365/365 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

It's over I have a whole years worth of pictures.  I can't decide if I've gotten any better photography skills,

I sure learned a lot and enjoyed myself a ton!  Tonights photo, my last of the year was taken with my

touch in the neighbor's bathroom mirror.  Not really the best way to end such an huge project, but isn't

that just the way I do things. I intend to keep posting on this blog, however definitely not daily.  It is a fun

way to track what is going on with my family.  We had an amazing year filled with ups and downs,

smiles and tears.  I feel that all the people and things in my life make me so blessed.  I can truly say that

this blog, although time consuming, has helped me see the joy in my everyday.  I truly love my life and all

the people in it.

364/365 Pre New Years?

Doing a little tasting for New Years tomorrow night.  I can decide what beverage I will ring in the New

Year with, so I thought I'd test a few concoctions out.  I think I've decided on Champagne and Chateau

Monet Pomari (a pomegranate liquor).  Yum Yum.

363/365 Bible Projects

It is bible project time again, they are due right after we get back from Christmas Vacation.  This year we

have to do two.  Madison made a ceramic plate and Sophia is doing a needle point pillow.  She worked a

couple hours on it today.  It is a little tedious for her, but I really enjoy showing her something I know

how to do, I love the art of needle point.  It is a fairly simple thing to do but it always has such a neat old

fashioned look.  I hope she enjoys the final work.

362/365 Favorite Things

I went to a favorite things party during the holidays.  It was so much fun one of the favorite this was the

delicious bottle of wine.  I opened this bottle the other day and plan to finish it off tonight.  It reminds me

of one of my favorite people!  Thanks Kristin for all the laughs this year.  You add so much fun to my

life!  I love you.  You are one of my favorite things.

361/365 Hello Hat

Today some of the stuff I picked up online from the day after Christmas sales showed up, fast I know.

Most things will go back, because they were really ugly, but this hat is a keeper!  Love the pom pom.

360/365 Technology…Sigh

Got a new iTouch for Christmas, I loved my old one to death!  And these headphones are amazing!  

Bluetooth, so I can listen to all my books wirelessly!  I love you technology.

359/365 Merry Christmas!

What a great day!  We had a great time, Maddy, Sophia and Dylan all got new bikes so the girls spent the

day out riding their bikes on the cul de sac.  Sadie got a tank the she can control with an iPod Touch.

You can even watch it drive around on the video screen with the camera mounted on the front of the tank.

We finished the night off with some cards.  Perfect day.

358/365 Cookies for Santa

The girls are having a blast with Dylan, and she seems to feel the same.  We spent the day 

grocery shopping, and wrapping gifts.  The girls decorated Christmas cookies tonight.  I think Dylan got 

more frosting in her than on the cookies!  Dylan is hilarious, it reminds me of when the girls were little.  I 

miss those days and I don't.  You know what I mean.  Tonight while we were trying to get all the gifts set 

out, Dylan came down the stairs and said, "I went to bed now where's my bike?" We died laughing!  

What a firecracker.

357/365 Beautiful Family, Beautiful Home

We are spending the Christmas holiday at Julie and Jon's this year.  So we packed the gifts up and drove 

to Modesto.  Julie's house is decorated beautifully.  She puts everything in just the right places.  I wish I 

was half as good at it as she is.  Today we did all our last minute gift shopping, while the kids rammed 

around the house.  

356/365 A Little Surprise

I got a surprise from the UPS guy tonight as I was getting ready for our trip to Modesto. I was surprised

because I wasn't expecting it yet. But look at these beautiful steak knives I got from Karyn! Now I need to

BBQ something good when I get home.

355/365 A Tent For Dylan!

Luckily for me I can totally post this because my niece can't surf the web yet!  So Merry Christmas

Dylan! I finished your tent.

354/365 Snowglobes

Every year I add at least one snow globe to my collection. I picked up this one the other day. I thought it

would be cool to switch out the pictures every year. I love to see my girls in this one.

353/365 Merry Christmas Morrills!

We celebrated Christmas with the Morrills tonight. I can't believe how big Mav has gotten. I love this 

picture of him trying to take pictures of himself. What a cutie pie! We had a blast driving around Poway 

and looking at Christmas lights with all the kids.

352/365 Last Home Game...See You Next Year!

The Charges were a little disappointing this season. Some near wins, where the game just got away from

them at the end didn't help us out any. It is nearly impossible for them to make the playoffs now. But as

always I had a blast at the game with our friends. And we put on a good game tonight. Beating the

Vikings. I'm glad for the win, I just wish they had looked like this the entire season.

351/365 Last Day Baby

Last day of lens baby pictures, for this year at least.  I took the snowglobe with the double lens and the elf

with the plastic.  I liked both of these shots better than some of my previous because I think they are a

better example of what the lenses are supposed to do!

350/365 Vacation at Last

We are so excited for vacation to finally start! I can't for the life of me figure out where

all my time went? I still have tons of Christmas shopping to do. And we have to be ready to

drive to Julie's in less than a week. I don't know when I'll get it done. But I just can't

wait to have an hour to sleep in. Sadie and the girls had a blast at their Christmas parties,

as usual. And I took a ton of pictures, as usual.

