Lavender Almost 7 Months

Lala will be 7 months on the 24th. That's just one week from today!!! I got to watch her for a bit yesterday while Olea went to the dentist and that means PHOTOS!!! We had some great soft diffused light in the living room and so I took a ton of shots. These are a few of my favorites.



She's teething. Can you tell? :)

2 1/2

My baby boy is 2 1/2 already. He's getting closer to 3 every day. He's such a challenge and simultaneously such a joy. I sure love that Magnus!

Uly's Valentine Cards are Finished!

After much deliberating, I finally decided what to do for Uly's Valentine cards for his kindergarten class. I was originally going to make this really yummy looking candy popcorn. I liked the idea of sending Uly with a treat instead of a traditional valentine card. However I started realizing that it was going to be a bit more work than I wanted to invest for all of his classmates.

This morning, Olea sent me an email with a blog post to check out with a note that said, "Wish Lala was bigger so we could make these!" When I read that, before I clicked on the link, I was wondering what she was talking about. I started thinking about sewing for little girls or something like that. I wasn't thinking Valentines' Day. When I finally clicked on the link I was excited by what I saw because it incorporated photography, my kids and candy. I don't think you can go wrong with that combination!

This photo of the finished product is not as good as I'd like it to be, but I think you'll get the idea. You take a picture of your child with his hand in a position like he's holding flowers or something. Then cut out a slit, punch a hole, or cut an "X" above and below the child's hand. Then insert a lollypop. It looks like he's handing you the sucker.

I loved the idea. Plus it looked easy!!!

Valentine Tree

So I made a whole bunch of beaded hearts and then didn't know what to do with them. I decided to take a branch from one of our Aspen trees and hang them on it. Hopefully it looks cute. It's a bit asymmetrical or lopsided, but I'm OK with that...

Valentine Decor

Moving on from Christmas, I've been thinking about making some Valentine decorations. I made the large red fabric wreath from these instructions yesterday and made these two little beaded hearts this morning. I think I want to make a whole bunch more of the beaded hearts and hang them all over the place. They are super easy as I just cut some wire, curl one edge and then string on some beads. Then curl the other edge and twist the two together and shape into a heart.

They are a little bit girly and I like that. I need a little bit of girly in my life every now and then!

Mag 70's Style

Experimenting with some PhotoShop actions and using PhotoBucket instead of Flickr. I go back and forth between the two sites.

Lala & Lulu

They're just so cute!!!

New Baby

I think I totally spaced mentioning it here. I put everything on Facebook but since this is kind of my diary/journal I need to put it here too. We went in for the ultrasound on the 21st of December and are happy to report that everything looks good. Besides having a healthy baby, we are excited to report that our 4th and final baby is a girl!!!! We are beyond the moon excited about this fact. We were happy to only have boys and thankful for all of our children but there was always a little part of us that hoped we would also have a girl. Ben is finally getting his "daddy's little girl" and I'm going to get my little dolly. We are so thankful and excited for this gift.



Lala's Toes

Boots

This is a crosspost from MomShots, but I wanted to post it here so I am... It's my blog and I can do what I want!

Mag put his boots on his hands and was walking around like a horse, on all fours. It was really funny and super cute. I love this shot because it makes me laugh and I also love the rich fall colors.

FaceBook Status

A few of the FaceBook statuses I wrote in 2009.

A Video Treat

Here Gar is singing his version of Oh! Christmas Tree.




Uly is playing the Air Guitar to Christmas music.

Tall Grass

Cora purposefully not smiling for me.


Mag being Mag.



When Sariah and Cora where here in the beginning of November we all went out near Santaquin, UT to this old abandoned mine place. It was a pretty fun adventure!

Confession

I have a confession.
I want to be a photographer. Not a professional photographer that takes family portraits to earn a living. However, I want to have all the equipment, a studio space and the skills necessary to do that if I wanted. I still don't want to be a professional photographer, just be good enough to be.
My dream is to have a large, airy, bright room with studio lights, backdrops and other equipment. I want a studio. I want to be good enough to warrant a studio. I want to be good enough to warrant spending hours and hours working on photography.
That's my confession.
That's my dream for today.
I was just inspired by this woman's blog. She loves to shoot film and has a simplistic beauty to her images. I really feel inspired by reading through her posts.

Have I shared my current favorite still life shot with you? I don't take many shots that don't include my children so when I got to go to SLC and play with a Lensbaby I jumped at the chance. If you read MomShots then you already read about this. I love cross posts...

Thanksgiving - Day 6

My beautiful friend Maryanne, has been writing up daily blog posts about the things she is thankful for. I love it and I feel like I need to jump in and participate. Thanksgiving is one of the holidays that I tend to get caught up in the hustle and bustle and forget to take time to actually relish in the the chance to just "be thankful". Maybe this will help me with that.

This morning I am up before the rest of my family. I woke up at 4:30 and could not go back to sleep. I am thankful for the quiet. I am thankful for the peace. I am thankful for my laptop and the Internet, both helping me feel connected and not so isolated from friends and family.

I am thankful for my children and their unconditional love and trust. They are good examples to me.

I am thankful for Ben and his passion and drive to succeed and provide for our family. I am thankful for his creativity and ability to make something out of nothing.


What are you thankful for today?

A Yummy Pumpkin Treat

Tonight I made Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. I took a recipe I found on Cooks.com and changed some things. It was kind of boring and I made it better. So yummy! My boys ate half of them before I was even finished baking.

2 1/4 c. flour (half white and half whole wheat)
1 c. butter
1 c. oatmeal (I used quick oats)
16 oz. can pumpkin
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cardamon

1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. chocolate chips

I creamed the butter, sugar and eggs together and then added the can of pumpkin puree. I added all the dry ingredients next and chips last.

Baked at 350 degrees for 11 minutes.

This is a keeper that I will make again! I would like to add raisins and some nuts to the mix. They were so delish!

Song of the Day - Count Your Blessings

Last night I had a mini melt down. Throughout the night I was woken up by every single member of my family, often multiple times. This morning Magnus reached up onto the counter and pulled a really hot bowl of porridge down onto his foot and burnt himself; blisters and all. Everything that can go wrong, seems to be going that way. I haven't been all that happy with my lot these last 24 hours.

On a Google search for instructions to make fabric pumpkins, I randomly went to a blog this morning that I had never visited before. Her first post was about counting your blessings. She had a few YouTube videos with different renditions of this wonderful song. Already one of my favorites, today this is my Song of the Day.

This is my favorite version, a ragtime rendition sung by a Swedish Salvation Army choir. It's just fantastic!

When you pray for help, it can come from random places.

Uly's Song

This is a recording of a song that Ulysses made up about the vowels, this morning at breakfast. He also sings a song about counting by 10's that he learned at school. So cute!!!

I also want to add that Uly is doing awesome in school. He is learning so much and has got on all of his spelling tests this year. He is reading through the books his teacher is sending him home with and is doing great at math as well. He is learning all sorts of cool science, music and art stuff too plus he is having a blast. We love his school and are really thankful that we have been able to send him there this year.

Teeth, Cats and Random Handsomeness

A sunrise walk at the beach, this past summer.

Where I taught the boys about how to find anemones at low tide and how to squish them with their feet so that they squirt.

We discovered a baby sea star and got to pick it up and see what its skin felt like.

And we discovered and discussed barnacles.

My desert babies were enlightened.

The Tooth Fairy has been here a lot lately. Quite a lot lately...

We've also been enjoying a litter of kittens. This is my first time ever experiencing that and it has been a lot of fun. We have five. A couple are spoken for. Does anyone else want one? They will be old enough to give away on October 30th.

This kid just constantly amazed me. His brain is so much fun. I am excited to see how he uses it as he gets older. He has such an awesome and powerful imagination. Gar, my sweet little 4 year old...

A cute little smile from my niece, Lala.

Another cute niece, Cora.

Well Summer is over and school is in full swing. I need to start taking photos with an Autumn theme now... Halloween is just around the corner!

What's the deal with Blogger's compression?!? These photos look awful compared to what's on my computer! Oh well. It's better than nothing.

Vaudeville is Alive!

We got to see a vaudeville show and I was able to track down a photographer who took a bunch of stunning shots from it. I had to leave with Magnus and missed the highlight of Uly's evening. Here's a glimpse of how much fun he had.

These photos were not taken by me. They were taken by Jorge Lausell.

D is for Dang Awesome!