Someone Must Have Told.

As of yesterday the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints dissolved all "Activities Committees" worldwide. All activities will now be planned by the Auxillaries in meetings that already happen. This of course means I was immediately released. They must have found out about the fire alarm. . . .

In all seriousness, I truly believe it will not only make planning events easier and more cohesive, but will also eliminate unnecessary meetings and be a great benefit. One more example of how our leadership receives constant inspiration to better carry out our Heavenly Father's will and bring people to Christ. To learn more about our faith and what we believe visit:

www.lds.org

I hope I am not in trouble for copying this picture but it is by one of my FAVORITE artists and an amazing guy, Walter Rane. Not that he needs publicity-he is well known but if you want to see more visit www.walterrane.com, or just start looking for his name on paintings in chapels, church magazines etc. There are four prints of his paintings in our chapel alone, and I have two in my house.

Family Photos 2010

Our dear friend was kind enough to agree to do our family photos recently. Not only did she have to bring her two children with her, she also had to put up with us and our very large dog who both her children are afraid of. It was very generous of her. Unfortunately, it was very last minute and we had a very typical "family pictures day". Meaning, I spent the whole day dragging Shad around from store to store to try to find something for him to wear, therefore making him eat late, miss his nap and be very sick of holding still by the time we actually showed up with an entire garbage sack of clothes to meet my friend a half hour late because we still didn't know what we were wearing. (We decided to do them late Saturday night for the following Monday . . . big mistake.) Dan was stressed that I was late and still didn't have anything planned and needless to say no one except Solo was very excited when we showed up. The fact he was certainly didn't help anything. (I had hoped to take him for a walk so he would be calmer being outside for the pictures, of course, that didn't happen). It also didn't make it any easier for her after an overcast morning when the sun suddenly broke out in full force in the middle of the afternoon, making her lighting situation near impossible. Fortunately, my friend was awesome about dealing with us and tried so very hard, but Shad WOULD NOT stay still without screaming. I felt a little bit better about it later when Jess admitted that her and her other friend were both redoing family pictures because they had the same problem. Guess it isn't just us that couldn't get two ornery adults, a tired one and a half year old and an overstimulated dog to look good. Despite all that she did a great job and managed to even make us look like the happy family we usually are. To be fair, check our her site to see her awesome work when she isn't dealing with the perfect storm to make her job impossible.

Jessica Lang Price Photography

Jess was just using Solo as a model to adjust settings, but I am sure a few years from now, when Solo has moved on to "the farm", this picture is going to make me bawl my eyes out.

Why it was so difficult working with the two of them; Solo barked so of course Shad had to tell him "no," finger-point and all.

I loved that this was actually not posed, Shad came over while Jessie was using me to adjust lighting and just gave me a hug while I was sitting there before running off. Luckily, Jess thought to actually take a picture, she captured a side of his personality I LOVE right here.

Yeah, he is definitely aware of how much of a stud I think he is right here. Knowing us well, our friend thought it would be funny to take one of me just looking at Dan while he looked straight ahead straight-faced. Unfortunately for her, he couldn't help smiling at how totally true to life this situation is.

As long as no one was trying to hold him still or make him quit moving he was happy, of course that makes taking a picture pretty much impossible, but Jessie managed to sneak this one somehow.

We both literally ran over to him for this, obviously not perfectly posed, but he was happily standing there so we tried to make it work.

The biggest benefit of working with a friend (other than stealing the clothes off her back, which absolutely happened), is that she could walk over grab Dan and force him to actually get close and touch me. It also helped get much more natural smiles as she could crack jokes we actually thought were funny as opposed to the lame stuff some people say. A stranger would have had a hard time getting us this close-the staircase shot is definitely more Dan's comfort zone.

Either Dan misunderstood the question or was afraid of my mood and figured a lie was safer when I pulled my hair back without a mirror and asked if it had any strange bumps etc. . . . Clearly, either way I could have used a little help, but I really don't care. This is definitely more true to real life than if it was somehow magically perfect.

As happy as he was doing this. . .

This was the best smile we could get out of him, right side up . . .

Best Buddies

(In Jessie's defense, she had been shooting in the opposite direction and took this candid so clearly the lighting wasn't ideal compared to 180 degrees the other way.)