349/365 Up, up...and Away

Super hero day at the junior high! Like I don't have enough stuff going on? Now I had to

sew some capes at midnight last night. So worth it (crabby mom!) the kids had fun. I called

Sophia the ladybug assassin. It didn't stick, but I thought it was funny. I couldn't come up

with anything for stripey mc striperton. That would be pronounced stripe, not strip, in case

you were wondering. Up up and Away!

348/365 Something's Fishy

One of the main reasons I bought the lensbaby lens system was to mess around with the fish eye lens.

Again it's not perfect but you get the idea.  It's an extreme wide angle...of a slightly demonic looking elf.

347/365 Plastic Optic

This lens drop in mimics a toy camera like was popular in the 60's.  It has made a little bit of a comeback

with film enthusiasts.  Which I am not  because wow who would ever want to go back to developing

photos again?  I wasn't really happy with the way this one turned out, so I'll try again later with this lens.

346/365 Christmas Concert

We had our all school Christmas Concert.  The Girls looked great.  They are getting so grown up!  I can't

believe it.  It seems like yesterday when Madison was in Kindergarten and singing in her first Christmas

Concert!  Now she's in eight grade, next stop high school.  And Sophia in Junior High?  When did that

happen?

345/365 Single Glass Optic

I had some luck today with the single glass optic.  This one is supposed to be a style similar to antique

cameras, and give a soft dreamy effect.  I love the way the Snow globe looks in this picture and I can see

myself in the glass ball ornament!  I love the Christmas lights out of focus in that one!

344/365 Hip Hop Sadie

Today we take a break from lensbaby (I am sure anybody reading this is thinking thank goodness!) to

celebrate Sadie's performance at her dance recital tonight.  Considering she started hip hop classes the week

before Thanksgiving!  She was very proud of herself and she had a great time!  By the way she is the one

in the light blue pom pom hat, it was hard to get pictures!

343/365 Tilt Shift Friday

OK so the other thing about the lens baby is that it can tilt shift.  Which is a hard thing to explain.  I can

shift the focus of the lens to another angle, but that changes where the lens is pointing.  It is on a ball socket

and it moves around.  Weird right?  So today I am also using the same double glass optic and this time I am

attempting a few with tilt shift, yesterday's shots I had ti leave the lens locked in the forward position

because of the difficulty I was having finding where the sweet spot had moved to.  Today I had to try to

find it!

342/365 Where Did the Time Go!

Busy Busy Busy!  It's getting really hard to get a picture in everyday right now with all the busy hustle and

bustle.  So I am going to be taking quite a few pictures of my Christmas decorations this week (because we

finally got them up!)  I am getting my Lensbaby out.  I really need a lot more time with it if I am going to

get better pictures so this week the pictures will look stranger than normal.  I am going to start with the

Double Glass Optic.  This lens is supposed to have a tack sharp "sweet spot" with a surrounding blur.  This

all depends on my ability to find where that sweet spot is and actually hand focus the lens.  It's not easy!

But it's fun to try.

341/365 Spot of Tea

I opened this cupboard today while looking for places to stash my normal decor while the Christmas

decorations are out, and I thought "hey that looks cool!  I should take a picture of that."  So I did.

340/365 An Apple a Day

My girls are some world class apple eaters.  I buy two bags a week and by Friday they are usually asking

why we're out of apples!

3439/365 Yes, I am AWESOME!

So I found this to do list notebook and I realized this notebook only has spots for like two to do items.

Now it is cute and funny but two things?  Even I should be able to handle that! Right?

338/365 Catch Up Day

After all that work on the play this week today we need to do some catch up on a few items that I dropped

the ball on.  Mostly projects for Sadie.  So we made posters filled out forms and took and printed pictures

and got everything ready for school on Monday.  Now if I can get a few minutes to get this house picked

up.

337/365 Wizard Of Oz

Sophia's play starts today.  They have two performances today and two tomorrow.  I am helping backstage

this morning then watching tonight.  Whe the first performance was over Sophia was bouncing off the

walls she was so excited!  She had so much fun, I am so proud of all her hard work.

336/365 Christmas Cards With Dylan

Today, after two play performances and a foot xray (I totally fell down our stairs last night) we did pictures

of Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids for my parents Christmas cards.  The picture turned out

pretty good if I do say so myself.  Everybody looking at the camera and looking at least pleasant, if not

smiling.  Why do my parents think it's OK to talk while I'm taking pictures of them?  I also took Dylan

around the duck pond and took pictures of her for their cards.  It was fun and she did great!  Wahoo!  After

yesterday, I needed something to go right.

335/365 Mom & Dad's

My parents finally bought a new house and it was the one I thought they would buy!  They are slowly but

surely moving in.  Since they didn't have a lot of time to pack they just threw it all in storage.  Now they

are going through all their stuff and getting rid of things.  Today Julie came to town with Dylan for a visit

so we hung out at our parents house.  We had a nice time.  Even Sophia and Madison got to come, because

school was cancelled due to there being a power outage!