Old Family Photos

Then

My sister and I found this photo while hanging out with my dad. It's really shows life in full reality. I love the look on my parents face, the slight nostral flare from my dad and my mom's "What was I thinking?". Pure frustration which I have felt many a family photo opts. I can only imagine the only reason they picked this one is because it was the best from what they had to choose from.

Even though this was how most of our family photos looked like, I still only remember how much fun we had growing up together. I still remember the trips in the car to grandma's and the joy of Christmas morning. I remember following my brothers around on their bikes and trying everything they did. We slept outside all summer and toilet papered almost every neighbors house by the time school started again. Life was good.

My cute family now!

Now, life is great!! I have a great family, husband who works super hard, kids that I adore. Some days I feel like my mom looked in that photo but I wouldn't have it any other way. I have fabulous sister's, brother's, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents (all in-laws included) and friends who love and support us.

I hope that my family has more of life's crazy family photo's to remember what a great life we have!

My parents and siblings now.

Recognize your victories.

Joan Benoit Samuelson

Question?

Do you ever feel so incredibly overwhelmed that you feel like shutting down(I'm sure you all do)? What do you do to help you deal appropriately with it?

Fun pictures of Croy

I took a photo class this last summer and I'm just now taking time to use these new skills. The class was fabulous and very educational. I felt like I could actually take a decent picture. I have so much more to learn about metering, aso, shutter speed, etc...but it is great to be able to take my camera and have fun. Croy is my easiest subject right now. He is growing and changing so fast. Capturing his cute expressions is exhilarating.

Editing, you ask, well that's a whole new class. Maybe next year, for now I'll just keep practicing. Happy Autumn!

School Pictures

Can you believe how much kids change each year. Last year, Calvin still had his front baby teeth. Now, he's lost those and is growing his adult teeth. He looks so much older. Brooklyn had her braces put on last May. Her "Nanny McFee" tooth (her nickname for her bucktooth) was in-line with the rest of her teeth within a month. She is changing so fast. She'll be in Young Women's before I know it. Croy wasn't even around yet. Now it's as though he's always been here. Life is good!! No, GREAT!!

Brooklyn 9 years old, 4th Grade

Calvin 6 years old, 1st Grade

Croy 7 months

There has got to be a better way...

This is pretty much my day everyday. Brian comes home to a messy house, children in time-out and tears in my exhausted eyes. I have felt hopeless and at fault for my ill-behaved children and better yet my embarrassing behavior (talking, persuading, arguing, yelling and a strong desire to spank) trying to fix things.

I went to a party last Friday night and had a long, very long and wonderful conversation with a friend who has a similar situation as me. She completely understood me. Well, I didn't have to say anything, she was relating her experiences with her children that were identical to mine.

Her approach has been a book called "1-2-3 Magic." You may have read it. I haven't and was blown away by her testimony to this book. So, I purchased it Saturday morning. I can't wait to finish reading it and try it. While I have been reading it, I have noticed that I do a lot wrong according to this book and I have been doing a lot right just not long enough. I give up way too soon. What I love about this is that it explains what the child is doing to try to gain the control of the situation back. This is where I give in too soon. The book confirmed to me that I was doing things right just not long enough. Now I know what signs to look for and that there will be an end without loosing my mind. Patience, I can do this!

Extra, Extra read all about it!

Actually there isn't anything to read. I was playing with my camera and photoshop. I love Croy's outfit. The hat is so darn cute. It reminds me of the early 1900's. Thanks for checking it out. :D

Look, look, look...

My talented little sister, Dobie (aka Sandra), made this beautiful quilt to go with the cribset I bought. It is gorgeous!!! I bought this set from a gal on KSL classifieds. When I met up with her to pick it up she said that she wanted to keep the quilt as a keepsake. She made the cribset for her babies and of course, I totally understood. So Dobie took the pillow and bumper pads to make a quilt for my birthday/christmas present. It's amazing!!!!!



My most favorite part is the stitching on it. I love the stars that are stitched throughout. I love the little stars on the border. It completes the set that I have loved since I bought it.



It looks darling in the crib with babe as well.



Thank you!!! I love it and I love you!!! Thank you for taking time and energy to make it for me. Love you!!!

Celebrate....

We are heading into another season and my dad it still around. Yay!!!

I've had a really tough spring and summer trying to deal with everything. The thing that put me over the edge was an abscess in the roof of my mouth. This is so embarrassing, the root of my tooth cracked. I didn't want to go to the dentist because the tooth that hurt has already had a root canal. It's a dead tooth!!! Unfortunately, it ended up with a pretty big infection due to my lack of desire to head to the dentist.

