Tyler's 6th Birthday

Ty's 6th birthday was on the 13th. I can't believe how old he is getting! It makes me feel pretty old myslef. And actually I have been noticing how old my face looks lately. Getting old is not cool! Unless you are a kid.

We celebrated Ty's birthday on the 14th. Angie and Nick and their kids came down to help us and stayed for a few days. It was so fun to have them here! We also invited the friends we had from our old neighborhood. The party was a Dragon Quest to find an evil dragon that stole some dragon eggs. I think Ty enjoyed it. I was taking photos of everything because Angie and her sisters are trying to start a party business and I am trying to be their photographer. So I didn't really get to pay much attention to Ty. It was so fun to have our friends and family here! Ty had mint chocolate chip cupcakes, dragon potion and a magic mix that made the dragon hunters stronger. The decorations were all so well made and creative! Here are a few pictures. I didn't edit them. I have actually been pretty sick lately. I have something called Meniere's Disease where if I eat too much salt the fluid sac between my ears swells up and causes me to have vertigo. It really sucks! And on top of that I have had this stupid cold since before Christmas which has had so many different stages. Right now I have sores in the back of my throat and cannot talk very loud without my voice cutting out. I haven't really been eating healthy, so I'm sure my problems have something to do with that! I will work on it though.

 Ty's Dragon Mask

 Dragon Potion and Magic mix.

(Sadie, Trayden, Trisha and Emma)

 "Slaying" the dragon

Waiting to take a swing at the pinata.

(Trayden, Tyler, Sadie, Darius, Damon, Trisha, Tristan and Emma)

New Obsession!

Yeah yeah, I know it's been a while :) I have been meaning to post for a very long time, but now I have some pretty good motivation. I have decided to improve my photography skills. Since I am brand new to this, I know it will take a while to produce good photos, but I have an awesome camera that I've had for a year and yesterday I just barely noticed that it came with some photo editing software! Hopefully it won't consume all my time, but I did spend about 4 hours working with a few photos last night. We went to Kolob Canyon with my husband's friend Dave a few months ago. Here are a few pics:

 I lightened this pic. Trisha has some boogers that I didn't know how to edit out, so if anyone knows how to edit I would love some input!

 Here is a before pic of me and Trisha.

Here it is after I edited it a bit. The background is a bit bright but there is less shadow on our faces.

Here's one of Ty!

I am excited for my new hobby! I don't ever want to be professional, but maybe I will get good enough that I won't have to take my kids to professionals. I want to learn how to make the eyes "pop" in photos, but I may have to wait until we can afford photoshop. I don't think my software can easily do that.

UPDATE:

Just thought I'd update my life a tiny bit while I am here. I have ran 3 5ks since the one I last posted. I also did a 10k with my family. Jeff and the kids ran a 1 mile race against Santa during the 10k. I really love running and being fit. I workout almost every day! Now my goal is to stop eating unhealthy! That one is very hard for me. It's my new years resolution though! Along with running a 1/2 marathon before the year is over!

We moved from our awesome neighborhood in Fossil Hills to an amazing house in Silver Creek this last November. The house is huge and we are a block away from Jeff's work (as opposed to 25 minutes away when we were at Fossil Hills). The only thing I really don't like about this neighborhood is that there are no kids that live close. Most of the people in Silver Creek are retired. I met a few of them on Sunday at church though, and they are pretty fun! I am just worried that our kids will disrupt the quiet they are probably used to.

I am trying to start babysitting again. I've had a few people say they definitely want me to watch their kids, but they haven't called me since so hopefully I will be babysitting soon. I will definitely miss all of my extra time, but my kids need other kids to play with and we can use the extra money!

Tyler's birthday is in 2 days. Trisha had her birthday and we invited all of her friends from our old neighborhood. There were a lot of kids there! We are doing the same for Ty. Jeff's mom and Sadie came to Trisha's party, and now the Perkins' are planning on coming to Ty's. It's fun to live close enough that they can do that, even though we are far away.

Here are some pics from Trisha's party.