Life As It Is.

Floods and bikes.

Seth and I were sad to see the Gaylord Opryland (where we stayed in January during our stay in Nashville) is under water due to the flooding that took place. We were so impressed with that hotel and now it is a huge swimming pool. Thankful to hear that our friends who live minutes outside of Nashville fared much better.

I am so very happy to report that we have reached a Kappes milestone and we officially now have two bike riders! I took the girls to the track yesterday and let them and ride for over an hour....wanted to be sure that the bike riding was secured for Sadie. She did fabulously and now we are eager to go on a family bike ride this weekend. The girls spent every minute that I would allow them on their bikes yesterday. It has been a long awaited day. :)

Facebook makes it harder to stay motivated to update the blog. It is so much easier to write one or two sentences than to find the time to write out an entire blog. Plus, I feel like I am repeating myself here. Yet I think the blog is more important....something I want to keep up so the girls can look back and read. Really so all of us can look back and remember....Seth was just reading old posts the other day, and it seems that every time we can't remember when something took place, we read through the blog. So I need to be better.

So here's some random catching up.

Avery has mastered riding her bike in the past month. Sadie is still working on it. We're not quite sure what is wrong with us that we can't seem to get her to ride a bike without training wheels. I mean seriously. The training wheels have been off for a year now.

Seth is keeping busy busy at work, so that is a good thing. He had Fridays off (mostly) for about three months, but that stopped around Easter and he has been busy as can be ever since. He rewarded himself by buying an AR-15 yesterday. I've been telling him that only crazy people own that type of gun, but he was being quite persistent. (I also got my first gun of my very own a couple weeks ago...a Ruger 10-22.)

I recently finished another round of P90X. After I finished the first time through, I begged Seth to do it with me. He agreed to do it with me sometimes but told me I couldn't tell anybody (he doesn't "believe in doing exercise just for the sake of exercising". He has to actually be climbing a mountain or something). So he would work out with me a few times a week when we could both do it at the same time. I was doing a great job keeping it to myself, and then one Sunday at church, Pastor Terry was talking to the girls about it and he mentioned in his sermon that Avery said that Dad works out with mom but mom has to make him do it....something to that effect. I laughed all the way home that Seth's secret was blown. No worries, PT, Seth wasn't upset. :) Anyhow, I haven't been nearly as disciplined this second time through....the logistics of trying to wait until evening so Seth could do it with me made it a challenge. But I love doing it together.

Last week, Seth stayed home with the girls for a few days while I went to the IPPA convention. They did a lot of fun things...frisbee golf, shooting rockets, video games, ice cream. I appreciate Seth taking the time off...the girls love it and it makes it so much easier for me to get the most out of the convention if I'm not juggling getting the kids to babysitters, etc. 

My beef of the week....it is now May and it still feels like winter outside. I feel cheated. I want a real spring. I want winter to go away. Permanently.

That is all for now.

ETA: I spoke just moments too soon. After all these years, I think it has finally clicked for Sadie and she was doing awesome on her bike tonight. Perhaps she won't end up as the 40 year old that can't ride a bike.

Good morning, life.

I'm enjoying this morning on our day off from the studio and homeschool. Sadie and I are munching on some homemade fruit leather that has been in the oven since yesterday afternoon. I'm telling her about the raspberry bushes we had in the yard when I was growing up and how much I disliked having to pick the raspberries because I always got cuts on my hands and arms. But how much I loved the fruit leather and other goodies we would make from the raspberries, in addition to eating them fresh. She says that must be why I love raspberry yogurt.

I'm waiting for my chai black and green tea to cool a bit more. Making a grocery list and planning our meals for the week. Sadie is great at reminding me of things I need to be sure to add to the grocery list.

Thinking through what all I need to do today. Realizing I'm going to need to prioritize because there aren't enough hours in the day for all I would like to accomplish.

One thing I marked off my list last night was preparing my images for the Intermountain Professional Photographer Association's print competition next weekend. It is always stressful to choose images and I'm never satisfied with what I choose, but that seems to be common among photographers. It is a relief just to have the images sent off to the lab and try not to think about them for the next few days.

My tea is ready for me.

ETA: Grrrrr. My internet and my laptop aren't getting along these days. Two and a half hours later, the internet is working longing enough to post this! Thankfully my birthday present will be arriving in a few days....macbaby is being replaced.

Change your vacuum bag.

