Photographs

I took the boys to do their pictures the other day and they did not cooperate real well. Of the 80 pictures that I took, this was the only one that turned out OK...I decided to play around with it and see what I could do with it.

Now, I want your opinion...do you like it or is it too "over the top"?

Here's the SOOC (straight out of the camera) shot...

...And here it is after I played around (what do you think?)

Curtains

I decided that the boys needed drapes in their bedrooms (Chad tells me they're boys and don't need them, but I disagree!). Anyway after searching for some that I liked, I realized that they were all too expensive. So, I decided to try sewing them. For those of you who may not know, sewing is not really one of my talents (at all!)...so this was a big undertaking for me. I was actually really surprised that they turned out pretty good. Take a look...

Here's Chris' room (sorry, it's a little dark)

Josh's Room

Ben's Room

Chad and I went to the movies last night and met this friend!

Oh, and just in case you are wondering what movie we saw...it was Get Smart and we loved it!

SUMMER MAGIC

One of the greatest things (in my opinion) of living out here in the midwest is the magic outside our backdoor every summer.

See for yourself...

Swimming Fun!

Since our high today was 92 degrees, we decided that sounded like good pool weather...so here are pics from our outing at the Y (YMCA...not BYU!).

Chris

Josh

Ben

Two silly boys

Here's some fun video

Strawberries

It's that time of year again...the strawberry patch opened on Monday and yesterday we went and picked 25 lbs. (yes you did read that right..25 lbs) of strawberries. We spent the afternoon making 60 jars of jam, pie, pie filling to freeze and eating all the rest! YUM!

3 cute berry picking boys

Chris finding perfect strawberries

We had lots and lots of rain 2 days before...so this is what we had to wade in while picking..

small price to pay for the best berries!

Ben searching

Josh finding yummy strawberries

Mmmm..looks ready to pick!

Ben mashing strawberries for the jam

YUM!

Some of our jam..now we need homemade bread to put it on!

Josh taking a break from mashing

OUCH!

Last night the boys were out playing in the backyard with the neighbor's grandson. They were playing on their hammock. Apparently Josh swung the hammock a little too hard and Ben fell out and landed on the metal pole and put a nice little gash in his head..... after emailing pictures to Dr. Grandpa for his opinion and then a trip to Urgent Care...here Ben is 3 staples to the head later!

Here's the cool picture we sent to Grandpa...sorry for those of you with weak stomachs!

Here's our little guy at Urgent Care

And here are the staples...sorry it's blurry...Ben refused to hold still for this picture!