Cutest Trick-or-treater ever!

Dan was not a fan of this costume, but still couldn't wait to see him when we met up at his parents for the family Halloween party.

Shad and I Saturday night. (There was a rain-drop on the lens)

Seriously?! Who taught him to peck for corn?

Him and aunt 'Chelle. They had a great time playing hair-dresser earlier in the day. Luckily, his costume covered his flat-ironed bangs and the 1/2 cup of gel in his hair.

I have always disliked Halloween, and Dan has never really been into either so we usually just lay low and try to make sure Solo doesn't escape when people knock on the door. This year however, I really wanted to dress Shad up in something really fun, so I started to think pretty early. I went through several different ideas trying to think of something that would be cheap to make but also fun. I first thought I wanted him to be a penguin, but too expensive, and all the second-hand costumes I saw online weren't what I had in mind. Then I decided a skunk would be cute, but made the mistake of googling it, seeing the cutest costume I have ever seen in my life for $60 and knew, if it wasn't that skunk, it wasn't going to be what I wanted. I then had the idea that a rooster would be so hilarious, so I called my mom to see how much she thought feathers would cost. She had no idea, and told me to look online, but in the process I explained my idea. She thought it sounded cute, wished me luck and hung up. Then called right back. Her and my Aunt who was visiting had just been at Goodwill and my aunt said they actually had a chicken costume. Perfect, she went back the next day, picked it up and mailed it. I then proceeded to cross dress my child in some red striped girls leggings and made the cutest chicken I have ever seen. Even better, he loved wearing it too and everyone got a kick out of it. I really should have gotten video of him running around in it because I bust up laughing out loud every time he did. Even better, he didn't really think he needed a lot of candy, he would just trade what he had for something out of the person's bucket. So, despite going to a trunk-or-treat both Friday (our wards disaster previously mentioned) and Saturday (my sister-in-law asked if she could watch Shad that day while I worked so he could go with them to theirs), he ended up with about five pieces of candy total. I sent a picture of his loot to my mom and she called saying she wanted to send him candy. I had to explain that he didn't really care about it, and remind her that he isn't even two and her husband is a dentist and would be ashamed. Not to mention all the candy sitting on the counter Dan and I have been eating.

I am not the church arson . . .

First off, I must mentioned that yes, my husband did point out that it was actually October when I did my last post titled, "then it was September," So, I will explain now that I am aware that it is now November. Halloween started out with quite a bang for us. As our ward activities chair I was in charge or our trunk-or-treat. Due to a small committee busy with work and families we decided to keep it simple. Apparently, not simple enough. I showed up at the church about an hour before it started to get water heated and start setting out doughnuts-gourmet I know, you wish you could have been there. . . I pulled out the massive stock pot, filled it with water, set it on the stove and proceeded to leave the kitchen and walk around the church to unlock doors. I figured it was going to take a whole lot longer than five minutes for about five gallons of water to boil, even on medium high heat. Well, as I was coming back around the corner I notice some smoke in the kitchen, and a terrible scorched smell. This was when I realized that the burner with the canister of hot chocolate was bright red and the whole thing was about to go up in flames. Why on earth did I try to heat the hot chocolate without the water you are asking?!?! The stove knobs were backwards from my house and I hadn't paid close enough attention and turned on the wrong burner. I noticed this was a problem and tried to open the door and wave under the smoke alarm to keep it from going off, and after about a minute I thought I just might have succeeded. And then it all broke loose. Of course, I had no way to turn it off, had no numbers in my phone for people who could so I had to just ashamedly stand there and wait for the fire dept. to show up. Needless to say, I really wished at that point that the whole ward didn't live just over the fence from the parking lot, but live an learn and eat some humble pie I guess. My father-in-law had come over to help watch Shad for the evening since Dan was at work and kindly asked if I had seen the sign stating that the kitchen was for reheating only, not cooking or food prep. Guess now we know why. I joked later that I guess, I was getting released but they informed me you actually have to succeed in burning the church down in order for that to happen. Guess the guy who burned the chapels really didn't like his calling. . . . It still turned out okay, but I certainly didn't want to be there after that fiasco.