From This to That in 6 Short Years

I can hardly believe this beautiful newborn

has turned into this beautiful young lady!

 

At 6 years old, Madeleine enjoys:
Reading!
Mac 'n Cheese
Gymnastics (she's worked very hard on her cartwheel)
Smoothies
Giving instructions and directions
Playing with her friend Sydney almost every single day
Carrying her cat around
BoUnCiNg and flipping her hair all over the place!
Wrestling with her brother and dad
Her primary teachers
Convincing her brother and sister that she is always right and they should do what she wants them to do
Giving Family Home Evening
Teasing Rob and I right back when we try to tease her
Doing anything with Nate but she gets a special enjoyment out of frustrating him. It makes me snicker.
Kindergarten and all the activities and friends that come along with it.
Picnics
Party Planning


Like I listed, Madeleine LOVES planning parties. She has been planning this years birthday party since her last one. I decided to let her fully take the reigns on this one because I knew she'd be totally into it. All I had to do was sit back and enjoy :)

She had long ago decided on a "Late Night" theme.  She told me how she wanted the invite to look and I did my best.

Then I gave her a budget and took her to the party store to buy whatever decorations, games, and goodies that she wanted. She mostly decided on prizes and things to give to her guests but she also chose a fancy centerpiece and some balloons.

I gave her a couple of ideas for activities but she largely came up with everything herself. First they all sang their little hearts out to Let it Go. It was seriously impressive and was my favorite moment of the evening. It gave me goosebumps. The video is dark but you can hear most of the 13 girls in attendance singing. You can also skip forward a little and it gets lighter.





Then they opened presents because it's her party and she wanted to do that first. Then they ate. She wanted...a PEEP cake!! There is no cake under there. All peeps all the time.

The birthday song was funny.

She decided to have a stuffed animal fashion show. The girls dressed them up in all the fashionable stuff we have and they introduced them on the stage. Madeleine gave out medals to each stuffed animal for things like "Best Fashion" and "Most Cute".

After that they all played and sang before we turned on Frozen and skipped to all the best parts. We went through 10 bags of popcorn.

Overall? BEST party ever!

I think I'm going to let her plan and carry it out from now on. She has such a knack for it and really enjoyed the freedom to do what she wanted to do. Plus, it was way less stressful for me trying to make everything cutesy and perfect because it already was!

Big Surrrrrrr - Asilomar State Beach

We drove south past Cannery Row and Lover's Point to the less frequented Asilomar State Beach just past Pacific Grove. Link to video.

When we got out of the car, the smell was incredible. The scent of the open sea was calling back memories that had been buried deep in my mind from when I visited this area as a young child. It was an immediate feeling of "I've been here before" even though I can barely picture it visually in my mind. Scent has a miraculous way of doing that sometimes.

We wanted to do a little tide pool exploring.

I didn't notice for a while but every single little puddle was literally crawling! Crawling crabs! There must be millions of them. I just kept thinking how much Nate would have enjoyed seeing and playing with these. Video Link.

Big Surrrrrrr - Monterey & Fisherman's Wharf

I searched and searched to find us the perfect place to lay our heads. Did we want to stay in one central location or split it up and stay one night further south? I even looked into staying in some amazing cliffside yurts at a beautiful property in the middle of nowhere. In the end, we decided on the Marriott across from Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. That weekend was 1) Valentine's Day weekend, and 2) a long weekend because of President's Day. So most places within and without our price range were booked. We also decided that we didn't want to drive further to the airport on our last day so we stayed central. I'm not complaining, it is a great hotel in a nice walkable area.

After sleeping and getting breakfast we walked across the street to Fisherman's Wharf. Now I'm not one to do the super touristy things but it was right there and we had some time. It ended up being such a fun place to take pictures. On the way we came across a bocce court.

The view of the marina was fun.

There wasn't much to see on the actual wharf but we went where no tourist has gone before. Well, probably not, but we were pretty much the only people we saw. We walked down below onto the docks and undercarriage of the wharf. Again, super photogenic.

