10 on Tuesday

1. Sweet weather lately!

2. I did a photo session of Alden (finally!) for his birthday. We tried an indoor studio session for something new and fun. My favorite from the day....

You can see the rest over here.

3. This little man slept last night SO GOOD. He's had a few great nights lately. And I am soooooooooo thankful!


4. I have a yawn picture of everyone of my kids now :)


5. Being true Raymond-ites, we've put our kids in sports :) Here's Alden playing basketball.


6. oh how i looove when my babies start cooing to me :)


7. Oliver is 7 weeks old now. Crazy!


8. i've been thinking lately about how sometimes the last kids in the family get less pictures taken of them than the beginning ones (right Brooke?).... and I don't think that's the case at our house.... since most of this post is pictures of Oliver :)

9. Yes I am nerdy. But this picture just seemed like he was yelling at me.... something along these lines...




10. I made some yummy pumpkin muffins today. I'll share the recipe tomorrow. Tasty!

and

11. How are YOU all out there... WHO are all you out there?

Spiritual Sundays

Our beloved prophet Gordon B. Hinckley has promised: “If you have any doubt about the wisdom, the divinity of observing the Sabbath Day, … stay home and gather your family about you, teach them the gospel, enjoy yourselves together on the Sabbath Day, come to your meetings, participate. You will know that the principle of the Sabbath is a true principle which brings with it great blessings.” 17

Foto Friday

This week's was hard! I apparently don't have very smokey candles!

and i am trying to make up the ones i missed... so a few weeks back was doorway.So here is the doorway to our new house!

list 44: the best desserts

I could make a LONG list here :) Dessert is my favorite course! So I'll just stick to categories of them.



1. Chocolate anything. Like these and these and this... I could go on but I'll stop there!

2. Pumpkin anything. Like these (that I made last Saturday night but didn't take a picture of) or these or these and a whole lot of all these

3. Carmel or Butterscotch. Like this and this and this

4. Cookies. I love them. All sorts and we usually have some around our house.

5. Ice cream. My very favorite is homemade vanilla bean. Y.U.M. (And look at this one!)

10 on Tuesday

1. I'm glad Halloween is over.

2. At the school here in Raymond they have a costume parade. Where the parents and family sit in the gym and then each class comes through and parades their costumes. Great idea. :) Lucy was too worried about keeping up with her class to stand still for me to take a picture of her. But here is Alden aka Mario.


3. We split up the trick or treating. I took them around our block. Alden did our street with a friend.


and Regan took them to his parents street. Which provided more than enough candy!
Halloween at Dusk on our street.


4. We went to two dress up parties. One for adults and babies on Friday night. My nephew Oscar.

And mom and kiddos one on Saturday. I actually kind of dressed up as an angel. :) I'll have to show you some pictures from Nichole to prove it! Having a small baby makes it hard to take pictures during events so I didn't get many of my own!

5. mmm sunday dinner. Pork loin stuff with goat cheese, raisins and fresh herbs.


6. My throat feels TERRIBLE.

7. I am trying to get back into the habit of taking just every day shots again. Like this one. Cause it 20 years these are the ones that will really represent our life now.


8. Did you notice the wall color? It used to be red like the background in this one.

Thanks to Derek it looks way better. Some things are getting done on our house! And I got my new chairs! Note to self to take a picture of them so you can see them and the current living room look.(in the middle of the changes.)

9. We tried two different times to get a few shots of Sage. Newborn shoots are hard work. Add in two newborns and two new moms and wow. I feel lucky with the ones we got!

Oliver and Sage


10. Oliver was up every 2 hours last night. wowzers! I sure love snuggling that little boy! In fact I think I'll go do that right now!

Spiritual Sundays

"A wife may love her husband, but it is different to that of the love of mother to her child. The true mother, the mother who has the fear of God and the love of truth in her soul, would never hide from danger or evil and leave her child exposed to it. But as natural as it is for the sparks to fly upward, as natural as it is to breathe the breath of life, if there were danger coming to her child, she would step between the child and that danger; she would defend her child to the uttermost. Her life would be nothing in the balance, in comparison with the life of her child. That is the love of true motherhood—for children. … I have learned to place a high estimate upon the love of mother. I have often said, and will repeat it, that the love of a true mother comes nearer being like the love of God than any other kind of love." - BY PRESIDENT JOSEPH F. SMITH

Foto Friday

List 41: 10 Halloween Costumes I've had

To tell the truth I can't even REMEMBER 10. My mom was NOT a fan of halloween. She still isn't (funny I married someone with the same feelings about the holiday!).

Instead I will list things I remember about Halloween as a kid at our house.

1. My mom made donuts and handed them out. Since we lived in a small town (not even big enough to be a town - it's actually a hamlet!) you could hand out things you made. And you ate them.

2. Our costumes were always made from things around the house. A plaid shirt and jeans made a farmer or a Hutterite. A white sheet over you made a ghost. We didn't buy costumes. That went against everything my mother feels about halloween!

3. I think there are two pools of thought about candy and kids at Halloween. The parents that ration out the candy their kids collect and the ones who just let their kids eat it all and then it's gone (usually ending up in stomach aches for the kids.) My parents were the second type. Eat it all at once and get it done. Although me and my brother Justin usually hid pieces around our rooms to save for later.

4. I remember one year when my brother Bryan had an eye patch. (from an icicle falling into his eye. Seriously. And I was standing with him. It was FREAKY) ANYWAYS, he was a cowboy with an eye patch. Makes perfect sense.