I finally decided to have it looked at when I couldn't get out of bed and was having multiple melt downs over really really dumb things. This is the part that I hate. They pulled my tooth, not like they pull your kids teeth though. I went in thinking it was going to be quick and relatively painless. Not...oral surgery is what the take home paper work stated. I came back to my fabulous friend's house to pick up my babe and ended up camping on her couch for a few hours while she cancelled my Thursday afternoon commitments. Love you Laura, thanks for taking care of me.

Now that my mouth has finally healed and I actually feel like a human being again, I can enjoy my favorite season of the year. I love this time of year. The colors, the smell, the leaves to play in, the cool air and of course, PUMPKIN PIE!!!

I love food, therefore I run:) I'm signing up for the City Creek Cold Turkey Run so I can eat my Thanksgiving meal guilt free. Maybe I'll even have two pieces of pie. (I'm not going to make it through the holidays without gaining at least 10 lbs this year)

Running puts everything back into perspective. First of all it rids me of excessive energy so I can sit still. It helps me sit through practices and homework for starters. Seriously, Calvin is just like me in so many ways. I know this is why we struggle together. I also planned my volleyball practice for the YW during my last run which helped it go by really fast. So, I'll be lacing up and heading out again in the morning. If you see me killing over and gasping for air, please, please don't honk. I seriously hate that;). Happy Running!!

Cute, cute, cute!!!

Jen took a few pics of Croy as she picked my kids up last week. She is amazing. Check out her work fausetphotography.blogspot.com or just click on her name

Summa Time-Midway

Midway

We spent a week up in Midway this summer. It was a blast, of course when is it not fun up there. The kids had a great time playing out doors, going to the train station, riding the tractor and feeding the cows.

We visit the dairy farm every year. The family has been great to the kids. They let them feed the new babies. One of the babies was born the night before and Brook got to feed the calf it's first bottle.

Brooklyn is an animal lover and Calvin , well not so much. He was a good sport to feed the cows and deal with the smell. He had more fun throwing the hay around with his cousin, Vic.


This year is the last time they will be there. They've sold their land and will be heading to Idaho. :(

This is what happens...

...when you leave the boys alone for a minute.

The Value of a Dollar

I try to think of myself as an apple tree. Time is not linear, it moves in circles. Come spring, I will bloom again. (Amby Burfoot)

My sister (Dobie) and I were talking about how life seems to go in waves of energy (I can accomplish anything, stress) and happiness to exhausted (I just can't do it, down time) and depressing times. She mentioned that a book she had read talked about that your body needs time to recover from the energy that your body uses during those stressful times. After a length of stress time your body goes through down time to recover.


I've decided I'm going through the down time. My kids just went back to school this last week. I thought I'd be over joyed with free time to clean my house and have it stay clean. I thought that I'd enjoy a quiet house for a change. I actually have found that I miss my kids a lot. It doesn't help that we are in school and our friends and neighbors are still on vacation. It's kind of deserted around here.


I've been able to go to my dad's and spend the day with him. It's really nice there. I have an adult to visit with all day. I talk to him about everything. My kids accomplishments, my broken washer and what parts I need to get to fix it, Croy's cute smiles and giggles and the water retention in my dad's legs that seems to be getting better since they've bought a hospital style bed for him.


I decided to fix my 2 inch roots in my hair. You know how great you feel after getting your hair done. I thought that if I just pulled my hair through a cap that it wouldn't be too bad to just add some more blond to it. WRONG!!! (don't ever do this) Instead of a little more blond at the ends and nicely blended hair from my roots to the last weave I ended up with several different colors of platinum blond and fried, I mean country home style fried hair. It was awful and uuuuggggllllyyyy. I couldn't just color the whole thing. It'd have horizontal lines, like Bryce Canyon.


So my sweet mother tried to pull my hair through the cap again and add a dark blond to help tone down the atrocity of color in my hair. I think a POW camp would have been less painful than having my coarse, fried hair pulled through a cap. I think I lost more hair in that 30 mins than my whole life. The finished product is a lot of different colors in my hair and 3-4 inches chopped off. I pledge to never ever ever be frugal when it comes to my hair again.


I've learned a very good lesson here. It's worth paying high prices for beautiful hair. I've also learned that I'll never again wish for my children to be gone away at school or anywhere else.

Institute 2009

Brooklyn and I spent this last week at the Intermountain Suzuki Strings Institute. Institute is a week long music camp where these kiddos get the opportunity to have classes and instruction by teachers from all over the world. It's absolutely amazing!!! This is our fourth year attending and we have had a great time.

