Who Needs a Professional Photographer When You Have...

...Ashley and Celeste?!? (I spoke in 1st person just for you Ashley)

This past Monday we went with the Hanks up American Fork Canyon and took pictures of each other's families. It was a lot of fun and I think the pics turned out great. Here's a sample of the masterpieces (to see full sized, just click on the photo)...

Handsome Gabe (photos by Celeste)

Adorable Livy (photos by Celeste)

The Miller Family (photos by Ashley)

The Hanks Family (photos by Celeste)

Handsome Caden (photo by Ashley)

Greg and Hannah (photo by Celeste)

Our Princess, Hannah (photo by Celeste)

Visit with Grandma Curtis

On Saturday, Oct 18th we went to go visit Greg's Grandma. She's moving to Richfield so we thought we'd go see her before the big transition. Hannah loves to see her Great-Grandma and Gabe seemed surprisingly comfortable around her as well. We had a good time just chatting, though I felt bad because Gabe was "being Gabe" and was getting into everything but she didn't seem to mind. It was a wonderful visit! We love you Grandma! :)

Here's little Gabe with Great-Grandma. I thought the lighting was pretty cool so I just started taking random pics. I thought this one turned out good but it looks better when you enlarge it.

Here's little Hannah with Great-Grandma. For whatever reason Hannah was in a "shy" mood, which doesn't happen often. I think she was nervous for some reason. It was kind-of surprising. But within a few minutes she started warming up and came out of her shell.

Greg and his Grandma. They have a special relationship and I love to see them interacting with each other. Helen is a wonderful lady and we all feel so lucky to have her in our lives.

PS..Sorry Grandma, I know you didn't even want any photos taken that day because you had been packing all day, let alone a blog entry about it but I'm hoping you'll forgive me! :)

Mommy-Daughter Date

Hannah and I went on our Mommy-Daughter Date last Friday (17th). Hannah decided that she wanted to go to the "Scarecrow Festival" at Thanksgiving Pointe. We had a lot of fun with "just the girls", as Hannah would say. Here are a few photos from our little outing...

"Just me and my mom"

Beautiful Hannah

Hannah made me walk around the whole festival (I had extremely uncomfortable boots on...mental note "never again") looking for the "face painting" booth. It took us forever but we finally found it. She chose to be a cute little kitty..."meow"

Hannah went fishing at the fishing pond and got some "witch fingers". Right away her fun personality turned them into a joke. How can something be soooo gross but soooo cute at the same time?

Hannah spent most of her time on the big air jumper things because most of the attractions were for toddlers. She really seemed to have a blast on these, especially the slides. It made me happy to see her happy. Isn't that what it's all about? :)

"Hearts" Kitchen Baskets

Here is a better shot of that picture that I promised to post for those of you in my ward. I think the baskets turned out wonderfully and it was due to all of your donations (keep in mind, we are still in need of "family board games").

Thanks again for all the service given to the members of our Stake who will be in need this Christmas season.

38 Kitchen Baskets for Hearts for the Holidays. You Sisters are wonderful! :)

My Morning in a Nutshell

Here's how my day began and it hasn't gotten much better, though Hannah has been cleaning non-stop trying to catch up on her chores, so we can go on a "mommy-daughter date" tonight.

I think a nice long nap might help me out a bit! I seriously deserve one. I just laid Gabe down for a nap so as soon as I get this posted, off I go to take my much-needed nap :)
Gabe decided to unlatch the tray from his highchair and throw it on the floor this morning because he was finished eating and I wasn't getting there fast enough! I was SO mad!! He spent a few minutes in time out and then a few more minutes cleaning up the mess (and if you have a 2yr old, you know how difficult it is to get them to clean when they don't want to). After getting the floor wiped up I felt so drained that I thought it should be evening and almost time for the kids to go to bed! I hope the rest of the day goes better :)

Have Any Of You Ever Tried This?

So, the "organizational" lady has me trying to "finish" things around the house. Finishing means always putting things where they belong when you are done with them and not leaving them sitting around the house. Now that may sound easy to some of you but in our household, it can be a bit challenging. It's those darn stairs! They get in my way because I don't want to have to go up them!! Lazy, I know, but true.

