boy style

notice the rock band stance or maybe it is the gunfighting stance -
"am i playing basketball? these guys in blue are out to get me...
give me my fully loaded guitar so i can rock their worlds."


who doesn't enjoy standing one minute and the next you
are falling to the ground...just for kicks and giggles (oh wait
this is a boy post....) just for the heck of it. maybe he is trying
out his dance moves to go with the guitar playing.

chase a ball!!! are you kidding. i love to chase after round

objects that bounce. plus you gotta love the hair....love it

when it sticks up like that when he runs.

oh boy...more falling down action. he couldn't be happier

right now.


"sweet.....i got it before these other kids could. i rock."

That is pretty much the extent of his game today...except for when he was on the court waving at his sister and then he started yelling her name so she would wave back!!! I love kindergarten ball. He is like a wet noodle out there...he just runs around with his arms doing whatever...he never tries to shoot and he always stays on his color opponent. not bad for first year...especially when i can't get him to practice at all. The best thing about watching him is when he miraculously pulls out his air guitar or his machine gun and starts going to town. oblivious to everyone around him. i am not sure that a career in sports is in his future!!!! ha ha

Drill Sargeant and Tears

So the other day my eight year old comes home and tells me that she had the meanest teacher on the face of the planet for pe that day. That she had been yelled at, they had been punished and that they were miserable for the rest of the day....I asked her if she had joined the army instead of going to school. She looked at me like I was from a foreign planet...i laughed and asked her what had happened. She told me that the teacher had called them all babies, she had told them to shut up (several times) and that she yelled at a little girl when she fell down and told her not to be a cry baby. WOW....the whole class was terrified and could not wait for class to end. Their teacher caught a few stories the next day and immediately went to solve the situation. I don't think that substitute will be coming back....i wonder if any of these kids will be affected and every time they see an army commercial run away shrieking in terror....all because the drill sargeant subsituted when they were in the second grade.

SOOC vs Edited

SOOC (straight out of camera) - very shadowed


fun and funky with the omni spotlight

i think i did the warm filter on this one and it is too orange
did not adjust color...wanted to see the warmer in action.

pure and simple b&w

This is my final one..the one i love. i burned the edges and

played with the saturation and color. i love it.


I have had a ton of fun playing with my photoshop the last several days. i have had this program for 3 years and have just done some basic edits (crop,auto color, etc). but i stumbled across a couple of different blogs that made me pine for more.....more photoshop. i am an addict now. (when i told thad that i pinched my nose like a coker would. of course he did not laugh, but i did. i guess it is no worse than licking my scrapbook paper)

i am on the hunt now for free actions that i can load to my photoshop elements. i have finally decided that my two hours of free time in the afternoon are now being spent on photoshop. of course the last several mornings noah has had to fend for himself while mommy feeds her addiction. i think it is just devoting time. i also am taking an online photography class to help feed my overall picture taking addiction. although in the last several months, my photo taking has decreased dramatically....i think it has something to do with not scrapbooking anymore.

so if you don't see my for awhile, if i have that worn out, dark eye look and if i start trading in kids to buy cs3 or actions......don't fear, it's just photoshop!

new smile

i just love this picture...i love his new smile. i love that look of mischief in his eyes. i cannot believe i actually got him to keep his eyes open. i think it was because i turned the flash off. he has lost 5 teeth in less than a year. it is taking me awhile to get used to that huge gap in his mouth. so cute.

She

she is now eight. she is stubborn. she is adorable. she is a reader. she is a lover of animals. she is techo girl. she is smart. she is fascinating. she is slow as mollasas. she is beautiful. she is a good negotiator. she is talented. she is messy. she is a fast talker. she is good at memorizing. she is into hannah montana. she is into high school musical. she is into webkinz. she is a second grader. she is amazing. she called a boy tonight to talk on the phone! she is incredible. she is full of energy. she is all girl. she is into basketball. she loves the color blue. she likes her pix taken. she loves to look in the mirror at herself. she loves her long hair. she is mine.

all coffee is not the same

so there are just some things in life that i have decided it is okay to just be a total snob about....and coffee is one of them. I used to give my brother a really bad time about the fact that he would drink nothing other than starbucks....but he is sooooo right. In my quest to be dilligent in our finances i have made the mistake of buying some "other" brands of coffee, they will remain nameless, but they totally and completely sucked!!! ha ha. I finally broke down and bought some starbucks coffee the other day...it has been awhile since I have had it here at the house.....oooohhhh the love. it tastes so good. i really must have nothing else in my life that brings me happiness, but seriously. my taste buds were so happy today and you know what they say......if mommy's taste buds aren't happy, then no one else is happy.

and another thing that makes me happy.https://www.starbucks.com/mycard/default.asp I should get my customized card in the mail anyday. can you guess which design i chose?

