Sunday, January 24, 2010

What is this???!!

Can you tell?
It's something my husband made.....

Not the shape you'd usually expect!

It doesn't taste quite right either!

Yep, it's a LOAF OF BREAD made in our breadmaker!  I knew you'd recognize it.  :)

I've been on a mission of late to have our family eat more healthfully.  I'm working toward trying to rid our house of processed foods... or at least many of them.  We're expanding our taste buds.  We're eating more things from scratch.  When our pantry shelves run bare of things like crackers, fruit roll ups, and cheez-its, I'm not replacing them.  And... we've been baking bread.... from scratch... often times (but not always) with the help of our new bread maker.

Hutch has been quite supportive... and has taken over making loaves of bread in our breadmaker.  He's made a few loaves and all have turned out well.... except tonight....  Me thinks it might have something to do with the fact that he tried a recipe entitled "traditional white bread" and used whole wheat flour rather than white flour!

Send postive thoughts our way - and recipes - as we take on this new endeavor.  Neither Hutch nor I grew up eating particularly healthy foods... and, well, lets just say the non-healthy food is much more attractive at the moment than the healthy food choices.

And, that loaf of bread... it tastes much better than it looks.  I wouldn't have torn a piece off of the top of it or anything to try it....  nah...  We'll see what the kids think in the morning.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Look Who Turned Seven!

Happy Birthday Sweeetie! 2003 2004
2005 2006
2007
2008
2009
We love you!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Sunday Questions From Mannland5

Mannland5 is having a Sunday "Getting to know you" blog carnival. For everyone who joins in, she'll donate money to the Red Cross. Go check it out here.

1. Hair color..Au naturale..or not?
Not natural... Always swore I would never color my hair... then I turned gray at 38. (I'm 42 by the way) :) Still not proud of the fact that I color my hair, but whatever... :)

2. If somebody has food in their teeth or lipstick on their teeth do you tell them?
It depends upon how well I know them. If I know them fairly well... then... definitely yes... If I don't know them well, I might say something, might not. Depends on how obvious it was and whether I felt like it would embarrass them.

3. Would you rather have a million dollars or your vision of the perfect body? Definitely a million dollars - you can do a lot of good with that!

4. Favorite magazine? Hmm... not sure on that... like reading photography magazines at the moment... Or craft magazines, parenting magazines.....

5. Bra style..lacey or plain? Plain most of the time... lacey once in a very long while.

6. If you walked into Victoria's Secret..would you most likely come out with something sexy or comfy? Unfortunately for my hubby, probably comfy. :) But who needs stuff to wear anyway!

7. Do you fake and bake? Nope.

8. What's your favorite body part on a man? Eyes - windows to the soul

Sunday, January 3, 2010

You know you are a photographer when...

... Your daughter is running around the house trying to take a picture of your son (who doesn't want his picture taken) and your son shouts, "You might get me, but it will be blurry!" Guess they are all ears when I am taking pictures (i.e. begging them to sit still so that the picture won't be blurry!) :)

Friday, January 1, 2010

Favorite Photos 2009

Collages of my favorite photos of our children from 2009.

Flush

Happy New Year!

We've been enjoying a relaxing holiday here at home this year. We've managed to get quite a few projects done, but have also purposed to spend more time with the kids. As a result, I've been more aware of how incredibly creative they are and have heard so many funny things.

Elizabeth, yesterday you and Alex were in the basement playing "camping with the Native Americans" (that's what you called it). You were busy roasting something over the fire and announced, "Come on, time to roast some animal FLUSH over the fire". Daddy said, "I think you mean FLESH". Without skipping a beat you said, "No, this Indian tribe doesn't have an E in their alphabet". :)

Monday, December 28, 2009

"Hilarious Outtakes" - I Heart Faces

This week's challenge at I ♥ Faces is "hilarious outtakes". Given that I mostly take pictures of children, and given how much my children like having their picture taken (not!), I have plenty to share. It was a challenge to figure out which five to post. I settled on these because they make me laugh. I hope you enjoy them too. Head on over to I ♥ Faces to see other entries.