So, we had a family home evening on it and it seemed to go over pretty well. We have a phrase, "Seventh Day", that we say to remind each other to pick up what they left sitting somewhere. The phrase stems from the scripture that states..."On the 7th day, the Lord finished his work and rested" (paraphrase). It shows that the Lord made sure everything was in order and in it's place so that he could rest and wouldn't have to take time out to put something away that wasn't in it's right place. I hope that makes sense (putting a complete Family Home Evening into one sentence is a bit challenging).

Well, the weeks that followed were filled with mommy "7th daying" everyone and I became the "7th day nazi" (I had to look up how to spell that word and it took about 15 minutes to figure it out! Serioulsy! We say it like there's a "t" in there somewhere....anyway) turning mommy into the mean mommy who everyone was always fighting with! It just got to be too much!

So really, how hard is it to pick up after yourself? Is that a lot to ask? I can't see that as being too much but it obviously was!

I decided to do something that I've heard other mothers have done but I've never really completely committed to. I decided to go on a "7th day" strike. I wasn't going to remind anyone to pick up what they left sitting out. I was committing to a weeks worth of silence. I kept myself "7th daying" but never reminded them to clean up. About half way through the week, when I realized that no one had even noticed, I decided to NOT 7th day myself. I wasn't going to pick up after myself, then maybe they'd notice.

Oh, they sure did! I began being "7th dayed", like they thought it was wonderful to catch me not picking up. It was a thrill for them! Like they were winning some sort of prize for finding me not doing what I asked them to do. Little did they know that their "thrill" wasn't really real. They didn't "catch" me doing what they thought they had. But do you think that changed their behaviors? No.

So at the week mark, I took my camera and walked around the house taking photos of the misc. items just sitting around the house. Now when you see these pictures, you might see why I slid into a slump. I don't like to live in an untidy house and when things get out-of-hand, as they were at the end of the week, I felt awful!

Well, here are the photos. The experiment really didn't do anything other than make me sad so I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I plan on going over the photos with the family during our next family home evening, and hopefully my family will have a change of heart.


The exerciser...AKA "the coat rack" and the closet shelf...AKA "the dirty clothes pile"


Hannah's room...AKA "the disaster" and the bathroom counter...AKA "the clutter"


The kitchen table...AKA "the art station" and the computer desk...AKA "the catch-all"


The living room...AKA "Are you kidding me?!?!" and the book shelf... AKA "Hannah's toy box".

Then there were these, which happened to be my favorites...


The couch...AKA "The snotty tissue holder" and the hallway...AKA "the garbage can"

So there you have it. My house had been transformed into a place I didn't recognize! No wonder I'm feeling down! Just making this blog post has made that more clearer to me.

Now I don't want people to think that I'm throwing my family under the bus. This was something new for them and it was even a challenge for me, as I stated earlier. It's a work in progress but I had high hopes that it would work the first time around. They were just so used to me picking up after them that the project seemed overwhelming for them. The next attempt at the "7th day" process will hopefully be much better and hopefully I'll have no reason to get into a funk.

I'll keep you posted! :)

Hello? Where are you?

To all of you who continue to wonder if I'm alive still, the answer is yes. I have been in a bit of a funk lately and I just can't seem to get out of it. I have decided that this may be a part of my life that I will have to "endure" because I can't seem to quite get rid of it. Maybe it stems from the years of depression that I dealt with. But whatever the case, I can't stand it when I feel like this.

I have tried several things in an attempt to somehow get myself out of this rut like canning tomatoes!! Yes, I did it all by myself with only one phonecall to my canning guru :) I was so proud. I'm getting more and more domestic which makes me feel like I'm getting more and more self-reliant! Yippee! Here are some photos from the exciting event...


Fresh tomatoes......to blanched & peeled tomatoes.


Tomatoes are now canned and in the steamer!
(Ok, so I realize that I need to converse with the "taking pictures of herself" guru...you know who you are...because I'm awful at it and it doesn't help that I'm not wearing any make up. But going "all-natural" sometimes feels good to me!)


The finished product. I ran out of pints so I had to make a quart out of the final bunch. I'm not sure exactly how I'll be using these but I'm excited to find out!

Pretty cool -huh?- :)

Next year I'm gonna have my own garden and I'm gonna can my own veggies. But I do want to thank those of you who donated to the "Teaching Celeste How To Can" fund. You can see that your donations were used in an appropriate manner :)

So, that was one way that I tried to lift my spirits and it did work for a while. I felt like I accomplised something which always makes me feel better.

My next post will probably explain one of the "whys" I'm in a slump.