FYI......peppermint mocha creamer also makes me very happy!!!

Meet Snowflake

For my birthday this year the kids had a plan. they knew exactly what they wanted to get me for my big day and so I would like to introduce you to my very own webkinz....snowflake. a cute little beagle with a sweet disposition and a really cool bedroom!!!! ha ha. we walked into practice a week ago and a friend showed up with her very own webkinz that her kids had bought her for her birthday. of course sydnie and noah thought that was the coolest thing ever! so friday night they went out and bought me one. they could barely contain their excitement and were telling me about all the webkinz they saw at the mall with daddy, even how they had seen one beagle left at the candy store!! so funny. so i am officially a webkinz addict. in my spare time(which is why there has been no posts lately) i have been earning coins and spinning the wheel of wow!!! the funny thing is that a couple of other moms i know are getting one for their birthday this month....must be the new mommy trend. gotta love that.

a new beginning

i have been mulling over my word for the year for the last several days and reflecting upon this last year....okay not too deeply, but enough to figure out that my balance (http://lifeworthliving-rochelle.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-year-keyword-balance.html) was a little skewed this year. i did accomplish that sense of family first that i was wanting, but somewhere along the way i think i forgot to just do stuff for me!! I have not scrapbooked in about a year. I have done some little albums (cheerleading and maddie) but i have not even touched my kids stuff, let alone our disneyland album. although i did watch a lot of tv on dvd (house, lost, smallville, alias) so i have to admit that i did not really achieve an overall balance to my life.

so this year.....my new word is vitality. now i feel like i am cheating here a little because as i was thinking of a new word this year..i kept thinking energy, exuberance, get up and go!!! but i could not quite think of the perfect word....until i read ali edwards blog. of course vitality is the word she chose....and i have tried many different words to sum up my feelings for the new year ahead and vitality is what best describes it. so here it is:

noun, plural -ties.
1. exuberant physical strength or mental vigor: a person of great vitality.
2. capacity for survival or for the continuation of a meaningful or purposeful existence: the vitality of an institution.
3. power to live or grow: the vitality of a language.
4. vital force or principle

vitality to me means laughter, activity, the ability to live through tough situations, to grow and learn new things everyday. I am really looking forward to this year and living life to the fullest.

Christmas Recap

lots of this...presents and fun


what a beauty


lots of family time...they are almost to big to fit on his lap anymore.

just the four of us

thads family and a huge collision that resulted in a bloody nose

a happy little boy with his lego castle


Another Christmas done and gone and it has taken me forever to write about it. We opened our gifts here with the kids on Christmas eve morning....sydnie opened her camera and i think just about had a heartattack...the only thing she could say was oOOOOOOOOO. Noah of course loved his legos and we spent the rest of that morning playing games and building legos. Then we headed down to my parents house for the evening. We had our traditional pizza and games. but this year we had the kids put some reindeer food (some oats, glitter and sprinkles) out for santa. Noah went crazy. He told us he was going to stay up all night to wait for santa and then while we were outside he swore that the "big shiny light" up in the sky was santa so we needed to hurry and get the food on the lawn. He kept checking the sky and watching for santa every few minutes. Then he told us in no uncertain terms that he had just saw santa and that he was on the way here. of course when we told him that santa only will come if the kids are sleeping, he wanted to go to bed right then! So cute. Sydnie had fun with it as well, but noah just believed.

The next morning the kids woke up and noah was so excited that santa had come to visit. we started off our morning with a wonderful breakfast and then started opening gifts. Noah could hardly stand to wait...he has been really anxious this year and a little annoying with the whole present thing. The kids were super excited when cousin ryen showed up in her pjs...they thought that was cool. They seemed to really love all of their gifts from grandma and grandpa. They each got a pair of heelys. which sydnie decided she did not want, if falling was involved!!! haha.

Once we had eaten and packed it was time to head back up to our neck of the woods for thad's family christmas. we ended up having our celebration at a local church this year and it was fantastic. there are so many of us and lots of older kids that need something to "do" we had so much fun and the only issue of the night was a major collision with sydnie and her cousin and syd ended up getting a bloody nose. But she recovered and ended up having a great time with her cousins. She got another webkinz and noah got this amazing lego set from grammie. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful day.

