Halloween Pet Parade

Our family has been shopping for a new pet!  We discovered the Fairwood Pet Center and met this great lady named Anika who just might love animals as much as our Emma.  She is so wonderful and kind and realizing how much our little girl loves dogs, she insisted that Emma come and help her put on a pet parade.  It was one of the most adorable events I've seen and so absolutely perfect for Emma in every single way!

Pets and owners of all sizes came dressed up in their Halloween costumes. They posed for pictures and then did a little parade all around the shopping center.  Cars pulled over to stop and watch and take pictures.   Then, everyone came back to the store where each pet was individually introduced and prizes were awarded.  Did I say it was adorable?  So adorable!

And now for a few pictures.

 

 

 Parading around the shopping center.

 

This dog is wearing quite the costume.  His owner skimped on groceries for a year and spent over a thousand dollars on leather and custom made pieces.  I asked about the mask and she explained that she had a mold of his face made and then the mask was designed to fit his face perfectly.  Wow!

 

Anika was so sweet to Emma.  She let her be a part of the whole event, introduced her to everyone and had her stand up by her while she welcomed everyone and handed out prizes.  She gave Emma a big bowl of candy to pass out to the children and made every effort to help this day be one that I'm sure Emma will never forget!

7 week project

I have a nice camera that I don't know how to use to it's fullest potential.  I love it and have been pretty happy with pictures I have taken in the Auto mode, but have always wanted to learn how to get beyond the simple snapshot.  So, I signed up for a photography class at the local college.  It's only the first day of class, but I already love it!

The professor tells us that for the next 7 weeks we are not allowed to take any pictures in AUTO (Yikes!) and after that, we won't want to take any pictures in AUTO (Cool!).  He also encouraged us to take a picture every single day and post it.  I'm not sure I'll remember to do it every single day, but I'm going to try.  I think rather than giving them all their own post, I'll just keep adding them to this post.

Today, we learned about aperture and a "back up to zoom in" theory.  This helps you to focus in on an object while everything in the background is a little blurry. 

 

My lighting is off, but hey.. it's day one.

The reason I took a picture of my shoes is because this is what I wore to class tonight.  It wasn't until I got there that I realized I was wearing two very similar brown shoes, but still...TWO DIFFERENT SHOES!!

Oct.4 Photo of the Day:

 
I'm realizing I have so much to learn...
My teacher changed the ISO setting on my camera when he had me come up in front of the class to demonstrate our homework assignment last night (I hope no one noticed my shoes)..  We didn't learn anything about ISO settings, but I think that's why my lighting off in my day 1 picture, so I researched my manual a little bit and looked online and found a few tips, but quickly became overwhelmed.

Oct.6  Photo of the Day:

I didn't cheat.. this was taken in the approved method, but since no one else has volunteered to be the team photographer on my son's soccer team...  I am the official photographer, which is pretty comical.  After taking several blurry pictures I decided that since we haven't learned anything about sports photography in our whole one session of class, I'd better move the dial over to the sports mode and let someone in Thailand decide the appropriate settings for my situation... sorry Mr. Manthey.

Oct. 8 Photo of the Day:

Two photos today.
My kids had fun making these darling owls out of toilet paper rolls yesterday while watching conference. 

October 11th

Oct. 13th  Hunter's goal!  

Action shot.. shutter speed and lighting.

 

October 17th.  Austin whizzing by on his motorcycle.  He is really fast!

Panning assignment.

 

Tragedy

I'm sure somewhere in the world, there are much worse things that happened today, but here at our house it seemed that tragedy had struck at it's worst and my kids, who I hope are sleeping soundly now, spent the evening in tears and mourning the loss of our family pet.

We loved our bunny, Hailey.  She was a perfect outside pet, easy to care for and it was fun to watch her hop around the yard while Jared worked in the garden or the kids played.  She was the first real pet our kids have had and they loved her with all their hearts.

We let Hailey out most evenings to run around the backyard with the kids.  Unfortunately last night Dad forgot to put her back in the cage.  He feels awful, but says he's glad it was him and not one of them because tragically in the night something got to her and killed her.  We think it was a raccoon, it also ate every fish in our pond.  All our pets gone in one night.

Shortly after the kids left this morning, Austin and I also left for the day so it wasn't until Linsey got home from school and went out to feed the bunny that she discovered our tragic loss.  I wish she hadn't had to be the one ...  I won't go into all the details, but it left her quite traumatized and I found her sobbing hysterically.  It was a rough night for all of our children, but the girls are taking it the hardest.  As they were going to bed tonight, Emma broke down again and through her tears she told me how much she loved our bunny and was so sad that she would never get to see her again.  It hit me that this is my kids very first experience with death and while we have taught them that there is life after death and we know that we will see our loved ones again.. even pets, they have never had to lose anyone that they are close to.  It's hard, really hard and we are really sad, but I am grateful for the opportunity to teach my children about love and hope and the plan of happiness.



.....thinking of getting a dog.
Any suggestions?  It has to be small and cute, no shedding.

Losing Teeth

Man, this girl waited a long time to lose a tooth.  She felt like the last kid in the world and then finally... one day it happened.  That day just happened to be her 7th birthday.  We celebrated and did the whole tooth fairy thing and that was fun.

Lately though, it's been a bit crazy.

I've had this dream where I am talking or eating and then I realize my teeth are falling out, one after another.  Just as I begin to freak out.. I wake up.  

Emma is experiencing this in real life.  One after another they are falling out, right and left.  Teeth that we didn't know were even loose are falling out while she eats or plays at the playground.

