Bokeh - Do You Have Room?

So, the resident photographer at one of the scrapbooking forums I frequent did a little tutorial on how to get the Bokeh effect with Christmas lights.  In fact, she said Christmas lights beg for this effect.  So one evening this last week, when everyone was off doing other things, I set up the Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus from my nativity and gave it a try.  I have to admit, it took me several shots to get it exactly right, but Ashley will be proud of me, I shot this in my house, with the manual setting on my camera, and I love how it looks.  I love my nativity and I think it looks so cool with the tree in the background.

Then there was another challenge at our forum to scraplift a layout and I thought it would work great for this photo.  I also finally found the Shawna Edwards YouTube video of her song "Do You Have Room For The Savior" and added the lyrics to the song to my layout.  Here is a link to the video too.

Tyrel was super excited to get to play church basketball for the first time ever this year.  Our stake has had girls basketball for years, but this is the first year they have done it for the boys.  Unfortunately, they only scheduled two games.  But, since he is also playing city league ball this year, he got some new shoes that were part of his Christmas present even though he got them early.  Trevin had a Christmas concert the same night as the 2nd game, but I made it for the 2nd half to take some pictures.  Unfortunately again, Tyrel twisted his ankle about 10 minutes after I got there.  Not sure if it was not being used to the new shoes or not.  Hopefully it will heal in time for city league ball to start.

Christmas Concert and Church Ball

Trevin's Christmas choir concert was tonight.  It was awesome!  Choir concerts always get me in the Christmas mood every year.  He says it is his favorite class this year and his teacher seems like so much fun.  He says if she goes to the new Jr. High next year, he will probably continue on with choir, so I hope she goes to the new Jr. High!  The most fun number was "Grandma's Killer Fruitcake", but they sang so many good songs with the girl's choir singing one of my favorites "Breath of Heaven".  Loved it!

pictures to follow

After the concert, I rushed to Tyrel's church basketball game and was able to catch the last half.  They were playing the Mountain View ward and stomping them.  Tyrel ended up rolling the same ankle he sprained playing volleyball a couple months ago in co-ed team sports, but I did get to see him play for a bit before that.  Their team played pretty well together and seemed to be having fun.

pictures to follow

Tree Trimming

We usually set up the tree the day after Thanksgiving, but this year we were a little late.  We were about a week into December before finally dragging it out.  Sean's aversion to hanging lights (even though he is excellent at it) has rubbed off on the boys, so it's a good thing we now have a pre-lit tree.  It took us a total of about 15 minutes to unpack, set up, light, and decorate the tree (start to finish).  Yes, I know, we are amazing!  It looked beautiful when they were done.

Gingerbread Houses 2011

The boys have at least one tradition they will still participate in.  This is their favorite one I guess.  Trevin was pretty psyched that he didn't have to give his to his teacher this year since he isn't in elementary anymore.  They have let the traditional houses go by the wayside though.  This year Travis, our future missionary, made a temple gingerbread house filled with lots and lots of gumdrops. 

 Trevin started out making a rocket ship, but that didn't quite work as planned, so he just stuffed it with as many mint m&ms as he could. 

 Tyrel made an architectural wonder that I'm amazed could stand on it's own.  

Christmas Tree

We decorated our tree for Family Night tonight.  I again couldn't talk my boys into setting up their tree downstairs.  It's kind of a bummer they are getting old and grinchy.  I love Christmas and it makes me sad that it is like pulling teeth to get them to help decorate.  I mean it took all of 15 minutes to set it up and decorate it since it is prelit and only has 4 sections.  Can they not just be happy for 15 minutes to humor their mother?  There will come a day that they will be sad they are not here for the tree decorating and it's coming soon.  Next year Travis will be gone on his mission and so this is probably the last year he will be here to decorate the tree with the family, so I guess that is why I was sad they weren't excited to help.  They are excited to do gingerbread houses next week though, so at least they like some of our traditions.

Thanksgiving Day

It was my first time pulling off Thanksgiving dinner by myself, and I must say it went fairly smoothly.  Since it was our turn for Thanksgiving with the Nielsen's and LaMarr and Diane are on their mission, I volunteered to have it here.  It was also Todd's family, Melisa's family, Sharlynn, and Traci's turn for the Nielsen year so between all of us, we had a great spread of food and way too many pies.

Shar came a day early because she wanted to learn how to make pies.  I did talk Trevin in to making his annual pie, but I had to take over for Tyrel and Travis because I couldn't talk them into it since I had help from Shar.  We ended up with 7 pies, that was almost 1/2 a pie a piece but no one ate that much so we had lots left over.  Trevin made an Oreo pie and then Shar and I made 2 pumpkin, 2 apple cream, chocolate peanut butter, and banana cream.  I brined the turkey the night before and I was also in charge of potatoes, gravy, and stuffing.  Sharlynn made her yummy rolls and did the vegetable tray, Haylee brought her yummy sweet potatoes and cranberries and then they threw in the most delicious cheese ball and crackers for snacking on.  Traci brought junkfood salad, and Melisa brought corn and green bean casserole.  It was all so yummy!

We ate at noon and then the boys went out and played football in the street while the girls worked on our Thanksgiving craft project that was almost a failure because the vinyl wouldn't stick to the paint, but I think we all got ours working eventually.  Carter was so cute, he came in saying "That Tyrel, he is tricky."  I guess he can outrun all the little guys.  The weather was so mild that the kids were all able to play night games with just their jackets on.  They played ghost in the graveyard and I kept hearing the little kids say "Tyrel is freaking me out." but they had fun.  Travis had to work in the evening, so he missed all the kid fun.