5. We ALWAYS used our pillow cases to collect the candy.

6. My mom thought that once you reached 12 going trick or treating was not acceptable.

7. We carved pumpkins but never decorated in any other way.

8. I remember learning that if you went to the "rich" houses you got GOOD candy.

9. I've never liked the yucky part of halloween. Especially as a kid. I don't like being scared. Some people find it funny. I never have. Ask Reg :)

10. I've never seen either one of my parents dress up in a costume.

Spiritual Sundays

‎"Greatness is best measured by how well an individual responds to the happenings in life that appear to be totally unfair, unreasonable, and undeserved. Sometimes we are inclined to put up with a situation rather than endure. To endure is to bear up under, to stand firm against, to suffer without yielding, to continue to be, or to exhibit the state or power of lasting." - Marvin J Ashton

Foto Friday

Three things.

1. I couldn't find my remote and then I found it and the battery is dead. Sooo this had to happen with a timer. Sooo this isn't TOTALLY in focus. But I DID it.
2. My color looks all funny and off next to Heather's great shot of her kiddos and her.
3. Oliver is just so cute.

List 42 : Things I Wish I was better at

1. Parenting. There is a lot I could say about this. But I'll just leave it as that.

2. Knitting / crocheting (Easier to be better at it when you don't even know how to do it!) :)

3. Photography. I want to improve more.

4. Accomplishing things. Lately at least. But then I realize I've got a 4 week old.

5. Not caring what people think.

6. Sending thank you cards. It's my goal lately. I've sent out a few. I LOVE it when people take the time to say thank you to me, so I'm trying to do it for others.


And since I missed a few.... here is List 40 from two weeks ago....



List 40 : Things that Inspire Me:

1. My faith

2. this blog

3. Reading good books.

4. Stimulating conversation with great people

5. A good night's sleep.

6. Great photographs.

10 on Tuesday

1. Oliver throws up a LOT. I changed my clothes multiple times last night. And may have even fallen asleep in some throw up clothes.


2. And the blow outs have started. Needless to say we both needed a bath this morning (although I haven't gotten to mine yet!)

3. I am itching to get things done in my house. I mean badly. I'm trying really really really hard to not focus on it and just get little things done here and there. Sure did find the chairs I want from the livingroom. Regan doesn't agree so I haven't bought them. But MAN do I loooooove them. :)

4. I have this idea of a photograph in my head. But I need a laundry room with windows in it (like great light) and a little girl to model for me who is like 3. Anyone have that for me?

5. I've decided I'd love to shoot commercial children's stuff. Kind of like I did with Lucy but for a clothing company. Wouldn't THAT be cool?!

6. There are a few events I haven't blogged about yet. But I am going to. Like when we went to the Pumpkin Patch with Brad and Whitney and their family. Regan was the photographer for part of the day and these two he caught make me smile.



7. When I was out shooting Lucy's 6th Portraits she took this picture of me. She always asks at the end if she can take some of me so I let her every year. Kind of a fun part of our tradition.


8. Oliver's Day's 26-29 (30 is still on my camera and not downloaded yet!)
day 26

day 27

day 28

day 29


9. Someone (I think Kathy) asked what dinner club is. It's a group of friends, who all love to cook, and we get together each month to eat good food. The hosting rotates and the person who hosts picks a theme and then everyone else brings some thing that goes along with the theme for their course. (you rotate courses each month too.)
We are hosting this month and our theme is this....


10. Good thing THIS kid is cute... cause he keeps us up at night lately almost as much as Oliver.

Alden's 9th Birthday Party

For his "topic" as he kept calling it, this year Alden asked for a Mario party. I asked him if he wanted us to borrow a Wii and just play Wii games the whole party or do real life sized Mario games and he picked the latter. I was kind of hoping this time for the easy route, but he really wanted this so we did it.

So we made an obstacle kind of course with the things being loosely based on the Mario Bros game. (Which speaking of that Alden always says Bros not Brothers and it cracks me up every time). So we timed the kids for a little healthy competition :)

First you fished for Cheep Cheep fish. (This is Ben fishing)


Then you did the Boo Bean Bag toss. (Dane tossing)


Then you jumped over the "pipes", grabbed coins off the floor and hit each hanging block. (Alden looooved this part! He made all the pipes :) )


Then pinned the mustache on Mario. (Carter pining)


Then you were supposed to stomp the Goombas....

But most boys just did this cause it was faster.


Then outside for Yoshi's egg hunt.


He had asked for a pinata, but I frankly just didn't get to it. At first he wanted a Bowser one, which I quickly said no too! Then we switched to boo then lastly to the chain chomper which would have been good to do but I just didn't get the time. That and he wanted Mario hats for all the boys. Both which I had all intentions to do but I just didn't. (I explained to Alden that I just didn't have the time and he was fine with it. And then LUCY right after the party said to me, "Wait where are all the hats you were going to sew for all the kids??" )

The cake was an item box.




And with all the candy I had bought for the pinata, I came up with this instead and for their favors they filled bags with candy to take home.

And all the other food....



All the guests...

To end the party, we borrowed our neighbors Wii and the boys played a little bit.


I am glad it is over :)

Spiritual Sundays

"How sweet is the assurance, how comforting is the peace that come from the knowledge that if we marry right and live right, our relationship will continue, notwithstanding the certainty of death and the passage of time. Men may write love songs and sing them. They may yearn and hope and dream. But all of this will be only a romantic longing unless there is an exercise of authority that transcends the powers of time and death." - Gordon B. Hinckley

Listography: List 41

Things i like to wear:

yoga pants.
jeans
shirts that aren't tight on my left over baby belly.
cute earrings.
cute necklaces