My mind has a way of constantly thinking of analogies/metaphors related to whatever I'm doing at the time. Today it just happened to be changing the vacuum bag. I changed the bag and started vacuuming again and I thought, "Wow, changing the vacuum bag can make a huge difference!" And then I started to think about all the ways that silly overstuffed vacuum bag was a metaphor for life, parenting, business, my relationship with God.

I'm weird like that. All from a vacuum bag.

Day off.

It has been a nice day off. I debated attending a photography print critique, but decided against it in the end. Instead, spent a lovely day off with my girls. We started out with breakfast at Starbucks. Avery and I tried their oatmeal for the first time (thumbs up!) and Sadie had the breakfast sandwich (if you haven't tried it, you should....reduced-fat turkey bacon, egg white on a whole grain english muffin, very tasty).

After a quick stop at JoAnn for fabric &yarn, we went to the garden nursery and picked up everything we need so that we can get planting. We got the garden all prepped yesterday and it is just waiting to be planted. I planned to do it today, but it was a bit cold and rainy, so we planted the indoor stuff instead (tomatoes, peppers, jalapenos, basil). Thursday is supposed to be warm so we will hopefully be able to get home early enough to get outside and plant potatoes, onions, peas, carrots, lettuce....can't remember what else. We also started a lot of flowers inside that the girls picked out. I'm expecting them to be able to be even more helpful with gardening this year and hopefully they will be well vested since they helped choose, then planted the new flowers. Avery loves to help water the garden, now if I could just get them both to love weeding!

Dinner is pretty much ready to stick in the oven....meatloaf, sweet potatoes, rolls, and deviled eggs. Even made a batch of peanut butter blossoms (one of my fave cookies). I make them with whole wheat flour but I dare you to tell the difference. Which reminds me of something I should warn you about. There will be a post coming soon regarding the new television show, "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" which premiered last night. Stay tuned....I have to simmer down before I blog about it.

Alrighty, need to go get Avery off the piano so Sadie can practice. Oh, and perhaps make the house look less like a hurricane went through it.

Bits.

Seth has been complaining often about the infrequency of my blog posts, so in an effort to squelch the complaints, I'm going to post. The longer I go without posting, the harder it is to post. Seems backwards because you'd think that would mean I'd have lots to post about, but no. Just makes it difficult to choose something to focus on. So this will be a random catch-all post.

The past week and a half or so has been interesting because I've been living in a constant state of dizziness. No mean comments about how I'm always "dizzy/ditzy" because I've already heard them all from the hubby. Still not sure exactly what is causing it, but it has made me really tired and nauseous. The doctor is running some blood tests to check for things like a thyroid problem, anemia, and other random things. Hopefully it will just prove to be unexplained vertigo, if not, then they'll do a CT scan to make sure my head isn't messed up.

On Monday, we were saddened to learn of the passing of my sister-in-law's mother. We were able to attend her funeral yesterday. She was a strong woman...she dealt with MS for 25 years and then for the past five she had been fighting leukemia. She just recently received a bone marrow transplant. So sad for April and the rest of the family.

I'm keeping busy at the studio and I'm eager for the spring blossoms to make their appearance and to get outside to do some shooting.

Speaking of Spring, I'm hoping to get the garden tilled up this weekend and maybe get some veggies in the ground.

Well, that's about enough random life bits for the time being. No, wait. One last bit. If you haven't tried Papa Murphy's DeLite pizzas, you should grab the delite chicken garlic pizza this weekend. It is tasty. Though it is "delite" I wouldn't call it healthy, but is a little better for you than chowing down most of the other pizza options available.

ETA: A tidbit I'm excited about- we were talking on the drive home from Lehi yesterday about what we might do to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary (yes, it is two years away). We're thinking perhaps a return trip to Maui. The girls were discussing favorite vacations the other day and Hawaii was the top of their list. So we are already getting ourselves excited about lazy days on the beach with sand between our toes and no real agenda. Only about 720+ days to go!!!  :)

Childhood days.

