New Year’s resolutions that is.  I usually go all balls to the walls when it comes to New Years resolutions.  Normally I have a pluthera of ways I want to better and challenge myself.  This year however, I didn’t make any…yet.  Maybe because we have a baby coming soon and my goal as of now is to just survive the rest of the pregnancy, delivery and post surgical recovery that I can’t see past that to something that resembles more of normalcy in our everyday lives yet.  I do have one resolution though and that is to seriously learn how to use my dslr camera.  I mean to really get to know it, and not just in a ‘Hey, how you doin’, sort of way.  I’ve gotten slightly better over the past couple years since getting it, but there is so much that goes into capturing a moment and being the perfectionist that I am, I want to capture the BEST of each and every moment.  I would rather have 1 amazing, memorable photo from a day, than a bunch of mediocre, and most likely blurry and out of focus ones.  So, if there is anyone reading this who has some tips on capturing great photos, please do share.  I’m also in the market for a new lens.  Preferably one for taking portraits of some sort. I’ve researched some, but in this case I would just like the opinions and tips from my friends.  Reading about lenses and all the millions of details of camera settings is hard to contain in my small brain.  I feel like I’ve spent hours, even days reading blogs and tutorials on how to use my camera appropriately and I’ve gotten nowhere.  Probably taking a class would help a lot, but since I don’t know when I’ll get around to that, asking you all for tips is the next best thing right now.  So please, HELP!!!  Here are a few photos I’ve taken recently…

These photos are with my 75-300mm lens which I use for all things sports and far away outside stuff.  These are a few pics from Tanner’s first hockey tournament.

Here our a few with my 18-55mm lens that I use on a daily basis…

                                                                   Sam playing peek a boo

                                                       Christmas time at Lauritzen Gardens

Of course I did some minor editing in iphoto, but it would be nice to have another photo shop editing tool.  I don’t want to spend a lot of money on a program, especially before I can really start to understand my camera.

What photo editing tools is everyone using?  Am I the only camera dummy here?

Wow, it’s been awhile since I updated this thing, which means I’ll be working backwards to get posts up regarding summer birthdays, first day of Kindergarten and everything else I’ve neglected the past 6 months ;)…

Well fall break was full of pumpkin patches, visits from out of town family, trick or treating and how could we ever forget the rapid spreading of the flu throughout our household and beyond.  The kids and I finally got to meet the newest member of the family, their cousin and our nephew Triston.  What a sweet baby.  They couldn’t stop leaning over him, patting him, holding him and feeding him.  When they weren’t swooning over Triston, they were wrestling and playing football with Caiden.  The weekend visit went way too fast, but we couldn’t have had more fun.

Here are some pics of the crew…

                                                           
                                                Baby Triston 4 months old!

                                                               Tanner loves him!!

                                                             
                                       Dance class- “dress up in costume” day

                                             Me and my sweet baby girl 😉

                                 Watching her baby cousin very carefully…

                                               The men reading the Sunday paper

                  Skinny Bones Pumpkin Patch- Uncle Jim with the boys

                                            Sam holding still to get her face painted

                                                         
                                                             Going on a hayrack ride

                                  Love this photo of Tanner and Uncle Mike 🙂

                                                            Spooktacular at the Zoo

                                                              Neema with the oldest 3

                                                                 Sam and auntie Laura

                                                              Caiden with a skeleton

If they would have just called it “last day of school” I would have been fine, but of course they have to call it “Preschool Graduation” so naturally I was a crying mess.  I was pregnant with Sam when I took Tanner to his first day of preschool 2 1/2 years ago and I cried then.  We’ve been preparing for this day for 2 1/2 years and it’s still hard for me to stomach that he’s going to be a Kindergartener, and then the next thing you know he’s off to college or getting married. I said to myself last night that in 10 years (and 2 months) I’m going to have a 16 year old and I can’t handle it. The years fly by now and someone put it best when they said that at this age that the kids are the days are long but the years go by so fast. It’s completely true.

Anyway, so we have a graduate now and I feel confident that he is as ready as he’ll ever be for Kindergarten, and I’m so excited for his journey.

