casting call (kind of )

first of all, i don't even know if anyone reads this blog, so i guess we'll find out. i am looking for two pregnant women out there who are due sometime in the near future (end of january/february/march) who think they might like some newborns done of their baby. i am hoping to gain some experience by practicing with your newborn. i can't promise perfect pictures because this is a practice session for me and they're free *yeah*! i would hold these sessions in my own home because let's face it, i know the lighting in my home like the back of my hand, and all of my supplies are here. we would have to do it within the first 10 days of your baby's life. the baby tends to be more sleepy and more willing to let us play. i am hoping to get one baby girl and one baby boy if possible, but if not, that's okay.

so, if you think you would be interested let me know! you can either email, call or leave a comment on this blog. i kind of hesitate to leave my email address on the blog, but i think most of you either have it already or have a way to find it, right? if you aren't pregnant but know someone who is, let them know! thanks.

our little memorizer

katelyn has always been a very good memorizer. she learns to sing songs by herself very quickly, she remembers lines from movies she has seen, and recently she started memorizing scriptures.

before we started having her memorize scriptures, we just thought it would be a fun thing to do. but as we progressed along, i became amazed with how much memorizing these scriptures made an impact on her and me. we picked our scriptures right out of the friend magazine which has a page dedicated to one scripture with a correlating picture every month. this made it easy enough to explain and help her remember the subject of the scripture she was memorizing. after we began, i noticed that she started paying attention in sacrament meeting better. i can still remember one sunday after she had memorized a scripture, she kept leaning into me saying, they said commandments, they said righteous and so on. i know for me, i thought having katelyn memorie a scripture meant we would have to set aside a specific time to do this, but that wasn't so. it was amazing how many little moments we were able to find together to memorize. while katelyn was in the tub, driving to the store, sitting on the couch together, at the dinner table, wherever. it was a great moment together to talk about the scriptures and have some good mommy-daughter time. i can honestly say that this has been such a neat experience and would highly recommend this to anyone that is interested.

on a side note: at first we started memorizing one scripture a month, but soon found that the sciptures were getting jumbled in her head, so we slowed it down a little. maybe your child wouldn't have a problem with this though.

two last things: i think i sound a little bossy in this video and wow, i can't believe how much her speech has changed since the summer!

i've been meaning to get this up

i know christmas has come and gone now, but i meant to get this up before christmas. then the week before we left for utah i was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off...so that didn't happen.

i know we wrote a little bit in our card, but we wanted to add that 2010 was a fabulous year for us. we love being here in milwaukee and although we miss our families, we are grateful to be surrounded by so many good people. we were most definitely blessed and well taken care of. we are very grateful for birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, and hope that we can remember those feelings of peace and joy the christmas season brought in this new year.

back to catching up

back in august (whoops) three of the hedin boys came to visit. this was a highly anticipated trip for the guys and my husband. why? well the pga was being held right here in the good ol' state of wisconsin not too far from where we live. and if you know the hedin boys, they love to play and watch golf, so they couldn't pass up this opportunity to go. of course they did manage to squeeze in some other activities while they were here besides golfing. they also didn't want to miss out playing with our kiddies.

we hit up a local restaurant in our area that has some good food and a fun atmosphere. and the balloons are always a hit with the kids. those come in handy right around the time the kids start getting bored and antsy.

andy decided that maybe, just maybe, med school might be worth it just for the white med student coat.

the boys happened to come into town right during the state fair, so we went to gorge ourselves on all of the deliciously disgusting food, see the sites and check out some of the animals.

i think we were all eating fried oreos, and boy were they good. i didn't think oreos could be any worse for you (apparently they can be) or taste any better (apparently they can).

i told katelyn to smile. i guess this is the best she can do when there is too much going on around her.

i love these two pictures of katelyn with her grandpa hedin. she sure loves him and his adoring attention. he loves to make katelyn happy and spoils her and did so by taking her on the slide.

probably the grossest food we found at the fair that day. a krispy creme donut with a hamburger patty inside. yup, we bought and tried it. not worth the money folks, not worth the money.

the running pigs again this year. i don't think our pig won once. maybe next year.

we definitely tried other deliciously disgusting food while we were there, but it's been so long i can't seem to remember it all.

we don't have a single picture from the pga. you aren't allowed to bring in cameras at all, so they didn't even bother. the only picture i got of that momentous day was of poor little katelyn who ended up getting sick that day. our first experience with a throwing up child and most likely not our last.

luckily she wasn't too miserable for too long. she doesn't even look that sick in this picture (but she was).

until next time boys!

p.s. can you tell tanner looks like a hedin next to all of these hedin boys?

leaves, leaves, leaves

remember my last post how i promised to post about our leaf activity? remember how i promised to post it soon? yeah, that didn't happen, but at least i'm eventually getting to it.

this leaf activity was so fun. i saw this idea in the family fun magazine (always has great ideas in it by the way) and decided to try it. which led us to getting outside, taking a walk, taking lots of pictures and eventually back inside to our art project. normally i just get katelyn started and tidy up the kitchen while she's working, but like i said, this project was pretty fun, so i joined in and painted with her. i highly recommend this project for next year if you're interested.

katelyn knows the routine now. spread newspaper at the end of the table, put the art smock on, wait for mom to get paint, water and paper towel ready and start project.

i ditched the kid paint for this project and let her use my paints from the craft store. they worked perfectly on the leaves.

the finished product.

playing in the leaves

the weather here has been fan-tas-tic. no rain, no snow, just sunny skies. and boy is that awesome for this time of year. we are not complaining that's for sure. of course since the weather has been cooperating, we have been taking every chance we can get to be outside. the kids love that, and so do i. in fact, tanner begs me to play outside everytime we return from an errand and cries and cries if i don't let him.



the incredible hulk playing in the leaves. does his jacket not make him look puffed up?




katelyn is just happy not to be napping.



they started playing following the leader. well, mostly katelyn was just following tanner around.



some sisterly/brotherly love. a parent's favorite thing to see i think.



these two were yelling at each other. ah...ah...ah...ah back and forth with some giggles in between.



we decided to take an impromtu walk around the neighbor hood and happened to find some gorgeous leaves. we picked them up for a special project we were going to do later.



katelyn resfusing to look. she just wanted to walk.



this is the tree where we found our leaves, and no, i did not edit this photo. that's how pretty the leaves were.

i know this song is overplayed but my kids like to dance to it

Kids Dancing from brooke hedin on Vimeo.