Hunger Games Cast

Alright, alright. I know this seems like I have too much time on my hands. But I must say I have been incredibly productive all week. I am just about to start into the last book of the Hunger Games series. I realize I am at the tail end of the book reading craze. But I just thought I would share who I imagine the characters to be. I have the BEST Ceaser Flickerman (the tv host) but I can only picture him in my mind, I can't remember his real name. Anyway, this is the cast as I see it....


Primrose Everdeen
(this is Dakota Fanning's little sister. I understand she looks younger than 12 here, but still I think she suits the part nicely.)


















Haymitch
Hello! Perfect. I know it seems like Haymitch should be older. But if you do the math he shouldn't be older than 43 years.











Katniss Everdeen


















































Peeta
































Gale









































Johanna (from book two)




































Father Everdeen (from flashbacks)




















Mother Everdeen
















Clove (from the first book, one of the careers who hated Katniss)

Effie Trinket

Cinna

President Snow

Sure there are plenty of other characters, but these are the only ones who have actual faces to me as I read. Anyway, just thought I would share.

Let the Holidays BEGIN!!!!

Emma is not a very sassy little girl. I had her pose for the above photo to get more into her witch character...I love it. Below is the typical little girl we adore. I wish I could have got a photo of the girls together as the witch with her little spider, but I took these on separate days. So this is the best I can do.

























My itsy bitsy spider























Below is the before and after of the simplest form of editing from Photo shop. What a difference eh?

Where the magic happens

I finally have the Master bedroom finished. When we first toured this house the smell of cat urine was unbearable. Then when we saw the Master bedroom we thought "deal breaker." It was my mom who saw the potential of making the bedroom "cozy and cute" that made us move forward with this house.

















So if you can tell there was hideous wallpaper, and rotten bead board from the urine. I removed the wall paper, which took hours, and Ryan removed the bead board, and the wood trim around the cove. Then he had to re-mud the ceiling and replaces all the baseboards (he did that in the whole house anyway.)

Oh and the carpet, that went bye-bye of course.

I made this lamp. I saw it in a magazine somewhere and loved the idea. It is the only light fixture in the room, which is weird, but it makes for a great reading light, as long as we are both reading and one of us isn't trying to sleep.

I adore this curtain. I love everything ruffled. I was on the verge of splurging and buying something similar from Anthropology, but after searching the Internet time and time again I finally found a knock off for $25. Score! It's actually a shower curtain, but I made it work for our curtain.

Little Love

I cannot get enough of this little girl. She just fills my days with such joy that it literally hurts sometimes. The other day I came home from running errands and when I walked in the door she yelled "Mommy!!!" I actually grabbed at my heart and had to take a deep breath. My cousin Kylee once asked me what is the best age, and definitely, definitely I would say it is one years old. I just love everything about Lydia DeNae.













































Lydia (or Little D) LOVES my water mug. She'll pull it down from whatever counter I have it on and go to town on it. Then she will knock it over, I think on accident, who knows, leave it there to drain out until I find it later.

My favorite times with her are when Emma is in bed, the phone isn't ringing, the cleaning, dinner, and dishes are done, and she has my undivided attention. That's when she really hams it up, as shown below :)

A photo is worth a thousand words

In going through more boxes I came across these two lovely little photos. These represent the best parts of my childhood and adolescence.

Below is the moment in my life that I use to summarize my childhood. For my 7th Christmas I got a cocker spaniel puppy, that I found in a box, with a big red bow. This moment alone is a perfect representation of the wonderful childhood that my parents gave me.

This is Ryan and I, both 16, and I was beside myself in-love with him. Sure am glad it worked out that I married him, it's much more fun being married to your first love.

The Preamble to the Constitution

Our video camera has been a little difficult for me to figure out. It was completely out of commission for five months! That means I missed Lydia's first birthday, her first steps, the process of this disgusting house turned dream house...and many others I shutter to think about. Anyway, we are back on track now and have even figured out how to upload clips. I hope this works, but we'll see. Pretty much everyone who knows us has heard Emma recite the pre-amble to the Constitution. It is darling, but it was at it's peak when she was 3 and you could barely make out the words she was saying. So assuming this clip worked, this is from July, 2009. Melts my heart.

Vintage Cupcake

This post is for you Syd ;) This little store downtown Ogden has your name ALL over it. They sell vintage headbands and accessories, as well as heavenly cupcakes. Granted they're not as good as my mom's home made recipe, but they're still a cupcake nonetheless. The shop is IDEAL for a girl's evening of visiting or a mommy/daughter date, and perhaps snapping a few photos.

8 years bay-be!

