Anna's Birthday

Anna turned 3 on Dec 16th. She had her first "friend party". It was a simple & fun. She invited over two cute little friends, Natalie and Isca. They wore dressups. They danced.
Anna bonked once during the dance and cried. What birthday party is complete without a few tears from the birthday girl?
They had a tea party. With mini cupcakes.
We sang and Anna blew out the candle.
She opened presents.
Molly, Jill, and Elliot joined us for the tea party as well.
I love you, Anna!!

Found

I found this while I was helping Jill clean her room.

This is so Jill. Notice the fancy flowery chandelier and the canopy bed covered with hearts and topped with flowers. Also, the centerpiece of the room (in my opinion) is the dresser. It appears to be decked out with jewels, flowers, and a crown with hearts (on top).

I hope someday you get the bedroom of your dreams, Jilly!!

Elliot's Birthday

My boy turned 4. (A month ago).
Yes, we had leftover cake from Molly's baptism. But it still tasted good, so don't judge me! :)
He got some awesome gifts...
that he totally loves.
(He actually got lots more than these, but my pictures are all blurry! He just won't hold still!)

Elliot has already made progress, one month into his 5th year. He is now riding a bike. (No, not without training wheels.) The thing about Elliot is, he figured out last summer that he was alot faster on the scooter than the bike. So he never bothered learning to pedal. Well, this summer I encouraged him to learn and he actually picked it up pretty quick. His secret was, he figured out that pedaling is easier if the bike is already going (less inertia), so he would always start by going downhill (our drive has a gentle slope). He is funny, but he gets the job done!
I love you Elliot!!

Now, in totally unrelated news, I have been doing alot of sewing lately. I have made 4 baby quilts and a dress for Molly. The dress for Molly I will have to post later because it is in the laundry, but here are the baby quilts:

For my VT Erika
For my neighbor Holly
Two for the Youth Service Auction in our ward.

And now, while the kids are at Grandma's house for a week, I am sewing like crazy to make two twin quilts for Molly and Jill. And some curtains. You might say this sewing this is a little bit of an obsession for me! :)

Eight is Great

What a wonderful and busy week we had. Molly turned 8 on Friday and we had a big birthday party for her.
Everyone was there!
She got some awesome birthday presents. (Not pictured is the new, bigger bike mom and dad got for her.) Grandma Jody got her an American Girl Molly doll. She has been wanting one of those for a long time.
Grandma Nancy and Grandma Killian got her six cute outfits for her doll.
Aunts Katie and Sarah got her a beautiful CTR locket.
Then on Saturday her dad was able to baptize and confirm her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We were so blessed because nearly all of our extended family was able to be there. Even lots of great-grandparents and second cousins! Here we are with our Smith side (we missed you Jason and Kristin!)
Our Phillips family pictures will be coming soon...since we had everyone in town we decided to do a professional family portrait. I can't wait to see how it turned out! :)

Here's our little family on the happy day. Don't you love Molly's beautiful dress? I know she did. It definitely had twirl factor.
I am so proud of my girl and the good choices she is making. She has a wonderful testimony and she loves her Heavenly Father. She is a good example to her brother and sisters. I love you, Molly!

Happy Birthday Jill

Jill is six. This is a poem she memorized about turning six.

"When I was one I had just begun.
When I was two I was nearly new.
When I was three I was hardly me.
When I was four I was not much more.
When I was five I was just alive.
But now I am six, and I'm clever as clever,
So I think I'll stay six now forever and ever."

--A. A. Milne

I want Jill to stay six forever too.
We had a pizza birthday. Pizza for dinner and fruit pizza instead of cake.
I think Jill got all of her birthday wishes granted.
She got money from Grandma Killian. And Petshops from Grandma Nancy.
And a beautiful doll from Grandma Jody.
Molly wanted to give Jill a present but Mom didn't have time to take her to the store. So she crafted a homemade gift. And wrapped it herself.
Here is the front:
And here is the back. Hmmmm, Grandma Jody, can you make any sense of this?
Mommy and Daddy gave Jill her own reading light and book holder because she is becoming such a great reader. (pictures to come) Also, tomorrow Jill gets to start piano lessons. I think six is going to be an exciting year!

Some Photography Practice

I've been trying to be a "light-hunter" like I learned in my Joy-ography Class. Here are some of my practicing pictures. I think I am getting a little better. What do you think?
(I love how her eyelashes look)


This one is maybe a little over-exposed, but I still like how it turned out.

This is totally a Jill picture smile. She is thinking about how she would rather be doing something else than taking a picture.

You will notice that there are no pictures of Elliot. This is not from lack of trying. That boy will not hold still long enough for me to set up a shot. All of my pictures are of the back of his head! I'll get faster though, and maybe he'll slow down a little!

Joyography Class

Today was the day of my photography class. (Thank you so much to all of you who voted for me.) I have to admit, I really don't know anything about taking pictures. Alls I know is, I don't like the way mine look. The pictures I have of my children don't match the way I see them in real life (or maybe just in my mind).

So I felt a little foolish at first, cause I didn't know the first thing about operating my camera. Seriously, I had to keep raising my hand asking for help. The teachers, Megan and Marisa, said that I must never used auto mode again, that I must always use manual. Well, I had to raise my hand and ask "how do I turn my camera to manual?"

(This is embarrasing but I am going to do it anyway.) Here are the first few pictures I took:
I know. Bad, right. But it's okay, because after spending the day learning about capturing light and what aperature, shutter speed, and ISO do...I think I made some improvements:

Compare the following picture with the previous one. I do think I improved at least a little.

Here is a little series of pictures where you can see that I am trying to capture more light. I took six pictures of this ornament, here are the 1st,
3rd,


& 6th.

Although I didn't have quite enough light on this cute little gal, I did like the composition.
Two outside pictures. It was hard for me to figure out all the settings inside. Outside was a little easier because there was so much more light. I like how she is kindof curved into an s shape
It took me a long time of playing with focus and stuff to figure out how to shoot this bird. But I finally got a picture that I like. Nice thing about still lifes, they don't wiggle around and change positions while you are trying to master your camera! :)
This picture is not amazing, but I did like the composition, if you notice in the background there is a ton of crazy stuff. That's what the whole Red Star Mill in American Fork was like. Just all kinds of weird, old, interesting, cool stuff. (I bought a painting for my bedroom. I found it in an antique bathtub.)Even though this little boy isn't perfectly posed, I was happy that I got tons of glowy light and nice bright colors.

I took 253 photos (until my battery died). I only liked about 20 of them, most of which were in the last 100. So I have a long way to go, but I think I improved quite a bit in one day. I can't wait to practice more tomorrow morning!