Kid Pics

Today I took some shots of the kiddos.  I figured what's the point of having a nice camera if I can't save a little money and take my own pictures of them.  I haven't had much time to edit them yet, but these are some of my favorite shots after just a little bit of work on them in Picasa.  This first one of Brandon and Ryan reminds me of 2 elders...not long til they'll be that old!

I just love Jakey's lips in this one!

My girly-girl.  :)

Brandon wanted to bring his guitar and take some cool guitar shots.  He looks way too old in this one!

Ryan the stud. :)

All four of them...lovin' the older boys' dressed-down ties look!

This next one is probably my favorite of all of them together.  Jake was just not in the mood for pictures this time around, so this is as good as we got!

This one here makes me laugh because of Syd's face.  She was cold and not very happy that I suggested they take their shoes and socks off for a couple shots.  Such a mean mommy I am...

I still have some work to do before I'll get any printed, but I'm pretty happy with the results.  Now I just need to find a time when Tim can join us and we can do the whole family...kinda hard when it's getting dark at 5pm.

Halloween!!!

 Dear Blogger,

Sometimes I really hate you.  This week I have wanted to try and catch up on blogging, but I don't really have all day to wait for my photos to upload...so now my family will only get to see these 3 pictures that would actually load...sorry family.

Moving on...Halloween was Monday, and the kids had so much fun dressing up.  These pictures are actually from Saturday when we had our ward Trunk-or-Treat.  I'm always too busy on Halloween to really take pictures...

This year, after quite a metamorphosis, Sydney finally settled on a cowgirl costume.  (For those who care, she initially wanted to be a wolf, but not just a wolf costume--she wanted Tim to shoot a wolf, then skin it for her to wear over her head like a cape...not my daughter...  Then she decided she wanted to be Captain Jack Sparrow, but I steered her away...I'm not a fan of my children cross-dressing.  Then she settled on Ninja, but after looking through the Halloween costume bucket she found Brandon's old chaps and vest (which were both too small, but what do I care??)).  We just bought a hat and bedazzled it to girlify it a little.

Jake recycled Ryan's Buzz Lightyear costume that I made 8 years ago.  I was glad to get another use out of that one, seeing as I spent more time on it than I'll be confessing here on my little blog...

Ryan recycled his Grim Reaper costume from last year...no cost yet again...perfect!

And Brandon decided to be "Up Dog."  What is Up Dog, you might ask?  When you find out, let me know!  Apparently it's a phrase that middle schoolers use..."That's really up-dog."  Whatever...  The best part was that his costume was also free...he used my Silhouette to cut out a dog shape w/ vinyl and stuck it on a black arrow and taped it on a t-shirt.

I was really pleased w/ my Halloween costume budget this year....$5 for a cowgirl hat.  They had fun and got plenty of candy.  And on Halloween night when I was watching Jake trick-or-treating w/ Sydney and Ryan and his little shoes would light up and he was just so excited, I took a mental picture and just smiled.  He's the perfect age this year.  He understands how it all works, but he's not yet snotty like my older ones, thinking, "Just give me the candy."  He's truly overjoyed w/ each little piece.  And it's sure made him want to do better w/ potty training since there's once again candy in the house that he can get as a reward.  Bonus.

Labor Day 2011

So I know I'm behind on blogging and you're all hoping for Halloween pictures, but I just realized that I never blogged about Labor Day, so let's get that out of the way first.

This year we were, as usual, up at our trailer for Labor Day weekend.  Which would have been perfect except for one thing...the opening game of the BSU football season.  We really didn't want to miss it, and thanks to my stud of a husband, no worries...he just rigged up an old dish to work out in the middle of nowhere...and he was pretty proud of himself, to say the least. :)  So was I.  He's pretty much amazing.

We made a lot of instant friends the night of the game.  Tim's brother and his wife, Tim's parents, my niece and her family, our family, and 2 other families that were camping there all sat around the t.v. and watched.  It was pretty fun!  And it was really great that BSU spanked Georgia!!  Go Broncos!

Jake was an awesome fan!  He cheered and cheered.  I had just gotten him this cool new BSU hat, which he wouldn't take off.  And every time someone said "Go...," he would reply, "Broncos."  And if you said, "Boise," he would say, "State."  Everyone was pretty impressed!  He's just so stinkin' cute!

Here's Jake trying out his cousin Hunter's pop gun.  He LOVED it!  He was pretty excited to get one for his birthday a few weeks later!

Our family went with my niece, Brittney's family and Tim's parents up to Dagger Falls.  I had never been before.  It was really pretty.  We all took picnics with us and spent a few hours there.

We found a place to walk down to the river, and let Molly fetch sticks.  She got worked really hard!  There was one time the stick went pretty far and she had to swim back against the current, and I think Tim was a little scared that she might not make it back, but I think she could have done that all day.

The kids had fun just being in nature--especially climbing up the steep hill.  Sydney was determined to make it back up the hard way, and she did.  Jake kept his sunglasses on pretty much the whole day. :)