Personalized Dinner Plates

One of my projects I did at the school for the Festival of Tree's was personalized plates. I did this in Hunter's class and since than he's been talking it up with his siblings. They really wanted to do it too. So I went back to the dollar store and bought 7 glass plates and for a Family Home Evening we created our own personal art piece. 

Daddy's

Mommy's

Hunter's

Madelyn's

Emily's

Brayden's

This kid cracks us up on a daily basis. His picture is of a monster with really big teeth eating tiny little bugs around him. And the bugs were so hot that his monster was breathing fire!

Kylie

Baby girl took a liking to the blue and black marker's. Her plate just looked awful. So despite my families wishes using rubbing alcohol I wiped it clean and mommy helped her do her plate.

So this is actually the 3rd time I've done this project now. The 1st time it was on dollar store plates but the marker's were meant for this project. These special marker's are extremely expensive though. These past 2 times I have used permanent markers and then baked them at 400 degree's for 45 minutes. The kids school ones did really good. I washed Hunter's in the dishwasher numerous times and his picture stayed. One morning he forgot to rinse his plate off and I had to scrub dried egg off it and of course I took the picture away. For our family plates I used the same markers but the pictures didn't stay at all. The 1st dishwasher cycle washed a lot of the drawings away. I think it was the plates. Even though both sets were bought at a Dollar Store the plates are different. There's no packaging telling me what kind of plates we used on either event. My kids aren't terribly sad about their plates because they know one of these day's we're going to sit down and do it again!

Hunter's Basketball

Hunter loves basketball. It's a sport he never played until we moved to Alton. This was his 3rd season playing and he has improved so much. Usually teams consist of 2 grades which in the past has been hard and a bit frustrating. There are 4 quarters to each game each being 10 minutes long. When you've got 15+ kids on a team it doesn't leave a lot of playing time. This year it was decided to break our usual team into their individual grade. We all loved this. This gave our team a total of 7 players. This really allowed the kids to play! Hunter played  almost 1/2 a game through out the entire game. He really enjoyed this. It's something that has never happened before.

Hunter had a new coach this year, Coach Jeff and he was great! He really helped the kids work on the skills they lacked and encouraged them to do better. He was not a yeller and never got down on the boys for making mistakes. He was always encouraging them to do their best and what they can learn from their mistakes.

This year Hunter really picked up his speed. He's not the fastest runner but he's not the slowest either.

After our final game Coach Jeff thanked Hunter for always having a positive attitude. He said it never matters whether our team is winning or loosing Hunter always has a smile on his face and words of encouragement. I thought it was a nice compliment. Hunter thought it was embarrassing.

Hunter also did much better at defense. In year's past he's been afraid to "touch" other players. He's not a mean kid and had a hard time blocking, getting in front of them and just trying to steal the ball from other's. This year he wasn't as hesitant to block with his body or try to steal the ball.

Hunter did great. It was such a good season. His team had to play every team twice. He was pretty excited when they beat our 6th grade team. Hunter's team only lost 2 times and it was to the same team. Unfortunately it was his 1st and last games played which was kind of sad. Basketball usually runs into the middle of January but this year it was over by Christmas break. It's nice knowing it's over but it wasn't easy with how quick the season went. Hunter had practice 3 times a week with games 2 times a week. After 3 p.m our family life revolved around basketball.  It wasn't uncommon for us to eat dinner after 7 on those game nights. I'm glad he had fun and I'm so glad he had this year's experience. I hope he can have a similar experience again in the future. I'm hoping living in a bigger area next year will allow for this. Living in a bigger area I'm hoping will allow for more coach's, closer to home games and smaller team's. Having a smaller team this year made such a huge difference. We really loved it! 

Sister, Sheri and Family

I had so much fun taking my sister's family pictures. We went on a different day and later in the day when it was a bit warmer than when I did everyone else's.

Can't believe this handsome little man will soon turn 5. He goes to preschool and is just getting so big! 

Sheri and Jason

Jamie playing on the slides.

Miss B has the cutest smile.

Miss B playing Peek-a-boo!

Absolutely love this candid! It's almost a family picture. Don't think I could capture this again if I tried!

Miss B gave us all a run for our money. When we were trying to take family picts she refused to look at me or smile or she'd try sucking on her shoes. She was terrible!!  So this is the best family picture until I figure out how to swap heads!

So much fun playing in the leaves.

Brother Jonathan and Family

My 2nd family that offered to be my guinea pigs!

I really love this family picture. Wish I had on of my own.

Aren't they cute! I love their color scheme.

This is one my most favorites. Total candid shot with mom looking back at the kids. I just love this one.

I really wanted this one to work out but it's just O.K. I think I needed to raise my focal point up. The kids are focused but mom and dad not so much. 

 Carlaya, a beautiful 9 year old.

Mya, she's 3 and would not look at the camera. She's a cutie though!

 Noah is 7. Handsome young man. He can be quite photogenic!

I'm happy with these pictures. I think these ones turned out pretty good. I've played with these ones a bit in photo shop. I had to learn how to adjust the hue on these. I think it's the leaves that casted a blue tint over everyone. Noah's face was the worse I think showing the blue hue. Having said that I don't see blue faces anymore.

Brother Travis and Family

This cute lil' family were my 1st guinea pigs. My first real photo shoot for someone else EVER! 

