Happy Birthday Meg!!! and Happy Memorial Day

Lake Ray Roberts!
Yummy Watermelon!

Ella's End of the Year Kindergarten Party!

Fun with Nana
Ready, Set, Go!

Ella smoked em!

Foot Fishing for animals

Meeting the animals! - This was our favorite part!

Benjamin's wonderful Day!

I am almost done with the pomp and circumstance of my son's baptism. I wanted to rush and get these up so that Grandma and Aunt Beth can share the day with us from a far! It was a great day! Benjamin had a good grasp on everything, and beamed when he sat next to me after his confirmation, as he whispered: "Mom I got baptized and I got the Holy Ghost" Nana said a very lovely closing prayer. Many special memories were written on my heart. We had a great time at the house afterwards with our friends and all the kids got a chuckle out of Benjamin's slideshow. Oh and I was under too much stress, so I made many mistakes with my camera - for the next big event I need to stay in auto mode!

Eight Years in Eight Minutes

This is the slideshow that Meg made for us to show at Benjamin's Baptism party today - more pictures to follow of his wonderful day!

Sweaty Excitement!

Nana and Gram get here today! And the best news is my house is almost clean! The kids are having field day today, and that translates into roughly getting them ready enough to send to war. Getting ready this morning included - packing lunches in all disposable containers, sunscreen, hats, Ella's hair in an interesting do - to keep it off her face and neck, packing towels and labeling them, extra labeled water bottles, etc. This will be the first field day I am not volunteering at. But I am using pregnancy as a big fat excuse. Besides my back hurting if I stand for hours, I also can't stop sweating! I don't feel like standing around hundreds of kids with my back hurting sweating all over them! Its disgusting. I sweat all the time! I sweat in my sleep, I sweat in the shower. If I actually exert myself its quite disgusting. I am jealous of Jody's blog where she says it was in the 40's the other day. That sounds absolutely WONDERFUL to me. Snow Angels naked sound even better!

My Happy Place

Very cool website:

I thought I'd share - http://www.pandora.com/

If you listen to music on your computer like I

Ella's new haircut

The plan is to let her bangs grow out this summer - so we started the project with a short bob - I dont' know if I will be able to stand it though - I hate hair in her face...aaaaaagggggggghhhhh...

Yes that is sidewalk chalk on her face!

Can it be? My baby boy is eight years old.

Happy Birthday Benjamin! We love you!
Breaking the birthday board at Taekwondo:

Poop bubbles...

Let me explain- Maiya's first and only reward thus far for pooping in the toilet was a new bottle of bubbles at the store. She can't really let go of the fact that she should get new bubbles every time she poops. Today after properly defecating in the appropriate portal. She stood up and literally started dancing, while at the same time chanting "Yay, yay - Poop bubbles for me " repeatedly. It cracked me up. It sounded like something one would say if they were trying to replace cuss words - "RRRRRRRRRR.... Poop Bubbles!"
So here is one reason I have been trying to find words to replace cuss words this week-
Our Freezer broke! We bought our illustrious freezer on sale from Home Depot to the tune of 136 bucks about 18 months ago. It has been wonderful. I found out quickly after moving into this house the down side of a side-by-side fridge = The Freezer doesn't hold CRAP! It won't hold a single frozen pizza - not well anyway and it most certainly will not hold enough food for a household of seven. So now that the magic has left the lovely Magic Chef we face a decision that breaks down like this:

• Why call a repairman for an appliance that new was only 136.00
  
• So I call the city for special pickup - where I am informed I need it "tagged" by a repairman certifying the coolant has been emptied.
  
• List of prices: $70.00 service call to see what the problem with it is OR:
  Tagging fee: $150.00 - yes folks you got that right it will be more expensive to dispose of this freezer than it was to buy it!
  
• POOP BUBBLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Onto better news:
My gorgeous, beautiful camera arrived! I took about 200 pictures with it in the span of 90 minutes and I have now hid it from myself because I have a to-do list a mile long and I could just sit and kiss the thing, oh and take more pictures with it. Here are few from my first minutes with it:

Close up shot
Practicing Depth of field
The cool thing about this shot is Meg is spinning the wheel as fast as she can - the shutter speed was 1/1000 of a second.
Another close-up

More depth of field practice

and more depth of field stuff

Kisses

Zeke matches the background

Black and White

Oh and I ordered Photoshop Elements today and have two more classes arranged before the baby comes! One for photoshop and one for Studio and Portraiture. Just an FYI Photoshop Elements 6.0 is on sale at Amazon for $52.00

Happy Mother's Day

Wow... some people...

Stop embarrassing Texas!

The anxiety and the joy...

Started my photography class Tuesday night. Quickly learned two things - WOW I really don't know a lot about photography and my Sony cybershot (non - SLR) was not going to cut it with the big boys. Upon the advice of many and a full on obsession of investigating my options, Kyle ordered my mothers day gift: A Canon XTI with a separate 50mm 1.8 lens. Being the frugal gal that I am, this is very stressful. It's hard to spend this kind of money on something that at the heart of it depends on my skill level! There is a lot of practice in my future and I think my kids are already sick of me taking pictures of them so send me an email and let me know when I can come take pictures of you and/or your kids.

Part two of this post:

I rarely put my testimony out there especially in blog format, but I just have to say how this photography class has effected my faith. Strange I know. The first class focused on "white balance" a feature that most cameras have - check yours out to see if it does. We are always bathed in a "color" of light. Morning sunrises are bluish, sunsets are reddish, incandescent light is yellow, fluorescent light green, etc. Only really pure mid-day light is white. Our eyes constantly adjust for this so we don't see those colors specifically. Cameras do though. Despite all the technology that exists there is no camera yet that can perfectly adjust for the color of light. If you stay in Auto mode on your camera, often your pictures will not be consistent. It made me think how amazing Heavenly Father really is. The only really true "automatic" lens that can accommodate color, lighting, etc. is our eyes. The focus is broken on my eyes - hence the lenses that I have to add to them or put in my eyes. But still it is truly amazing. We are here to experience these wonderful bodies and what they are capable of. Its even more amazing to me that I can be part of the process as I feel Cora kick me daily. And when she comes into the world she will be ready to see my face and probably won't notice the harsh greenish light of the hospital room. Here we are listening to her sweet heartbeat:

Lake info-

Many of you have asked and I am sad that you didn't already know about one of my favorite places! Lake Ray Roberts is awesome, and not too far away! Check it out. It wasn't too crowded on Saturday, but it can get crowded. We will be there on Memorial Day. It's Meg's signature birthday - She'll turn 26 on the 26th! Just find us by the rip-roaring barbecue!!!

Its the most wonderful time of the year...

It was not quite warm enough yet, but it was sunny, so off to the beach we went. We have to maximize "fun" days before the kids are stuck in the house with me and a newborn. Even though the water was too cold - we had a blast.

Pictures are up at Flickr

Thanks Ryann

Ryann got my blog up to par with the three columns - what would I do without friends to lean on their expertise. She got info from this website: Tips for new bloggers - I tried but couldn't do it on my own. So thanks again Ryann!!!