have you ever suffered the effects of picture overload?

well, if you haven’t, you  might now.
the kids were out of school today and what with it being the end of september, we planned a hike.  september usually yields the perfect weather for hiking..  not too hot, not too cold, usually some pretty fall foliage to look at while we make our way.
that sort of stuff.
it was a perfect day.
it was a wee bit hotter than usual (more like the end of august).
and we did have to find a different trail head (a paraglider was injured up the trail, broke both of his ankles so the normal trail head was closed off).  but we all got to see all the flashy emergency vehicles and news vehicles. even the lifeflight helicopter!!  we watched it take off and hover and land multiple times.
the extra that we did hike was easy and so pretty.
(no complaining here.)
so there were the usual suspects, me, mom,promise, ken, and our kiddos + dad, joe, josh, cade, and soph.  it was nice for all of us to be together.
(kev joined us when he finished work.)

walking sticks were helpful..

I just can’t get enough of abby and the sweet daddy’s girl she is!

loved this moment with levi, ken, abby, and dad..

the kids, and some of the big kids (ken and joe), climbed on other rocks and boulders, ya know, just for the fun of it! 

abby threw rocks into the river just about every chance she could.

we took lots of breaks..
mostly because of the little ones.  whether it was because they needed the break, or we (i) did, because we were carrying the wee-est.

or maybe we stopped to get hugs and kisses from grammy (or a drink of her ice cold water).

one of the funny moments of our hike was when we got to the falls.  we came to this one first, and it was just so little and cute!  I wanted a picture of all three of my chicks sitting by it.  ashley was the only one who wanted to cooperate.  I threw out, in my onery/sassyness (probably because I was dealing with a tired and crying 3 year old, carrying her most of the way up the dang mountain, all because of a bedtime snafu..) to the other two,  “what, you don’t want a memory of this?  FINE.  I’ll stop trying to make memories for you!!!”
that got a chuckle from the rest of the party.
but wasn’t it worth it?
she’s so cute..

speaking of the 3 year old…

and here’s the view from the top…

lynn doing her best vanna white…

see, some kiddos like to pose, like having their picture snapped..

others, not so much.
(the blur is james.)

here’s my family:

and this cute caterpillar we found on our way down.
we were bringing up the rear like it was going out of style!!



the last funny, that i can clearly recall, was while we were bringing up the rear awesomely, i was carrying peyton (despite the fact that she WANTED to walk at that point) because she was moving about as fast as our little caterpillar friend.  we stumbled on some of the loose rock, the forming blisters on my feet aided in the stumble, as did my tiredness,  and i "oh!-ed".  ash turned around, all concerned, and said: "did you fall?  i fell.  it wasn't comfortable.  but i didn't cry."
love that kid!
and there you have it, a lovely end to our summer hikes.
or maybe not?
p.s. congrats for making it through the picture overload.

tis the end of september.

can you believe it?!

time has never passed faster, I swear. 

there are many things I either forgot to do (birthday countdown for the middle child) or thought I would somehow have more time to do.

enter creative team layouts.

my assigned designer to work with this month was jessica sprague and I felt that hybrid was only fitting to showcase her goodies.

that is an awesome idea and all, if you have a organized/functioning space in which to make said hybrid craft/layout.

so between two days of work (but a still messy craft.scrap/sewing room) I have my two layouts done.

(and more planned!)

it was quite fun to be back there with my hands doing something besides ctrl+z.

(click on the layouts for full list of credits.)

what I loved about these, was that I designed the 8x10 spaces using jessica’s photo templates.  then all I had to do was print them off on my presentation paper (I like the matte quality to it), and print off another sheet of other papers and embellishments and have fun putting it all together.

I need to do more of this, more often.

eat.

merrill hates the obviously stated.

hates it.

so being the wonderful wife that I am, I decided that it would be cute, to post something stated quite obviously, because I thought it would be cute and rather fitting.

while hunting down corbels for a project that has cost me much time, sweat, and tears, I came across these at hobby lobby.

aren’t they cute!!  they are about 2 feet long.  so fun.

I had to put the word eat above them..  had to do it.

and merrill hates it.

(maybe hate is too strong a word.)

he really dislikes the obvious stated.

“I know what to do when I see a knife and fork.”

(maybe sometime I will have to go into more of this particular conversation wherein he told me that he resents me for making him read everyday.  “you put this stuff up around the house that I have to read..  I pass it everyday, and I know what it says, but every time I pass it, I have to read it.”  see, resentment.)

oh well.  I think it’s cute.

I look forward to making the word “read” and hanging it in the reading area downstairs.

(I love my scroll saw.)

and before we leave the subject of eat..

