to a whole foods diet (I do too...it's not just him), about 6 shoots to proof, and a house to attempt to keep presentable. Oh, and laundry. Laundry for a family of 6, one of whom is in cloth diapers....it never ends.

And, for the record....most of my blog posts are posted with gratitude for whatever I'm posting about. So they all count. ;)

Up first...my beautiful cousin and the lucky guy who snagged her. A few engagement photos.

Love these. The bench looked so lonely by the tree. We had to give it some love.


I love how their feet give you an idea of who they are (the running shoes vs. the bare feet...in November...lol)


I think it's cute how he looks over his glasses at the camera.




I was standing on the rails of the bridge right above them...he said "Misty, I don't think I'm comfortable with this." And I caught the following laugh. :)

Help please!

I'm making desktop calendars for teacher gifts this year and I ended up with 15 images and I only need 12. Which 3 would you eliminate? They're numbered below the thumbnails.

See them here.

There are no words for the cuteness that is this picture.

6 months...

So I took Clara in for her 6 month appt. I changed Dr's because I found one that does home visits. When I got there I was ecstatic to find out that she had 3 homebirths and is totally on board with cloth diapering and delayed and selective vaccinations. It's like she was made to be my kids' ped.

Anyway. Get this. Clara is...wait for it...

23 pounds.

No wonder my back hurts more when I carry her for too long.

But look how cute and squishy! I just can't get enough of her.

Blessings

One person I'm eternally grateful to is my husband.



Reasons...to name a few...

-He works hard and provides enough to make it possible for me to stay home with our children.

-He plays "do anything man" with the kids.

-He writes music.

-He plays the guitar and sings to the kids at bedtime.

-Not only that, he sings songs that his dad sang to him and his grandpa sang to his dad.

-He gives us priesthood blessings whenever we ask.

-He cooks Sunday night dinner.

-He tells everyone how wonderful he thinks I am, even when I'm not.

-He watches chic flicks with me. (and secretly likes them)

-He loves me, anyway.

Gratitude - d5

Cable internet.

The reason there is no gratitude post from Saturday and this one today is so late is because my parents live way out in the boonies and can only get satellite internet, which is certainly faster than dial-up, but is still way slower than cable. And I just don't have the patience for it.

Thank you to whoever invented cable internet and to Dave who insists that we always have it. :)

Gratitude - d4

Today I'm grateful for my baby brother. He leaves on Wednesday to serve a 2 year full time mission for our church in Independence, MO and I'm very proud of him.

Love you, Bud!



PS...I'm also thankful for my cute shoes. :)

Gratitude - d3

Today I'm grateful for Horses.

Since Aria has been in riding lessons, she's really gained confidence and her anxiety has reduced. They've been a blessing to her, which is a blessing to me. :)

Nathan

Did a little shoot of Nathan.

I took him to a freeway underpass covered in murals. It was after dark so I busted out my new video light for the lighting. I was really curious to see what I could do with it.

Here we have the regular Nathan. Small smile, just kinda hanging out.



And this is happy Nathan. It's not easy to get a real smile out of him so when I do it's like gold!



and goofy Nathan. He doesn't show this side much. He's so shy that most people don't even see the boy in the first two pictures. But, really, he rocks. He says the funniest things (usually with sarcasm) and is so sweet. Clara adores him and just laughs and laughs at him. In fact today she was sitting on my lap while I proofed these and she saw them and cracked up.

Gratitude - d2

Sorry it took all day. I've barely been home.

Today I'm grateful for knee dimples.



Don't you just want to squish her legs? They're the best.

Month of gratitude

This month I'm going to try and put something I'm grateful for every day. I know I'm starting 11 days late, but I just thought about it, so you'll live. Maybe I'll take it into December. :)

Anybody feel free to join in!

Since I think (and communicate) better with pictures, that's what you're going to get most of the time.

Autumn.

2%

That's it.

That is the percentage of people in California who are also LDS (aka Mormons).

It took WAY more than that 2% for proposition 8 to pass in CA. It passed with a vote of 52.5%. That means even without the LDS population, it still would have passed.

And that's assuming all LDS voted, and voted Yes, which I'm sure wasn't the case.

So, why are we singled out? Why are our temples being vandalized and our members being attacked?

Read the facts about prop 8 here.

This one stands out to me.

Prop 8 does not take away any rights from gay and lesbian domestic partners. Gays and lesbians in CA can already enjoy all the legal rights and benefits of marriage. The CA Family Code says, "domestic partners shall have all the rights, protections and benefits" of married spouses. There are NO exceptions to this. Prop 8 will not change that.

So what makes us the lucky recipients of this sort of treatment?

It's just not right.

Hmmm...they don't look like cousins do they?

While in Seattle, we visited family. Aren't they cuties? They were all born within two years of each other and are great friends. :)

Fun with a point and shoot

We went to the Seattle Science Center a few weeks ago and I got some fun pictures with my point and shoot.

Gee, they look like gamers or something.


Trying to be like the Blue Man Group.




"Mom, I don't like this mirror, it makes me look weird."


"It's okay, Aria, they make everyone look weird"


Next time I go to Seattle, I'll remember the rain and bring something besides flip-flops. You'd think after living there for 8 years, I'd know better.


I was having way too much fun with the fun house mirrors.


I was loving all the light in this room, and the fact that we were the only ones there.


The giant guitar. A family favorite.






Clara happy in the stroller.


Who doesn't love big bubbles?


and hanging upside down...


and rooms where you're supposed to make as much noise as possible...


and giant hamster wheels...