My little brother was married this past week. Unfortunately I didn’t take my camera along or even my cheap-o phone to snap any kinds of shots of the handsome couple so I had to snag some from the photographer. My sister was more diligent with her camera and posted all about it and I’m totally tempted to cut and paste her whole post.

Because it was a chilly October afternoon, wedding pictures out of doors were rushed because of the violent shaking and shivering from everyone. I was wishing for more pictures of us with the couple or some of the my kids with the bride. Oh well, these two make such a handsome couple, yes?

This was one of the funnest wedding receptions I’ve attended. It was one big awesome party and we danced the night away to the amazing and classy New Deal Swing band, led by Tad Calcara, the principal clarinetist for the Utah Symphony. They were amazing and even had a vocalist, Melissa Pace Tanner to dazzle us with her talent. Everyone was toe tapping and bobbin’ around all night. It was such a hoot.

A lot of things have changed since I got married. It’s hard for me not to be completely jealous of how cute and stylish announcements, decorations and wedding dresses can be these days. One of the big differences is that photographers are super awesome and capable now. We had a good laugh over my wedding pictures being on actual film and shoved in a envelope somewhere.

Film? Really? Am I that old.

Seriously, so cute!

My kids has such a great time at the reception. Not only was their dancing and cousins to keep them entertained but a there was a table full of sweets and goodies to choose from. I’m talking about humongous suckers and an endless supply of soda bottles. Pure heaven.

It was such a great day. Congratulations Ryan and Mariah!

Believe it or not, I did a little bit of scrapbooking today.

This template is uber simple because that is about all I can do right now. It gets the job done, right.

Enjoy it here.

Here is my page. Credits at flickr.

Have a lovely day.

Life is pretty crazy around here. Just signing in to say that I’m still alive and kick’n. We’ve been able to get out a bit and enjoy the nice fall weather.

I’m working on a real post so stay tuned.

Yes, I know. I’ve had a really hard time blogging lately. It may be due to my new full time job as 2nd councilor in the Relief Society or maybe I’m filling my life up with other important things but either way, I pretty much skipped the month of September.

Here are some highlights from the month.

Luckily I was able to go do this in the mountains…

before this happened…

Brrr. The temperature went from 80s to 40s in one day.

Goodness, it’s been hard to get back into the swing of things. I guess we never know when our lives are going to change, whether those changes are subtle or not. My life has certainly been altering. I’ve been struggling with trying to find some kind of balance, with the new school year and such. Either way, I have finally found time for some scrapbooking. Hurray.

Here is Template 79 that has been sitting on my desktop for over a week and I’m just finishing up today. Download it here if you like it.

My pages… I’m not to excited to share these because I don’t love the way they turned out. I think they are kinda busy but I’m so DONE working with them and I need to move on. I’m not sure if it’s the paper or the template that’s too busy. Oh well. (credits at flickr)

These pictures of us rock climbing didn’t turn out. It was dark and the flash bounced off the rock funny. But the memory was such a great one that I had to document it. Tell me, what do you do with photos that don’t turn out but you love the moment behind them?

These pictures I probably love too much. Well, the one of Emma by the tree and Jeremy, Leah and me as a silhouette. So again, I had a hard time scrapbooking them because I felt like the pictures needed to be highlighted better. But I just couldn’t get myself to make a whole new page just for those photos. It’d mess up my chronological order or some such nonsense. I’m lazy actually.

So I guess the nice thing is about all my rambling is that I finally have a free template for those of you who have stuck it through the long summer with me. He he.

Happy scrapping! Finally.

I might as well post about the first day of school. Nothing much exciting to say about it other than it’s arrived.

This girl of mine loves school (except math) and I hope she always will. Third grade seems to be when things get a bit more serious. I think I had the jitters more than her.

And this boy (who started a week later than sis) hopefully will like school just as much as his sister because he started Kindergarten today. I hugged and kissed him 20 times before he left.

Sigh. I couldn’t get a decent smile or a focused look from him. Oh well.

And because my first day of school pictures aren’t much different from Joe Shmoe’s first day of school photos I’ll add these next two for a little something more to look at.

Here is my Champion Potty Goer teaching her baby to go to the potty as well as she does.

And when my boy came home from his first successful day of kindergarten, we made cardboard box cars. Vrooommm. The box on his head is a helmet.

Way to be safe, Isaac!

I promise that there will be some scrapbooking soon now that school as started. I’m starting to get the itch.

Scratch, scratch.

I can’t do it all.

This week I have been completely overwhelmed. No matter what goals I’ve set for myself each day, I can’t seem to get the things done that I want to. I’m suffocating.

I can’t make raspberry jam and zucchini bread and have dinner cooked and ready to eat at a decent hour. My poor husband hasn’t had dinner in a week.

I can’t read books to the kids and clean the house.