                           January 2010: First day of school-3 1/2 yrs old

                                                         Doesn’t even look back… *tear*

                                                                   
                                                                  Tanner and Owen

                                                                        Lot’s of snow!

                                                                   Me and my baby 😉

                        August 2011: First Day of last year of preschool

                                         Last day of preschool…gifts for the best teachers ever!

                                    Graduation ceremony…starts with the “Good Morning” song

                                                    Getting their class hats and certificates!

                                                                 Tanner and Carter

                                            Kait and Tanner (buds and future Kindergartners:)

                                            Tanner and Ms. Betsy and Ms. Jan (love them!)

                                                                    THE GRADUATE!!

                                                                     A proud family!

                                                                  Tanner and Grandpa

                                                                 Mommy and Tanner

                                                                   Daddy and Tanner

     We’ve made lots of progress in Tanner’s room.  We’ve been working on his room for 4 months now, and I don’t know if I’m happy or sad that it’s pretty much complete. I had so many fun projects with this room and it’s kind of sad that it’s coming to an end. Of course I’ve maxed out last month’s budget while trying to complete it, nothing new there of course, but I am waiting on a couple more items to make Tanner’s room more complete.  I purchased Tanner’s comforter, rug and curtains last summer so I’ve had a lot of time to ponder what else we wanted to do in his room.  The navy and white stripes were the best idea I’ve had so far in the new house (in my opinion).  Terrifying at first yes, but none the less the kid is absolutely ecstatic about them.  I opted not to paint the other walls with stripes for fear it might make the room appear smaller than it already is.  Plus, I’m actually really surprised at my decision to do navy and white stripes because of the dark trim and doors throughout the house.  I love, love, love white trim in homes, but since our house is new we are not going to change to trim quite yet 😉  The more I thought about it, I didn’t want the dark color of the wood to hold us back with how we wanted to decorate his room.  I felt limited with options, but decided to go against the grain (so to speak) and just go with my heart in choosing paint and furniture for the space.

I decided on a very light gray blue color for the other 3 walls and I think I lightens up the room a lot. 
    
 To save some money on furniture I painted the old dresser white and an old nightstand as well.  Tutorials here and here.

I wanted to keep it simple on the crazy striped walls so I just added some sweet photos of the kids together in white frames to break it up a bit. 

Tanner loves his books along with doing art 24/7 so I bought a black bookcase for book storage and a couple of lime green storage ottomans for him to keep his toys and art in. 

 We mounted Mike’s old snowboard that he doesn’t use anymore above his closet for some unique, funky, sporty (and free) decor.  Tanner has been giving his input and opinions all along the way so he was involved with most of the decisions.  I wanted him to feel like he was a part in his room remodel so he would really love it!

Last but not least, THE MAP, ahhh, yes the map.  It was an  idea I had a while back and while Mike wasn’t sold on the idea, I pulled one of my “trust me” phrases and sold or not he was onboard.  Thanks Mike!  And, thanks to my handy hubs-o-lot he helped me get the map on the wall and framed out with our homemade frame.  It’s a hit! Now the kids can see where all our family and friends live across the U.S., where daddy travels to on his trips, and pointing out different countries.
    
While the room isn’t finished, it’s pretty close.  

Things on my list to do still:

 Make a headboard
Get a couple fun throw pillows for his bed
Fix the broken old chair that belonged to me as a kid
Get a table lamp for his nightstand
Maybe paint the chair and table legs
Frame and hang some of his art work on the bare wall
Make C.D.’s of some of his favorite country songs for his CD player
Paint the inside of his closet (because I have nothing else to do)
Get some storage baskets for the top of his closet


The inspiration for the room was Tanner himself of course.  Fun, Creative, unique but also relaxing.  While, the stripes on the wall give the room a slightly nautical feel, there was no real theme in the room.  He is my little artist so I wanted to make sure I met all his creative instincts when piecing his room together.  He has more energy than any kid I’ve ever met, so I also wanted a room that he could relax in at night and just feel like it is special just like him.  

Come along for a tour…

I can’t believe it’s already been a week since Easter.  We had a really fun weekend with the kids.  Saturday we died Easter eggs and Sam ended up getting really mad because she couldn’t stick her whole hand + the egg in the coloring liquid…REALLY mad. 

