Self Portrait

Ewwwww! I just hate pictures of me! I am so much fatter in pictures than I imagine myself to be. Oh well, I needed an avatar picture, and this is the best that I could do.

11 and 2/3

She has never been the baby - since she could walk she has been the self-declared "Assistant Mom" around here. Isn't she lovely?

My Life in Pink

On Wendy's alumni board, the theme last week was pink. So all week I was looking at pink things to photograph and with four girls in this house... well, you can see what happened.

Volleyball

Kimberly is playing volleyball this year - she says that she likes it even better than basketball. I am not entirely sure that she can be related to me and like either one. (I avoid any sport with balls bigger than my head - I always get hit in the face. Actually, I avoid sports of all kinds.) Last night the parents got to scrimmage with the girls. I just couldn't play because I had to take pictures.

It's Crazy Hair Day

The elementary school does this every September, and my kids LOVE it. Josie has been planning her "do" all week.

Cool neighborhood

Elko has this cool balloon festival once a year.

(Well, actually it is in Spring Creek, and depending on whether or not I feel like getting everyone up and running before seven on a Saturday morning, I may post pictures of it later this week. BUT I digress...)

Anyway, as part of this balloon festival, they always inflate at least one balloon up at the school yard right across the street from my house. (We live in the coolest neighborhood ever!) So this morning, I took the little ones up to the school yard to see them inflate the balloon, and they actually had one half inflated on the ground that you could go inside of - it was so amazing! And I forgot my camera! But it was fun and the kids loved it, and we got to see both Justin and Josie there. So I guess that we'll just have to remember that one without photo-documentation. But I did take these two when we got back home, just to prove it was there, I guess. 'Lyssa's shirt actually has little hot air balloons on it - how appropriate is that?

For some reason I am super tired tonight, so if this all comes out sounding funky - I apologize. I'll try to be more entertaining tommorrow.

Sweet baby McKenna

Sometimes I get a bit carried away...

I made the light pink one to practice, the dark pink one for Alyssa for Halloween, and the green one for Kimberly for Halloween, but then I noticed that the pants had all three colors....

They didn't have purple in them, though.

Wendy - just in case you didn't notice on your own, I got catchlights in her eyes - even under that hat brim! Yay me - hehe. And I only dodged them up a tiny bit - honest! ;)

Pink Challenge

My lovely photography teacher, Wendy, gave us "pink" as a theme this week, so here's my take. Yay for getting Halloween costumes started on :)

My Baby Sister

And her cute family. I took these two weeks ago - sorry it took me so long to get them done, sis! More later :)

DON'T EAT PETE!

We are renewing our FHE efforts, and I have to say - the games are the best part!

If you don't know how to play, here's how:

You need a game board (Kimberly made ours - it's a sheet of cardstock divided into squares with a number in each square.) and lots of small candies (smarties, skittles, m&ms - whatever).

Place one candy in each square. One person leaves the room and the rest agree on which number is "Pete". The one person returns and begins to eat the candies one by one. My kids say "You can eat that one" in a kind of chant, until they reach for "the one" and then you yell as loud as you can "DON'T EAT PETE!!"

Another fun one that we played last week was called "Knock Your Socks Off". The goal is to keep your socks on the longest while trying to get everyone else's socks off. Rory won like ten times, but there was major partying when we all ganged up on him and got one sock off of him. Next time we play we will add the rule that everyone has to be on their knees. I got that one out of a book called "Before They Turn Twelve" by Deborah Pace Rowley. It has a series of FHE lessons using "For the Strength of Youth".

Anyway, FHE is fun, plus it feels good to not feel guilty for not having it. (hehe did that make sense?)

PS - sorry about the technically awful pictures, but the light in my front room is almost non-existant.

Cuz you know you were checking for them, girls

It was a very fun weekend - I'm so lucky to associate with these beautiful, amazing ladies!