 

After this we ducked into a souvenir shop to buy something for the kids. Rob and I both felt woozy and like the floor was moving even though we had been on solid ground most of the time. There was some weird juju there...

Rob took this awesome pic with the Nikon

but most of the time he was doing this with his Mamiya. Yep, he's pretty cool.

Nate's Baptism

Nate turned 8 late last year and decided that he would like to be baptized and become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We were thrilled with his choice of course and are frequently impressed with his understanding of gospel principles and testimony.

We made this photo of him a few days before his baptism. I love his smile and personality and he is a joy to be around. I can’t even look at this picture of him without smiling. I’m so proud to see Nate gaining knowledge and experience and making correct choices.

Nate was baptized at the same time as our neighbor Sydney. We are good friends with her family and took some pictures of her at the same time that we did Nate’s. She is a frequent visitor over here and it was really fun to see these two interact during the photos session and wonderful to share that experience with her and her family.

It was pretty special to be involved in this as a father. I’ve been looking forward to this day since Nathan was born. It is a strange thing to be old enough to baptize your children but it is certainly and honor to do so. I love Nate very much and am very pleased with his choice.

Big Surrrrrrr - Pescadero State Beach

This beach is just. so. beautiful.  You park your car on top of a cliff and then take some stairs down to the sand and rocks below.

We were really transfixed by the colors of the scene.  I really loved the vibrant green sea grass (?) against the muted blues, browns, and grays. Most of these pictures have very minimal editing done to them.

The water rolling in made me feel insignificant.

We were planning on heading south to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse for sunset but just couldn't pull ourselves away. So we enjoyed it here.

Right before the sun hits the horizon, golden hour occurs. By no means does golden hour actually last an hour. More like 6 minutes or less. Everything in sight suddenly turns bright orange. Long shadows appear. It looks more like sunrise than sunset. Then suddenly it's gone.

We couldn't leave until it was dark.  Rob was a master photographer with these shots.

                                                                  

Ten minutes later we pulled into the lighthouse parking lot, just to see the light. I've never actually seen a lighthouse before and was surprised that the light didn't seem very bright. The surrounding buildings are now used as a hostel.

We drove another hour and fifteen minutes in the dark to the Monterey Marriott. While I took a hot shower, Rob picked up dinner around the corner and brought it back to the room. It was a great way to end our first, perfect day.

Home Decor: Stairway

(This is a long post and probably super boring. Feel free to skip :)

Two years ago we hung our family portraits on the wall in our stairway and I was happy with them.

But not much time went by before I decided there weren't enough pictures for that large of a wall. It's the focus wall in our Living Room and everyone faces it when sitting on the sofa. I'd done a lot of browsing on Houzz and decided to go with a full, top-to-bottom, end-to-end showstopper of a look. Oh, it was going to razzle and dazzle and be the perfect offset to our otherwise pretty toned-down decor.

Luckily, we have a million photographs! We just needed to sort through them and decide which ones we wanted. We spent $40 on prints from Costco and called ahead and asked them not to roll our large sizes. That way they lay flat in the frame rather than bow out.

I already had half the frames but I still needed a lot more. To keep costs WAY down I headed to DI for some DIY. It took a couple of trips but I ended up with 16 frames sized 5x7 up to 30x40. Most of them are solid wood and built by professional framers (business stickers on the back). I took them all apart and painted them black. This cost me under $50.

I thought I'd be able to use most of the mats that came with them but once taken apart I found out that everything was glued together with whatever horrible print was in the frame. So unfortunately I had to spend almost $100 on getting mats cut plus $10 on supplies to put the frames back together.

This whole process was a pain! There were so many different frame sizes, mat sizes, and print sizes to keep track of, many of them un-standard. The mat cutter at Hobby Lobby also cut a few of them wrong which we didn't know until I brought them all home and tried putting them together. Back to Hobby Lobby. I had to pay for 3 mats to be recut even though it wasn't my fault. Because I didn't have the frame with me the first time they wouldn't hold themselves liable.

