Kennedy

This one is called "Portrait Pop a Lot"

Kennedy

How about this plug-in called Pale & Interesting?

Siennah

Hush

Kennedy & Jack

A cute picture of Kennedy & Jack enhanced with "fairy floss"

Day at the Beach

Another plug-in fix

Carmel overlay

This picture of Josh was also enhanced using my new plug-in to Photoshop.

Velveteen

This image was enhanced using the plug-in to Photoshop called Eye Candy sold by Sheyrose Meyer (See post below)

This is the right one

http://sheyerosemeyerphotography.com Click on opening page, then click on photoblog

Sorry. Just go to: http://sheyrosemeyerphotography.com Click on the opening page then click on photoblog. This girl lives in Australia

A surprise

I'm just going to say that if you visit this blog you will be in for a surprise:
http://sheyeosemeyerphotography.com/blog/2009/11/an-afternoon-with-mary/

Fairy Wings and Other Things

Yesterday was Kennedy's birthday party. We went with a fairy theme and I must say, I think I had as much fun as the girls did. I decorated our front room (luckily there is no furniture yet) with flowers and garlands and a muslin canopy to make things look festive. It was hard to take a picture of it but here is one corner. (It looked better in real life. This picture doesn't do it justice.)

As the guests arrived we started off making our own fairies out of wooden clothespins, coffee filters and markers. Then we went on a treasure hunt. Thanks to mom all the clues were clever and I think it was the highlight of the party. Of course, the best thing about a treasure hunt is the treasure at the end. What did these little fairies find?

WINGS!!!

Who doesn't like wearing wings at a fairy party? I even sported some.

After the excitement of the hunt we had a bite to eat. You know, fairy food: strawberries, blueberries, mini muffins, cherry Sprite and a fairy's favorite. . . .red Jell-O! How do I know fairies like red Jell-O? I read the kids a book while they were eating called, "Alice the Fairy". As we read about Alice we discovered she is a temporary fairy who wants to learn how to change her bath water into . . . .red Jell-O!

After our little feast we made "fairy dust" (glitter, sprinkles and birdseed). Attached was a poem that read:

Make a wish, turn around, throw your fairy dust on the ground. Wait a day you will find only sprinkles left behind. The idea being that the "fairies" would be attracted by the shimmery sprinkles and eat the birdseed. Hope it works! One little girl said, "Mrs. Kelsey, are there REALLY fairies?"

What's a birthday party without a game of "bula bula"? I know we always played that game at my parties. The item we hid was, you guessed it, a fairy.

Kennedy had fun opening her presents but she got an extra surprise in one of the gifts. Kennedy pulled a box out of a gift bag. The fairies in the circle around her leaned in to see what the gift was. Just then a great big wolf spider crawled out of the box and the girls all gasped and stepped back as Kennedy threw the box on the ground! We had to call on the daddy fairy at that point! I don't know why none of us thought to use our magic wand!

Famous Ponderosa scene

snow and leaves

snow

Snow in Beaver

We had another snow storm last night, not much this time, only three or four inches. I decided about noon to take a ride up to Ponderosa and see what it looked like. It was beautiful, and so peaceful. I guess we should take time to smell the roses (and play in the snow)

Costumes

We've had computer problems ever since everyone left after the beach week. It's been fun to catch up since I got it back. I was going to post about our beach trip but that's all old news now.

Our kids had a great Halloween. Chris had to leave out of town that morning but I took them to the ward's Trunk or Treat that morning. Kennedy has been obsessed with Harry Potter and dressed like Hermione Granger. She even memorized a few "spells" to compliment her costume. Tristan wanted to "wear a white sheet and be a ghost". Easy enough, however, I really did make his costume out of an old white sheet and I wasn't sure it would make it through all the festivities (preschool parade, county party, trunk or treat, and trick or treating). It was pretty dirty by the time he took it off Saturday night. Jack got what I could find-- a dragon costume. Of course, Kennedy thought it all evolved around her and was trying to convince Tristan that his name was Peeves and Jack that his name was Norbert (Hagrid's dragon).

