Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas. Aidan had a great time as always. The favorite toy of the holiday was an Air Hog he got from Santa. It is a remote control helicopter. My brothers ages 25 and 29 fought over the Air Hog, Aidan's Air Hog I might add. Every few minutes you would hear from one of my brothers say, "Aidan, can I fly your Air Hog?" This happens pretty much at every birthday and each Christmas with Aidan's toys. I guess we choose good stuff! Not long ago they broke Aidan's new Light Saber because they were playing too rough with it. We had such a nice Christmas and we are so grateful for each other and good friends and family.

Happy Anniversary Mikey!

Today is our wedding anniversary! Mike and I have been married for 11 awesome years! We went out tonight to the Market Street Grill (Mike's favorite) then to the Cheesecake Factory to pick up dessert (my favorite). I am hurrying and posting this and this while he is taking our babysitter home. This picture is at Jackson Hole last year on our anniversary. We went here on our honeymoon and we just love this little bed and breakfast in Jackson. So we went back for a few days for our ten year anniversary last year. I am so grateful that I have Mike. He takes such good care of me and I feel so safe with him. I can't believe that I am so lucky to have him! Love ya Mikey!

Thanks Dede

You are HILARIOUS! See blog post below...

Christmas Story nightmare

So if you have not seen the movie the Christmas Story you need to go right now and purchase it and watch it. It is a classic. So yesterday my son was playing at a friend's house in the snow. I was chatting with his friend's mom. Aidan comes in the house crying. He comes up to me with some ice stuck to his tongue! He was crying and his tongue was bleeding. While I was laughing and trying not to show that I was laughing we went into the bathroom to try to remove the ice from the tongue. Aidan would not let me near it! So he pretty much ripped the ice off of his tongue and now (see picture) has some skin missing from his tongue. He was really in pain the rest of the night and ANYTHING that touched his tongue made him cry. So he would not eat or drink anything. I finally got him to have a little soup. He finally crashed early because he was so tired. I feel bad that I laughed so hard and my friend, I won't name names (Sara) did not make it easier because she was laughing too. I am adding another picture I took of Aidan right before he went to the ice incident house. Fun times...

A fun Sunday!

Our friends asked me to take some pictures for them for Christmas cards and the best day for all of us was last Sunday. It actually turned out to be a really nice day and we ended up spending pretty much the whole day with them until late that night. We had such a nice time together and our kids had so much fun together. I am so grateful for good friends. I have been extremely blessed with friends who would do anything for me (and have). Here is my favorite picture of the whole day. She is SOOOO cute! Aidan had so much fun playing with her. He followed her around, carried her around and played with her in her room. Thanks for all the fun!

Applesauce anyone?

My cute husband made applesauce last weekend. He was SOOOOO excited to do it. I feel bad because I am not a huge fan of applesauce in general. However, I will say that his applesauce is the best I have ever tasted. I love that he enjoys making applesauce, bread, jam, waffles, pizza, etc. He is a very good cook. The fact that he enjoys doing these kinds of things is one of the many reasons I love him so much. That sounds cheesy but it is true. I am grateful that I have him every day.

Star

I LOVE stars! I use them so much in everything I do from decorating my house to my Christmas tree. And stars definitely remind me of Christmas. My friend asked me to take some pictures of her and her husband. I have to say that I had so much fun! And thanks to my photography inspiration, Carin, and her photography challenge for December, I thought I would take my favorite shape along with me and see what happened. Her challenge this month is to capture the smaller details. A star is definitely a small detail that adds so much to the spirit of Christmas. I felt very cheesy asking them to hold this star but they did such a cute job posing with it that I think they turned out kindof cute! I had to add a few more from our "shoot". Thanks for the fun K!

