The Girl I used to be

I stole this from a good friend's blog, who in turn stole it from a dear friend of hers. I read this on her blog and really liked it, then I read it to my sweet husband and made it to the third line and was in tears. I have a few reasons why I was in tears, but will explain more soon.

The Girl that I used to be

She came tonight as I sat alone, the girl I used to be.

And she gazed at me with her earnest eye, and questioned reproachfully:

Have you forgotten the many plans and hopes that I had for you?

The great career, the splendid fame, all the wonderful things to do?

Where is the mansion of stately height, with all of its gardens rare?

The silken robes that I dreamed for you, and the jewels in your hair?

And as she spoke, I was very sad, for I wanted her pleased with me.

This slender girl from the shadowy past, the girl that I used to be.

So gently rising, I took her hand, and guided her up the stair

Where peacefully sleeping, my babies lay, innocent, sweet, and fair.

And I told her that these are my only gems, and precious they are to me;

That silken robe is my motherhood, of costly simplicity.

And my mansion of stately height is love, and the only career I know

Is serving each day in these sheltered walls, for the dear ones who come and go.

And as I spoke to my shadowy guest, she smiled through her tears at me.

And I saw that the woman that I am now, pleased the girl that I used to be.

  

I still have a few dreams that I hope to make come true, old and new, and the best part is that I have a wonderful and loving husband who is not only willing to support me in them, but also make them come true.

What's a post without a picture? 

 

Halloween 2009

I'm backlogging and that's okay, I'll get to present pictures and events soon, don't worry. Anyhow, I had an amazing opportunity the day before Halloween. Evelyn Hymas of Hymas Images located here in Rigby hired me to take over for her Halloween shoot last year and I was happy to do it. I've also helped her with Senior shoots as well. But this was my first completely solo act without her on site. It was exciting. Here are pictures of Adam from Halloween this last year at the studio.

I'm not sure if it's good or bad, but Adam knows how to pose for a picture. He's been the model too often for me. I re-finished his bag from last year, made a smaller and used my serger to finish the seams. I even added some black lettering to spell BOO. I loved it.

He's so good at pouty faces too.

I love this huge smile while he's riding the rocking horse. He's having a huge giggle fest. The shot I took right before this one was where Travis was tickling Adam on the horse, and Adam is leaning the opposite direction. I love that shot and am debating on using for other for something else.

P.S. Hopefully you can tell he was Zorro.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu!

For those of you who didn't know (which is probably a good portion), Adam was very attached to his pacifier. That was more of my fault than anything. Once I realized in late October that I was using it as a crutch for silencing the whining, I was able to let go. Adam has asked for it no more than half a dozen times since we took it away.

Yes, we went cold turkey.

You may think it sounds funny, but I had a harder time taking it away from him than he did having it taken. He cries when we put him to bed sometimes instead of just rolling over to cuddle into his pillow with the plug, but there are a good amount of times that he just goes right to sleep, no fight, but it depends on how tired he is. Goodbye dear plug, until the next one.

I got into the canning craze that seems to happen around this area beginning in August and going into November. Normally young moms who are doing the canning by themselves only get their legs and feet wet. Nope, not me, I dove in head first. This is just to document one of our adventures with canning. We canned pears, peaches, and plum jelly that day. These pictures are from the plum jelly. We had an overflow situation. Oops!

Not to worry, despite the fact that we probably spilled around 2 quarts, we still had 20 pints from the batches. They didn't set though, so it's now plum syrup which goes great on breakfast foods, ice cream, and a few other things.

Thankfully, I didn't have to clean this up by myself, Travis was helping and taking pictures. He was home on this particular day, and boy howdy, if I hadn't been laughing, there probably would have been a few choice words.

Yup I know, I'm nuts. But I loved it! I had a blast! You know what else we/I canned? Nectarines, tomato juice (wonderful for scratch tomato soup and scratch sloppy Joes), sweet pickles (My great grandma's recipe, delicious!), salsa, huckleberry and nectarine jam, apple jelly, applesauce, apple pie filling, and did I mention at least 10 gallons of freshly pressed apple juice? Thankfully all of the apple products were free! And there were a ton of apples! The only thing I had to purchase were the jars and tree fruits. I'm proud to say that everything else came from my garden. That doesn't even include all of the vegetables that I froze; peas, corn, green beans, and carrots.

 Talk about a money saver! I guess it wasn't exactly a money saver this year because I had to purchase I don't know how many jars, but next year will be better. I want to grow a bigger garden so that I can add more to my food storage and enjoy even more of my labors. The garden was my thing this year because we were in school, Adam helped almost every time I weeded it and watered. Travis helped with the planting and watering when I was gone for two weeks. Next year will be different because I'm definitely going to need the help if it's going to be bigger! Love you hon!

Unofficial first day of Vacation

Yes! We went on another warm vacation. Instead of a cruise this year, we went to Orlando, Florida with my family (Tasha, since she is the only one who ever post's. Hint, hint) So our actual vacation started on November 2nd when we headed down to Utah to spend the night with a cousin before we headed for the airport on the 3rd. The kids you see Adam playing with our actually his second cousins, and they had a blast playing on the trampoline together. It was so nice out that we were all in t-shirts and jeans before we went to the airport. Here's Adam by himself. I had hoped that playing before we went on the airplane would help wear him out, it worked, but not until our second flight.

Now being joined by his two cousins. Adam is between the two in age.

 We really did try to get a picture of them sitting down together, but for a 3 yr old, a 2 yr old, and a 19 month old, it's almost impossible.

Here's my cousin pushing her kids along and Adam soon followed suit.

 Adam wanted to push his cousin too! It was a pretty cute train.

There are some videos that I want to post, but because Blogger no longer offers the option on the their new layout, I haven't been able to figure out where I can put up videos.