None the less they had fun plopping them in different colors and putting stickers all over them.

                             I know there’s 2 almost identical pics here, but this one is good of Sam…

                                                       …And this one is good of Tanner.

I don’t have photos of the next activity because it was a little chaotic.  With a screaming toddler and 2 messy kids it was time for bath.  Since Sam recently had a scary experience in the tub during normal “rinse the shampoo out of your hair” time and inhaled a bunch of water, she’s now TERRIFIED of the bath and screams bloody murder every time.  I got creative this night…

“Who wants to go have beach party in the tub??”

Well of course they both thought the idea of everyone getting in their bathing suits and getting in the bath, including mom, sounded super fun!  So off we went, we laid out our towels, filled the tub with bubbles and turned on the music in the bathroom and had a beach party.  I must admit, it helped.  Sam did really and there were a couple of things that really helped her not to “freak out”.
                              1) the foaming shampoo that I let the kids use themselves
                              2) a squirt bottle I found that I gently squirted Sam’s hair with water so she could barely tell.

By the end of it, nobody wanted to get out of the tub, and Sam was actually the last one out!  Because I overestimate my children’s cleanliness it’s now a week later and I realize we haven’t had another bath, whoops!  I’m going to try for beach party again with just the kids this time and see how it goes.  Although Tanner takes mostly showers now, but loves to take baths and play with his toys.

EASTER MORNING:

Usually the Easter bunny hides eggs along with the kids’ Easter baskets around the house, but since he couldn’t find all of the extra plastic eggs he skipped that part.  So the kids found their baskets along with their goodies and it was all downhill from there…

                      Toby’s got her eyes on the cookies. She is always waiting for her opportunity.

Next we went to brunch at our favorite breakfast place with Matt and Cally and the kids and Grandpa Mike.  Everybody behaved (thanks to a couple IPads and some crayons).

EASTER AFTERNOON:

                                                                      Who ME??

                            It took an injury in the bounce house before we had our first break!

Till next year…

We’ve been preparing all day for the severe storms and tornadoes we were supposed to get tonight. We are and have been in a high risk since yesterday which is rare and really scary.  The kids helped us clear out under the stairs in the basement this morning and in doing so, we got to organize a little and found a bunch of stuff in boxes we haven’t even unpacked yet.  We’ve gathered our bottled waters and are getting ready to bring our snacks and make our little tent for the night downstairs.





The trees are in bloom, the grass has been green for weeks and as much as we have loved having this summer weather for the last month, it ends tomorrow.  Not ends, just cools down to more spring-like temps.  Tanner is going on his 4th baseball practice, and so far there are no complaints.  He and his buddy(and neighbor) are on the purple team together and can’t wait to start playing games.

This weekend was another busy, golf-filled one for me.  I had a lesson for the first time in 3+ years and went to work with the one and only James Sieckmann.  I’ve worked with him since I was a teenager and I wouldn’t trust my swing or game with anybody else.  He works with a lot of guys and gals on the PGA, Nationwide and LPGA tour, and it’s no wonder he does.  He know a lot and I always learn so much whenever I go to him.  If you really want to take your game to the next level, whatever that may be and get better, he’s the one to talk to.  He promised me I would be playing scratch golf in no time (well ok, he didn’t promise, I just assumed).

Mike, dad and I played in a scramble yesterday and let me just say, a 6 hour round is really not that fun when nobody is hitting the ball well.  On a positive note, we didn’t go over par (yippie…), I won longest drive on a hole and we actually won our flight! So maybe it was a good thing we played terribly. 

Saturday was car washing day, aka “just another photo opp of the kids” day for me.  Here are some funny photos of the 2 of them trying to help…

Today we went to the zoo to celebrate our last 90 degree day(probably) for a while.  The kids walked the whole time and are sleeping like babies.  It may take an hour to get out of the house, 20 min to get the stroller out, everyone loaded up, and sunscreen on, but it was all worth it because the carosel was open, we had ice cream and only 1 melt down/kid and it wasn’t until we were on our way back to the car.  Today was pretty much a piece of cake…well so far at least.

                                                    He’s got the whole world in his hands…