Mount Mingus

Every wonder what you would get if you pointed your camera at a dark spot in the night sky? I had, and I was very surprised just how many stars my camera picked up. These were taken from the top of Mount Mingus, a few hours after sunset. All these stars could not be seen by the naked eye. I even caught a shooting star!

For those other camera enthusiasts here is the technical data: I used my 50mm lens with the aperture set at 1.4 to capture as much light as possible. I set the ISO at 2000 with a shutter speed of 30 seconds.


I took this next picture with the same settings, however it was of the adjacent mountain ridge. The light pollution from the small town of Cottonwood at the foot of the mountain is very noticeable. However, it was interesting to see how there was just enough light to give the red rocks color in the photo.

Another weekend, another skirt

Okay, so this skirt took two weekends. I sized down the pieces from Jennifer's skirt and made a few adjustments to allow for growing.


London enjoyed looking just like her mother.

The Hunt

Looking high

Looking low

On the move!

Showing off the treasure!

The hunt was a great success!

London 6 year old pictures

Since we have a nice camera we have decided to start taking the kids birthday pictures ourselves. It was a team effort from Rob and I. We brought all four of the kids to the temple grounds to get pictures of the girls and just have a nice family outing. The temperature was great, but it was a bit too sunny for some of the shots I wanted.

Rainy Day Project

It was a rainy day. Time to get my mind off of accounting for the weekend. So off the fabric store we went. Jennifer and I found some nice brown material with an embroidered floral pattern that would be perfect for a long skirt. Jennifer was in need of a skirt after losing a few dress sizes, and at six feet tall, long skirts are hard to find. I used a skirt Jennifer recently bought as a model for my project.




-Rob

Turning 2

My baby is 2! Time is going way too quickly. I told myself I would not do it, but I just can't seem to help myself, I baby my baby. Yes, Guinevere gets away with so much more then my other children. And of course she is a smart little girl and knows that she can get away with stuff. I love how she still curls up on my lap when she is upset. I love that she enjoys crashing cars and playing dinosaurs with her brothers and combing her hair and playing dolls with London. She is a picky little eater, and is often cranky because I won't give in and let her eat only graham crackers. Guinevere is adorable and presious, and while it is fun to see her learning new things and start talking, I am sad that my baby years are behind me (I don't miss the lack of sleep though).

We enjoyed a quite party at our house with family for her birthday. I was not feeling very motivated, so after putting on the white frosting I just let my mom decorate the cake. She did a great job like usual.





Opening all those presents was a little too exhausting for Guinevere.


It is a good thing we had some cake on hand to perk her back up.

Our trip to see Santa

Visiting Santa this year was a true test of my patience. When a few too many things decided to work against me I should have scraped the whole idea and rescheduled for a different day, but I didn't. The place where I go to get pictures is a huge store, but they allow me to use my own camera to take pictures and they give the kids a print out of the picture they took, all for free. I like free, so I go despite the craziness of the store. On weekdays Santa does not show up till 5pm. I knew that I did not want to go on a weekend because the crowed is too much. Since Rob does not get home that early I decided to arrange for two extra adults to go with me, both for different reasons were unable to show up. I feed the kids an early dinner and we headed out alone. Guinevere was not happy for whatever reason and was screaming almost the whole way there. We arrived at 5:10 and there was already a line. My kids, like all kids I am sure, do not like to wait in lines. They had activities for the children but they were all up closer to where Santa was and I did not feel comfortable letting my kids go up there since I had to stay in line. After 10 minutes of wining I let the older three run up there were the explicate instructions that they had to stay together, yah right. Guinevere was not happy about this either, and proceeded to scream in my arms for 5 minutes before I allowed her to wonder up to where London was by herself. I was close enough not that I could at least see them for the most part. I got a few looks from the other parents standing around me for this, but I am use to it so it did not bother me too much. When I was three people away from getting to see Santa I tried to round my children up. London was the only one who came willingly. I left London in line with the camera and stroller while I went after of my wayward children. London, Jacob, and Joseph all stood willingly with Santa for me to get a picture. I place a mostly calm Guinevere on Santa's lap and she screamed. I was not even able to get a picture of her with my camera. I had originally planned to see Santa a couple times so that I could get a good picture of each of the kids but I was so exhausted after one trip that I never went back.