It was a great experience and I learned a lot and know I have a lot to learn still. 

Here's Miss Elena. She's 4 and a cutie pie!

Daddy and Elena!

Travis and Christina.

Mommy and Elena!

The first thing I learned from their session was that next time I need to break off that low hanging limb that shows up in every photo. The 2nd thing is that if I can't remove that limb I need to figure out how to crop/remove it in photo shop. I wish we would have played more. Taken more photos in different position's and in different places. Oh well! Next time... 

When the kids go back to school I hope to pull out my Photo Shop book and play a little more with these pictures.  

Fun Pictures

Wanting to play with my new camera I volunteered to take my families pictures over Thanksgiving. I went the morning before to see what kind of light/shade I'd have to work with. I took my sister's with me. Here are a few of my favorite single shots I captured.

My baby girl is growing up. Can't believe she's 9.

I love the leaf background!

My sister, Hanna. She's beautiful!

Hanna's missionary comes home in just 4 short months. She's not excited or anything!

It was fun playing.

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving this year was spent in Hurricane with my parents. All of my siblings were able to make it this year and we had so much fun hanging out together. 

Kylie eventually warmed up to her Uncle Matt.

The kids spent a lot of time in Grandpa's garage playing darts. 

It's Noah's turn with Hunter and Emily waiting for their turns. I think Uncle Jonathan was having some fun too! 

Madelyn's turn at showing of her skill's. 

Aunt Camille offered her skill of extended eye lashes. 

Go Grandma!!

Plenty of new toys to play with for Brayden. 

At night Grandpa built a fire for roasting marshmallow's.

Who doesn't love a soft, sticky, warm, melt in your mouth marshmallow?

Jamie loved his.

GG got to come visit us for a few hours. She slept most of the time but it's nice to have her around. I don't know how much longer she's going to be with us and I'll take all the time with her we can get. The past few times during my visit she's very quiet. She doesn't talk doesn't even mumble anymore.  She just sits in her chair and stares at me and then her eyes seem to glaze over and she's not looking at me anymore. I miss our conversations. I don't think she know's who I am and she certainly doesn't know who the kids are. For a few minutes during the weekend we went to her house for a short visit. I was sitting beside her just talking away with no response from her. Kory walked up behind me and out of the blue she said, "How are you Kory?" That's all she said. There was no conversation, she didn't even respond to his comment but she knew who he was.  I am so thankful for these very, very  rare moments that Grandma does know who we are. Even if it's just for a brief moment. Grandma is in there somewhere. 

Kylie sharing her cereal necklace with cousin Brionney.

My kids loved the warmer weather than at home they got to play in.

Cousin Carlaya helping Brionney and Mya ride bikes.

It was a fun packed weekend and was sorry to see it end. I enjoyed the visiting and the kids enjoyed the hours of playing with cousins.

It's over...

The Festival of Tree's is over! It was a great success, very time consuming and I am so glad it's over. Myself and 3 other ladies worked very hard and it showed. The Festival of Tree's is an annual event that our community does. Some how the majority of the work falls on the Booster Club. Last year we had a procrastinator leading us and nothing got done that really needed to. This year I really wanted to cancel it all together. Even the principal agreed with me. In the end it was decided that this year would make that decision. If we were successful it would carry on. If not we would do away with this event.  Last year we only had 4 tree's this year we had 15. Last year we had no raffle items this year we had 52. Our raffles were awesome too. We had Baby Alive, a brown and a pink bb gun, movie tickets, Zion's big screen tickets, Nerf guns, remote control car and helicopter and many, many more. We had raffles for both kids and adults. We went to every business in our community including several businesses in Cedar and St. George asking for a donation. I could not believe the donations for our raffles that we received. Last year there was nothing for the kids to do. This year we had FREE Christmas Tree decorations using sugar cones.

This year we provided a FREE magnet picture frame for the kids to make.

The town pays the High School Orchestra to play during this event. This year we asked Mr. Lacey if he wouldn't allow the elementary kids to sing and perform too. He took about 15 minutes and put on a great performance. All 4th graders present got to play there recorder's while everyone else sang.

I think this helped get our teachers, parents and kids to this grand event.

The 5th grade class whistled while the 4th graders played their recorders and everyone else sang during one of the songs. The kids loved it. Mr. Lacey loved it and the audience loved it. 

I wish I would have taken a ton more pictures. There were so many people present that I was very very busy. I could not believe the crowd we had. Especially compared to last year.  I must pat myself on the back because we really did a great job. Our secretary at the school told me that the biggest fund raiser our school has ever had was $1200. With our pre-ticket sales for the raffle and the money brought in that night from the tickets sold, tree's auctioned and crafts bought we brought in over $3,000. This has never been done!!!!!! The most this one event has ever brought in after expenses was around $1,000.We did have more of an expense this year but we are still under $500. A profit of $2500 is GREAT.  I don't how I feel now. It's been decided that with our success we will be participating once again next year. I worked so hard on this that it does sadden me to know that I won't be here next year to see it through or even just to help. We made so many changes this year and was fought against all the way by so many people. It's great to know that everything worked out. That we did it. We still made mistakes and would do several things differently but I can't complain too much knowing how much we made. It was a long day/night but it was so much fun too. I'm so glad that I can leave our little community in a few months knowing that I helped change something for the better.