I can’t wake up at 6:00 am every morning for my Ozone workout and expect to have energy that lasts through the day. Nap time can’t come soon enough.

I can’t take feed and clean up after the chickens, make sure there aren’t any giant zucchinis taking over the garden and keep my yard weed free. It’s impossible. (cleaning windows apparently don’t get done either)

I can’t plan fun activities during the day for the kiddos and keep on top of the laundry. Who needs clean underwear anyway?

I can’t keep up with Pinterest, my feed reader, facebook, and scrapbooking. Darn time suckers.

I can’t enjoy a new book on my kindle and post regularly on my blog.

I can’t mountain bike and rock climbing. Am I the only one who is sad about this?

I can’t make it to bed on time and enjoy the summer nights in Utah. I miss my porch and the stars.

I can find time to hug and love my kids though. That must always be a priority. But I can’t help but wondering if I’m doing it enough.

Tell me: How do you find balance in your life? What do you find yourself having to give up because you don’t have time or energy? Don’t tell me that you are superwomen and you can do it all. I wont believe it.

We have enjoyed our back yard chickens immensely. I had no idea that watching these ladies grow  up and begin laying eggs would bring me so much joy. Neither did I know my children would have hours of fun with them.

These silly birds are so curious. I think we have successfully tamed them. When they are free roaming, they will come running up to us when we open the back door. They either really like being around us or are hoping for some food but either way it always makes me smile.

“Hello, Ladies!”

This week we are finally getting eggs. Hurray, hurray! It’s so fun for the kids to go out and find them. Here are some next to a white store bought egg for comparison. The first eggs are a bit small but we think they’ll get bigger because our hens are Leghorns (though not pure bred) who are suppose to be excellent egg layers. We kept wondering if these chickens were really going to lay eggs. When Emma found one in our newly build egg box she thought I was crazy when I did a little dance around the kitchen. “I didn’t know grown-ups got excited!”

My sis that lives in Idaho asked me why I hadn’t shown a picture of our chicken coop. I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to post about my chickens but it may have been that obtaining our chicken coop and getting our chickens settled in it has been a real ordeal and therefore too overwhelming to post about until we were really settled. When they were getting big enough to move from a cardboard box to a coop I spent several days looking online for a design that would work in our back yard. We wanted it to big enough to hold 4 to 5 hens, fit somewhere in our back yard and keep it 5 feet from the fence (city ordinances.) We finally decided that we lack the tools and the knowledge to build our own coop and turned to the classifieds.

Luckily there are plenty of coops there to choose from. We purchased our coop and found that it tucked nicely in our little tree grove by the back fence. We then had to make some minor adjustments to the design, paint it so it would be waterproof, and build an egg box (which we just did yesterday.) We are happy with our coop although it’s not a perfect design. Our chickens seem to like it well enough except when we leave them out past dusk they prefer to roost in the trees. It’s so funny to see our 4 hens sitting 10-12 feet up on a flimsy branch just happy as can be. They must feel really safe up there despite their clumsiness.

So here’s to eggs, goofy chickens and providing hours of entertainment. Hurray!

(No chickens were harmed in this photo shoot.)

Jeremy’s grandma past away a week or so ago and we spent a good chunk of last week attending the funeral and other family functions.

Even though Jeremy and I have only been married for 9 years, we have spent many hours visiting with Grandma. We would spend many Sunday afternoon just hanging out with her and spending time the house that her and Grandpa bought in the 40′s. She was as much my grandma as she was Jeremy’s.

I have attended a few funerals in my day and I have to say that I think funerals, or more specifically, loosing someone, is one of the most spiritual experiences in life. There is no doubt in my mind that heaven is close by during those times. There are amazing feelings and experiences that testify of how thin the veil can be. Grandma’s funeral felt like this to me. She was such a great, strong lady. She will be missed but I can’t help but be so happy for her to be rejoined with her husband who past away 28 years ago. Imagine that reunion.

Jeremy’s Dad gave me a whole bunch of old photos of Grandma and their family. He had found some old slides and had them digitized. We had such a good time looking through them and reminiscing about the past. I love this one of Grandma curling her hair. It’s so real life. They said that was how she always was, with a book in hand and her feet kicked up. Love it.

I now have all these old photos and it’s a wonder what to do with them.

I had to post this old picture of “the Duster” that Jeremy and his family drove for years. There are stories of kids falling out of broken doors and everyone piling in on road trips across the country and sleeping on the hot floor. Oh the days before car seats! (Jeremy is the one squashed next to his dad. Let’s all say Ahhh together. Ahhh!)

Have you done anything with old pictures? There can be so many that it’s completely overwhelming. But what’s to be done so that all these wonderful times wont be forgotten? Print them out? Put them on flash drives and pass them out? Who knows, but it’s so much fun to sit down and remember.