Virtue

I wanted to share with the two of you who read my blog that I am excited that a new value has been added to the Young Women personal progress program and theme. The value is virtue. The color associated with this value will be gold. I think that is so awesome! Sister Dalton who is the Young Women General President said, "I truly believe that one virtuous young woman or young man, led by the Spirit, can change the world, but in order to do so, we must return to virtue." I love that quote! This picture is a picture of the Young Women General Presidency who hiked up to Ensign peak in Salt Lake City. They shared that they saw the Salt Lake temple with the angel Moroni on top shining in the sun. They knew that they needed to focus on the temple. They made a banner and waved it to show their commitment to the Lord. I love serving the Young Women and I am excited about the new change in the program. If you are interested, there is a lot more info if you click on my Young Women link on my blog.

My first photo shoot in Logan!

My good friend asked me to take her family pictures. I was very excited because we decided to meet in my hometown to do them. We had a very nice time. Okay, so I am surrounded by boys all the time so I really loved these two of her adorable little girl. So I had to post them. Hope you like the pictures! As Kip would say, "peace out".

Happy Birthday Mom!

Just wanted to wish my mom a very happy birthday today! I hope my dad does something really really really nice for her today...no Arby's. I am grateful for my mom and everything she does for me! I added a picture of Aidan also because she said it was one of her favorites. I love you mom!

Yo- okay, all I could think of...

So if you haven't figured it out yet, I have one child and he is stinkin cute! (I didn't say he wasn't a stinker!) We had a fun Thanksgiving holiday in Logan last weekend. I, of course, took my camera. My mom and Aidan and I were playing at a park off of main street and we found this little spot. I thought all the blues looked really cool. So, enjoy!

Aidanisms

I have been thinking of doing some kind of thing on my blog about the HILARIOUS things Aidan says pretty much on a daily basis. Those of you who know my son know that he is 6 going on 21. He is quite the conversationalist and is not shy of anyone. He just says things sometime that blow my mind. This is mostly for me because right now this blog is kindof my journal and I would like to have a book printed from my blog one of these days. That is how I scrapbook. You can't top that. Anyway, I just HAVE to start writing down the things that Aidan says and does that make me laugh (and possibly want to die). I am going to title them Aidanisms and hopefully attach a cute picture with it (maybe I'll use this one each time because it totally goes with the title, I don't know). So here you go:

Mom: So, how was school today?
A: It was rock and roll mom, rock and roll...

Where does he come up with this stuff?

Tag

I feel so cool that I've been tagged again! Normally I really don't like the blog tags but this one I like, thanks Jodi! I am supposed to go to my pictures on my computer and go to my fourth folder and choose the fourth picture on there and post it. Here you go! This was a fun trip to Moab! I love Moab! Aidan was about three years old and he hiked the entire way up to Delicate Arch! If you have ever hiked to Delicate Arch it is quite a hike! He called it "the pants". We couldn't figure out why he kept talking about pants the whole time and then we figured out that Delicate Arch looked like a pair of pants to him. Now Delicate Arch is "the pants".

So I guess I have to tag some people- okay, how about Alicia, Beth, Julie, and Nicole.

Music

Aidan was playing the piano yesterday morning before church. I love hearing him play on the piano. Music is such a huge part of my life and I am so grateful that I have a piano in my home and that I can play it!

Mountains

This picture for some reason reminded me of when Mike and I moved to Ohio a few years ago for his job. It was extremely hard for me but it ended up being such a great experience for us. I am so grateful that we did it looking back (not saying I would want to move far away from home again). We grew a lot closer because we really only had each other to rely on because we knew nobody at first, we made some amazing friends, appreciated the gospel and temples a lot more, and had some awesome missionary experiences. We "adopted" the missionaries in our stake and we had them over for dinner about every night (I am not joking about that either). We were blessed to be able to move back close to home and I started to cry on our flight home when we descended into the Salt Lake Valley because I saw my mountains and my home again. Ohio is FLAT (compared to Utah, at least). I love the mountains. I am grateful for them today.

