just miss kim

wax museum

For a big part of his final grades in 8th grade, Brady had to participate in a "wax museum" night. Each 8th grader had to choose a mathematician, a scientist, a historical figure, or someone from music/art/literature. They worked on posters and speeches for quite a bit, then it all came together on one night where they dressed as their character and struck a pose. The public wandered the school, pushing a "button" for each wax figure to hear the speech. This was a big, super huge deal for these kids.

I have to say, when I sat at Brady's 8th grade orientation and heard about it, I started dreading it. This seemed like exactly the sort of thing my son would hate. I could see the drama ahead.

He proved me wrong. He got a sports figure, so that helped, but he seemed to enjoy the project, and he really did a great job. His eye contact wasn't always the best, and his expression could have been better, but he had the speech down cold, and he did what he needed to do.

Here he is as Hank Aaron:

And if you'd like to hear his speech, click below:

more photos

Tuesday evening we had a good hour on our hands, so we took the girls to the park. I had been reading a couple of photography magazines I have on hand and wanted to try a few things.

If you're wondering, my new camera is a Fuji FinePix S8100fd. Not the fanciest camera out there, and the reviews are mixed, but I love my Fujis and it's definitely a huge step up for me.

First, the girl responsible for every gray hair I have, and will get in the future:

Then, playing a bit with composition:

I said to Chesney, "show me joy":

I figured out how to focus on Ches, then move the camera to move her to the side and still blur the background (if that makes any sense):

I really think I'm going to love this camera. At least I hope. Because if not, Dan's going to be mad. So far, so good, though.

my Mother's Day gift

On Monday, my new superzoom camera arrived. No, make that... my new camera arrived!!!! I am slowly reading the instruction manual, which came on CD. I actually haven't figured out much about it yet, but I did mess around and take some photos. I came home on my lunch hour to find the camera on the porch, so I took test shots with the only model available:

I'm pretty sure the dog was rolling his eyes as I attempted to get him to pose. But this was a natural light photo, and I'm pretty excited about the low light capabilities with this camera. My favorite setting is the one that takes 2 photos -- one with flash and one with high ISO in low light. I hate missing the shot completely, but I also hate using flash. This will give me a little bit of room to wiggle until I get used to the higher ISOs with this camera (up to 6400!). And did I mention the 18x zoom? Tons of settings, including manual. Now to learn how to use it all...

Oh, and here's another photo from the new camera. Not one I took, but one of the photographer. Thought it had been a bit since I'd posted a good picture of myself:

Mother's Day weekend photos

Ches and her cousin:

This, loyal readers, is what I live with every day.

And this preteen:

Dig in!:

Brady's newest creation, the pickle dog:

my son, the hillbilly

I woke up this morning thinking that this was my last "real" Monday of the school year. I'll have to go to work next Monday, too, but next week is all conferences and work days, so today is my last Monday where I have to get up and face a full week of teaching class. It's a nice feeling, but sometimes it scares me a bit because I wonder where all the time has gone. Wasn't it just yesterday that school was starting?

I had a great weekend, but no photos to post today. I took a new allergy medication yesterday morning and by mid-afternoon, Dan and I were both struggling to stay awake. Unfortunately, we were driving at the time. So I went to bed early last night. Ches did too -- she was asleep by 6:30! I'll get a few edited and up later this week.

Have a blessed day!

Mother's Day weekend

The girls gave me handmade Mother's Day cards last weekend (because we'll be gone this weekend and they wanted me to enjoy them).

Chesney's read:
So have a happy Mother's Day! Have some fun till the warsips done. Here you are so have fun.

I have no idea what a warsip is, just in case you're wondering.

Mykiah's read:
Means more to me than anything else
Outstanding personality
Thinks of everyone else before her
Helps me change my attitude when I'm mad
Everybody knows her and likes to be around her
Reaches to the highest point in my heart and that is the reason I love her

Thanks for being such a perfect mom! You brighten eery day and make each day better for me!

Yeah, I don't know what that girl wants, but she's certainly pouring it on thick, isn't she?

We are off to see my mom this weekend! Hope you have a great holiday weekend! Remember your mom!

congratulations!

A good friend of mine, Shanna Decker, is a 2008 National Honoree for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. She has been an inspiration and a comfort to me, in addition to making me laugh like a loon. She is truly one a person I know has touched my life and changed it forever. I'm not the only person who thinks so either. The 101 state honorees voted to give her the first Arthur F Ryan Inspiration Award.

As our friend Tim would say, YEEEEEHAAAAW!

You rock, girl. You deserve all this and more.

getting organized

Last week at inservice, one of my coworkers gave me a hard time because one of my many calendars was a mess. We'd had to change dates for things multiple times and I'd written in pen and it was just messy.

It inspired me to get organized. First, I bought a Franklin Covey undated planner at Wal-mart.
It looks like this, but it's red. Which is much funner.

I sat down that afternoon -- with a pencil -- and transferred everything from my work and home calendars into it. And my address book. This thing pretty much holds everything I need in my life.

I made reservations for trips that same afternoon and was able to just write down the information onto the dates, so that when we're on the trip, I'll have all the confirmation numbers at my fingers.

On the menu planning pages, I made 5 sample weeks of menus. When I'm at the store to do my grocery shopping for the week, I just open the planner to a page, mentally substitute if needed (for example, last week I was planning to make burgers and mac-n-cheese, only to discover that I didn't have the mac-n-cheese; this week I just deleted one of the meals on my sample menu and remembered to pick up the mac-n-cheese this time). It cuts down on a lot of unnecessary money spent trying to buy enough so we can eat for the week, and it also helps keep us from going out to eat because there's nothing to fix.

I carry it everywhere. I had to buy a new, tougher purse so that I could carry it, but it's worth it to have one book that has my work and home stuff at my fingertips when I need it.One of the kids tells me about an upcoming event? I pop out my planner -- even if they remembered in the van -- and write it down.

We'll see how long it all lasts. Check back in six weeks...

more NSD layouts

Here's some more layouts I did on this National Scrapbook Day weekend. These all use templates by Janet Phillips, who really rocks the whole template thing and really allows me to be more creative with the layout by taking away a lot of the building block stages of scrapping.

This one was not my favorite, but still fun to do:

This one I really liked, and again had lots of fun creating... love one photo layouts!

This is my favorite of the bunch. Love the kit I used and how it all turned out. Definitely one of my current favorite layouts I've created: