Fishy Family Night

Santa was good enough to leave us a few special presents while we were gone over Christmas. When we got back, Eleanor lost no time in checking under the tree. She and Dad were very surprised that Santa got us a fish tank! They must have been worried that he would take it back, because we headed straight out to the pet store to get the materials to set it all up. You have to let the water sit for about 24 hours or so before putting in the fish, so we planned a Fishy Family Night for Monday.

First off, we picked out our fish! Here they are getting accustomed to the water. While we waited we had fish sticks and goldfish crackers for dinner. I know, but Eleanor didn't seem to have a problem eating fish and getting live fish at the same time...

After a Family Night lesson on being "Fishers of Men" we enjoyed some chocolate whales for a treat.

Then, the most exciting part of all was adding our new family pets to their aquarium. We picked out three guppies to start with. The Red Tuxedo guppy is named James Bond, the yellow Tequila Sunrise guppy is Charlie and the Turquoise guppy is Bluey! I think Eleanor has been more excited about these fish than she was for Disneyland. She's in charge of feeding them every day, Dad has filter duty, and she decided I should watch the tank during the day and make sure none of them get lost. I suppose that could be dicey at times, but I'll do my best!

Merry Christmas

I love hanging pictures on our Christmas tree - suprise! This one of my Grandma's house in days gone by is one of my favorite. It makes me want to watch White Christmas for some reason...

In case you're not on our limited Christmas card mailing list (I only mail to people who aren't local), here is a picture of our card this year. It folds up into a Chinese fortune teller! It was a fitting design to highlight all the good fortune we've enjoyed this year. You can print it out and give it a go, if you like.

Before we do some traveling for Christmas, I wanted to wish all my friends and family a very Merry Christmas! We had a fun time having early Christmas at our house this morning. To get ready for that, Gavin and I spent all night assembling a gift for Eleanor. It was our first time having that fun experience - which explains why we started way too late and didn't get to bed until the wee hours. I'm so glad she loves her new dollhouse, it's kept her busy all day today! Gavin has yet to find his present, but I'll save that story for another post...

A Perfect Time for Pictures

Don't you think it would be fun to sit on your cozy couch sipping hot chocolate and looking at this delightful snowy day family picture on the wall? Ok, since it's -2 today, right now might not be the time. But, wait for a balmy 34 degrees or so and I'll be trying to catch one like this of my own family. As soon as I set that goal last winter, it stopped snowing. There was not a single day when the snow was still on the ground after Gavin got home from work! We'll have to try this again. A good puffy coat can hide my current figure, right?

I Feel Your Pain

Eleanor and I went to see the Nutcracker Ballet last weekend. I think she really enjoyed it. Sunday morning she was dancing around after getting dressed up for church. Then she stopped and said, "I can't really skip when I'm all packed up in tights." Oh, do I ever feel your pain sweetheart!

Big Muscles

We got our first real shovel-worthy snow of the season today and guess who was out shoveling for our family? Ok, I did a little to get Eleanor out the door for school, but this afternoon she picked up the shovel and pretty much did the rest. Look a those big muscles. She was heartily rewarded for her child-labor with plenty of hot chocolate. :)

You Know it's a Small Town When...

I really do like living in a small town most of the time. I try not to make fun of it on most occassions. But, today we went to the Post Office (which is closed at lunch time) and there was a sign up on the door announcing that Marilyn somebody "Had Pasted Away." It was probably irreverent of me to bust up right there. So, I'm saving my snort out loud for my blog!

A Special Treat

We got to have visitors to our house for Thanksgiving. It always feels like a treat to have people stay with us. And thank you to all my houseguests for giving me the reason to do the deap clean that is always needed!

This year we had Gavin's brother Devin with his family Krystal and Addie. Eleanor was so excited to play with her 7 month old niece. She prepared a little basket of baby-friendly toys and wrote a label for it that said (if you read Kindergartener) "Addie's basket of toys to play with." We had a great weekend with a trip to Hammond's Candies, some shopping, great food and company!