(didn’t we, when I started talking about reading?…)

I made these.

found on pinterest.

they are good.  and I am talking about every step of the process, from licking out the sweetened condensed milk can, to cleaning the pan, to you know, eating them…

(I used yellow cake batter cake mix.  it is merrill’s favorite and I used it trying to coax him into liking my “eat” wall wordage.)

(hey, the tasty bribes worked with the wee ones.)

(don’t judge me.)

but I would suggest following her recipe for the glaze.

this silly woman (finger pointing at me) thought she knew better, tweaked it a bit, and well, we were left eating them like this:

with a spoon.

but they are tasty.

(and the picture isn’t as pretty as hers.)

a three year old's prayers.

we've talked about peyton's prayers in the past.  they only get better.
with all the "bad dreams" going on around this joint (i swear, it's contagious!) prayers at all times of the day refer to bedtime and what usually happens.
at breakfast, it isn't uncommon to hear one of the girls ask that they not have bad dreams that night (like 12 hours later).
bedtime, they are down to business though, even making suggestions for what they can be blessed to dream about.
tonight at dinner, peyton asked to dream about princesses.
a couple of nights ago, she prayed that she wouldn't have bad dreams so she wouldn't wake up and have to come and get in my bed.
"and bless that i won't have bad dreams so i won't have to get in mom's bed."
it was sweet, funny, and, well, it made me feel like a bad mom.  i guess i have been complaining a little bit too much about my sleep being interrupted.

“pin”spiration.

so let me tell you how pinterest snagged me and hasn’t quite eased up.
a lot of my friends out there (you better know who you are..) have been talking all about it, saying how great it is, yadda yadda yadda.
knowing how I am, a rebel to all that is popular, I ignored it.  for a while.
you see, I had a routine for saving all those things that I found around the internet and blogs that I loved, and dreamed of making, that just wasn’t working out as well as it had been.
I began saving images in my picture file on my computer.  (good.)
my sister-in-law told me of a genius idea to put those things in their own folder on my computer, labeled, what else: “ideas”.  (better!)
but then there arose the issue of me not remembering exactly where I got the idea from.  (instructions are very important things at times.)  oh sure, I usually knew where I got the idea from, sometimes there was a watermark on the image, but to sift through hundreds of blog posts, sometimes months after I came across the idea, was a major time waster.
so I tried to save all the ideas I liked in my bookmarks folder.
until merrill made fun of me.
and really, before he mocked me, it really wasn’t working.  there were vague descriptors of what that bookmark was marking, no image, and the were forgotten.
enter pinterest.
I looked into it, and it made total sense.  it solved all of my problems in that, I could save the picture AND the link to where the idea was found.  no searching and pulling my hair out trying to find the original source!!
oh, but that is not all..
it does more!
I can sort all of my “pins” into neat little categories or boards (something that I am still trying to perfect).  so all my halloween stuff is on one board and christmas gets its own area.  photography ideas don’t mingle with recipes..  it’s order, not chaos anymore!!
I also love that I can follow people whose style I admire, people who have crazy ingenuity and creativity.
I am totally addicted.
(I have also found new blogs to stalk..)
so out of my love of pinning, and creating my own version of others ideas, I am officially coining the new word: “pinspiration”.
I saw this:
(click on image for source.)

and I LOVED it!!!
(it is so me, and a few others I know..)
I took the idea, tweaked it a bit, and came up with this:
(click on the image for full list of credits.)

I can see that this is going to be a long, beautiful relationship!

aaron+eli

here is a wedding that the bride took care of every single detail!

it was amazing..

and I felt so bad that a freak rainstorm came and dumped right before their backyard ceremony.

(good thing she had me there early to photograph all of those little details..)

this one thing I really wanted to do this summer, but didn’t, so I guess, I’ll get to it now.. maybe.

one of those awesome, “make life easier changes”, streamline life, and just plain change it up, things I was going to do this last summer, and, well, never found the time (or wanted to spend it in front of the computer long enough to execute it..), was to combine the three blogs, my three loves and identities.

yeah.

hasn’t happened, eh?

it is going to.

so when you stop by, you will understand why there might be scrapping one day, photography the next, a funny story or tow another, and then maybe some goodies posted for good measure.

it has been something that I have been mulling over for awhile, and it just makes sense!

(making sense and helping my mom to navigate and find the things she wants to..)

the archives will be up at those other two places for a while still, and excuse me if your google reader fills up with all the posts I will be importing here and re-tagging and sorting.

I know.

I am totally selfish.

I want my life to be easier! 

between diet coke and chocolate…

here I am, enjoying a diet coke and some hershey’s miniatures, and realize that I have other goodies to share today..

some new products at jessica sprague (available today) are getting me in the mood to scrap (more) and make some fun hybrid stuff for the halloween season.

first up:

carina gardner-

(click on layouts for list of full credits.)

and some cosmo cricket:

can’t you see a little banner, just like this, but in real life?

I can too..  hopefully I will get it done soon!