Today you drew pictures of yourselves on the stepping stones with chalk. You hula-hooped like I've never seen you hula-hoop (what happened over the winter that you turned into such excellent hula-hoopers?). You picked some of my snow crocuses and brought them to me. You filled your pails with lavender from my bushes, making your own sweet-smelling potpourri. You came in the house covered in dirt with yet another rip in the knee of your pants and smelling like boy. You raced one another from one end of the yard to the other, laughing all the way. You waved at me time after time as I watched from the bedroom window as I ironed dad's shirts. You cleaned off the little table and moved it to the middle of the yard so you could sit in the sun. You chased a stray cat, disappointed that it wouldn't let you play with it. You both came inside to show me your wiggly teeth, seeing it necessary to give me constant updates on the wiggleability of your loose teeth.

And I smiled. These are the days of childhood.

Holiday weekend.

Lots of folks have today off for President's day, and I must say that I wish Seth were off. It was a great weekend and I wouldn't have minded an additional day with him. We had a great Valentine's day, though not traditionally romantic, it was exactly what I wanted. Seth usually makes every effort to avoid the holiday, so I just know to expect that and we're good. But he must have been feeling a little guilty or something because he was easily swayed into providing assistance on some studio projects as my Valentine's gift. If you know Seth, you know he doesn't love doing my "projects", and especially if they are for the studio. So it was a generous gift of time and effort that I gratefully received. I dragged him around Lowe's collecting supplies (for the second weekend in a row), and then he helped me with the project. It went quickly and smoothly and I'm pleased with the outcome (I'll point it out next time I use it in a shoot).

I have some great photoshoots coming up this week that I'm excited about. It is going to be a busy week but it will be a fun one. Great subjects this week, and I'm also looking forward to using some new and newly redecorated items. Very thankful for friends who let us use their truck while the van is in the shop (occasionally decides that it doesn't want to shift into a higher gear...we had a long drive from SLC to Ogden on backroads one day!). Especially glad that I won't have to hitchhike to Logan for tomorrow's photoshoot! :)

I'm spending today doing some painting, distressing, antiquing on some furniture, etc. for the studio. I've had several pieces that I've wanted to do for a long time so I'm trying to do it all in one shot. Avery has been a great little helper...sanding, staining, and distressing alongside of me. When I started distressing the first chair, she asked, "Are you trying to break the chair?!" She was incredulous at what I was doing. I should probably explain the concept a bit so she doesn't decide to try the same technique on her own furniture. Sadie helped out intermittently, but she welcomed the opportunity to disappear into her room unnoticed with a book.

Now I'm doing some baking to warm the house on this dreary and rainy day while I wait for paint to dry. Have a happy day whether you got the day off or not.

Grapeshooter.

I walked into the room to see several grapes in various places across the hardwood floor, some smashed, some still whole.

Me: "Why are there grapes all over the floor?"

(I should know better than to ask these types of questions).

Avery (pointing to a lego contraption resembling a catapult): "We were pretending that we made a grapeshooter."

Seth, this is your doing. I must go mop up sticky grape juice from the floor.

Random Monday bits.

1::  The girls have been practicing the pronunciation of "synonym" for the last few days. I think Sadie has it down and Avery pretty much has it. Of course, by now they've probably forgotten the definition of synonym...might need to revisit that.

2::  I was so glad to be able to attend church yesterday after two weeks MIA. We missed last week because of the swine flu piglet, and the week before that because we were in Estes Park. I'm going to miss next week because I'll be at the annual IPPA convention (woowoo!). So Seth was a trooper and stayed home with our recovering kids so that I could go to church. It was a needed respite.

3::  So, speaking of our bout with illness...an update. I think we may be good. I hesitate to say that because as soon as I say it, someone is bound to spike a fever. Seth and I have managed to stay healthy thus far, thankfully. Sadie put up a valiant fight, but in the end, I think she lost though she came out with fewer battle wounds than Avery. I thought I'd get sick just as a result of sheer exhaustion putting a damper on my immune system!

4::  Have I mentioned that my husband is the best? I've been so thankful for him recently. Not only has he been working so hard at his own job, but he has been really great at understanding my own crazy schedule recently. I try hard to not have to bring a lot of editing, etc. home with me in the evenings, but during this time of the year, that is an impossible feat. So Seth has spent a lot of evenings putting up with me with my face buried in the computer. He has also been gracious with all of my evening photo sessions...(gotta photograph when the light is good!) watching the kidlets for me. He has even been my assistant when I was short an assistant/sherpa. Then to top it all off, he ran my competition prints a half hour away to the drop-off location while I was in sessions so that I could get home earlier that night. He has been more than understanding through this busy season...hopefully he will make it through Christmas!