How could I have this cutie come stay without just a little photo shoot?

I think we impressed Devin with how well we "live off the land" out here in Colorado. Ok, we dug up some potatoes from our garden. :) These are our favorite funky shaped ones. They look like manatees. And here is Gavin attacking... er, carving the Turducken below.

I am such a bread girl. Of course, we made homemade rolls. After that talk at Stake Conference, if you remember, how could we not?

Happy Thanksgiving

I've been saving this fun picture since April for Thanksgiving week. In Longmont, there is a Butterball plant, so several times a year the road on the way there is lined with white feathers. Hope this doesn't offend anyone's delicate sensibilities, but I know we're all looking forward to a Happy Turkey Day this week. Course, we're having a Turducken, but I'll have to post more about that later...

I Can be Grateful Too

I got gas for $1.69 yesterday! Hurray. I just want to be verbally thankful for that, since it is always easy to be verbally grouchy about it when we're paying more than twice that.

An Invitation

Today is our Solomon's 3rd Birthday. If you'd like to keep up with our annual tradition of focusing on simple acts of service and kindness for the next 18 days, you can check in here: http://babysolomon.blogspot.com/.

Thanks for joining us in celebrating his life. It's really helped to make this a time of year I can look forward to.

Ode to the Scraper

This beautiful tool is my new love in the kitchen. The way everything gets stuck on the corner, or wooden handle of your typical rubber spatula must be a pet peeve. Nevermore...
I've used this spatula for everything since it came into our lives about three weeks ago. It's the right shape for scooping, mixing, scraping bowls, and is silicone, so you can use it to stir hot things too. Enough infomercial? Use your Joann coupon and buy this as soon as possible, you won't regret it!

Nice Out

I enrolled the help of the little one the other day to clean our baseboards. Since this isn't her regular responsibility, I told her I'd pay her a penny for each tile-length she scrubbed. So, she's scrubbing away and then, being the precocious child she is, she starts reading the back of the bottle of cleaner. She looks up at me with alarm and says, "Mom, this says Keep Away from Children!!" Nice try honey, nice try.

2nd Star to the Right...

Happy Halloween! Here's our take on Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, and of course... Captain Hook! It felt so liberating to take puffy paint to Gavin's old suit that needed retiring anyway. Eleanor has a bell bracelet on so she can sound like the real thing. So fun to watch her! I better go inspect her candy... for safety, of course.

A Preview

Here is a sneak preview of our Halloween costumes for this year. As soon as I got this in my head, I couldn't wait to try this picture. Think of a wonderful thought, any happy little thought....

Some Lovely Families

Here is a sample of some more family pictures I took this summer and fall. I love how timeless this sundial picture looks.





Ok, and how adorable is this! Just pulls at my heart strings and I'm not even related to them. Although we had such a great time together taking pictures, I felt quite adopted into this warm family.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Yesterday I had an 18 week check up at my doctor. The baby is the perfect size, but they want me to gain 7 lbs in the next two weeks! I thought that might be a little difficult until Gavin helped by bringing me a few of my favorite things! He came home with Ben and Jerry's Half Baked, Nutella and pretzels, a big can of Cashews, and Strawberry Vanilla Granola Bars.

On second thought, it shouldn't be that hard after all! Course, with Thanksgiving around the corner, I probably don't need to worry too much. If you were in this situation, what would you eat?

I Have Been Busy

I realized I haven't posted any photo shoots for awhile now. That's not because I haven't had any, just been too busy to keep up! So, here's the first two of about 6 I have to catch up with. Just a peak for fun.

Love this family - ha! Alison was really good at getting her kids to smile for me. Not a small miracle with 4 little ones.

Don't be shy to get a couples picture done. If you haven't had one since your wedding, it's about time!




The Douglas family was so great. The easiest family session I've probably ever done thanks to some very obedient kiddos! Ask Heather to see one of my favorite kissing pictures.

