photo contest

So, while not doing anything productive (while the overflowing dishes are calling my name, as well as all the folded laundry chillin' on my bed) this evening I ran across a post on Mommy Always Wins about a photo contest. So, I went on to read how to enter. I'm In Culture Shock says to post a portrait shot that I took, a fairly recent one - hope October is recent enough to be qualified. I'm sure many other way more talented peeps will enter, but I figured what the hell, let's do it!

So, here it is...

So, yeah...that's all for today...

That figures....and Thanksgiving re-cap

DH is going "out-of-town" for 2 and a half weeks. He's been at work for two weeks today. He was also slotted to go to some Master Gunner school in the beginning of the year. Now they are screwing with him about switching his company. The end of the work week last week someone told him not to worry about switching companies and that he'll stay where he is for a while - not according to someone else today. So, we'll see what happens when he gets back - both the companies that he might go to are deploying at some point next year, so hopefully we'll find out what is going on soon so that we can start to prepare.

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The Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone as quickly as it snuck up on me. Kathy and her family came down to hang out for the long weekend. They arrived on Wednesday and left on Saturday morning. It was so neat to have us all in the same place. The kids got along like they've known each other forever. We ate a lot of good food, played some games and attempted to take some pictures.

How about some pictures...

The Thanksgiving Day spread.

Another one of the food.

Some yummy sweet potatoes.

The delicious turkey that Kathy slaved over.

All 9 of us.

The best picture of the 4 of them.

Jacob.

Ashely.

Alex had to get in on the action too.

Awww, aren't they cute?!

The only good shot of my boys out of 80.

playing catch up & some pictures

I hate playing catch up from being out of town.

The mountain of dirty clothing that was lurking in my laundry room is almost all gone. I have a working dishwasher now. Alex's room no longer looks to be in limbo, the stacks of clothing have disappeared, the bed resembles a place one could sleep and random things won't fall out of the closet when you slide open the doors. Our living room is also in a much better state now. It no longer resembles a war zone of cardboard and packing paper.

My garage still resembles a storage unit unfortunately. The reason the house still looks like we just received our stuff is because my dear Tom likes to sit and play Saints Row 2 and while he wastes his time away playing video games, I sit on my ever expanding butt and surf the 'net. I find interesting sites here and there, open a new tab...continue surfing and find some great blogs, bookmark...and on and on.

Ah, well....I'll post a few pictures from the weekend. Then I'm removing myself from the couch and hoping that there isn't an imprint from my butt in the cushion when I finally stand up. lol

Alright, that took longer than I anticipated. I wish more of the photos had turned out, oh well, I was having much more fun watching everyone have a good time and having a good time myself to dwell on making sure all my shots were great. I still wonder about this whole professional photographer thing - I really want to do it, I just don't think I can put myself out there enough to do that. Besides my editing skills are really lacking as is any idea of how to go about getting a business started. Wonder if I can run a business out of my house?

{slip 'n slide}

So, Tom & I agreed a few months ago that while the cheapo pools are fun for the kiddos we just don't take care of it like we should. Besides we don't have any time to fix the grass that would inevitably die underneath. So, we agreed on a slip 'n slide for this summer. We finally went out to get it on Friday afternoon. Target only had 2 kinds and we weren't in the mood to go running around anymore so we bought the inflatable raft style with the little "lagoon" at the end. Jason and Tommy were a bit disappointed since they had hoped for the shark pool or something like that. Once we got it to the house and set up they all had so much fun.

Anthony is unsure of running & sliding down it, but he will crawl to the end under the shower of water. Alex doesn't have the balance or grace to run & slide, so I'm glad that he doesn't attempt it, he likes to crawl don the slide and dive into the pool. I took over 300 photos that afternoon, I deleted quite a few, I think I'm down to 270 now. There are still some more I need to go through. I did get a chance to edit some of them so I will try to post those in a minute.

On the digi side of things...I created my first layout as a team member for Amanda Heimann. I used the Tiki Tiki Boom Boom kit for it. I've been really good on not spending money on supplies too, only $1 since payday! lol I think that's a record for me, but I really do have more than I have used. So, until I get a bunch more layouts done, no more hefty spending on digi supplies; but who can resist the $1 days some shops have! lol :)

And, now onto the photos...I will post them as thumbnail size so that it won't take the page sooo long to load. Hopefully they will look good enough to click on and see the larger version. Once I get my new watermark/logo done up I will begin to post them on my photography blog too.

happy hump day

So, it's Wednesday already...I don't know where the beginning of the week went. It has been slightly stressful with the additional child here, but not horrible. I think I feel like we must entertain him during his stay. Which wouldn't be so bad if we had money to do alot of stuff, besides a small fortune for gas money.

We did take them to the pool on base yesterday. It was half the cost of the other pool I was going to take them to, but someone complained because he had to stay in the kiddie pool with us. We've been watching some of the movies we've stashed; Jumper, Be Kind Rewind, Semi-Pro and The Bucket List. It's been nice to relax with the hubby for a change, but I feel really lazy.

While I was gone I was hoping to get some time to scrap & take a lot of photos, but that didn't happen either. I took a few photos, but did nothing on the scrapbook front. Speaking of scrapbooking...Amanda Heimann added me to her CT! I'm excited, I love her stuff. I also applied to Karah Fredricks CT, hoping that maybe this will help to curb my digi-spending. lmao

So, I should really go do something productive...I will leave you with a few of my favorite photos from our trip.

On the housing wait list

Ok, so since Tom is so super busy each and everyday at work I was tasked with faxing our application to the housing office. So, we are on the list! I made Tom call and verify that they received our fax when he arrived home.

I also ran to Giant to get bananas and 2 liters of Coke for drinks this weekend and to Wal-Mart for the movie releases of the week and a box of diapers for little man. Then I came home and didn't do much of anything else. Oh, wait...I did get 6 auctions listed on ebay. Cross your fingers that they sell, and for a decent price.

I discovered my debit card for one of my bank accounts is missing. Yeah, so I've got to tear the house apart and look for it tomorrow. I also realized that tomorrow is the 'last day' according the the county website to register Anthony for kindergarten in the fall. So, we will also be doing that tomorrow. I'm currently listening to Tom complain and have fits about the trash that is so full that it won't come out of the can without a fight. I wonder if he remembers he's the one that likes to push the trash down to cram more in?

Ok, now to finish this thing...I've only been working on it since about 7:30 or so, it's 11:45 now. So, here are the pictures that I was working on to share. So, since I forgot everything else I meant to blog about, I'll leave you with these. :) The boys decided that I couldn't make Anthony's bed after their bath, so I decided to play with my camera while they jumped and had fun.