Update on our lives throughout November

Yes I know that November isn't over yet, but with everything that will happen this week I wanted to give a little update on everything. Basketball season has arrived and Dallin is in a clinic run by Stansbury High School. They help teach the boys some of the fundamentals, and since the Jr. Jazz program in Tooele and Stansbury got shut down for not paying their bills(don't get me started) This is where Dallin went.

Although a couple of weeks ago, we got asked to join the Jr. Jazz program in Magna with a boy from our ward. So Jeff and I decided that would be good for Dallin. Since the father of that boy will be the coach, he offered to carpool Dallin into Magna for us, so that saves us a 20 min drive twice a week which is nice.

Our house has offically become of a house of a toddler. Even thought Kaden turned 1 on Aug. 31, he wasn't walking so I still considered him a baby, but in the last couple of weeks Kaden has found the confidence to let go of the furniture or hand by himself and walk towards something. The funny thing is that it is usually after mommy. I got to admit that I love to have him love me so much, but at the same time I can't hold him all of the time.

The happiest piece of news that I can come up with is that we are close to getting our basement ready for the drywall. Our goal is to have the drywall up downstairs by christmas and since we are paying someone to come in and do it for us it will be done. We have a couple of things that need to be finished before we can call them to come and do it, but it should only take a couple of weeks for the workers to finish it up. Jeff and I are so excited for me finally to have my craft room back. He has been very patient with me while I have had all of my crafting supplies in our bedroom and around our kitchen table.

While the basement plumbing was getting completed we had the plumber that we hired move the plumbing for our washer and dryer into the front bedroom. Isaac has to sleep in that room until his room gets completed, but I just make sure that all of the laundry is done before bed and he doesn't mind. It is nice to have a larger place to sort the clothes. The best thing of all is the dryer vent is maybe a foot long where before it ran the width of our house. It has made our dryer more efficient and it should be easier to clean by ourselves if it ever becomes clogged.

The last piece of news is that I have started a crafting blog. I have been reading a lot of blogs about crafts and I have a lot of ideas on how to make some of my own and now I have a place to share my experiences. I wanted to have the site open to anyone, but didn't want all of them to read about everything my family does, so I had to separate them. If you would like to see what it is all about please go to http://splendidfailurecrafts.blogspot.com/. I posted my first tutorial on how to make a Flower belt.

Halloween festivities

I want to combine all of the activities that we did for Halloween into one post. We started out this year's Halloween activities by going to the school Halloween carnival. Dallin and Isaac had a really fun time playing in the bounce houses. After a little time letting them have fun I made them go inside to play some games, because I was cold. They played a couple of games and had a fun time.

I wanted to kids to go to the cake walk. so we had to stand in line. Dallin didn't want to play the game, but once I told him about what he could win he was all for it. It was a good thing because he won. He picked out a plate of cupcakes and we went to play some more games. After we got done with the games, I still had a few tickets left over and we spent them on some popcorn for Isaac and some cotton candy for Dallin and we went home to share with Jeff, who stayed home with Kaden.

 Dallin waiting for the cake walk to begin

 Isaac waiting for the cake walk to begin

 Kaden at the Halloween Carnival before Jeff came and got him

On Sunday, we got together and carved the pumpkins. I was a little rushed for time so Jeff and I gutted the pumpkins while the kids were still playing. We then asked the boys what they wanted their pumpkins to look like. Isaac wanted pac-man and some of the dots, so his pumpkin was easy. Dallin wanted the ghost from pac-man and Jeff made him one, and then hung some eyes and a mouth. I made just a regular jack-o-lantern face on the rest of the pumpkins.

My boys with some of the pumpkins that we carved

As usual Spillman Technologies had their yearly trick or treat party for the kids at their work. The boys all dressed up. Isaac as Iron Man, Dallin as Darth Vadar, and Kaden as Tigger. Jeff and I decided that this year we would not dress up. Kaden had fun walking around the building and seeing everything. When the boys got a long stick of sugar, Kaden held on to that for the rest of the trip. He loves sticks. Dallin and Isaac had fun getting all the candy that they normally get.

The last thing that we did before trick or treating was we went to our local grocery store(yes, Stansbury Park now has its own grocery store) and we got candy from all of the departments, spent time playing on the bounce houses, decorating some cookies, and playing the pumpkin walk. Which was every 15 minutes the boys had to go and find a number to stand on and they would call out one or two numbers at a time and they would win a bag of goodies. We played twice and didn't win, then after we did all the rest of the stuff I let the kids play one more time, and Isaac won. He was so excited. 

Family Photos 2011

It is that time of year again. It is time where I go and find outfits that coordinate and then drag my family to a location and take their yearly picture. We went up to Logan for General Conference and I knew it would be a perfect time to go up the canyon and take pictures with all of the color.

