My Girls

The oldest was all dressed up and I had a little time so I decided to do her Back-to-School pictures a few days early.
We ran off to the red brick wall down the street to a little photo-shoot.
Of course the little sister wanted in on the fun and I was happy to oblige.

Behind the scenes.

I thought the pictures turned out adorable.
It probably doesn't hurt that my girls are so gorgeous!

If you give a girl a camera (and a tri-pod)

Not to be confused with, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie".

Although the results are very similar.

One Monday morning I wanted to get some things done on the computer.

My busy, busy, busy daughter (did I mention how nonstop this girl is?) wanted something to do.

At first she climbed on my back while I sat at the computer.

Then she tried to poke my nose.

Yes I know, she wanted attention, but believe me she gets plenty and sometimes I need to get things done.

Then she stuck her fingers in my ears and that wasn't pleasant.

But then she saw the camera!

And she wanted to know if I would take her picture.

Then I had a brilliant idea.

Camera + tripod + timer =  a distracting activity for my girl.

So I set up the tripod, showed her how to zoom and use the timer, and let her have at it.

She was in heaven.

The following pictures are from her photo shoot.

They are in the sequence in which they were taken. They have not been edited. I did however leave out duplicate pictures and a couple that made me look like a scary monster.

Enjoy!

Now just like in , If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, she thinks she needs more. Her own camera, her own cel phone (because they take pictures too), her own blog, her own computer, etc, etc, etc....

This could be a hobbie in the making.

Possibly a profession?

Who knows.

I could be biased

But I really don't think I am.

I think that these are 6 of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen.

and I'm not just saying that because my daughter is one of them.

They truly are beautiful inside and out.

For one of Banana's YW class activities they had a photographer in our ward teach them about photography and take some pictures.

After some photo editing she gave all of the girls a cd with copies the pictures.

Doesn't it look like they had fun?!

She even gave each of the girls a color and black & white version of their individual photos.

I just loaded up the color ones of Banana though.

She is just so gorgeous.

MDH always has told her that she has a "1, 2 & 3 Punch"

Beauty, Brains & Kindness.

Without a doubt he's right!

Love this girl.

The Jello of Sleepy Hollow

Okay, I totally had to share this! Without a doubt this is what I'd call blog worthy!

So we had a Chili Cook-Off and Jello Mold-Off at church tonight.

I've never won anything before....well unless you count the Finding Nemo towel our family won from Disney.com or the Bag of weird groceries we won from Smith's grocery store....but I'm not counting those because those were totally random and this I/we (my husband and I) won because someone liked what we did and that's never happened to me before!!!! Ever!!!

We live in Utah so of course Jello molds are a part of our culture right ;), you must have heard about green jello with shredded carrots before, or jello is its own food group, or jello with marshmallows, jello with ice cream, or jello with whipped cream, or jello with everything.

A friend even told me in her mom's old neighborhood cook book a recipe for jello called for whipped cream but said mayonnaise could be substituted for the cream.

Nasty!

Anyway, poking fun at our own culture there was a jello mold-off.

and

WE WON!

So the plan was to hollow out a pumpkin, fill it with yellow jello, then when it was set carve the pumpkin, it would look kind of like a pumpkin with a light inside.

What really happened.

The pumpkin was big - it took 4 large boxes of Jello (16 cups of water).

The jello never really became firm.

The pumpkin was super dry and stringy.

When I carved the face the jello started coming out of the mouth.

So we taped and plastic wrapped the mouth back in place to transport it to church.

Then when we got to church we took out the mouth and let the guts spill out onto a tray.

It was pretty stinkin' awesome if I do say so myself.

and

It totally helped that this pumpkin was dry and stringy because the stringy bits totally completed the look.

They judged the jello and then let people dig in.

When people dished up the jello they were taking it from the mouth it gave me a chuckle.

So the family got in on giving this jello a title.

I liked:

The Jello of Sleepy Hollow

But we also came up with:

Jell-o-Lantern

Jello Jack

Jack-o-Jello

(From 11 year old son) Pumpkin Barf.....yeah I know, he's 11.

I'm already coming up with ideas for next year!

Can't wait!

Ellen....my new friend

Wednesday I met my love at Quincy Market to grab some lunch and do some shopping.
When we got there, there was a huge crowd standing around and TV cameras so I asked someone who they were waiting for. They said, "Ellen Degeneres".
My love and I didn't stick around, we went on our way and found some tasty treats and other fun things to purchase.
When my love had to go back to his meetings I decided to stick around the market.
I hadn't been there long when who should appear but my new friend Ellen.
She arrived in style......of course.....on a duckboat.

I quickly realized she would be walking right past me so I prepared to snap some awesome photos of my new friend.

I was all ready when she walked by....

Then this ginormous freckled arm came from nowhere and thwarted my photo plans.

But I wasn't too concerned because I still had a second to snap another pic.

But then the friendly lady next to me with the "I love Ellen" shirt decided I really didn't need to get an up close picture of my new friend.

But that's okay because I figured I could get a picture while she was standing and receiving her award from the city of Boston.

But then Ellen decided to stand right behind the gigantic column.

See the podium, that's where she was.

But at least the beagle had a good view.