People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered,
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives,
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies,
Succeed anyway.

The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight,
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you help them,
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth,
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

this was found written on the wall in Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta. it was also found in the envelope i received from a mysterious stranger at the DI in St. George, along with a $100 bill. after asking some questions, i learned that this is a regular occurance around Christmas time at DI. the motive? to spread the Christmas spirit. this is the first year i have ever had a hard time getting into Christmas, and this little thing has thrown me in head first. what am i going to do with it? i haven't decided yet. i just know that it has literally changed my whole perspective of what Christmas is about. i realize that sounds hokey and stereotypical, but i mean... what would you do if this happened to you, hmm?

just something to think about...

Bloopers

It's hard to take pictures with kids. This is no revelation to me. But taking pictures with kids alone? Well, that's not just hard- it's nearly impossible.

On Wednesday I decided to drive myself crazy, I mean, take some pictures of the kids and I for Aaron. He'd been saying that he wanted some updated ones for his office to replace the ones we gave him for Father's Day last year. Can you believe how much these kids have changed since then? Scary!

I got everyone all spiffy and set up a little photo shoot in the bonus room. I set the camera on the ottoman, put a mirror behind that so I could see the back of the camera so I didn't have to keep crawling behind it between shots to reset the timer, AND so I could see what we all looked like when everyone was in front of the camera. Trouble was, I kept looking at the mirror to keep an eye on everyone and so in most of the shots I wasn't looking AT THE CAMERA. DOH!

I had the camera set to "rapid shot" so it'd take like 4 or 5 photos in succession in hopes of getting a reasonably good one in a short amount of time. Oohhh, was I ever naive. That baby of mine would crawl away the instant I put him down, so as soon as I pressed the button the self timer gave me 10 seconds to grab him, sit down, and situate the kids and myself. It was... um, a struggle. Just like last year, I ended up with over 100 photos, with very few that were any good.

Here are a few of the many, many outtakes.

Not quiiiite fast enough.

Finnley was easily distracted from the camera- and my head got cut off a lot. Dang it, the other kids look so cute, too!

A good picture, except I didn't notice that Finn had snagged something to gnaw on.

Pushing the baby's head towards the camera does not work.

In fact, there is no good way to force a baby to look at a camera if he really doesn't want to. Meanwhile, the camera has gotten nudged and is now no longer pointing straight.

Hakan doesn't feel like smiling anymore, and the camera is now waaaay off center.

Good photo! But I over corrected the camera. *forehead slap*

Finnley becomes sad, so Mommy becomes sad, too.

Hakan can't seem to smile real to save his life for his individual photos.

And now Finnley WANTS to be in the picture. Hakan thinks this is hilarious.

Attempting a sibling photo...

...with unsuccessful results.

Pyper took charge of the camera for a minute.


Finally, here are the photos we ended up using (with a little editing using Picasa).





I couldn't decide which of Finnley's I liked better, so I printed two.



Hakan and Pyper were great. They were so patient and cooperative and didn't get cranky even after hearing me say, "Stay put!" and "Again!" over and over and over.

I printed these as 8x10's and gave them to Aaron as an early Christmas present the other night. I will be sending some to the Grandmas & Grandpas, and all the Greats as well, probably as 5x7's. If anyone else would like some just let me know.

Wishing You Were Here

Where are all my big, strong, strapping, snowshovel-wielding sons when I need them? As you can see from the above photo, last weekend we got about 15 inches of snow, the temperatures have dropped down close to zero so it wouldn't melt, and there is more snow falling and lots more on the way. Shoveling, plowing and snowblowing all that snow has not been a fun event. Driving has been fun, too. At least they are plowing the roads for us this year. I went up on Cedar Mountain and groomed snowmobile trails for the first time this year. So far, there's about 2 1/2 feet of snow up there. Anyway, just thought I'd share and let you know I was thinking of you during all this fun. When Ryan and Curtis were here, Curtis got a kick out of seeing a bit of snow up on Cedar Mountain when we drove over there. He should see me now! Looks like it will be a white Christmas here. Happy Holidays and hope you all have a good Christmas in case I don't get around to doing this again before Christmas gets here. Love, Dad

Giving Thanks

I just wanted to say how much fun Rachelle and I had over Thanksgiving. I spoke with some friends back here in SLC and was really surprised that so many just stayed home. I'm really grateful that everyone was willing to travel so far to get together over the weekend. We had a short trip compared to everyone else. I am so grateful that we are staying so close even though we live so far apart. Here are a few photos from the trip. Love you guys!