Photography

Last summer, after much research, I finally broke down and got a DSLR camera and I LOVE it!  There are so many settings that I have no idea about though, and my friend Jennifer was kind of in the same boat.  Jennifer luckily found a guy named Ron Ragan and he graciously spent some time with me, Jennifer and my sister-in-law Kathryn last weekend to show us some things about the settings on our cameras, photography in general and some techniques in Photoshop.  I know this is SO basic, but it's one of the things I wanted to learn how to do...so here's a baby picture of Alli that I got to practice on:

I had it printed to hang in a frame and matte that I bought when I was on maternity leave a while back...I know, how sad is that!  I had big plans to make a collage with cute scrapbook paper and newborn photos, but since I am a HUGE slacker in that department, that did not occur.  When I say huge slacker, I mean like BIG...like my 5 year old doesn't even have a baby scrapbook and I have had the supplies since she was a baby (gasp).  Tomorrow evening though, that shall change.  I am SUPER excited because I am going to make baby scrapbook layouts with Kathryn and Rachel...so maybe I can get Emily's first year done by the time she starts Kindergarten.  One thing I do know though, is where I will print my photos.  Motophoto on South Broadway prints high quality prints and has a highly trained staff to ensure proper color and quality of each and every print.  The BEST thing about Motophoto is that you can upload the photos online and pick them up in their drive-thru, which makes getting photos printed with kiddos SO much easier!

My Little Belle Babe

Last Saturday, Emily attended the TJC Apache Belle Babes Clinic and they got to perform at the basketball game that evening.  She had SOOOO much fun dancing and hanging out with the big Belles, and I was very impressed with her performance!  She rocked it!!  Here are some pics from Saturday and a video of her performance.
My little Belle Babe

Camden Chilek (Jennifer's daughter) and Emily

Emily and one of the belles she really liked

Jacqueline and Emily with one of the belle girls

J and Em skipping and singing "Little Sally Walker"

Emily and her Belle.

The performance.

Here's the video of their performance!

Bitter Family Scrabble Night

On my way home from work today my sweet sister-in-law, Kathryn, texted me and we decided to go hang out at their house and order pizza...even though none of us needed the calories because everyone in the house over 5 years old is on a diet right now.  Oh well, we needed the fuel for the intense scrabble game.  Well, I didn't play because I would have been an embarrassment to my hubby who HAS to win at everything.

This little angel cheered on her mommy and daddy while they played.

Alli eating a baby carrot...this was the appetizer to try to make everyone feel a LITTLE better about the calories that were about to be consumed.

Emily is pretty much oblivious to anything or anyone else when her Uncle Luke is around.  They are so cute together!

Here's Alli with her pizza sauce mustache (yes, she did it all by herself)...we were dying laughing!

Em and Aunt Rachel (who hasn't updated her blog in almost a year...hint hint)

Rachel and the attack kisses

Grandma and sweet Madelyn

Emily posing as usual

Maddie just chilling in her swing

Mama and Madelyn

Playing peek-a-boo with her mommy

For those of you wondering about the game, Jarrod won both...of course.  It was a lot of fun...and we got to hang out with Madelyn which is always great!

Quick Weekend Getaway

This weekend, we decided to make a quick trip down to the ranch to hunt.  We thought it would be fun to take Emily since she likes to hunt with us now.  Even though it was about 28° in the mornings when we went out to hunt, she was such a trooper!  We got her some coveralls and had her bundled so warm.  We woke up about an hour later than we had planned on Saturday because my watch alarm didn't go off, so needless to say, we were late getting to our deer stands.  After the morning hunt, Jarrod wanted to go walk around, so Emmy and I went to the Llano Roadhouse Grill to have breakfast.
 

They have the BEST breakfast burritos in the world!  I seriously CRAVE these things!  The thing that stinks is, they are not open on Sundays when we are always leaving to head home.  Luckily we got to enjoy them this trip.  Emily ordered chocolate milk, and this is what she got!  It would have taken her 3 days to drink all that!

  

Emily hunted with Jarrod Saturday evening, and was with him when he killed a doe.  She did awesome when he shot and was SO excited about Daddy's deer!  Saturday evening after we hunted, Emily chose pizza for dinner.  We headed back into town and ate at Stonewall's Pizza, Wings & Things.  It was yummy and we definitely ate too much, but we had fun.  Here's a pic of Jarrod and Emily at dinner.  This girl LOVES her Daddy!

  

Sunday morning, Emily went hunting with me since she had gone with Jarrod both times on Saturday.  We had REALLY thick fog and couldn't even see the feeder, so Emily played on her Leapster (a must have if you are taking a 5-year old hunting) and we waited it out until about 8:30 a.m. with no luck.  We still couldn't see, so we headed in to pack and go home.

  

 

This little deer hunter was a TIRED girl...she racked out about an hour into the trip for a little while, but woke up later and was as chatty as ever! 

We had such a fun weekend with just our big girl.  And we are so thankful that we live close to family who's willing to keep Alli while we do fun things with Emily.  Alli stayed with Nana and PawPaw and had SO much fun!