A Holiday Everyday

Did you know today is National Spaghetti day?  My mom told me about a clever woman she knows who made a calendar of all the little known holidays to celebrate with her kids. I thought it was a great idea, so I did a little research and made my own.  You are welcome to it if you would like.   The girls are having telling all their friends. Tomorrow we are going to have crepes for dinner in honor of Whipped Cream Day.

Holiday Calendar

Goodbye 2011

What a wonderful year! Life just seems to keep getting better and better.  Several adventures, a new baby, and lots of fun later, we are ready for a new year and more good times.  Here's our year in review:
Lots of visits from family--Hotel Rockwood welcomes family whenever we get the chance!
Orchestra concerts
Fun runs
Track meets
The first annual Rockwood Color Fest
Goblin Valley Trip with friends and family
Swimming lessons
Little Mermaid the musical
Hiking
Eric's birthday!
Hallam reunion at Henry's Lake
Yellowstone visit
Cross country meets
Footlocker Meet in California
Eric's first smile, laugh, roll over, visit to the beach, plane ride
Friends wedding in Atlanta

Shooting with Grampa

After Christmas we went up to Rexburg to visit my folks.  We went out shooting in the afternoon to try out Dave's new guns that he got for Christmas.  They were a lot of fun.

Meg and Brinn would go find the pigeons that I missed.

Grampa was 100% in his shooting.

Look closely and you can see the pigeon shattering in the picture.

Dave and his new shotgun.

Brinn shooting Grampa's pellet gun.

Meg and the pellet gun.

Grampa and the girls having a snowball fight.  Grampa is hiding behind the truck, but you can see his snowball heading towards the girls.

Dave and his new rifle.

Learning how to use photoshop

For Christmas I got photoshop and have been playing around figuring out how to use it.  Here are a few tricks I learned.

Blurring around a portrait to make the face stand out.

Basic photo editing.

Skin smoothing...not that Meg needed it, but because that was the picture I had.

And using a layer mask to selectively make things color vs. b/w.  Again, not that this picture really needed it, but because I was trying to figure it out. :)

Eric Goes to the Beach

The first week in December we were down in California for the western regional cross country race, called Footlocker.  Eric and I tagged along with the Payson Cross Country team and had a great time.  Eric did really well on the 12 hour bus ride and was great throughout the trip.  He really enjoyed our afternoon at the beach, especially playing in the sand.

I thought it would be a shame if he didn't actually get to touch the ocean.

He absolutely loved playing in the sand, and amazingly, didn't try to eat it.