We spent 3 nights putting everything together. It's amazing how long things take sometimes. There also was an accident with the largest piece of glass but we opted to leave it hoping it isn't too noticeable. We were just so done at that point and still had so much further to go so we kept on going.

Next we needed to decide on a layout. There isn't enough floor space in our home to lay out the entire wall worth of pictures so we opted for photoshop. Everything looked great!

Now all we needed to do was hang everything. Let me first explain something. Rob hates ladders. He is fine with heights, just not while climbing up rungs. Every time he would have to go up high to hang a picture he would hum and haw for 10 minutes before he'd work up the nerve. Then he'd step up       s-l-o-w-l-y. He would make sure both of his feet were firmly planted on each rung before he'd take a deep breath, hold it, and head up to the next. Then he'd exhale loudly. He says he's just "safety conscientious". Granted, half the time he was carrying a frame and hammer in one hand. He was in such a grumpy mood doing this!

Anyway...we put up a few frames and then I made Rob stop because I was just not liking it at all. The frames looked heavy and felt like they were going to fall in on me. Something wasn't right. We went back to photoshop and it still looked great but once it was multi-dimensional in my living space I just hated it. I'm embarrassed that we even got this far with it. After a few days of mulling it over I made Rob get back up on the ladder and take it all down. Oh, I'm such a mean wife!

After a week or two of researching, drawing out different layouts, and laying portions out on the floor I came up with a new plan. We ended up taking out 10 of the smallest photos from our original plan. Then we spent another day and 2 nights hanging and straightening.

This time, it worked! At least I think it works. It's not quite the look I was originally going for. It's more symmetrical and traditional now. At least to me it feels natural and not like I tried and failed at a certain designer look. It really is a whole lotta Snow goin' on now, though!

These pics are taken with my phone since I don't have a wide angle lens for the SLR. Someday I'd love to change out the lighting to some beautiful pendents.

Project Cost: under $210.
Project length: Way too long. Hands on time was probably 33 hours or so over the period of 2 months.
Would I recommend this DIY project? If you're looking to do a smaller collage then I'd say "for sure." But if you're looking to do a large collage on a high wall, I'd most definitely say "No, come up with an easier idea."The cost savings were SUBSTANTIAL but SO much time and energy was used to get it done.

So glad it's done...

 

Big Surrrrrrr - Pescadero

We drove inland just a couple of miles in order to visit Pescadero and get some snacks. What a quiet little place. This particular area of California is the Pumpkin Capital of the World, Artichoke Capital of the World, and Strawberry Capital of the World. 

While Rob visited a farm stand to taste some strawberries and figs I walked around looking for a restroom. I couldn't find one in the vicinity so I asked the man tending the fruit. He generously offered me his restroom and pointed me to the back of the building. I wasn't expecting a double-wide portable. I thought, "Well, I've used porta-potties many times before and I can now." But when I opened the door and saw the toilet full, literally to the brim, of things I won't name, I stepped back out and closed the door behind me. Then I waited a strategic amount of time before heading back to the front with Rob and kindly told the man thank you. 

I did find an actual bathroom soon thereafter but it wasn't much better than the porta-potty.  That was our extent of activity in the town other than getting a few pictures and then heading off to another beach.

Pescadero Beach at Sunset

This photo was taken at Pescadero State Beach on Valentine’s Day. Julie and I made it there a while before sunset and hiked around over the beach and rocks. What a lovely place. As sunset approached we spent a little less time on the rocks and got down closer to the water. To really capture the moment you need to imagine the sound of the birds and waves, the smell of the sea, and then focus on the visuals. Hope you enjoy the photo.

This photo was made on February 14, 2014 at Pescadero State Beach on Valentine’s day with a Nikon D7000 and the Nikon 12–24mm f/4 lens at 12mm. The exposure information was 1/125s, f/9.0, and ISO 100. The image was edited in Lightroom 5 with a graduated filter (exposure, shadows, and contrast to the sky), boosts to the temperature, vibrance, black clipping, shadows, and clarity sliders affected the entire image.