I'm a work in progress

About a year and a half ago I found the pioneer woman website.  I initially looked at her website hoping to find some new recipes.  Let me just tell you, the pioneer woman can COOK!  seriously tasty stuff.  Anyway, I found myself scrolling around her site and eventually clicked on the photography link.  Boy oh boy, I was in love. I clicked on everything!  And I'm pretty sure that I read her "What the heck is Aperture" about 50 times.  Good stuff! After playing around with my point and shoot camera for several months, one day a big box came to our door.  It said NIKON. 
*my heart skipped a beat*
This was it.  He had done it.  The box was far too big to be anything other than a brand spanking new DSLR camera. I hurried and put it in the back seat and drove off to campus where I knew Tyler would be getting out of class soon.  Then, I saw him... Mr. Payne walking up to the car with the widest grin on his face!  He knew he had done good.  I jumped out of the car and gave him a monstrous hug, followed by a slug on the shoulder (these puppies are expensive! even though I knew he had been scheming for a while), and then another big hug and kiss. I love that man.  
Since then I've been a work in progress.  There was a lesson I learned in high school about making choices...  Many girls played softball year round.  They played on fancy club teams and basically drake, ate, and slept the sport... hoping to get a scholarship senior year.  But I loved volleyball, softball, and wrestling! I may not get a scholarship, but I want to enjoy and participate in everything that I love.  I feel the same way about photography. I'd love to put all my spare time into it, but there are so many other things that are important to me.  So, little by little I learn more and more about photography.  Sometimes I get really frustrated and feel like my photos just aren't turning out right and I don't know why!  There are about a million buttons on this dang contraption, why can't it just do what I I want? goodness gracious.  Today I took a picture from a month ago and decided that I was going to make it better.  And I think I did! This shoot was almost completely SOOC... I think I may have boosted it a bit...   And here it is after the tootling... much better right?  crisp and bright don't ya think? I took this photo around 5pm in the Texas summer which isn't ideal lighting... the sun is a bit harsh and the light is uneven, but I still think it looks pretty good. One more thing, my goal is to hardly have to touch it after I put it on the computer.  I think that's the sign of a good photographer. However, I think that there are some photoshop actions out there that are just right, and add the pizazz I'm looking for.  

Maybe there is hope for me! 

the best entertainment

the hose, a kiddy pool, and popsicles (yeah, we eat a lot of popsicles at Nana's house)what else could you really need?
I'm pretty sure that's the cutest backside I've ever seen.  Can you tell that someone is getting a little sleepy?  Sometimes the swing can have that effect especially around 10 a.m.
But we tried putting her in the pool anyway. Yeah Mom, this ain't happenin'... Needless to say, as soon as Nana got a dry diaper on her and put her in her crib she was gone. Foolproof formula: Maggie+sleepy cry+pacifier+favorite blanket= out like a light Rachel loved spraying herself with the hose...
Shreek!! I can get my back too! 
too much fun...There's nothing like relaxing in the kiddy pool and eating popsicles after a morning run. Rachel loves popsicles!  They taste yummy, but her favorite part about them it that they make your tongue change colors.  Orange tongue, Green tongue My little Rachel one year ago in the same pool.  It's funny how quickly and slowly time can pass.  This moment seems like it was just yesterday, but today I thought traveling 6 hours with the girls couldn't go any slower.    I absolutely love my job.  Staying home with my babies is one of the biggest blessings that I could ever ask for. I never miss a moment.  

A big cherry popsicle

Through all the head rubs, "helping", push overs, choke holds, and eye pokes sometimes a big sister can doing something right... 

   


Maggie definitely approved. 



Now it's time to march to the bathtub.  

take two

I'm on a roll.
When Tyler is away, I seem to forget to take myself to bed.  Instead of doing something more worthwhile, I tootle around looking at fun projects to do. This is something I need to work on. However, I found something that I would definitely categorize as worthwhile. It's another sunday project!!!  
I am going to kick some sacrament meeting butt this week, let me tell ya! 
This one was way quicker than the last one! All you need is a skinny binder, clear sheet protectors, old Friend magazine issues, and dry erase crayons...  These suckers are so cool! Yes, dry erase crayons! wipe on, wipe offNow, if you don't have any Friend magazines don't fret because I didn't either! They are all online! YES! just go here.

This one was fun.  I made a coloring page out of one of Rachel's pictures! If you want to do know how to do that go here. This is also that site where I found the idea! Thank goodness for creative people, why didn't I think of this?

There are so many fun activities in these magazines. And for all ages!  They have crossword puzzels, word find it thingys, and word unscrambler thingys.  I put a couple of the hard ones in for me.... hey, sometimes I need an activity too, especially during some of those high priests talks... did I just say that?

How awesome is that?  Find King Lamoni's sheep! Yes, pure awesomeness. 

And that's it.

Easy peesy lemon squeezy! Now go make one! 

the hardest hour of the week

Sacrament meeting.


