Good bye Summer

Summer for our family has looked a lot like this....






























It's been a good summer! Lots of changes and stuff.
But lots of fun and family and love.
Tomorrow on to Grade one for Alden.
Hello to schedule and earlier bedtimes and packing lunches and preschool and homework and growing up. How's summer been for you?

What.... pictures of me??

So I think often the momma ends up not being in the pictures.
Often it's the momma who makes sure that the pictures are being taken.
And often we worry about our weight, not wearing make up, and a bunch of other body image worries.

When I am taking pictures of others I tell them to relax and that they look beautiful. Everyone has something beautiful. Good eyes. Great smile. Most of the time I think it's more than just one thing too... but we don't see it.

Emily made me think about this with this post. (Em you are absolutely beautiful!)

And have you read this blog? or followed it? It will change how you feel about your self. Kind a slap around the head when you feel blue about yourself.

Great quote on there!
"There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which
kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity." -Washington Irving

Sometimes I have to agree to hand the camera over to Regan. His favorite style of shooting is to just hold out the camera and shoot. And see what happens.

Like this one...


Which I happen to love.


And some times you have to get someone to take your pictures. I am always doing it for other people, but I hadn't had a good shoot of me for well... i don't know when. So I hired the ever so sweet and talented Rebecca Cooper to take our family pictures. And i love them. A lot.


So if you haven't had some taken of you in a while. You should DO IT. I'm not saying that to get me to do them. Get someone. Have, as my SIL Lindsay, would call it a model shoot. Just you and your hubby. (I think this would just be the funnest shoot to do! If you don't like your wedding pictures (or even if you do and it's been a while) have an already-married-engagement shoot.
Just the two of you! How fun!)

Just you and your two best friends since you were kids. (they are a big part of your life!)
Just you.

As long as you are in it. And do it soon! I am so happy I did.

For Today

FOR TODAY
August 24th, 2009

Outside my window...it's dark.

I am thinking...about if I should get into bed, roll out the cupcake pops i have started or read my scriptures.

I am thankful for...a quiet house.

From the kitchen...cupcake pops for my FHE group coming over tomorrow night.

I am wearing... jean shorts and a grey t-shirt

I am creating...a FHE kit

I am going... to be tired tomorrow.

I am reading... The Weight of a Mustard Seed

I am hoping...that Lucy has no freak outs tomorrow.

I am hearing...quiet music and random "huh"'s from Reg as he reads at the table.

Around the house... it is reasonably tidy.

One of my favorite things... is my dozen red roses on the table from Regan.

A few plans for the rest of the week... visiting teaching, canning nectarine jam and salsa and peaches, go to the spray park with Whitney and finish off Danielle and Matt's wedding pictures.


A photo to share.... one from Danielle and Matt's wedding....


(Which actually makes me miss Kelly terribly.... )
The bride and her two sisters. :)

9 Years

3 kids



3 cities
3 different universities
3 Graduations (Undergrad, Masters and Medical School)

Lots of love and laughter
9 wonderful years.

Happy Anniversary (yesterday)!

(all photos taken by the lovely Rebecca Cooper!

Medicine Hat Weekend

On the weekend (well Wednesday to Friday) we went to Medicine Hat. You see as a resident you have teaching days were all the residents get together and learn about something (i think this past weekend it was about NICU stuff?? I think). And they pay for you to stay in a hotel with your family and you can all hang out.

We are lucky in the fact that in RAS Lethbridge based there are all these kids.....
Between the Wilde's, the Bly's and Us we've got all these guys. And they enjoy each other. Which is great!


On Thursday we went to a great park in Mad Hat where the kids played and we talked.... (and I chased Eli around) and the kids got together and put on a play for us. It was a variation on Goldly Locks and the Three Bears. It was pretty cute.


Just the little girls


I always keep some outside sand toys, two Frisbees, a few cars, sidewalk chalk in the back of my van for days such as this. Eli loved the sidewalk chalk.



