I Love This Picture

Here is a favorite picture from a party at my sister Angie's house yesterday. I'll post more later. This is my cute little neice.

Tag

My cousin Hayley tagged me.

8 Things I am Passionate About:

Keith
Luke
Megan
My extended family
The things my church teaches me
Scrapbooking/Journaling
Photography
Vacations

8 Things I Have Learned From My Past:

*Fake it 'till you make it. For example, if you aren't happy, put on a fake smile and one day if you do it long enough you won't be faking it anymore. Another example is to tell yourself you love to clean the dishes. If you do it long enough with a good attitude you can truly find joy in cleaning the dishes.
*The theory of reciprocity. My dad taught me when I got married that either person will often think they are doing more than the other. You can dwell on that and lower what you are doing to what you think the other is doing or you can try to change things. The best way to get your spouse to do more is to do more yourself. If you give 110% your spouse will notice and improve how much they are doing. Doing just a little more than them doesn't work - you have to really put in an effort. I need to take this advice and do it more often.
*Jumping off a bridge does not make you cool.
*Prayer works. I promise.
*It's not ok to eat everything you want when you are pregnant.
*Life can be really happy if you focus on the good things.
*Look for sprinkler lines before chopping down everything that gets in your way.
*Don't leave the stove unattended.

8 Places I Would Love to Go See or Visit (I'm always surprised how different my answers are from everyone else - most people seem to list mainly European countries):

Tahitii
The Red Sea to scuba dive
Mt. Cook in New Zealand
Madagascar
Machu Picchu in Peru
Greece
Rio de Janeiro
Iceland

8 Things I Currently Need or Want:

Money (just telling the truth)
Pedicure
More storage space
A hug
More self-discipline
A house cleaner
A personal chef
A vacation

Tag. You are all it. It would be fun to read your answers.

Hair

I found a fun blog off of my friend Lana's blog. It's called Hairstyles for Girls. I tried to do the triple twisty buns but it was tricky. I thought this was a cute *twist* on that idea and much easier. I'll have to keep practicing that other style. My sister Erin said to me one day, "Don't you just love doing Megan's hair?" I quickly said, "NO!" It's a lot of work. However, some days I have to admit it can be fun. It could be fun everyday if I choose to have the right attitude.

By the way Lana did you just change the security of your blog? I was able to see it last week but can't now. I'm so bad with passwords, I can't remember them and I'm too lazy to look them up so I don't check out my friend's private blogs very often. If it's a good friend I'll check it every few months but that's about it. Are the rest of you the same way?

2007 Halloween Flashback

Oops. I put '08 on this scrapbook page when it's supposed to be '07. Thank goodness it's digital and easy to fix.

I'm not sure why I seem to almost always scrapbook with a green background. This paper started off purple (or yellow) and I changed it to green. I don't seem to be real bold with my color choices, do I? Here are the original papers from the Seasons and Holidays CD.

New CD!

I'm so excited to announce Digital Scrapbook Memories will soon be releasing a new CD. It's a Christmas kit by Shannon Freeman. Isn't it amazing? It will be available for the first time at a free Digital Scrapbook Class on November 8th in Sandy, UT. Find the time and address of the class here. Anyone and everyone is welcome to come to the class. There is no need to register or bring anything. Just come!

Happy Birthday Kim!!

Kim, I hope you have a GREAT birthday!

Do you know what the 65 stands for on the cake I chose for you? It stands for, "I hope you have at least 65 more GREAT birthdays". Or maybe it's a GS for "Good Sport". What would you like it to mean? I wish I really could create a birthday cake this gorgeous for you.

The Pink Cake Box blog is pretty cool. Susan needs to have her cakes showcased on that sight doesn't she?

The Evolution of Style

Megan cracks me up. I say that all the time because it is true. She makes me laugh a lot. I love her cute little personality. She loves dolls, anything pink and dressing up. I feel like I get to relive my childhood through her. I love that she loves the things I liked.

