Do you see me?

Do you?

Heartbroken

This morning, while spending some time getting to know my new camera, I carelessly formatted the card without moving my photos to the computer.

It took a while before I realized that all my Christmas Day pictures were on that card.

I cried.
A lot.

I know that in the big picture, it's not the end of the world.
I know that we have the memories and we still had an amazing day.
I really know this, but I'm still very sad.

My Men

My very handsome men...

I love you!

A Sparkly Ice Christmas

This may be all the "snow" we have this Christmas...there is none in the forecast.
But this certainly is pretty.

Fog comes in during the night and the temps are so cold that it freezes on anything it can cling to.
The sun finally came out today and the blue skies added beautiful contrast to the white ice crystals.
I was able to capture the scene before it melted away.

One of the last leaves hanging on the maple tree...

Branches where a bird named Mohawk hung out not too many months ago...

Sanchez is spending a cold winter waiting for our next year's garden...

Hannah's pumpkin..
It got too cold before it had a decent chance to rot.

If you're interested, these were taken with my new camera...auto with no flash and a zoom for some of the pictures.
The colors didn't come out as true as I expected when I uploaded them, so I used the editing software that came with it and was able to change a few things to make them look like I saw them initially through the lens.
I was amazed at the results.  In a few minutes I was able to make adjustments (in brightness, sharpness, contrast and saturation) that made the pictures POP!
Yea Canon!
I'm in love!!

First Pictures

Today Donald loaded the software for my new camera.  The learning curve for this treasure is HUGE!
I'm excited and intimidated.
I've just played around with the camera a little...and love it already.
Here's a few pictures.

This is officially the first picture I took...
bad lighting
auto mode
zoom lens

still cute!

Here's Pounce...

he doesn't care about the camera - he's just freezing his butt off!

(Sorry cat lovers - we don't let animals in our house...we already have three)

(P.S.  He has a heated box in the garage for sleeping...don't worry)

Here's proof that its freezing.

Friday night we had a heavy fog inversion that left us with beautiful frosty trees.

They are still like this...it hasn't gotten above 20 degrees yet today

Here are a few Christmas card picture outtakes...
We've had no sunshine for the past few days...just cold overcast skies.
I took a few shots around the Christmas tree and they are cute, but the colors and lighting were just not working.

Then I opened the sheers and took a pictures with what little outside light we had and loved the results much better.
Nothing beats natural light.

So we took the card photo here and they turned out great (imho)!

Obnoxious amounts of more camera fun to come!
:)

Early Birthday to Me!

My sweet sneaky family surprised me on the 5th (20 days early) with a little party!
It included some powdered sugar donuts with candles.
Delicious treats to eat that they know I love!
Some sewing tools to help prevent me from slicing another finger off...(that's an entirely different post that you probably don't want to see!)

and...


the...


best...


gift...


EVER!!

BAM!
CANON REBEL EOS T2i!!
DREAM CAMERA!!

I screamed!
A lot!

Thank you to the beautiful faces here in front of the camera...and to the handsome one behind it!

My Poser

We have a neat feature on our mac that is called Photo Booth.
You can create cool pictures of yourself while sitting at the computer.

Occasionally I go into Photo Booth to see what the kids have been up to.
What I've found is that one child in particular is quite fond of taking photos of herself...

It looked like so much fun, I decided to join her!!

I'll bet Ivan wishes we'd get out of his room!!

Shoot!

I was going to call this entry "The Big Suprise"...
But so much time has gone by, that now it just doesn't feel like a "big surprise" anymore.

It was at the time though...we took a sorta last minute trip to...

Disneyland!

In late summer Donald got a nice little unexpected bonus from his employer.
Did he spend it on a new "toy" for himself?
Nope!
His first thought was, "let's take the kids to Disneyland"
Yep!
I love him!

He probably felt like we owed it to the kids since we took our own grownup trip just a year ago!

These plans were top secret!
I did everything on the down low and managed to keep it a complete surprise!

We told the kids we were heading to Seattle for a last fun weekend before the passes got too hard to drive over.
We informed the school they would be missing a couple of days of school.

On a Wednesday morning we headed to Seattle.
But things got confusing when we entered the Thrifty Airport Parking Lot.
And on the shuttle, why were people talking about the airport???