Eight

Birthday girl

a little kitten to pet

a cute little puppy - cousin ryen

cousins

a new webkinz...now she has 7!

a new nintendo ds


A birthday at the pound...seriously. we found out that the humane society does birthday parties and sydnie was over the top excited to go there. they have this fantastic playroom and they do the craft, goodie bags and you get to tour the facilities. The girls loved it. They thought it was the best thing ever. They are second graders who all really love animals, so it was perfect. Sydnie did not even beg me to bring an animal home!!! She of course was spoiled to death with presents and even got a new nintendo ds...something we as her parents had been putting off, but grandma decided it was okay! She got three new webkinz....how many does one little girl need? Her friend has 11, so I think she is shooting for that many. She had one friend stay the night and she is still here this afternoon. might as well make a day of it. they went to target today to spend christmas/birthday money together. I heard them chanting about how much they liked shopping....so cute. How time flies when your beautiful little girl is growing up. She is the best thing ever..................

Have a Very Merry Christmas

Hoping that all remember the reason for the season. That Christ came to this earth as a newborn babe and died for us...to save us from our sins. This Christmas remember why we were created to worship an almighty God, to praise and honor Him. Wishing you and yours the very merriest of Christmas's.

Blogjacked

Dear mom and dad...

I miss u guys. why did u have to fly across the continent. i need my own house to sleep in, my kids to run after, i need my mom to hold me tight and spoil me and my dad to bark at every night. don't get me wrong, this house im at now is okay. i mean they have a dog to play with and a cat to chase and two kids to terrorize and the dad to bark at (ha ha ha). I do get to sleep pretty much wherever I want because I have this mom suckered into doing whatever I want to do. I just give her that cute face, the one were I look like a teddy bear and she will let me sit on her lap.

I overheard the mom and dad here say that I have two more weeks here.....i think i can make it as long as i know that u are having fun and that i get to come home to my family once this is over. so for now, i will say see ya soon...............think of me often.

much love, chewie

G-House

The newest gingerbread house. This year was a crack up because thad ended up doing most of it himself. Noah was distracted by a new birthday present and only wanted to play with it. Sydnie worked for awhile, but then she declared she was done and off she went. Thad ended up saying that this was the last year that we were doing a house if he had to do it all himself. I just sat there laughing and taking pictures (which is my official job). Someday we will look back at all of our houses and the stories behind them and laugh.

The Many Faces of.....

the i am allergic to light (aka: the flash) face


the mom stop taking my picture face


the I am so cute you cannot handle it face

The I think I am a rock star face (this is the face always used while playing an air guitar)

The many faces of six. Born this day at 11:55am, six years ago.

How Adorable

I can already hear the awwwwsss coming from your lips as you watch this video!! It makes you remember that first time you held hands with your sweetie...okay well we were not floating on our backs asleep in an aquarium...but still. you get the idea.

six

Another year of partying!!! This year our theme was baseball and we had 16 kids at our house!!! HOLY COW it was loud. They were all really good kids and they even helped pick up before they left. Lots of lightsaber fights and a little round of wiffle ball in the back yard. They had a blast trying to get the pinata open, it finally fell off the string and Thad ripped it open. Lots of screaming and a big sugar rush came after that.

This was the first year that I did not go all out. I had nothing planned except the pinata and lots of playing. It worked out really well. I was actually able to just visit with friends. Noah was super excited all day and literally was counting down the time until his friends got here. I did notice that once he had opened his presents he wanted nothing to do with playing...he just wanted to open the gifts up and play.

I asked him what his favorite gift was and he first said his bumblebee transformer, then it was his new webkinz, but he finally decided his favorite gift was this picture frame his sister had made him with his picture inside. AAAWWWWWW....how cute is that. What a little softie. He has such a tender spirit and worships that ground that Sydnie walks on. SO CUTE.

Now we are into recovery mode here...lots of playing with new gifts today and we already logged his frog into webkinz and set up a whole new lily pad room for it. he named it hip hop. now he is building legos and I am ready to take a nap. ha ha. Another year down, another year of good memories.

Meet Wally

our newest addition to our family tradition!!! ha ha.

My friend had heard of this cute little "game" to play during the holidays that helps to keep your children behaving and adds lots of memories in the process. It is called Elf on the Shelf. Your family elf arrives each Christmas season and sits on a shelf to watch the kids and report back to Santa. The kids cannot touch him or he loses his magic and each night he leaves the house to report back on good or bad behavior. So that means that every morning he is in a new spot. That is the fun...where will the elf be?