Lots of Things to Celebrate

We're so excited to share the news that we're expecting a baby girl in the spring! Here's her little profile at 16 wks. Also, a healthy-looking heart for everything they can see so far. We're still looking for just the right name for this little one. We've tried to stick with Queen/King names and a name that can be found in a song. So, we'd love any suggestions you've got. Otherwise Eleanor might get her way and name her Rapunzel!

Also this week, we've been in our house for 7 years! Wow. Time to repaint. And I'm having a rather big number birthday this weekend. Thanks to all my friends who've already gracefully crossed that threshold for cushioning the blow for me. We're so grateful for all the things to celebrate this week.

Happy Fall

I love this season of the year. I can prove that by the shear number of pictures I take during the fall. I also love that sunrise is not at 5am so I can occasionally take advantage of that gorgeous light. Here's a few pictures to kick off the season!


Here's one from a photo shoot this week that just says "Fall" to me.

Some Inspiration

I found this blog series done by a social work researcher and mother all about Imperfect Parenting. Very inspirational! I especially liked the entries about Being Still and Embracing Imperfection. We can all use this.

Cousins

The other bonus of being in Utah so often lately is seeing all the cousins. The instant we get to the Paynes, Eleanor disappears with Natalee and Carson. It was so fun to see Addie growing up so quickly. And a special treat to have Eleanor and Lilly together. Wish they lived closer! Lilly is a pretty bashful little one, so getting her to sit with you or smile at you is a special treat. It doesn't take her long to warm up to Eleanor though. Those two spent almost two hours sitting under the dining table playing with magnets and just giggling together this weekend. That was just adorable. I bonded with her over some Sonic ice - love that stuff! She even warmed up enough to let Gavin hold her upside down and tickle her. Hopefully she still remembers us next time we get together.

An Unexpected Trip

With our unexpected trip to Utah this weekend for my Grandmother's funeral, we have been in Utah in May, June, July, and now September! Yikes. It is great to be together with our family that often, but wow. Hopefully I'll forget how much I dislike that drive before Christmas time. This lovely through-the-windshield picture is just to prove that it was indeed perfectly clear and not the least bit windy driving through Laramie yesterday! I'm sure those days are very few and far between.

Now that we're getting so used to I-80 driving, I finally had Gavin stop at this spot I always long to take a picture of when we pass by. It's somewhere between Rawlins and Laramie - Gavin marked the GPS coordinates for me in case you'd like them. :)

A Long Life

My grandmother passed away last Friday. She was 93! I bet she never expected to live that long since she was orphaned by the age of 6. Here is the program I made for her funeral. The flowery paper is actually a picture I took of wallpaper from her beautiful, historic home. So glad we just saw her in July, so glad Eleanor will have some memories of her, and so glad we could be there for the funeral this weekend.

The Beautiful Girl

Have to share the funny story I heard last night after Eleanor's Back-to-School Night. My friend, who has a little boy in Eleanor's class told me he came home and said he always tries to put his backpack as close as he can to the beautiful girl. He says she is beautiful and she had a beautiful backpack too. The Mom says, "Who's the beautiful girl?", but he doesn't know her name. There are only 8 boys and about 18 beautiful girls in that class. The next day he comes home and says, "The beautiful girl is Eleanor." So cute.

On the way home I casually ask Eleanor, "So, do you ever talk to [aforementioned little boy]?" Eleanor says, "Nope." Ah, young love. I can't blame him though, I think she is beautiful too.

What an Achievement

After two solid weeks of watching the Olympics, we picked up on some very important characteristics of a champion. Traits like focus, confidence, giving 100%, sacrifice and innovation. Characteristics which Gavin had the opportunity to display in the 3rd Annual Bishops & Stake Presidency Pie Eating Contest Saturday night.

I'm so proud ...sniff, sniff. Gavin definitely gives 100% to his calling.