This is going to be a long post with lots of pictures showing the evolution of Megan's style. I hope you enjoy looking at these pictures and they bring a smile to your face. Here is about when it all began. Only 1 year old and already experimenting with fashion.



Soon Megan was really into her pink hat and gloves. For whatever reason she usually only wore one glove. The toilet one is especially funny to me. She was just so happy where ever she was as long as she was dressed "cute". Well, her version of cute.



Megan started loving pink really early. Here she is with her pink slippers from Aunt Angie and her newest hair style. Do you see the band in her hair? That became a very popular style for her. She put one on her head ALL THE TIME at this age. Isn't that a funny style?



This picture (below) was taken on a pretty warm spring day. The boots were simply a fashion statement. Notice she has another band in her hair. By the way... I do fix her hair, but sometimes I don't fix it until we go somewhere.



When Megan's second birthday came along her grandpa (my dad) bought her a bunch of high heel shoes. She LOVED them and could walk in them really easy. She could even run in them! She still loves those shoes 2.5 years later.



I usually don't let Megan wear her crazy outfits in public but sometimes I do. I figure you have to pick your battles. This was one of those days I let Megan wear what she wanted to swim lessons. I was laughing the entire way there. Megan was so proud of this outfit. I know she felt beautiful.



Anything can be a fashion accessory, even a bowl. Notice the black crayon on the wall behind her. Bad Megan!



I don't remember how this happened (below) but I'm glad I got a picture. Again, I'm sure she thought she looked beautiful.



After a summer of trips to the ER, Megan got this crazy black eye (below on left). I don't even remember how!!! I guess you stop remembering after so many accidents. The outfit she is wearing in the black eye picture is from her Aunt Angie. It's small on her now but she still loves it.

The picture on the right is just before we went Christmas Tree hunting. I scrapbooked that picture. You can see it here.



My boots and our tree we hunted down while she wore the outfit above (right)...



Boots from Santa, a play dress from her cousin Noelle, and bracelets she made herself. Notice the little Belle doll she is holding. She had a doll like that in her hand for about 2 years straight.



Don't you love the socks on her hands?



Here is another picture before another annual Christmas Tree hunt. She insisted on wearing her panda bear like that.



Her outfits are starting to get cuter but at this stage she had to have 100% pink on most of the time. She was also really into sleeveless dresses which I'm not a real fan of. I let her wear sleeveless around the house or to the pool, but otherwise I make her put on a shirt which has caused some tears.



The trouble with the outfits at this age (and still) is they look pretty good and I worry people will think that I have no style or I'm neglectful letting my little girl go out of the house with unmatched clothes or weird hair styles. I wouldn't go somewhere with her hair exactly like it's shown on the left (below) but I would let her have several colors of barettes if it made her really happy. The outfit on the right certainly isn't what I would pick but it looks ok with exception to the unmatching minnie mouse shoes. I need stickers that say "I dressed myself".



Megan was so proud of this outfit. Notice this is the skirt her Aunt Angie made, that she is wearing in the black eye photo above.



In case you are curious, all of these pictures are in order of her age. This outfit (below) is one of her newest creations. Isn't she lovely with the stockings on her head? Again, she was so proud of this look. She chose to pose looking at a book, probably so she would look like a mom.



If you thought the picture above was hilarious, you'll love knowing what she was thinking when she got dressed in the picture below. She put her nylons around her waist then tied them to her shoes and around her wrists, Then she hung her dress around her neck and tucked her shirt in the top of her dress. She only had her underwear on right. She told me it was an invention for holding clothes because sometimes it's too hard to hold all of your clothes a the same time. Isn't she brilliant? I love this girl.



Here is the most recent picture from a couple days ago. Isn't she cute with her Uncle Matthew? If you look close at the picture with Luke you'll see she has bright green socks and sparkley silver shoes. I totally approve of the shoes but I'm not sure about the rest of the outfit. It makes her happy though.



