Christmas

Here is a brief summary of our Christmas:

Illness, food, family, presents...yep that sums it up.

First here are the presents that I made that were received, warmly, I hope.

Elephant bag for my niece. I think it is the cutest thing I've ever made:



A set of two matching dresses for each of the neighbor girls. Audrey will also have a set...when I get them done:


We had gone to our church's Christmas extravaganza for the kids. I did a little face painting on Marshall. The mustache and beard were a big hit! Hudson and Audrey had their Christmas parties at school. I made Audrey's dress. It was super comfy and she wore it with leggins.


Marshall then got a horrible ear infection. I still made him go to his preschool Christmas program for 30 minutes so he could see Santa.


We had Christmas day at our home and Audrey was thrilled Santa brought her a doll with a horse. Santa also brought her and her doll matching pajamas which she had to put on immediately. Hudson received his coveted Beyblade set. Santa brought Marshall the airplane/guy/bullet set he had wanted.



We then went to my Aunt's house for dinner. It was great to see everyone and the food was excellent.


There was more illness in the Ikea parking lot, but I won't go into it.

We are home for the rest of our vacation. We are making more cookies, playing with legos, dolls, and I'm trying NOT to ignore my family by camping on the couch with my new Kindle.

Have a great New Year!!

Summer in Fall

We had some wonderful weather a few weeks ago.  It was hot and we decided to make the  most of our weekend at home!


We went to a Civil War reinactment at a mill north of us.  It was an interesting experience.  There were at least around 100 people that camp all weekend long.  They dress in period pieces and reinact how people lived around 1860.  Yes, I had to Google what year the Civil War started...don't judge me. 


Audrey made a wax candle, we toured the campsites, and then we went to find a seat for the reinactment.



The medic and the calvary.



The cannon was very close to us...hence...



The next morning we met my friend and her son at a huge park here. I took his pictures last year. He is warming up to me...although he didn't want to leave the safety of his mother!


I ended up with some really cute shots of him. It is not hard to do because he is so darn adorable!

I loved his mad karate skills! It makes me want to sing, "Everyone was kung fu fightining!"


For those who are wondering I am done with two out of three Halloween costumes!  Yeah me!!!


Hope you have a great rest of the week!!

Trees

When it was warm and the trees were in the height of their color change we went on a few bike rides after dinner. The whole family pedaling around our neighborhood. Always a delight.

I wanted to try out one of my lenses that I don't use a lot.  The trees were beautiful near our Middle School. I halted the bike procession and requested that the kids run around near the trees. I let them do their "thing". This is what I came up with....




Audrey looks a little scared in the first picture, but she tends to get the "zombie" eyes when I ask her to smile. To get a good picture of her I have her look at someone else...who hopefully is doing something funny...and then look back at me.

Full disclosure...I had to photoshop globs of ketchup off of Audrey's face.  Remnents of dinner.  It was a pretty gross sight, so you are welcome!

I used this lens when taking pictures of my girlfriend's son.  I just have to finish processing them and then I'll show a few on here.

I'm using my "free" time right now to finish the Halloween costumes.  I'm making two from scratch and altering one purchased from Costco.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Outdoor Adventure

A few weekends ago we headed up to Houghton Lake to camp, fish, and sail with the Hallers.  A few people also swam a lot that weekend!









Marshall wanted to sail!


With the help of Aunt Rhonda and Uncle Tim, Audrey caught an 8" rock bass. Hudson caught a tiny perch. We camped right off of the lake and it was a fun time!



We've been keeping busy with t-ball wrapping up and summer break beginning!!

Have a great 4th of July everyone!

Beautiful

The weather was wonderful yesterday.  The older kids had a half day so Marshall and I took his new bike down to the bus stop to pick them up. This is Marshall's "driving a bike" pose.


 This was not a staged photo shoot.  Audrey always runs off of the bus ahead of Hudson so she got to Marshall first.  As soon as Marshall saw them his arms went up and he yelled, "Audee" and then "Hudun".




I've been busy this week wringing my hands over the political stuff going on in Michigan and the horrific events in Japan. I needed to unplug and stop checking CNN for updates.  Pioneer Woman (my favorite blog) was having another photography contest.   She has tens of thousands of entries so I never think I'm going to be selected and I wasn't, but it was fun to pick out some of my pictures and work on them in Photoshop.  It reminds me how lucky I am to have time to do this and lucky to have such a wonderful family that lets me take their photos.


We aren't doing anything really fun this weekend.  Just working around the house.  Have a great one!!

First Day of School!

Audrey had her first day of Kindergarten & Hudson his first day of 2nd Grade on Tuesday. They both seemed to enjoy themselves. Marshall and I are still adjusting slowly.





Audrey picked out a Hello Kitty backpack. I was worried that one of her 27 classmates might also have this same backpack. I embrodered a little heart and filled in the flower stem. I thought this might make it stand out in a sea of pink Hello Kitty backpacks.  It worked and she found her stuff everyday.


I have to plug myself...

I was chosen as a finalist in a photography contest!! There are thousands of people that enter this particular contest daily. A few times a month Pioneer Woman sponsors a contest relating to different subject matters. I'm totally amazed that one of my pictures was chosen out of all of the professional photographers that entered.  Now mind you...she is not saying that my picture is in any way a "perfect" picture (exposure, composition, etc.).  I was chosen because my picture fit the subject matter which was "funny". I think that my picture was definitely funny. Check it out here (fourth pic down).  Man I love Tom Selleck fake mustaches and Hudson's silly faces!!

Soccer and Coldwater

Hudson and Audrey had a soccer camp a few weeks ago.  Here are some pics of them.  It was so hot and no one pushed the kids to run too hard.




We also spent my Mom's birthday with her in Coldwater.  We let Josh off the hook so he could motorcycle with his Dad & Cousin Mike.  We took the kids down to the Court House where they had an outdoor water fountains that the kids can play in.





We had a great visit with the friends from California & here (the Law School Gang), but I was too busy flapping my gums that when I pulled out my camera all of my pics were WAY too dark.  Here are the ones that I had to digitally fix the exposure, but it captures the good times we all had.



I have baseball pictures and motorcycle/pond pics from Coleman in the hopper.  Those will probably be up later this week or early next.  We are busy having summer fun over here in the Haller household.  I hope you are having a good summer too!!