At this point, Ivan was really confused and even had concerns that we were going to kidnap them.
Huh?

Once at the airport and on the plane to Santa Ana, Hannah had a pretty good idea of where we were headed...but like a good sister, she kept quiet.
You just can't fool those big kids too well.
But Jenelle and Ivan remained completely confused!
This is Jenelle's confused/anxious look!

Our flight landed and we headed in a private van to our hotel!
On the way, Donald was telling the kids that, Surprise!  We are headed to a family retreat where we get to sit around a campfire and talk about our feelings with each other!
That didn't sound very good to anyone!!

We finally arrived at our destination and as they got out of the van in front of the Disney Paradise Pier hotel, the reality set in!
And just like I had hoped for, there was screaming and jumping and hugging!
Well...all three were happy, but only two were doing the jumping and screaming!

We started that night with a trip into Downtown Disney for dinner.
(ate at the Rainforest Cafe...over priced and pretty awful food - will never go there again)

But bad food can't destroy a kids' joy at Disneyland!!
These blurry pictures do a good job at illustrating how excited Ivan was...he could barely contain himself!

Now we just had to get some sleep and get ready for our first day in Disneyland!!

When I orginally started this post, I was going to do it in several parts.
Time has slipped away from me again and I have many other things I want to get to, so I'm just going to add the pictures that I want to remember and that I think you'll enjoy.
Suffice it to say, we had a wonderful time!!

 Does this look like a happy face?!

My awesome fam!!

DELICIOUS frozen lemonades...and some serious people watching while we ate!

Heading into the Matterhorn...Ivan looks concerned...and was so for many of the rides!

Isn't this odd - and just a little bit scary?
The whole scene was captured accidentally, but you just have to laugh at the pictures...both foreground and back!

While we sat and ate our dinner, a Disney employee walked by and said, "Hey, it's the corn dog family!"
She walked away and then returned asking if we wanted a picture.
Of course!
Who wouldn't want to be preserved forever on film after a exhausting day of walking around Disneyland and then stuffing your face with greasy fried food.
Why not?!

This ride caused a lot of grief for one little man.

There were bribes and deals and made so that we could all ride this together and one parent didn't have to wait.

One parent in particular who loves this ride with all her heart.

Do you want to know how evil I am?

I made him ride it three times.

Each time he hated it more.

But seriously...Disneyland tickets cost...well, let's just say A LOT!

I wasn't no one was going to miss out...sorry if that makes me bad.

Guess what though...he survived with no permanent damage.  

At least none that has manifested itself yet.

Then came California Screamin'.

Ivan said he would try it, but got more and more nervous as we approached the front of the line.

Jenelle was nervous too, but she was determined.

Donald and I decided that we had pushed him enough and he could wait.  

There was a place for him to safely wait for us to be done and come retrieve him...all the while being able to watch the cars take off and return.

When we returned from the coaster ride, Ivan was watching our faces intently.

He said that he really wanted to try it because when we started Jenelle was crying and when we came back, she was screaming to do it again!

We did ride again...and again...and again.

It became one of his favorites!

A couple of the pictures I took reminded me of a trip about 5 years ago...my how times change...

Five years goes pretty fast!

Thanks Mickey!
You rock!

Fall

I thought I'd better get some pictures in of fall because believe me...it won't be around for long here.
We are already seeing temperatures in the low 20's at night and the passes are going to get snow this week.

But, for now,we are enjoying autumn.
The sun is out.
The colors are incredible.
And that wonderful end of the year / holiday time feeling is in the air.

 Our pumpkin harvest...

 fall mums...

gorgeous golden leaves...

 from our amazing birch tree...

and my ever present helper.

The kids have a money making opportunity this fall.
Donald told them that if they rake leaves throughout the season, he'll pay them $20 at the end.

His original offer only included Ivan and Hannah, but as you can see, Jenelle assumed she was part of the plan.
How can you refuse a little helper?
So now she's included as well.

Last weekend, after some time raking, Hannah came in with a complaint about Ivan.
Can you guess what it might be?

Um yea...
you guessed correctly.
We've had to talk about exactly HOW you earn the money...you actually have to do some work!