I heart my new camera

My computer still isn't working right. It just took me about 2 hours to upload photos and get them ready to put on the blog. It shut off on me 3 times during this process. Twice, it was almost finished uploading and I had to start all over.

Anyway, I haven't gotten to share pictures from my new camera. Russ completely surprised me at Christmas with a new Canon Rebel xsi 12.2 mpx digital SLR. PLUS a tele-photo lens. It has been very exciting (and overwhelming). There is so much you can do with it and I haven't got a clue how to use 75% of the cool things on it. Someday I'll take a class to learn how to use it, until then, I just keep on clicking (656 pictures saved since I first got it- that doesn't include the ones I deleted)

But I wanted to share some of the highlights from Christmas and some of my recent favorite pictures:

Rylan, Papa and Maddie Josh is actually smiling!


Eric with Rylan I love this little outfit

We got Mom a flat panel for her computer. She had no idea.

It snowed on Christmas eve- HUGE flakes!

The Night before Christmas


Maddie got an acoustic guitar.


Russ' favorite gift was the Lite Brite :)


I think Rylan having a "boy toy" was Russ' favorite.

A picture of me- these are rare.

Becca helping Grandma make cinnamon rolls.

Russ balancing Rylan

And again...

And again. Notice the bald spot? That's why she wears a lot of hats. Aren't her little jammies the cutest? Thanks Aunt Marla!

Grandpa and his girls

Grandma with her girls

Becca stuffing her birthday cupcake.

Becca showing off her "birthday outfit". Russ playing stick the tail on the pony.

Becca's friends at her birthday party.

Can you tell I did the cake all by myself? Jenny B- I wish I had even half your talent of making cakes! And this picture was just so cute of Becca squeezing the life out of A.


Maddie started playing basketball in December. Russ is the coach/ref. Jenna from church is on her team. Maddie loves it all so much (we were very surprised by this).

Maddie's first real shot in a game. (she missed)

I love this soft focus picture of Becca.

She was playing outside in her mask, velvet black/red skirt with a blue shirt, pink butterfly on it, and one blue princess shoe and one pink princess shoe. She told me she felt very pretty.

Rylan likes to suck on her toe.

I love all of these shots of Rylan. Her eyes are just so blue!





Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks?



I'm learning about the different settings on my camera- see the difference? The second one is so much clearer.

And this was my favorite series of pictures. From happy, to sad, to snot bubble.

All kinds of stuff...

So my computer was broken for a little over a week. That totally stunk. I hate computer viruses. So I am no longer allowed to download ANYTHING. So for all of my Facebook friends, I will not be accepting your birthday invitations, or little gizmo thingys. Sorry, but I don't like not having a computer.

I had so many things to blog about during that time, but I have forgotten most of them by now, but here are the highlights. Pictures will come eventually, just not today. :)

We had a great Christmas in Iowa. I got a new Canon xsi 12.2 mega pixel digital SLR camera. Russ even got the tele-photo lens for me. It is awesome! I have had no time to sit and learn about it. I'm excited to have time next week to do that. And to show you all how great the pictures are. I think I've taken about 800 pictures since I first got it. Seriously.

I am enjoying Facebook, but feel bad when I turn someone away who's asking to be my "friend". But I really don't care much about a friend of a friend of a friend. I don't know them. I don't really want to know them. I'm mean, I know. Oh, I also think our virus came from downloading Facebook applications. We were told that Facebook is an easy way to "get in" to your computer. So be careful downloading things from it.

The house we were wanting sold, so we took ours off the market last Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, the lady across the street from us called to find out why we didn't have a sign in the yard. Anyway, she preceded to tell us about a couple in our neighborhood who were going to call to come see it that week. They are really interested in it, but just hadn't had a chance to call and come see it. They are coming tomorrow night. So maybe we'll end up selling it on our own. Who knows?

I finally saw Twilight. There was some really bad acting, but over all, I really enjoyed the movie. I can't wait to see the next three.

Becca had a fun birthday party. She had 6 little girls over for a My Little Pony party. It was cute.