Alright, sorry, but the room a day plan is not working out. Sure I could take photos and it would look like everything has come along, but I still need to touch up paint and finalize a few things. I only want to debut a room when I have nothing left to do in there, even if it can't be seen from a still photo. So, hopefully I will return to that idea by this weekend.



For now I have some day to day updates. First of all, Ryan and I just celebrated our 8 year anniversary. I remember when we had been married 3 years how long that sounded and good for us. However, now that we're 8 years in I feel like we are just barely starting our "journey." I love Ryan of course, what's not to love? But I genuinely LIKE him, and that's what makes our marriage great. I wouldn't change anything thus far in our life together and am so glad we've had so many ups, and I'm thankful for what we have learned from our downs.



Below, check out my awesome, beautiful, cape and the prettiest bouquet I've ever seen. That's all my wedding day had going, were those two things. It was a hideous time of year to get married. Oh, yeah, I will mention this now and then not again....our actual anniversary is in November, but it competes with the week of my birthday and Thanksgiving. So from now on we are celebrating our anniversary September 13th, that was the day we had our first kiss back in 1997, and we've been boyfriend/girlfriend ever since.























This picture below is to show just how long ago 8 years was. Look at Jessica!! That's Kennedy she is holding. Kylee, you look the same.

















Just kidding, Ky.


We have been LOVING the seasonal produce. Our favorite is tomatoes with fresh mozzarella cheese, but corn is what the girls love best.

















Lydia is a good little baby. Mischievous as all get out, but overall a very sweet little girl. Her signing has come to be very useful and minimizes the whining. Below she is singing "more." She can sign juice, treat, cheese, more, all done, wash hands, and sleep. She is talking earlier then Emma did so we didn't need to teach her many more signs than that. It is very helpful though that when she is whining I can ask her what she wants and she can either say it or sign it.

Emma started pre-school!! I was worried that when Ryan was between jobs she wouldn't be able to attend this year. However I have a sweet trade with her teacher that makes her tuition affordable so we don't have to pinch to let her attend.

Emma goes with one of her life long friends Lily. I know she's only 4, so a lifelong friend doesn't sound like much, but I think she will be one of two friends who Emma will actually stay friends with from birth to death....okay, maybe not death, but at least until marriage. Cause we all know how marriage makes or breaks your friendships. Anyway, Lily and Emma love school and Holly and I love sharing the car pool :)

This little guy, oh don't worry. He's just one of many that I kill each day. Honestly, truly, they haunt my dreams at night. EVERY night I dream about spiders. Ryan stuck his hand down this sprinkler valve, something he has done a dozen times. Well the other day when he did it we saw something move so he poked at it with a stick, sure enough, a black widow. I guess you could say I was glad he was okay, I mean I was, really. However, it would have been a little bit nice for me if he went to the ER so I could be justified in my fear and upset of the spider species.

I guess Emma grabbed my camera and went to town taking some photos. I got a kick out of seeing what she thought was interesting. This photo of Lydia is not something I do often, letting her sit on the counter, I was right there making cupcakes, but not sure where I was when she took this photo.

This pretty little photo Emma took of her doughnut, the photo captures nicely that yes, it is fly season. Nice. Luckily I threw it away, and that was without even knowing a fly had got it's fill too.

Another Emma photo. However, all the photos on this post were taken with my little hand held digital and the quality is junk. So I edited this to look extra funky, just to add some artistic style to this post.

I made Ryan peach cupcake for our anniversary and took them down to his work for him and his co-workers. They were a hit and it made his day. I also took them over to some of the neighbors who we adore. Nothing like peach cupcakes to win loyal friends.

My mom came out tonight and watched the girls so we could go out and celebrate our anniversary. We went to T-Roadhouse and then saw Night and Day which was cute. We didn't talk about the kids or money. It has hard, but can be done. We had a great, long over due date. I meant to have someone take our photo, but no dice. So at the end of the date Ryan just took it for us. Wow. Long update. Good for you if you're still reading this.

Guest Bath

So this room is nothing spectacular, but I did promise myself I would do a room a day, and since I need more time on some of the other rooms I thought I would just use this little bathroom as my debut for the day.

King Benjamin Tower

As far as I'm concerned nobody creates magic like my parents do. They are unbeatable in making family traditions and continuing to teach us what life is truly about. I'm so thankful for their constant FHE learning opportunities that come more than just on Monday nights. They know how to combine, family, fun and eternal perspective all into the same activity. This is their latest creation....the King Benjamin Tower. It is still a little bit unfinished, but it pretty much speaks for its self and it is what a little kid's dreams are made of, and that goes for me too!