As I said before, sometimes I let her wear her creations out in public. Actually, if the outfit isn't too bad I let her wear what she wants quite a bit. Sometimes I have to draw the line because of where we are going. I can't tell Megan her clothes look funny so I simply say, "that's too fancy for where we are going". It's disappointing to her but she totally gets that you can't be dressed too beautiful and fancy at certain places.

Awwww... this post makes me happy.

Flashback

This is a picture of my mom and me. My parents have taken me camping since I was a baby. I think that is really neat. I have a lot of good memories from our trips.

I think my mom looks adorable here. I'm impressed she looked so thin after having a baby. It looks like I gained all the weight she lost. Look at those chubby cheeks!

Wedding

I created this wedding announcement for some of my neighbors. This is the back side, the other side has another picture with the regular announcement. I used a few of my CDs to create this. It's a really easy design - you are welcome to copy if you ever have the need.

Note: It's absolutely acceptable to use the DSM CDs for wedding announcements as long as you aren't selling your work. Using our CDs for commercial use is not allowed.



I took their pictures too. Here is another one I like:



Good luck this week Jared and Melissa! I'm excited for you!

I found the original...

This is the original crazy frog video we fell in love with about 5 years ago.



Also, as long as I'm posting about entertainment. My kids and I have seen some really great movies this year. We loved Nims Island, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Speed Racer. Speed Racer didn't do very well in the theaters. I'm surprised because we really liked it.

We Love Crazy Frog

Here is a fun one, especially if you have kids sitting on your laps while you surf the net.



Here is another fun one. I grew up listening to the original of this song and have always loved it. It reminds me of driving to the Tetons in my parent's orange van :)

Levels

The picture in the last post was straight out of my camera (camera phone) with no editing. I wanted to show those of you that don't know - what a tiny bit of editing can do for a picture. All I did was change the levels in Photoshop. I over exposed it a bit but you get the idea, right? It's so easy and makes such a huge difference. You can read how to do this here.



Here is another example of how a regular picture can look so much more amazing with some minor levels adjustments.

Posting From My iPhone

I'm testing to see if I can post a picture directly from my iPhone.
If this works I'll be smiling.

Check out this cake my sister's friend (and my friend too) Susan
Hansen made. She made it for my sister Angie's little girl's
birthday. Isn't it incredibe? She copied the plate design
perfectly. Susan I think you are brilliant!

4th Folder 4th Picture and Fitness Info

Have you all seen the tag going around where you post the 4th picture in your 4th folder? Here is mine. If you do this on your blog let me know.



I didn't do so hot on my fitness goals this week. I got sick and let myself eat whatever I wanted. I didn't do too bad but I definately didn't do good. The worst was eating THREE cookies on my way to meet with my coach. I figured my week of bad eating was up and I had to hurry and cram the last of it in. WHY? WHY? Why did I do that? Anyway... there is GREAT news. I read some new ideas in Fitness Magazine for burning calories. This was all truly printed in the magazine. I couldn't believe it. These ideas were next to good ideas like biking, walking, cleaning house, etc... but still!

Laughing while watching a funny movie for 23 minutes: Burns 61 Calories
Writing an e-mail for one hour: Burns 115 Calories
Making doughnuts from scratch for one hour: Burns 128 Calories

So, make it a great day! Sit around and watch a movie, type a bunch of e-mails and make doughnuts and you'll lose over 300 calories! That is a diet plan I think you can stick to! Heck, you might as well do this every day and just skip the gym, right?

Complaint

I hate that Blogger doesn't keep me logged in when I want to post comments on your blogs. What is the deal with that? The system remembers me when I go to my Blogger dashboard, but not when I post comments. It drives me nuts to have to enter my username and password as well as (usually) some security code to just leave a quick message on someone's blog. All the other blogging companies (Typepad, etc) leave me logged in just fine when I post. Why does Blogger have to be so difficult? Is there a way around this?