Wednesday after noon I stayed in my room with Eli sleeping and Anise (the Wilde's youngest) and all the other kids went to the pool with Nancy and Jen. They were in the waterslides and pool for almost 4 hours. And some of them started to cry when it was time to leave. heehee

I took Eli down a few times.... and he had this face when we started...and when we got to the bottom. He is so funny that way. NO emotion at all.(kinda the opposite of my other two in that way....) AND (I'd like you to notice my seeeeeet farmers tan.)


Everybody on the slide.














Yes those are his ribs. Yes I try to feed him. Yes I am aware he is insanely skinny. I used to look like that too. And my little brother Justin. We always called it Ethiopian skinny....


Anise just after we (as in the nappers) joined everyone


Careful now boys...



All the boys running back up to go down again. (not sure why they had to run since we were pretty much the only people there...)


Lucy and Tameron (who are the same age minus one day)


The pool


Friday morning me and the kids packed up and left the hotel by 9:30 am. The reason? Eli had 4 hours of sleep the night before. I stood in the bathroom with him for almost 45 minutes to try and muffle the sound for everyone else trying to sleep.

Come 7:30 when he woke up for the day, I was about ready to pack it in. So Reg found another ride home and I left. We were home by noon and Eli napped in his bed. The whole way home he was falling a sleep so I kept handing those little strawberry marshmallows to him to keep him awake. So by the time we were home he was covered in pink sticky stuff. But he was awake. :)

I'll leave you with this great tree that I just love love loved from the park in mad hat! It would have been very cool to see it at sunset or sunrise.

Happy Birthday

to my friend Mary!!!

I was very happy to participate in this blog hoping-birthday-celebrating-scrapbooking event! Hope you have GREAT day today Mary!!



A little close up (although the colors are a bit off...)



I created a card with a little pocket in it filled with two identical word searches (for Mary and her hubby Derrick) called All About Mary. Listing words I brainstormed about Mary.



My words to tell about Mary??

mother (she IS one) :)
talented (seriously talented this girl!)
Derrick (DH)
witty (read her writing and you'll see what I mean)
friend (yup, lucky me!)
photographer (she's better than she thinks she is!)
creative (seriously have you SEEN her stuff?)
writer (she has a gift with words!)
scrapbooker (have you SEEN her stuff?)
reader (she is a book lover! i love being her goodreads friend!)
designer (yet again...have you SEEN her stuff?)
beautiful (photogenic, simply beautiful)
engineer (her pre-baby job)
married (to her DH)
generous (she actually gave me almost every piece of everything on the card I made her....)
kind (see above)
crafty (yet again...have you SEEN her stuff? check out what she did with her Yudu)
Sadie (her daughter)
funny (yep. she is)
laugh (i love to hear her laugh. it's infectious.)

So Mary. Hope you have a GREAT day today.

And go on Crystal's blog here now!

(If anyone else wants to follow along Mary's well wishes you can start here)

Lessons from the bike

It is strange to see Alden growing up. Obviously he is going to. And I knew that. But still it is strange.

He learned to ride his bike minus the training wheels about a month ago. (maybe a little less). He was nervous to try it.
But with his Dad's encouragement he did it.

Trying new things is not something that comes easily to him. He gets nervous. (a little too like his mother). Now one of his favorite things to do is bike ride.

He rides up and down the alley. It's a bit of a hill so he can ride all the way up and then coast all the way to the bottom getting some good speed. The best part? The whole time he is riding he is yelling "yippee.... wahooo.... yippee... ayayayaya...yippee." or something like that. He LOVES it.



Makes me think, I should be a little less afraid to try things that make me nervous. I'm always encouraging Alden to do that. I should take my own encouragement to heart. I mean look at him. Obviously it worked out well. :)


And on a few different notes:
1. Yes you could get prints of that temple picture if you want it. Email me at steedr AT gmail DOT com if you want one.

2. Notice the blur in the background of the photo? You get that by panning. You stand stationary to a moving object and follow it with your camera as you are shooting. Then main person (Alden) is still but the background is moving. Clear as mud? You can read about it in more detail here.

3. We are off to Medicine Hat for three days for a Residency teaching days. Should be fun. (hopefully Eli sleeps okay as we'll all be in one hotel room)

4. I'm looking into days to do photo shoots in Calgary in the next little while as I've had a lot of people email or facebook me about it. So if you are interested, let me know sooner than later.

Smooches