I love this picture of my daughter, Elizabeth. I had taken several pictures of her. Got to play with the camera, you know. After a while she surely let me know that she was D.O.N.E.! My college roommate was kind enough to let me "borrow" her kids one day this Fall and I made multiple attempts to get a picture of the three of them. This one makes me laugh so hard. Little boy on the left looks like he has a headache. Middle child wouldn't stand up if you paid him. Beauty there on the end LOVED to pose. :)This is my son, Andrew. I got a number of GREAT shots of the kids at the beach that day... but this wasn't one of them. Well... truthfully, I kind of like it. Makes me smile. When I took this shot, I was still attempting to get a good picture of our four children. My mom had been asking for one for a while. That day was NOT the day. Andrew was not going to sit and smile no matter what. Nathan would not get his hands out of his mouth, and Alex had quite the silly smile.This is a recent picture. The kids were enjoying their huge lollipops at their aunt and uncle's house. I just happened to catch Elizabeth looking cross-eyed at her treat!

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Card

As promised, here is the "inside" of our Christmas card... well, not quite. I left up Elizabeth's snowman painting as I really like it.


This year in the ********** household

* We began the exciting though sometimes intimidating journey of homeschooling our children. So far it is working out well. The kids love to learn and we are enjoying our flexible schedule.


* Alex (almost 7) had his first visit from the tooth fairy! He recently lost both of his bottom middle teeth!


* Elizabeth (8) is thoroughly enjoying her watercolor lessons. She painted the snowman on the front of our Christmas card!


* Our family enjoyed a two week vacation in Kauai with Kari's aunt and Kari's sister and family. We got plenty of rest, visited the beach every day, swam with turtles, laughed, rode horses along the bluffs (Elizabeth), took a helicopter ride over the island (Gordie and Andrew), took basket weaving (Kari and Elizabeth), hung out as a family without the interruption of work, household chores, and cell phones.


* Andrew (8) is spending hours each day playing on our new (used) piano. He's taking lessons and is enjoying composing his own songs. We've also discovered that he has a beautiful singing voice and he is enjoying learning to sing hymns.


* Nathan (2 1/2)is finally talking up a storm after two years of silence. He amuses us all with his choice of words. He's got an infectious smile and an enthusiasm for life.


* Elizabeth spends oodles of time writing and illustrating creative stories.


* Andrew is happiest when he is doing anything related to Star Wars - putting together Lego sets, reading magazines or books, or watching Star Wars the Clone Wars on TV.


* Alex continues to be our resident chef, bread connoisseur (his choice of words to explain his love of all kinds of carbs!), and bird enthusiast. He's also learning to read.


* Kari spends much of her free time practicing with her camera and has recently starting a side business doing photography for family and friends.


* Gordie continues to work at ***** Airport and Kari continues her part-time position at ******. In these tough economic times we are thankful to be employed. We don't know the future, but we do know the One who holds our future in His hands... and we are grateful for His goodness to us!

May God richly bless you this holiday season and in the coming year,

Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all!

This is the picture that Elizabeth painted for the front of our Christmas card. I love it! And I love how much she loves to paint! I'll post the "inside" of our card another day.
This is another of my favorites that Elizabeth recently painted. It has a funny story, too. She explained to me that her two older brothers had buried her in the snow and then run in the house and shut the door and locked her out so that they could decorate the Christmas tree by themselves... Poor Elizabeth. :) I've just finished wrapping up presents and am heading to bed. The kids will be up at the crack of dawn, feverish with excitement about opening gifts. They are also excited to finish the final chapter in the devotional we've been reading - Jotham's Journey. It's a fantastic book. The author really hooked our two boys - a challenging thing to do... They can't wait to read the book each day. And... it has really helped us focus on the true meaning of Christmas.

We wish you all a very merry Christmas and a year full of God's abundant blessings,
Kari

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Look what Grammie is giving away!

Grammie has paired up with MckMama to do a giveaway as well. She is giving away a brand new copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 8. Go check it out here.

Same as MckMama. You can win extra entries by tweeting about the giveaway, mentioning it on facebook, or posting about it on your blog.

The giveaway ends tonight, so hurry on over!
Kari