Halloween Flashback

This picture is a couple years old but it makes me so happy to look at it. I think these two are so cute. Megan is a mad scientist (although I forgot her medical equipment for the picture) and Luke is Frankenstein. Luke asked to be Frankenstein so I worked hard to find a costume that would work. When the day came he cried and screamed because he didn't want to be Frankenstein anymore. He wanted to be the alligator that he had been the past two years, a costume that didn't even fit him! I let him wear that costume all day even though it was too small but I forced him to get dressed as Frankenstein for a picture. He was so upset! The face paint is fake. I photoshopped that on him, but I still think it makes for a cute picture. Actually, it probably looks a lot better than if I really painted his face :)

21 Days to a Habit?

I had the opportunity to speak at a baptism last night. One of my new neighbors got baptized into my church. It was a really neat opportunity to participate in his baptism.

As I was thinking of what to say I started thinking about habits. They say it takes 21 days (30, 14... whatever number you want to put in there) to create a habit. I think that's garbage unless you are talking about bad habits. I've tried creating good habits so many times and it never sticks after 21 days. It usually doesn't even stick even after months and months. The habit I'm trying to form usually starts to get easier, but I would definitely not say it becomes a habit in a short amount of time. Bad habits do seem to form quicker though. Would you agree?

Anyway... I decided to adapt some of my thoughts on forming habits to my talk on baptism. In our church we partake of the sacrament each week to renew our baptismal covenants. Like all churches, we also learn and relearn principles that help us become better people. While giving my talk, I felt it was really important to talk about going to church each week. I wanted to explain that even when someone does everything (or most everything) they are supposed to do for a month, it won't be a habit. You are still going to have to work hard to become a good person and keep your baptismal covenants. New converts have an especially big job forming the habit of going to church each week. It's a big commitment and will take a long time to form into a habit. However, missing a day of church can easily lead you to missing another, then another. It's amazing how easy bad habits are to form. I hope I got this idea across ok because I really think going to church each week is incredibly important. It's just like writing and constantly reading your goals, going to church helps you focus on your highest goals.

The rest was on what our baptismal covenants are and what God promises to give us when we do our part. If you are curious what we covenant at baptism: When you get baptised you promise to become member of the Church of Jesus Christ, take upon the name of Christ (in other words act as he would which isn't always easy), help other people, testify of Christ and keep God's commandments. When you do this the Lord covenants to forgive your sins (Phew! Again, it's hard to always act like Christ), pour his spirit more abundantly upon you, and allow you to live with him in the Celestial Kingdom (we believe there are different levels to heaven).

Back to habits... while looking up information on forming habits I found this blog post. I think it's great!

I Love This Dress

I love this dress. I think it is adorable. It's *only* $148 plus another $34 for the tights. Ha ha. Truthfully, I'm too cheap to spend more than $30 on a kids dress. Usually I try to buy for under $20. This dress is so adorable though that I may have dreams about it :)

If you like to "window shop" or if you have plenty of money to spend you'll have to check out the Chasing-Fireflies website. It's a fun place to look.

Oakcrest Reunion

Last night I got to hang out with some friends I haven't seen in 13 years!! Geez, that makes me sound so old! We were all camp counselors together at Oakcrest Girls Camp one summer. These girls are really neat and I'm so glad I got to be with them. I was surprised to see they all looked the same, although they were much cleaner and better dressed.

If you click here you can see a post I wrote about Oakcrest a while back. I found most of these Oakcrest friends because of that blog post. How cool is that? Here is a link to one more picture. my favorite picture :)

Laughing at Myself

Today, I got up and got dressed in the dark as I normally do. I go to the gym when everyone is asleep, then I come home and wake them up. I love never having to worry about anything before I leave, and I love never having to feel like I *should* be home while I'm there.

Anyway... today as I was getting dressed in the dark, I didn't notice I put my shirt on inside out. No one told me while I was at the gym either. It was very obvious with the shirt I had on. My first reaction was, "why didn't anyone tell me?", but then I decided it just didn't matter. I'm really proud of myself because I laughed at myself and let it go. Who cares, we've all done it, right?

Speaking of the gym... I'm still doing good on my THF plan. I'm eating good. I'm exercising. I'm losing weight and gaining muscle. It's exciting.