Through Sardine Canyon Jeff and I noticed that the color wasn't there just yet and we worried that we would not be able to get the background that I wanted. We still got up and got ready Saturday morning and went up Logan Canyon to try and find a pactch of colored fall leaves. We decided to check the road that you take to get to camp Lomia. We started to drive up the road and found that we found a good spot to take pictures, there was red, yellow and green all over the place. We found a place to park and we unpacked the car to take the pictures

I used my father's tripod and my camera's timer mode to take the family picture and we started taking pictures. I knew that since we had a one year old with us it was going to be hard to get a good family picture. So I picked a picture where you can see him smiling and happy and called it good. I then took the individual pictues. Jeff noticed a rock on the hill across from where we were taking the pictures and had the kids look up. We didn't know at the time, but later that weekend their was a talk by a general authority where he told a story where Presiden't Monson told him it is better to look up. With the pictures I made a printable with the photos of all the boys looking up and that saying.

The boys wanted Jeff and I to take a picture and we obliged them. We let them press the button to take the picture on the camera and they thought that was fun. We even had a request from Isaac that he take a kissing picture. We thought that was funny.

We had a wonderful time and we love the way that the pictures turned out.

Chimpsy!!!

Ever since I bought my dslr camera I have wanted to learn more about photography so that I can take pictures only using the manual settings. So when I found a groupon to go on a fieldtrip for $49 instead of the $125, I bought it quickly. It was worth it.

The class was for 2 hours at the Gateway. For the first hour the instructor taught us about aperture, shutter speed, exposure, ISO and other photography things. He would give us little test to make sure that we got the suggestions down. The second hour he sent us around the gateway to take pictures and practice the techniques. He would go around to each student and answer questions or look at the pictures that they had taken and give them pointers on how to get better photos.

My favorite things to take pictures of are flowers and other landscapes. It was nice to learn how to take clearer and better landscape pictures. He had a polarizer filter that he let us take down to the fountain to try and it made those pictures ten times better. The polarizer filters out the light and so it makes the water look like one solid falling sheet of water instead of little droplets.

 These two pictures are of the same thing, but all I did was adjust my exposure. To me the darker makes the tower look a little more creepy. It also helps that it is cloudy.

These three water features will help you see what the polarizer filter does. The picture on the left is taken with nothing changed (you can see all of the water drops). The middle photo I used the largest aperture setting (you can see that the water looke a little more flowy). The photo on the right is using the polarizer filter. You can see how much clearer the water is and how it looks really pretty. Let's just say that I am going to save up my money to buy this filter.

And finally these are my favorite photos and of course they are of flowers. I love how the flowers pop. I know it is a really easy photo to get, but I don't care I love flowers.


There were a technique that the instructor talked about and I thought that I would give them a try. It is called something like photo painting. The first painting I took one of Kaden's bibs and dragged it in front of my camera while the shutter was open. It left the cool colors. It isn't my favorite and I need to try and investigate this process more.

The next 2 photos I used a light in my dark closet. You move the light in front of the camera with the shutter open and it leaves a cool design behind.

 I really liked this light painting thing that I tried a new approach where I took a yellow t-shirt and then put it over my camera and repeated the process.It is kind of cool what design was left behind. I am going to investigate what other designs I can make with light. It is fun.

Happy Birthday Isaac!!!

It is quite an experience to have 2 birthdays a week apart. I get done making cake and having it eaten and we have another birthday to make cake for. This year I made cupcakes for Kaden's birthday, which was on a wednesday, I made some more cupcakes for the family party we were having on Saturday, where we celebrated both Kaden and Isaac. My plan was then to make more cupcakes for Isaac's birthday on Tuesday, but we had enough left over that I didn't have to. Whoohooo!!!!!

Isaac is now 6 years old and he loves to go to kindergarten. He loves to get his homework done in the mornin so that he can play downstairs before he goes to school in the afternoon. In the summer I started reading a little with Isaac and he has come along way. He loves to read and if he turns in a paper, he is able to get a pizza ticket, which he absolutely loves to have.

Here are the pictures:

He is a wonderful boy

Happy Birthday Isaac!!!!

Kaden's First Birthday!!!

Well my baby finally turned 1. The year has gone by pretty fast. He is an extremely happy boy and everyone loves to have him around. It has been a blast to have a baby around to enlighten our lives.

We started a new tradition for Kaden's birthday. We decided that we would try to promote being nice to your siblings by have the boys by birthday presents for the birthday boy. So I had Dallin and Isaac pick out a gift each for Kaden. Both of them loved doing it and they loved seeing Kaden's reaction to their presents more. It was a wonderful day!

 This picture was requested by Dallin and Isaac as a repeat of a picture that we took a year previously on Isaac's birthday, when Kaden was only a week old.

Kaden definetely loves cakes.

Happy Birthday Kaden!!!!