Sedona!

Shiloh and I went to Sedona this past weekend for a couple of nights and all I can say is, "Why haven't I been to Sedona before now??"  It was absolutely beautiful!  Red Rock everywhere, lovely green foliage, creeks, hiking, shopping, restaurants.  Amazing.

Here are some fun pics from our trip:

Slide Rock.

Completely safe.

We're nerds. :)

We went to the most AMAZING French Restaurant called the Rene at Tlaquepaque.  

I couldn't help myself.  I had to have the Filet Mignon.  It pretty much melted in my mouth--steak so soft I barely had to chew! Loved it.  I can't wait to go back. I'll just be saving my pennies.  Many of them.

All in all an extremely relaxing trip.  (Three days and two nights without kids, how could it NOT be relaxing??  Shiloh and I kept commenting on how we had so much extra time without having to attend to 3 chirping children!)

Ezra's First Riding Lesson

Ezra had his first riding lesson today. His instructor, Ann, was amazing with him and he was able to lead the horse by himself towards the end of the lesson and he loved it!!

Mod Baby Painting

I am so happy with my latest painting.  I am in love with this new process.  Here is the finished product:

Ashlyn. 24" x 24".  Acrylic on canvas.   (The photo does justice to the light blue color, but it's a little hard to tell that the darker color is actually a dark chocolate.)

The painting started from a fantastic photo: 

That I contrasted down in Photoshop to an abstract black and white:

That photoshop rendition is obviously what I used as a reference for the painting itself.  

Sneak Peek

My camera won't arrive until tomorrow, so I took a picture on my phone.  The colors are off, and it's not very clear, but here's a sneak peek at the painting I just finished:

More details to come...

Grieving

I never knew how much I depended on my camera until it had it's unfortunate travels through the laundry.  I suppose such is the case with so many other things in life--we take them for granted until they are gone.  I suppose I have been in denial these past couple weeks in hopes that the camera would come back to life.  But, alas, there was no such miracle, and though I'm angry at the inconvenience, I have come to accept my loss.  See that?  I just went through the entire grieving cycle for my camera. Okay.  Glad that's over.  Time for a new one.

Camping over Labor Day

Better late than never!  Here are some pics of our family camping trip we took over labor day weekend. 

Ashlyn kept putting EVERYTHING in her mouth (as evidenced by her grubby face).

Our little beatle friend.  He kept crawling around our campsite.  It's hard to tell by this picture but he was GINORMOUS. I'd say a good 2-3 inches long.

We only went one night, but I'm not sure we would've lasted another night anyway.   We tried having all of us sleep in the tent, but, as you can imagine, these three little ones were far too excited to go to sleep.  The older two didn't go to sleep until 10:30ish and although Ashlyn fell asleep much earlier, she kept rolling around and waking everyone else up.  So, about 2 am we moved her to sleep in the back of the van and I slept in the passenger seat to make sure she was okay.  There she slept soundly until the sun rose around 6 am.  Both Shiloh and I were pretty wasted with fatigue the next morning.  We had toasted poptarts for breakfast, "Shiloh Style":

 

Overall, it was a decent trip.  The kids loved every minute of it, and Ashlyn got some extra fiber in her diet. So hey!

Kindergarten Pictures

Kindergarten pictures came yesterday.  Not too shabby.  I had her hair all cute and curly the morning these pictures were taken. She had stated that she wanted it in "big curls".  However, I could tell when I finished, that it wasn't what she had in mind.  I loved it.  She did not.  And, within an hour she had ripped out the hair ties and made it a mess because she was certain she looked like a "clown".  I sighed, and very quietly (gritting my teeth), straightened her hair and put a "clip in it" just like she requested.  This is her normal daily hair do. Boring and predictable, but what can I say?  I was ever-so dramatic on the day of my kindergarten pictures as well. Remember this picture of me in Kindergarten:

I HATED this red dress with a passion.  My mom insisted I wear it, though.  I ranted, and yelled, but still I was made to wear the wretched red dress.  I still have this vivid memory of the humiliation I felt wearing the detested frock.  Now, 24 years later, as I look back on this picture, I think the dress is quite cute. In fact, it's my favorite school picture and, if I could go back, I'd tell my mom to make me wear it again if given the chance.  Blog therapy.  Sigh.