I'm going to go ahead and open myself up here.  Let it all hang out. I am terribly self-conscious about sacrament meeting. I am constantly asking myself things like... "Is it okay to let her wave to the people in the pew behind us?  How many waves is too many?", "Can she walk up and down the row?", "How many snacks are appropriate?", "How loud does Maggie have to cry to be distracting?"... and the list goes on.  I see these cute ladies with their children all entertained and quiet and think to myself, what the heck?  What am I doing wrong here?  And their hair and clothes still look nice, while I look like I just finished a race!
One more thing... Rachel is two. I bring her out of the meeting at least once every Sunday.  She knows that when I take her out to the foyer bad things happen, but that doesn't seem to deter her from throwing fits here and there. But we keep going back in until she get's the hint.  You WILL stay in sacrament meeting! There are some Sunday's that I come home feeling like I just completely failed.
{sigh}


I have been thinking of ways to help make Sunday's more pleasant, while still keeping it gospel related.  I saw someone with one of these and thought I'd make one too.  Let me just say that it took me way longer that I had expected! I am not a scrapbooker.  I always like the end result, but I don't necessarily enjoy the process. If I were to do this project again, I'd definitely use a 4x6 photo album instead of an 8x8. I found almost all my pictures from old Ensign magazines, and what I didn't find I found at the church bookstore and on the internet. 

It's a Sunday ABC book.  I started and soon realized that there's 26 letters in the alphabet!  I have a feeling this realization is going to hit me about 26 miles as well.  One page at a time, one mile at a time...  

A- Atonement
B- Baptism

C- Christ
D- Daddy
E- Eternity

F- Faith
G- Gratitude
H- Holy Ghost
I- Independence
J- Joseph Smith
K- Knock (I put a picture of Christ knocking at the door)
L- Love
M- Mommy 
N- Nature
O- Obey (I found a picture of people being happy... When I obey, I'm HAPPY all day!)
P- Prophet
Q- Quiet
R- Resurrection

S- Scriptures
T-Temple
U- Universe ( This one was tricky. I found a picture with the Christus and the universe behind him, and an awesome quote about how 'such order bears witness of a Supreme Creator')
V- Values ( I put all the YW values... I'll have to add YM values once I have boys, and I WILL have boys... I hope.)
W- Word of Wisdom 

X- Exaltation (can you think of something better?)
Y- You

Z- Zion

And there you have it.  Sorry for the suspense, I know it's not THAT amazing, but I'm so glad that it's finished!  And I'm happy to report that it DID help today. 

  

what we've been doing...

Do ya'll ever get completely immersed in a project?  I have this problem.  I get so into something that I don't do anything else until it's finished.  Ughhh, and it's taking me so much longer than I expected! More on that later, but for now I'm going to come up for air and do a blog post.  

I decided to come to Houston for a couple weeks while Tyler is in training and for my birthday (which is tomorrow by the way!!).  We've been doing all the usual Houston things.... 

We grilled for dinner and someone found or took (I'm not sure how it all went down) the dogs T-bone... Yup, knawing on raw meat...
I think she liked it better cooked, but it's a toss-up!

We met Pop downtown for lunch at my favorite- Treebeards! (excellent gumbo) We're working on the concept of sharing, but it just doesn't settle when there's cake involved.  If anyone else tryed to take a bite, she'd yell, "That's enough!" haha!  I've been hearing myself in her voice a whole lot lately.  She went a entire week saying, "Hear me?" after every sentence.

We took our teething frustrations out on the bread... better than my chin at least...



We helped Nana make her weekly batch of protein muffins...

And got it all over our dress...We did our normal "happy hour" Sonic run with Nana-Nana... I love their cherry lime-aids...

We played with Nana-Nana...

We hung out in our diaper... (well Maggie did anyway)

We ate lots and lots of cucumbers and bell peppers... What is this face about? No idea, but it makes me laugh.

We pushed Maggie on the swing... 
And realized swinging is too much work, so we hung instead...

We visited with Grandma and Grandpa Barrow...

And bribed for pictures... noticed to bag of M&Ms in Rachel's hand... You don't really have even look for the candy, just look at Rachel's smile...

And that's what we've been doing.  

Parker County Peach Festival

Ever since they hung up the "Parker County Peach Festival" signs around town I've been dying to go.  I am such a sucker for small town charm.  I love it!  I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned this, but have I told you that I love living out in the country?  It's so good for Rachel.  There's always something fun for her to do. Bored?  Go check the chicken coop for eggs, pet the horse, catch grasshoppers, pick wildflowers, and the list goes on.  Anyway, although it was blazing hot outside, I packed up the girls and went to the Peach Festival.  I'm not going to lie, it wasn't as cool as I thought it'd be, and it definitely didn't compare to a Hill Country peach or a Georgia peach, but they were still yummy.  And it was something to do get out the house.  I hate sitting around and doing the normal routine the day Tyler leaves.  So, it was a nice distraction.  

    

Tearing up that peach!

hmmm, that's an interesting flavor...

My girls eating peaches... I love Rachel's face...

What a lovely picture of me... not! But hey, I was there too!  

Maggie sure loved them peaches.  They were sweet, but not as sweet as her! 

Independence Day Celebration!

The fourth of July is one of my favorites! Let's see, first it's Easter and then second is the 4th of July.  Mostly because it's all about summertime activities... popsicles, swimming, and BBQ!  And of course, it's about "the land of the free and the home of the brave". I love you America!  



   Eating ice cream at Braums (the best ice cream place EVER!) This girl cracks me up! All hail the Ice Cream Queen...

Ha-HA Nana got slimed! This is my favorite way to get slimed...

Donuts 4th of July morning...

Tyler was asked to participate in our wards flag-raising ceremony...Maggie kept playing with his beret, hence it not being on perfectly straight... just thought I'd explain since it really bugged him.  But I was so giddy to finally get a decent picture with him and the girls in his uniform that I didn't care... obviously...

Nothing like a tee-shirt with an American flag and a large mouth bass jumping out of it to say, "I love the U.SA!"