This is a picture of my cute cousin's adorable little girl. It was an incredibly gorgeous day for us!

Beauty

Today I am so grateful for the beautiful earth that I am blessed to live in. We live in such a beautiful area. I am realizing this more and more as I take my camera around with me. I actually found this picture as I was looking through some I took this weekend. I really loved it. I hope you enjoy it!

Childlike

Thanks for the November challenge Carin! It has taken me a few days to figure out what I would like to do. I would like to do one a week the whole month of November. I have so much to be grateful for! Today I am grateful for my beautiful son. It was a miracle that he was able to come to our family and I thank Heavenly Father every day that I am able to be his mom. He is a great example to me in many things. He his happy, forgiving, loving, fun, childlike.

Happy Haunting...

The Prickly Pictures

A couple of days ago I took family pictures for my good friend. It was such a gorgeous fall day and the lighting was beautiful! So the pictures should turn out perfect right? Ha ha...ya...We had fun and I am posting a couple of my favorites. I am still learning so keep that in mind! We all had "pricklys" on the bottom of our shoes when we were done.

I love fall...and friends!

This morning my good friend Dede and I took her adorable Chase to do some pictures. Did I mention that he's adorable? Okay then. We had a great time! It was such a gorgeous fall day! Then Dede imparted her vast knowledge of fun Photoshop tricks to me while I sat at her computer and ate one of her chocolate brownies with m&ms. It was a great day! Thanks, Dede. You spoil me! By the way, Mike showed me how to make pictures bigger! We'll talk!

Tagged!

My friend Nicole tagged me. I am excited! I am a geek! So, here you go:

The rules are: Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself. Tag 7 random people at the end of your blog. Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I have two large scars on my body, one long one down my back and one on my hip. I am a swimsuit model.

2. Everyone in my family is adopted except for Mike.

3. I cannot stand drinking glasses that are left around the house. It absolutely drives me crazy. Mike is frequently asking where his glass is. Probably in the dishwasher.

4. I love Barry Manilow. I went to his concert and Donny Osmond was there. I am 57 years old.

5. I love beets. I can't get enough of them.

6. I HAVE to bring snacks for myself to church every Sunday. I let my 6 year old son share them with me if he is being nice. I actually put them on my grocery list when I run out. Fast Sundays are a challenge for me.

7. I love Legos. I find I have to restrain myself from buying the newest Lego set out there for myself. My son certainly benefits from this. And we do have a lot of Legos. That's what happens when you have all brothers. I am a child.

So, there you go. I am tagging Jill, Cozette, Sara, Kami, Kira, Beth and Emily.

Stop having cute kids all of you!

Hi there! My cute cousin and her cute kids and I did a little "photo shoot" this morning. I feel dumb saying photo shoot because I am SOOOO amateur! But I really do have fun taking pictures of the people I love. Anyway, it was cold and we were going to do a different location but we thought we would stay close. Don't worry, I am working on finding new photo spots. But I LOVE this place! And we drove home in about two minutes to get the kids (and us) warmed up. Hope you like the pictures! It was fun!

Fun Photos

A good friend asked me to take some pictures of her ADORABLE kids! I was nervous because I have never really done anything like this before. But it was actually a lot of fun. We had a nice time and the kids were great. I am going to way overdo the texture thing until I get it out of my system. They are just so much fun to play around with and they can bring out such character in a picture! I hope you all enjoy! Thanks for the fun time this morning, Bertha!

Fun with Textures

Thanks to Carin's October challenge and lots of help from Dede and Mike I have learned a LOT about doing textures. And, man they are cool! Thank heaven for a good hubby, good friends, and Photoshop. Textures are so much fun! Here are some that I have worked on the last couple of days. I keep driving by this patch of sunflowers by my house and the other day I decided to stop and take some pictures. They were so beautiful! So, don't get sick of my texture pictures because I will probably way overuse them now as I play around with some. I hope you enjoy!