it's been awhile!!!

hey all sorry that i have been gone for so long but we got some virus on our computer and had to send it away. it was a real pain in the butt. anyway i am back now so i should be keeping on track.

as you have noticed it is september already which means back to school, dance, football, volleyball and this year we get to add early morning seminary. i think that my life just gets busier every year. the kids are all excited about going back to school. jeh was so excited this morning that he wanted to leave almost an hour early, but kay thought that she only needed to leave 10 mins early to make the mile walk to school. anyway i got them going at the right times and they should all have a good day.

i'm trying to think of some of the things that we did in august but i'm coming up blank i think that the month just went by way too fast and we didn't get much time for anything. one thing that we did was seperate the boys room into two sections. now it is almost like they have a room of their own. hopefully this will help with the fighting at night. hy and kay both got new beds. queen size beds acutally so i have room for people to come and visit. we also got new furniture for the living room and appliances for the kitchen. one of which is a dish washer we haven't put it to use yet but i'm going to work on that problem today. hopefully.

inspiring reads

just thought i would share some of my blogs that i read daily, well when phill's not home. these ones are my fave today enjoy looking at them

simpe mom - she is talking about how to be disorganized and unproductive. really great this is the begining of a six part seris

zen habits - great site to read through. he always has great ideas to make your life more zen

house on hill road - love this site. she is so creative

my life - karren russels blog. i love her photos. and the way that she talks about her family. she reminds me that we are all pretty much in the same baot when it comes to family dealings. no one is perfect but we are all trying

my time, my creations - great card ideas she makes it look so easy

simply me - donna downey's blog. i love her i think that if we lived close by we would be friends.

Corn maze and photoshop actions

last night for young womens we went to a corn maze. it was a lot of fun. i took the camera and took some pictures, but it is kind of hard with our camera right now i think that it needs a new battery so the screen is all distorted so it is hard to tell if the picture looks good or not. so today i went online and found some actions for photoshop and i played around with the pictures. they were all free so the aren't the best actions but it gave me an idea of some of the things that i can do.
this is rosemary i used a couple of different actions with her picture.
kay lost in the corn. i was on the tower so i could see where they were at. they were with us but then they turned a different way so we ducked down low and started to run so they got lost because we had the cheat sheet.
jane looks like she is ticked off. maybe because i'm taking their picture. the corn was still low in some areas. i just opened up this weekend.

this is the picture straight out of camera. the next two are with some of the actions.
i think that this one is my favorite but i think that i got this affect by accident.
this one was hibass sharpening and soft focus i think that i is still a little dark. i really need to take a photography class.
this was just the hibass sharpening. no linda wasn't kissing the pole on purpose i think that she turned her head at the last min and now it is just funny

kay running through the corn again. i tried to put the soft focus on it but the picture was blurry to begin with i think because she was moving. anyway that was our yesterday and i think that i will try to figure out more of these actions. i looked to see how much it would cost to get more better actions and they are a ton of money. i guess that i am going to need to start saving more.

the big one-oh!!

well today seemed like that appropriate time to put up these pictures since it is officially his birthday. i can't believe that my sweet baby boy is now 10 years old. he is starting to realize that he is not a baby but not quite sure that he wants to be grown up either. look at him on the day he was born so small and sweet.

he had a pool party this year. he is really my only one who could have one since he is the only summer baby. we went with a pirate theme and we played pirate games in the pool but for some reason my camera wasn't working right and all the pictures that i thought i had taken of them in the pool didn't work. i need a new camera.


we did sparklers on the cake but they burn way to fast when you are trying to get 10 of them lit.

kay wrapped her present to him like in five different layers. it was fun listening to him as he would open one layer and say "oh my gosh how many more?" he did well in the present department and i think that he was happy about them.

camping fun?

so we got back from our camping trip. it was a lot of fun. but i learned that i'm way too old to sleep on the ground anymore. i thought that my hips were going to be broken for sure by the time we left. and it was so cold at night. other than that we had a good time. we started in one camping spot and then moved to another because there were these people that came and camped next to us and they were loud and drinking all the time so we moved our new spot was even nicer except we didn't have all of the shade that we had at our firtst sight. phill got to go fishing and the kids did lots of swimming so it was fun. here are some pictures from the trip. i personally like the one of us by the table. do you see what kay is doing?

Magragth days, reunion and camping

well phill is on vacation now and has been for a week now. last week was all about magrath days and his 20 year reunion. it was a lot of fun. all of his family was down and we got to visit and enjoy all of the company. we spent alot of time with all of his friends. it was nice to see them all again we hadn't seen some of them in at all in the last 15 years. they are all such great friends that it was like they had never been seperated they just started exactly where they left off the last time that they saw each other. they were playing a game at the dinner and phill really fell hard. he scratched up his knee really bad and so it is a little sore but it will make for a good story in the years to come. we are heading out for the week and will be back on friday. off to go camping as a family. i don't think that we have ever gone just us. we are all looking forward to it. it should be fun. i'll let you know how it all works out when we get back. hope your summer is keeping you busy. love ya

hiking picutes

here is where our hike took place. up in the rockie mountains. we were in waterton park, it is really pretty up there. can you see the snow still on the mountains. we didn't go up that high so we didn't actually see snow up close but lots of people were telling me that it isn't the norm to have the snow so low this time of year.
start of the trail. silly girls
going up
taking a little break along the trail waiting for the people in back to catch up a litte bit
time for lunch. kay found a rock in the middle of the stream to sit and enjoy here sandwich. so that she could soak her feet in the water too. not that you could keep your feet in for long because it was so cold. being that there was still snow it probably isn't surprising that is was so cold.
i think that the girls stopped at every stream on the way back down the mountain to get thier hats wet. the day got a lot warmer as it went on.

looks like we are heading back up the mountain but this one was actually taken on the way down.

and these were waiting for us at the bottom of the trail. we really wanted to see some kind of wildlife on the trail but nothing showed up but the goats were all hanging out in the parking lot when we got back. i thought that the babies were really cute.