tired moody

I'm soooo tired! DSE was a blast and a lot of work. I got home at 10:30 Saturday night and slept until Sunday at 8. Then it was off to church to help with the primary program. After church Tyler took a nap. After dinner we headed out for a drive. I was trying so hard to keep from falling asleep too early. I was having fun with the camera and my crazy shirt kind of pushed me in that direction. All I need now is black hair and bright blue highlights. Have you heard of Bam & Jim's Posing School? It's a hilarious spoof that Bambi Cantrell and Jim Garner put together. Just thought I'd share and please laugh right along with us!




My sister in law came over tonight and we had fun in the studio creating these fun images. We call it an executive session because it's so much more than head shots. check them out here

Digital Scrapbook Experience - Friendships

I had an absolute blast at DSE and I'll write more about it later. It was a dream come true to teach for them. Here is a page I made about friendships. I was excited to finally meet Tiffany Tillman and Lori Anderson. I spent a lot of time talking with Anna and making sure we both got our wheat free meals! It was comforting to see someone who else who fights with food intolerance/allergy issues. And I can't tell you how much I adore April. She's brilliant and she loves being a mom. She is super easy to talk to. It was as if we had never been separated by the miles. She is an incredible friend and the kind of person that makes me feel at ease with who I am.

In the photo below:
back row:
April Anderton, Candice Stringham, Tiffany Tillman, Laura Vanderbeek
front row:
Lori Anderson, Jessica Sprague
other:
Anna Aspnes

Digital Page Link for DSE students

Here is the link for this page under what's new at CottageArts.net

Don't forget to enter the code your received at DSE to make it FREE!



Free newsletter sign-up and order/download tutorial at CottageArts.net

Free Newsletter sign-up: Sign Up Here
Order/download tutorial: Tutorial Download

Digital Scrapbook Experience Texture

If you are taking my Photo Editing: Perfecting People Class you will want/need this texture.
If you are not, download it and have fun anyway!
And it's a transparent .png and will take a bit of time to get because it's a few mb's



And you'll need to download this image and bring it with you if you want to learn how to head swap.

Glow Sticks

Last night we went to my nephew's birthday party. I was so glad when he gave each of his cousins a glow stick and balloon instead of candy. Thank you D*! My husband took these great night shots of our children when we got home. I love how they turned out!

click on image to see it much larger

I'm feeling so domestic...

So...I crochet, scrapbook, cook, clip coupons sometimes, etc but I've never done this before.

I have a cool Mother In Law

I feel bad for people who don't like their in-laws. I'm pretty lucky. My in-laws are fabulous people. And my mother-in-law has had this dream of making these for a while. Each family bought a barrel, so there will eventually be 5. We bought them from a neighbor for $10/each which is a super deal. Then my mother in law bought the tires and had the frames made. We are going to paint ours before it's attached to the welded part. We are thinking of making different attachments according to holidays or celebrations. Fun!

Pumpkins

We might end up with some pumpkins after all. Well, at least 3 of them anyway. Do you remember this? The little baby pumpkin with the closed bud on the end now looks like the one on the right in this photo:

The pumpkin on the left is a Spirit bush pumpkin.

My Family

Yesterday my sister's oldest daughter and my parent's oldest grandchild, entered the waters of baptism. She really is a great example to the rest of the grandchildren. Her father baptized her and then confirmed her a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. We believe that children are innocent before the age of 8 and are baptized only after reaching the age of accountability. Afterward we paused for a few photos out in front of the church. I love the photos of my Dad and my son. Makes me all teary eyed. Precious memories indeed. We were only missing one family member. Chris, we love you and missed you!

Camping - a first this year

We normally spend our summer weekends up in the hills. Well, not this year. It's just been non-stop. Tyler and I added up the miles spent traveling (and this does not include errands, driving to work, etc). We are each up around the 6,000 mile mark often traveling apart from each other! That's a lot of time spent in the car for each of us. Anyway, we finally made camping a priority. Haeley spent a lot of time drawing camping pictures while in the Jeep. We took a few minutes to get photos of us together as a family and then it was time for tin foil dinners and roasting marshmallows over the fire. Then I let Haeley take a few photos. I love handing her the camera. Even better? Sorting through to find the treasures of her work. We really had fun and CJ slept through the entire night - a first! Maybe we can do this again...

Thank goodness for timers! We celebrated 10 years of marriage in August. What wonderful blessings have come to us through being together. My husband and my children make me a better person.


Campfire - perfect for tinfoil dinners and roasting marshmallows


I love quaking aspen trees.


Photo of berries by Haeley


That sleeping bag is almost as big as he is. I wish I had a video of his face when I rescued him from it. Pure relief. Hilarious!


Photo by Haeley of her brother


My sweetie!


I stayed to keep the campfire attended while they went for a walk. I love photos of people going places.

Decorating for fall

I love decorating for fall. And this year, we grew some of our decorations. We even shared some with Grandma Patterson. Anyway, I spent about $2 on assorted pumpkin seeds this year. Here are some of the small ones that are ready early.

It's the little things in life...

Really. This may not seem like much but I am so grateful for this. Wheat Free Pizza Crust - and it is absolutely DELICIOUS! The brand is Chebe. That doesn't happen very often. My husband even made the comment that he couldn't tell that it was wheat free. I made the comment that this would make a great item to add to our 3 month food storage supply. It says you can even make a bread bowl out of it. Hmmm...I'm thinking about broccoli cheese soup when it gets a little colder.