My kids were a little skeptical last night...but this morning they both woke up and ran around the house to find Wally. They had such a good time and it was fun to listen to where they thought he was and hear there little feet running around.

I cannot wait to see where Wally will appear tomorrow morning. If I remember to move him tonight!!!

Here is more info on our new little friend: http://www.elfontheshelf.com/

Let the Elfin begin....

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1342209796

Conversations.....

This morning as we were coming home from dropping off his big sister....

noah: "she always wants a hug from me."

mom "who?"

noah: "ailany, she just always comes over for a hug from me"

mom: "ohhhhh...do you think she has a crush on you?"

noah: "she hasn't said that, but I am thinking she does"

this just cracked me up because we seem to have a little romancer on our hands. He has been telling all of the girls that he has a crush on them and trying to hug them....even second graders!!! I told him that he can't tell the girls he has a crush on them...then they will run away screaming. He just has to keep it to himself or tell his mom!!! ha ha. We could be in for a fun couple of years with this little guy.

I wish...

I heard there were some flurries of snow north of here this morning.....

I really have nothing new to say.........we have been trying to lay low and get noah's bday party planned. Saving my energy for all the celebrations to come in this month.

We have started basketball for both of the kids....which is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Practices on mondays and saturdays. Sydnie has gotten so much better. She really is loving it this year.

We are babysitting tonight...so two extra kids and an extra dog. Lots of laughter, fighting and noise here today. Hopefully we all survive until tomorrow morning.

Sydnie has a speech tomorrow talking about her Christmas Traditions. We made a tree out of scrap paper and cut out some pictures in the shape of ornaments to put on it.

That is really about all. seriously not much going on in the old noggin lately. actually i think of stuff to say and then forget by the time i sit down at my computer.

This week will be a busy one...finishing Christmas shopping, Christmas parties at school, making our gingerbread house and noah's party saturday.

Decorating!

So to continue the holiday spirit....we decorated our tree on sunday. Thad put the lights on in the afternoon and after dinner we blasted the Christmas music and started the festivities. The kids pretty much run the show and they put all the ornaments on the tree, so of course they are all down low and stuck together.....but the fun is what matters. Sydnie told me this year that she is going to wear her santa hat every time we decorate the tree so that she can get in the Christmas mood. We gave the kids their special ornaments, which sydnie loved and noah hated.

I tried experimenting with flash last night...i really like the top pix where the flash was off and the soft glow of the lights looks beautiful. need to play around with it some more to get the hang of it. i really do like pix with natural light, rather than the harsh flash.

we also watched polar express the night we got our tree....it was a great time to relax and be with family. Good tradition to start.

A Hunting We Will Go............

What a perfect day to get a Christmas Tree. As we drove up the hills in to silverton the snow started falling and by the time we hit Reinhart Tree Farm it was snowing full on. The trees surrounding the farm were dusted in a lite snow. So pretty. Good thing we came prepared....all bundled up. I could barely move I had on two coats and a scarf up to my ears....ha ha. Of course yet again, thad walked up to the first tree he saw and said...."this is it, our tree, it's perfect." We were joined by my mom and dad, brother and niece and thad's SIL and kids joined in the fun as well. This year the tree farm added a beautiful "fireplace" along with a great toy train. The kids look forward to the cider, cookies and candy canes. We always take a picture in front of our tree, but this year noah was being cranky so after about 10 shots we were done and just lucky to have him in the picture...can you tell by the looks on our faces. ha ha. Another year, another perfect tree, more great memories.

Christmas Traditions

So last year I started a Christmas Traditions album and never really finished it....so this year I have been working on it and really thinking about what traditions we have in our family.

Old Traditions:

*we get our tree the saturday after thxgiving

*we go to a tree farm and cut our own down

*the kids get a new ornament every year

*we listen to Christmas music while decorating

*we make a gingerbread house

*we go see christmas lights one night

*we make goodies

*pick two names from Angel Tree

*we watch Christmas movies

*the kids get new pajamas to sleep in the night before Christmas

*we always have a special meal for our family Christmas morning

New Traditions:

*watch Polar Express the day we get our tree. Since the tree has to dry overnight...this gives the kids something to look forward too that evening. We can drink hot cocoa and turn on all the Christmas lights.

*waiting tree - this is the first year that we have had one...so the kids are really excited to start today.

what are some traditions that you do as a family? do you look forward to them ever year?