There were some pretty amazing costumes (children and adult) at our ward party. I had not dressed up. Later that night we went to a party hosted by one of our good friends. At 4:00 in the afternoon I decided that I would dress up after all (we had to leave for the party in an hour). I thought it would be appropriate to dress like a black widow since Chris was not with me. I cut out a red hourglass from some fabric and glued it onto an old black tee shirt and wore black pants. I put on lots of make up and ratted up my hair and put plastic spiders in it. I should have had someone take my picture but I was too busy getting food for my kids and making sure they didn't run off.

Kennedy turns 6 next week, I can't believe it. It seems like yesterday that she was my only child and still a baby. Time flies. We are having a fairy party for her on Saturday. I have had so much fun planning it. I hope it will be magical for her. The past three years we have had her party elsewhere and she really wanted to have a party at home this year. I hope it turns out. I'll keep you "posted".

Siennah Bear

I'm stopped in Beaver at Grandma and Grandpa's for a few minutes and Grandma had to show me this picture of Siennah she's been working on and asked if I would put it on the blog. I lub it!!

Merrill's parents

This weekend we had company coming from two directions--one was Rachel from BYU and the other was Vera and Jennie from Las Vegas. At first I was rather dismayed that they would all be here at the same time because I wanted to have Rachel all to myself. However, I think it was a good thing. It gave Rachel a chance to get to know some of her Lowe relatives. You know how bubbly Jennie is and she's a non-stop talker. We had a good time wile they were here. It just went too fast and I wanted to spend more time with Rachel. Vera and Jennie went out to see Beatrice at Long Term Care and they came back with a picture of Merrill's mom and dad on their wedding day. We had never seen this picture so we scanned it onto our computer and here it is. A picture of your grandparents/great-grandparents/great-great-grandparents. I was glad to get it.

Beach house

Looking down from the bedroom balcony

Jack with the "O"

Tristan and the wink

Alyssa

Kennedy, our dancer

It's been a while since I posted any pictures, so here's another one of Kennedy

Aloha my Ohana

Aloha! Jeff and I made it back, safe and sound from our cruise through the Hawaiian islands. We had a great time on the islands. The cruise was good, too. When the ship wasn't moving. Let's just say I inherited my dad's propensity for motion sickness. Maybe not quite as bad as him. I never tossed anything. But I sure was queasy a few times. In spite of that, we enjoyed the week, and are already wondering how and when we can get back to Hawaii. Here are just a few snapshots of our trip.

This is a picture of Jeff in front of Waimea canyon, the "Grand Canyon of Hawai'i" on the island of Kauai. At least, they told us it was there. Somewhere. We never did see it. All we got was white cloud.

Here's a picture of our cruise ship, taken from an outrigger canoe that I was riding on. We were in the bay off the coast of Kona on the Big Island.

Here we are on the Big Island with the smoking crater of the volcano Kilauea behind us. The volcano was fascinating, otherworldly, you might say. Definitely a place we'd like to go back to and spend more time.

This was one of the highlights of our trip. We were lucky enough to see some sea turtles playing and surfing in the waves near a beach in Kauai. Look for a turtle in the wave about 10 seconds in.

We're Alive!!!

Hello Family! I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in months! Our computer took a major dive a couple months ago and we finally got it fixed. I've been able to look at the blog on my ipod but I couldn't post anything.
So, I thought I would post a bunch of pics and a little bit about what we've been up to the past couple months.
In August, we finally became homeowners and we moved in to our new house. We love the house and our new neighborhood. Siennah loves the extra space we have and she has her own little toy room that she spends most of her days in.
In September, Siennah turned 2! We had mom, dad, and Lyssa up for a few days to celebrate. We took them up to Silver City which is an old mining town that has a lot of its original buildings from the 1800's. We also took Siennah to Build a Bear for her birthday. It was so much fun having them here!
For Halloween Siennah was a little princess. We took her to our ward's trunk or treat last Wednesday and she loved it so we got her all dressed up to do the real deal on Sat. She loves to dress up in pretty, sparkly things so she did not want to take her costume off!
That about wraps up the highlights of the last couple months. We are doing well, Siennah is growing so fast, and we are loving watching her learn and grow.

Kelsey Family

There's no place like home

Kristin got a new sewing machine for her birthday. Her first order of business was to sew a halloween costume for Amanda. Doesn't Amanda make a cute Dorothy? She is with two of her friends, Zaria and Casey.