Last night I ate the best dinner. I had a cup of zero fat southwestern soup (by Weight Watchers) and mixed in a cup of brown rice and some chicken from Olympus Burger. Olympus Burger sells chicken on a skewer that is so delicious. I usually go and buy several skewers and eat them throughout the week for dinner. I don't know why it hit the spot so well last night but it did. Can't wait for leftovers tonight.

2009 Digital Scrapbook Retreat!

I'm excited to announce the 2009 Digital Scrapbook Memories Retreat will be held at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center on May 7-9, 2009! The hotel is absolutely gorgeous. We are going to have a great time! Last year we held the event at the Park City Marriott and had a great turn out. My favorite part was giving away the goodie bags. I packed them full of fun things and loved seeing people look through them. I also gave away lots of prizes including a Canon printer. That was fun!

If you are at all interested in Digital Scrapbooking you should come! You'll love it! You can read more here.

Halloween Candy

This is what we are going to give out to the kids trick or treating at our house this year. An individually wrapped jelly bean. Pretty generous eh? Of course I'm kidding. I just thought this was hilarious. We took the kids to Cabela's and let them chose some candy. They wanted a package of Jelly Bellys. We knew they wouldn't be cheap but were shocked at the check out to find the package was $7.50!! I couldn't believe Keith still bought them.

In the past few years I've tried to hand out non-candy items to the kids. This year I picked up all sorts of glow sticks but Keith pointed out that the kids might mistake them for candy. Even if we light them for the kids they still might be mistaken for candy the next day when the light goes out. I'm so bummed. I thought that would have been a cool thing to give away. I found some pencils and erasers to give out but also went ahead and bought some gum tape because I got a really good deal on them. I'm kind of regretting buying them because I really think non candy items are the best. Oh well. No big deal. I'll try again next year.

I do love Halloween. I always thought it was so much fun to dress up and get candy. Now, I really enjoy giving the treats away and seeing all the kids come to the door. The school parade is great too!

Beautiful Fall

Last weekend I went up the canyons twice. Friday night we went with my grandpa up Millcreek Canyon. I love that extra section of road that is open in the summer. Its a small skinny road and the trees make a great umbrella over the road. Saturday I got Keith to drive us home from Park City down American Fork Canyon. Wow. That is such an incredible drive!!! If you live near this canyon you have got to go up there now. It's beautiful!



On Friday, Grandpa was nice and played Uno with us for a while. What a great place to play games. Actually, it's a great place to spend time doing anything.

Woodshop

Tag, ribbon and letters are in the DSM Oh Boy CD.

Grapes

Yesterday we spent time picking grapes in our backyard. We have LOTS more if anyone wants some. Here are a few of my favorite pictures.





Megan found feathers. I think it's gross. Is it safe to play with these? I seriously don't know.
For the record, Megan chose her own socks.



Poor Luke dropped all the grapes while carrying them into the house. Oh well, it made for a cute picture :)

Oaks Honey

My father-in-law is a bee keeper. It's a hobby, not a job. It's really interesting to see him extract the honey from the hives. We got to watch him last night.

First he brings the boxes home from the field.



Then, he takes the hives out of the boxes.



Next, he scrapes the excess off the sides so that the hive (is that the right word) will fit into a machine. The machine spins the hives around to remove all the honey. The excess (what you see below) is seperated from the wax a different way. It is double boiled. The wax floats to the top and the honey sinks to the bottom.



This first filter still isn't pure, so it will go through another filtering process next to makes sure it's nice and pure. Last, the honey is bottled and ready to sell. Kind of fun, although I think I'm way too lazy for a hobby like this. Too much work for me :)



Just for fun, my father-in-law let the kids play with the smoker. He uses the smoker to chase the bees away when he is working on or gathering the boxes out in the field. It was fun playing with the smoker but IT STINKS!!! Jill will agree I'm sure. She went out to dinner with her hubby and came back to four stinky smoke infested children.