I think the toothless smile is adorable and that little trick with the straw coming through the open hole of missing teeth never gets old.

Now we know what she can wish for for Christmas... that never gets old either.

Happy Birthday Hunter!

Dinner time is quite often hectic with people coming and going, but we try really hard to plan around eveyone's schedules so most nights we can eat as a family.  We go around the table and each persons shares one good thing and one bad thing that happened that day.  We call it "good and bad"  and usually one of the kids reminds us if we don't bring it up at some point during dinner.  It's a fun way for everyone to contribute to the conversation.  The night before Hunter's birthday, it was my turn to share something good and bad about my day.  I started out by saying,
"My good thing about today is I bought Hunter something for his birthday that I think he is going to LOVE!"

Austin (who is my shopping buddy during the day) turned to Hunter and with all the excitement he could muster up blurted out..."IT'S GUMMY BEARS!!.....IT'S A SECRET!!"

That wasn't the gift I'd been thinking of, but he had been with me when I bought a giant bag of gummy bears for Hunter and I had told him it was a surprise.  Poor guy had been holding that secret for days and it just couldn't be held in any longer.  We laughed and laughed.

Hunter's birthday was full of plenty of other surprises and all sorts of good things.

Good:  Hunter was SO excited for his birthday, he got up extra early because officially being 10 meant he could be in a crossing guard.  He got to do it on his birthday!
Bad: Since Hunter shares a room with Austin, guess who woke up extra early too?

Good:  We had a delightful birthday breakfast with sausage and bacon just for Hunter.
Bad:  We missed Linsey, she leaves for school before 7:00 which is just too early.

Good:  Hunter had a great day at school.  He got to pass out really cool gummy lizards that his dad found for his class treat and his teacher let him sit in a comfy chair all day.
Bad:  School is still school... which means school work.

Good:  I promised Hunter I would come to school at 11:30 and bring his favorite lunch!
Bad:  I called the restaurant at 10:00 to place my to go order only to find out they don't officially open until 11:30 so picking up something at 11:10 isn't really possible.

Good:  They made it anyway and let me sneak in the side entrance, treated me like an old family friend and even threw in a Birthday Sundae for Hunter.  As I left their unopened restaurant, the cooks and other staff were all calling out... "Tell Hunter Happy Birthday!"
Bad:  Nothing bad about it... shout out for The Rock!

Good:  Hunter and I had a great lunch together.
Bad:  His teacher plays the Disney channel during lunch so our conversation was.. well... a little distracted.

Good: We had a yummy steak dinner (no vegetables even) as a family (no scouts, no mutual, and Hunter skipped soccer practice.. just for this one night).  Hunter opened presents and we all had fun playing with his gifts.

 

 

 New game and bean bag chairs... oh and gummy bears!

 

 

 
Bad:  The cool helicopter toy he got ended up on the roof.

Good:  Linsey gave Hunter his own can of whipped cream as a birthday gift!  (There is jello under that pile.)

Bad:  It made quite a mess.... oh well.  (I love Austin's face in these pictures.)

Good:  It was a great day, Hunter went to bed happy and exhausted.  I love that he took his new bean bag chair to bed with him.
Bad:  The big day is over... sad.

Good:  We still had a birthday party planned so the fun wasn't quite over yet!

 We had 10 boys over for pizza and games.

 

 Laser Tag!

 Bad:  Now it's really over... til next year!

Happy Birthday Hunter!  We love you!

Back to School

I have mixed feelings about the big day, but it's come and gone and school has officially started.

Ready or not, here we go!

I was really reluctant to let Linsey go to Middle School last year, but she loved it and everything went so well that it was much easier sending her off to 7th grade. 

 

Hunter is in 4th grade.  He has become very independent and although I walked to school with Hunter and Emma, Austin in tow, he walked ahead and darted off to his classroom all on his own.  Way too cool for mom I guess.  sigh...

 

Emma is in 2nd grade.  She was thrilled to have me walk her to class and gave me a big hug before she went in which made me just a little bit sad.  It's fun to see my kids grow up, but I just wish they wouldn't do it so fast.

 

Emma and Natty have grown up together, Emma will tell you they have been friends since Heaven which I believe is true.  I'm so excited they are in the same class together this year!

 ...and they have the best teacher in the world.  Mrs. Miller!  Both Linsey and Hunter had her and I just love everything about her!  It's going to be a great year!

And this little guy...  he's my buddy and it's really hard for me to see him growing up too.  Here Austin is on his first day of preschool!

Oh I love Miss Cindy too.  She has taught all of my kids and it seemed natural to drop off Austin at her preschool.

 

He loves preschool, just wants me to stay with him too.  He's slowly warming up to the idea and so far we've had no tears.

Now if I can just get used to the idea of all my children being one year older and one grade higher, and here come the papers and homework, busy weeknights and melt downs...

Like I said,

Ready or not... here we go!

Camping with the McInelly Family

We love staying in the cabins at Camp Zarahemla. 

We spent a weekend with some of the McInelly cousins and family, each family had their own cabin which was perfect for all of the little napping campers!  It was a fun weekend with great company, yummy food, games, and relaxing.  Just  perfect!
 

 

Over the years our kids have perfected the art of catching squirrels.  You can see in the above picture that they have 4 different traps set up, two with the blocks on top both have critters.  And what do you do with them once you catch them...

 This..

Emma and Olivia had the most adorable little hideout.  They hid inside had even caught their very own squirrel.  Too cute!

 Here are a few pictures of some of the fun we had.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great Fun!