Trim the Tree

For family night yesterday, we finally put ornaments on the tree! The boys were SO excited, especially after I made them wait four whole days. Oh the cruelty!

I am actually impressed that I have my Christmas tree up and decorated before December! Go Mommy. The boys were so excited that they carried up nearly all the ornament boxes for me. Hooray!

The boys loved decorating the tree. I just kept handing them ornaments and letting them put them wherever they wanted.

Of course the boys can't reach too high, but they used all their resources to get the ornaments up as high as they could.

It was so fun to watch my big boys decorating the tree...

Even if their ornament placement was a little bit off.

Yep! There are 7 ornaments in this picture!

So I did move the ornaments around a bit and I have a few more to put on, but I think the tree is going to be beautiful!

Linked up to Wordful Wednesday, Wordish Wednesday, and Wordless Wednesdays all over.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday #15

Waiting

The day after Thanksgiving we put up our Christmas tree. My boys are SO excited to put the ornaments on the tree, but they are waiting on Mommy. I guess I should probably get it in gear so they can stop waiting... though they are also impatiently waiting for Christmas to get here!

Foliage

Very few of our trees still have leaves on them so I couldn't figure out how I was going to take a picture of foliage. Luckily the bushes right next to our house are just starting to change colors.

Candid

Here is a picture of my baby girl on Thanksgiving, wearing the shirt that I appliqued for her... o.k. I admit I finished sewing it that morning, so what?! Anyway, she was having a great time watching her big brothers play.

Fork, Knife or Spoon

When I read this prompt I couldn't think of any creative way to photograph silverware. "What a boring prompt!" I thought. Then I actually started playing around with spoons and noticed the cool reflections I got in my shots. Turns out this was the prompt I had the most fun with. The first shot is one I call "Spoon Face", and since I am in it I suppose you could call it a selfie. The second picture is the sky, a tree, and part of my house (with our flag) reflected on a spoon placed on my driveway.

Rule of Thirds

After reading this prompt I revisited some of my pictures from last week because I realized I cropped them totally wrong! Doh! So here are my reflection and water shots from last week recropped to follow the rule of thirds. I think they look much better, don't you?

Happy Thanksgiving and Our Home Improvement Christmas

Happy Thanksgiving from my One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians!

I have so much to be Thankful for this year. First and foremost, my three beautiful children who bring so much joy into my life.

Today our local library storytime,  we read fun Thanksgiving books and got to make these cute headbands for the craft. The library ladies were kind enough to let me make one for Miss Aubrey too so I could have three little Indians! I am thankful that our library offers free programs that are so fun for my kids.

Speaking of fun, you will never guess what has been happening here lately. Yesterday the heating and air conditioning guys came to our house, and we got a brand new furnace!

Can you believe that our old furnace was built in 1976? Holy Cow! That means it was 35 years old! No wonder it started making funny noises and doing things that my husband did not like.

We have known that this day was coming, so it was not a big surprise that we needed to get a new furnace. It does kind of stink to have to get a new furnace right before Christmas, but the good news is that I get an air conditioner too!

Yep. For the past 6 years that we have lived in our house we have had an ancient furnace and no air conditioning. We just had an evaporative cooler (aka swamp cooler). Won't it be so nice this summer to be able to turn on the air conditioner and have the cool air blow out all the vents in the house? Heaven!

I am thankful that our old furnace lasted so long and that we have the means to buy a new one. Plus, isn't my new furnace beautiful and shiny?

That's not the only shiny thing in our house either! A few weeks ago our dishwasher gave up the ghost (just before Halloween, coincidentally). It just would not drain and the motor died. So I got a beautiful new dishwasher.

Oooh! Aaahhh! Pretty! Now my dishes actually get clean! Plus I don't have to wonder if I killed all the mold and junk that was growing in our old dishwasher.

So I guess you could say we are having a home improvement Christmas. Honey Daddy and I are getting each other a new furnace, air conditioner, and dishwasher. They may not be fun gifts, but we will definitely enjoy them! I am just thankful that we will have a warm house in the winter, a cool house in the summer, and nice, clean dishes!

We will also enjoy spending time with our sweet little family over this long Thanksgiving weekend. I am so thankful for my husband and my sweet kids... even if sometimes they are little turkeys!

Linked up to Wordful Wednesday, Wordish Wednesday, and Wordless Wednesdays all over.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday #14

Mainly One Color

As I was out driving around today, I stopped at the cemetery near our house to take a picture of Mount Timpanogos covered with snow and topped by clouds. I thought I could use it for this prompt since it was all very white. Then I spotted the great colors and rusty hardware high up on the little outbuilding I had parked next to and I couldn't pass it up.

Around the Home

Here is one little girl who is going to be moving around our home in no time! She has been lifting her little bum up in the air and lately I have found her on her hands and knees rocking back and forth. It will only be a matter of time before she figures out how to crawl!

Reflection

Utah Lake is not too far from my house so I decided to drive there to look for my "reflection" shot. I had a hard time choosing a shot because I got so many cool reflections in the still waters at the edge of the lake. This was my favorite one. I think this bird is a heron, but I didn't get a close look because he flew off after I took this shot.

Writing

Have you ever noticed that buildings next to the railroad tracks get tagged a lot? This building used to be covered with the most colorful graffiti. I have even used it as a backdrop for photos in the past, so I was almost sad when I saw that the owner had painted over it. Of course the "clean slate" of the wall didn't last very long.

Water

 

Is it water, or the mountain? Here is Mount Timpanogos as seen in the water of Utah Lake. I had a hard time choosing just one water picture, so you get two.

Here is another shot that I took down by Utah Lake. It was nice to be able to take my baby girl for a walk without my boys there to scare the birds away.

Leaping in Leaves

Today I found myself a day late with my usual Wednesday post, but on the bright side at least it is still Wednesday! So I guess I will multitask and call this my Wordful Wednesday/You Capture post. Go me!

Our yard is usually bare of leaves because my husband is really good about keeping up with yard work. However our neighbor has been a bit under the weather, so we decided to help her out and rake up her leaves. Of course the boys were all too happy to help, as long as they got to play in the leaves afterwards!

Jonah and Eli took turns running toward the HUGE pile of leaves and then taking a big leap!

They always have so much energy that I did not mind raking up the pile of leaves over and over so they could keep running and jumping and hopefully burn off some of excess energy.

I got some pretty good practice with my action photography as well. Here are a few of my favorites:

Look at how much air Jonah got on his leap! Wow!

I told Eli to jump into the leaves face first, and he was more than happy to oblige.

Jonah just couldn't get enough of jumping in the leaves! Eventually I gave up helping him re-fluff the pile because I got tired, so he just piled it back up himself and kept jumping!

Jumping in the leaves is so much fun! My boys kept at it for at least an hour this afternoon, and that doesn't include the time they spent jumping last night. Jonah actually cried when he saw the leaves being put into the garbage can.

Do you have any leaves left where you live?

Linked up to Wordful Wednesday, Wordish Wednesday, and Wordless Wednesdays all over.