Her first class of the day was Chamber with David Porter from Utah. He is a violinist with the Utah Symphony. He did a great job working with the kids. They learned two songs to perform for their final concert. Also, Brook had a fun time with her cousin, Sarah, in all but one of her classes. See the girl in the yellow dress.


Next was Orchestra with David Becker from Wisconsin. He recieved his masters from Julliard. He was great. He taught them how to have a jam session which was really fun. They learned two songs to play for their final concert also.

This class is her Violin Performance class headed up by Koen Rens from Belgium. He was hilarious and they loved him. The class was actually double the size so you can imagine how hard it would be to make that many violins sound like one but he did it. They performed two songs for their final concert which was accompanied by an orchestra made up of all the teachers at Institute.

This is her Technique class with Ruth Godfrey. Mrs. Godfrey is a wonderful teacher here in Salt Lake City. She worked a lot on scales and tones.

This is her Master teacher, Allen Lieb, from New York City. He actually spent years studying with Dr. Suzuki. He is a highly respected teacher all over the world. He was amazing with her. He worked on each part of the songs and how important each element is, not just getting done. He taught her to break the song down into smaller groups, to learn the song correctly and then play it 200 times so she'll never forget it. He emphasized in the importance of dynamics, tone, rhythm and then putting it together to make the song interesting to those listening. He also helped her with something so small as the way she bent her pinky on her bow hand. This was both of our favorite class of the day.

If your zoom in on this pic above, she fell while practicing and cracked the face of her violin. Luckly she was able to still play the rest of the week and we will be able to have it fixed. Phew...

Brian took her today for her final concert. He has been home with Calvin all week and it will be good for him to see what he was spending his money on. Thanks Brian, it was worth every penny:)

Aladdin Operetta

The kinder kids performed the "Aladdin" operetta. It was absolutely adorable. They did a marvelous job and I couldn't have been more proud of Calvin. He was a story teller and he dramatically said his lines. Everytime I asked him to practice his part he'd roll his eyes and race through his part. I was so surpised at how confident he was up in front of all the parents. I heart him so much")


Aladdin and Jasmine


Aladdin and Abu


Calvin singing, isn't he cute.


Calvin with Grandma Becky


Calvin with Grandma Sandra


Calvin with Grandpa Ames


Calvin with Grandma Joan

Life doesn't get any better than this:)

I didn't think I could ever be in love like this. I still can't believe how blessed I am to have this little guy in my life. He is my angel baby. He rarely fusses unless he's tired or absolutely starving. I love how he smells (even the spitty times), his soft unruly hair, his big blue eyes, his tiny nose, his long thin finger and little chubby legs. My favorite time is when he is sleeping and his sweet warm face is nestled in the nape of my neck. I'm in awe at how wonderful these little beings are.<

This past almost three months have flown by too fast not because I'm tired and my days at time feel like a blur, it's because life feels right. I have a great hubby, three beautiful babes, a large family and friends who surround and support me.

He has been smiling for a few weeks now and I've yet to get a pic of him until today. He cracks me up when he smiles and pulls all sorts of cute faces. He is also starting to coo and talk to me. I love it!!

I love these pics!!

Jen (photographer extraordinaire) took my extended family pictures a few weeks ago. (check out her work http://www.fausetphotography.com/) Wow!!!! She did a fab job, as usual, especially with the amount of people she had to work with. These are some of my favorite faves (too many blog actually).

The oldest guy in my life with the youngest guy in my life.

I see so much of my dad in Croy. The way he puckers his lips, his chin, his eyes and his personality.

My parents :)


Isn't my mom gorgEous, this my favorite pic of her. She is an amazing gal. She is my friend, my mom, my children's grandma, and my dad's beautiful wife. She is always there for each one of us. She rarely complains and it's only when she is completely and utterly exhausted. She is an amazing nurse and her patients love her. She does a beautiful job of caring for my dad. I spent the day with my dad a few weeks ago and he talked about how good she is with her money. She saved for Christmas every year, she is very careful in budgeting and rarely spends on herself. We grew up on casseroles which I didn't particularly love (what kids does?). As a mom who is on a strict budget, I make the same casseroles because they are tasty and cost effective. She is a multi-talented multi-tasker :) She made our little kid clothes, prom dresses, costumes, etc... It just amazes me what she can do!! (See shout to dad post for my dad:)

My extended family :)


"Family is like fudge, mostly sweet with a few nuts." by Unknown Author

This picture tells it like it really is. We are all so different yet we are all from the same set of parents. We all get along. We have our differences and we are not afraid to share but it still works. I have amazing sister-in-loves and brother-in-loves. My neices and nephews are wonderful kids. I love that the older ones are very good to the younger ones. My kids are some of the youngest but they have great friendships with the older ones.