Oh and the best for last... How do you completely get rid of lice? Yep, that's what I said. Maddie came home from school on Tuesday and I noticed little brown dots in her bang area. Upon searching even more, I found lice. YUCK! Double yuck! So I immediately ran her into the bathroom and basically didn't let her leave there until it was time for bed. I cut her hair (it's chin length) and started going through it with a fine tooth comb. Russ brought home the treatment and we did that. Then yesterday I washed her hair in vinegar, used a blow-dryer on hot and also flat-ironed her hair. If this doesn't work, then I'm pulling out the mayonnaise, peanut butter and vodka. No, not for me, but all for her hair. I think I've now done about 15 loads of laundry, with about 6 more to do. And that's all since Tuesday at about 3:30.

Can you get it from trying on clothes? She did a bunch of that this past weekend. Ewww. That makes me never want to try on anything! Or rolling on the mat in gymnastics. Or sitting next to someone on the bus with it, or leaving her coat near someone who had it. If she was a boy, she would have a shaved head right now.

Anyway, off to do more laundry and get my house ready for tomorrow night. We just won't tell the prospective buyers that we have lice in our house. Shhhh.

Happy 4th Birthday Becca!

Today our Becca is 4. She has been calling herself the "birthday girl" all day. She was announcing it at Walmart even. She's awfully proud of the fact that she is now 4.

I asked Becca tonight what her favorite part of her birthday was and she said, "getting my bunny, Rella". We went to Build a Bear and she picked out a bunny and put it in a Cinderella dress and named her Rella Rabbit.

When asked what the worst part of her birthday was, she said, "having to clean my room- and on my birthday!!".

She got to choose what we had for dinner tonight. She chose Hannah Montana macaroni and cheese. Now that's a birthday dinner I can definitely fix!!

Happy 4th birthday our little tax baby!!

(Maddie got a new outfit for her bear from Build a Bear, so she had to put on her matching outfit too. She even had me do her hair to look like her bear's ears. Becca's hair is in pony tails, like her bunny's ears)

Conversations with Becca

For those of you that know our Becca, you know how much personality she has. She is a crack-up. Here are two funny stories for you...

When we were trying to convince Maddie to pull her tooth out, we told her as soon as she pulled it, we would go to Braums and get her a malt. She kept crying and wouldn't do it. Becca just looked at Russ and very calmly said, "I want a malt, I'll pull my tooth out for a malt Daddy." And she proceeded to try to pull out a tooth.

Just now, she came to me with three pennies.
"Mommy, can I buy something with these three pennies?"
"No honey, that's not enough to buy anything. But if you help me clean your room and put away laundry I'll give you some more pennies so you can buy something."
Dramatic pause....

Becca's response: "How about I pay you $5 to clean my room instead?"

(Sounds good to me. Show me the money!)

What a little nut.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...

Turn up the volume. Maddie was so excited that I found the song for this blog.

Maddie lost her right front tooth last Monday. Since then her left front tooth has been VERY loose. It has been driving Russ and I crazy. On Saturday, Russ convinced her to let him try the floss trick. (Just a helpful reminder- it does not work if you only have the Glide floss)

Maddie on Tuesday.

This is what "the tooth" looked like on Tuesday.

Russ trying to get the tooth out. Maddie didn't like this so much.

Tying floss around her tooth on Saturday didn't work.

We've been calling her "Snaggle tooth, Goofy tooth and Cyclops tooth". We tried to convince her that she couldn't be an angel in the Christmas program because angels don't have goofy teeth. Her friend, Eden also only has one front tooth left, and it's pretty loose. So we tried to make it a competition between them.

Last night it was just barely hanging on. Just breathing would make her tooth wiggle.

Finally, last night, she bit into a cracker and it pushed her tooth backwards. She came running to me with a mouth full of blood. Well, after about 30 minutes, it came out!! Finally!! And the first thing she says is, "Yes! I beat Eden!!"

Russ was starting to get frustrated, when....

Yes!! Success!!

I told Maddie that she could now sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". She said, "no it's not Mommy, I want other things too."