Reflections

This year both Holly and Alyssa entered the reflections contest at school.  The theme for their project was..."The world would be a better place if..."  Holly has a sweet spot for animals so she drew this...

A duck being cleaned by loving hands

She did a terrific job!  She is already a much better artist then I will ever be.

Alyssa decided to enter a project in the category of photography.  I was thrilled that she wanted to participate but since she has very little experience in photography and our camera isn't real fancy I was a little worried for her.  I didn't want to dampen her enthusiasm so I asked her to fill in the blank...the world would be a better place if_____ and she said, "if I could eat home made bread, strawberry jam, and peach pie every day.  So, I got to work baking, we looked up ideas online on how to place the food for the shot and she took it.  To finish it off I taught her a few things on Photoshop and this is how it turned out...

Fantastic!  The judges must have liked it too, because it won for her age group and has moved on to the district level.  Congratulations Alyssa, good work!

YAY for Hair Tutorials Online!

I wasn't blessed with the talent for doing hair.  I think a contributing factor to my hair ineptitude is my lack of patience.  Another is the fact that I hate spending money on product or even on a decent hair cut.   Yep, I'm a Dollar Cuts kind of girl.  It does have it's benefits...I don't have to schedule weeks in advance, I'm in and out in 20 minutes, and never spend more than $15.  But as I get older and acquire more and more wrinkles and sunspots I find myself longing to have beautiful hair to help mask the effects of aging.  So, the other day I decided to put a little more effort into my hair.  Ben had mentioned in the past that he likes the beachy wave look, so I googled it and found a fantastic hair tutorial to help me get my desired look.  There were a few hiccups along my way that day.  I didn't own the product they recommended for one, but I didn't let that stop me.  I pulled out what I had and got to work.  My hair actually didn't end up looking anything like it was supposed to, but Ben loved it, and that's what matters most anyways.  Drum roll please....

Good news Alyssa and Holly, there may be hope for me yet.

And The Battle Rages On

I took a pummeling this week in the battle of middle girth.  Almond Joy, Twix, Snickers, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and skittles joined forces and put on a full frontal assault.  I'm down, but not out.  Hopefully I can regroup before the Thanksgiving onslaught.

PHEW!!!...

Halloween is terrifying!  I'm not a crafty person, I don't sew or own a sewing machine, so it is absolutely frightening when my girls tell me what they have decided to be for Halloween.  I get anxious about it every year, scared to death that I won't be able to make their Halloween fantasies into reality.  Each year I pray that they will choose something I can find easily and order off Amazon, but they rarely do.

This year the horror stuck first when Alyssa announced that she wanted to be the Cactus from Plants Vs. Zombies

and then it struck again when Holly decided to be a slurpee.   A deep pit formed in my stomach and the the sleepless nights ensued.  Was this a nightmare? Couldn't I just order an Anna and Elsa costume on the line and call it good?  Unfortunately, my girls would have never been content with that.  So, I did what any good mom would do...I dug out the duct tape and safety pins and got to work...

I also had to figure out what I was going to wear to Zumba on Halloween morning and a costume for Q and Ben.  Ahhh!

 This is how it all worked out...

For zumba I turned Alyssa's Barbie dress up into a Jem costume.
Holly's slurpee costume is held together with duct tape and safety pins...
hope it makes it through the day. 

Q was the sweetest little beggar ever!

"Are We Not All Beggars?"  this was my favorite talk from
General Conference, so we went with this theme for
Trick or Treating

Ayzha, Tiago and Reyn showed up as a nerd, a storm trooper, and Olaf.  

And this was our porch

PHEW!!!