Baby sitting

My older brother and I were babysitting some family friends children and KungFu Panda 2 was on.  I popped some popcorn and the following scene ensued:

POPCORN. . . . 

 FEED ME!!!!

YEP, THAT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED!

Sunny thought day. . .

So I was playing around with more photos in Picasa today and ended up with these.  The picture of Hugh (Cody said it looked like Peter Pan) and the red sunflower (yes, it is a sunflower!) were over exposed.  I applied a focal black and white to all of the pictures and then applied a soft focus to the over exposed ones.  The orange flower is one of my better original pictures and I merely added a tiny amount of saturation to the focal black and white. 

 I also found this picture that my mother took of me while we were finishing laying sod.  There are three facts about this picture; 1) yes that is a goat pen, and no I am not wearing shoes, 2) Yes those are boot cut jeans that are rolled up to just below my knees, and 3) bare feet and boot cut jeans do not mix, you end up with really dirty cuffs and clay stains don't come out. . .

I know that it is December, but think sunny thoughts!!!

Such a wonderful thing. . .

I had to download Picasa to re-size a few pictures for a poster that my mother made.  After fixing the pictures I had a little time to "play" with a few pictures. . . I now love (very, very, very much) Picasa.  The ones I re-touched are below.

One of my favorites!

The first one I retouched. . .

 

It was a lot of fun playing with all of these pictures.  I am so excited that I finally figured out which of the actions only colored part of the picture and turned the rest of it black and white.

The "Rad" snow man

 It snowed a little while back, and then (more recently) last night, but all of the snow from this escapade melted off. 


Don't you just love the hair on this guy?!?!











The full body shot of the "radical" snowman.  I came home from somewhere (I still can't figure out where) and was told to "Take a picture before it melts!!!"

Then the close up of his face.  I love the stick for a nose, and the former-stakes-turned-swords-turned-arms. 

The oven. . .

Today it was raining, so I cleaned the oven. . . it used to be orange, now it is white.

Four SOS pads later. . . 

While there are some orange spots, there aren't as many. . 

Belated post. . .

Well. . . I found the chip to the camera quite a while ago, but I didn't take the time to post the promised pictures.  These are all pictures of planting things in the cold frame and seedlings in the box (I haven't found the pictures of building it though . . )

The box is divided into 15 square foot plots. . .

There are fifteen different plants in the actual box, even though only the radishes, beets, a few turnips, and the broccoli came up. . . 

EEEEK!!! The handle is coming off of the firing strip. . . 

The solution to the window literally flying off of the hinges, a much heavier frame. 

The radishes have two "true" leaves. . .













Well that is all of the pictures of the cold frame. . . so far that is.  I really hope that the experiment works out, especially since I wrote a five page (I think) Methods and Materials section.

Agriscience Part I

This year I decided to take an Agriscience class at the local high school, and stick with it this time.  So far it has been a wonderful experience (although I do wonder about behaviors some times).  One of the requirements of the class is to have an Agriscience project and to compete with it at the Chapter FFA contest.  My "experiment" is to see if a "cold frame" will grow any vegetables at all in our lovely frozen climate.  So far things are going well, except for the fact that it is currently broken. . . but my daddy and I will be fixing that very soon. 

I will post pictures as soon as I can find the camera.

Fair week is over. . .

Well the good news is that everything that I entered in the fair did extremely well, as did everything my brothers entered!  Cody and I both received star choice ribbons in the Market class for sheep and Liam received a high blue.  Daisy (rabbit) received a Best of Breed and Liam won Junior showmanship for rabbits.  I won three state fair ribbons for my pictures and the other two got blues. 

There isn't really any bad news except that my whole family has what we call the post fair week hangover.  Meaning that everything is sluggish and we aren't getting up at 6:30 a. m. so that we can be walking our sheep at 7:00 a. m.

This year I decided to take two Agriculture classes. . . so far I like that decision!

Pictures. . .

 I am really excited!  One reason is that the 4-H lamb weigh-in for the Box Elder County Fair is tomorrow!!!  The other reason is that, via my mom buying a new camera, we have new photo software!  All of the pictures on this post, except the last two, have been experimented with. . . And my other exciting news is that I, hopefully, will be entering photos in the fair tomorrow. . .


A big blue barrel in the side yard. . .

 This is a rose that my younger brothers bought me for my birthday. . .

 Bottled Sunshine

 Sweet-peas!!!!

 My shoes. . . (I am not random at all am I)

 Purple. . . my FAVORITE!!

 Dainty is as Dainty does. . .

I, again hopefully, will be entering this one in the fair tomorrow. . .











This one is here merely because I wanted a little extra sunshine!

My Dog. . .

I promised that I would get a picture of the bashful beauty that is my dog, and I have!!  It isn't very good though.

That is the puppy, he ran away from the camera the first four times that I tried to take his picture. . .

Random Thought:

Have you ever seen Gravitropism in action?  If not then look at what happened to my sunflower that got knocked over.

I am not quite sure how to rotate the picture. . . . but at least it showed up! 

Moral of the Story:
It still had a wonderful bloom, and is still blooming, even though it had a rough start in life.

Books. . .

This was the BEST book, I read it during free time at EFY and I loved it!!!

It is written By President Utchdorf and is essentially one of his talks but with pictures!  Everything is better with pictures.  Especially anything discussing fairy tales, once upon a times, and happily ever afters! 

Fire works. . .

The highlight of Fielding Fun Days was watching the firemen hose all of the kids down after all of the games were over.  The second best part was the fire works. . .

All of Daddy that could be seen was the light on his head. . .

Craziness. . .

The months of April and May are just that, craziness!  In April I had a solo dance competition and won 1st attendant.  In May I had two solo and team competitions.  I won a Queen and a 3rd attendant for solos and there are too many awards that the studio I dance with won to even name.  I think there was a total of around 35.  This week is the end of the craziness, because it is the official end-of-the year-dance-revue. 

Thor. . .

Well since I complained about the rain last night and it was really sunny today. . . I went and took pictures of Thor this morning.


 Isn't he just too handsome?!?!  While I was trying to take these pictures he ate my skirt and then tried to eat the camera lens cap.  He has turned out to be quite the little love bug!

He also tried to escape. . . when I went out to take the pictures he came running up to the gate and tried to open it.  A few weeks ago he almost managed to open the latch on the gate. . . now there is a second latch on it.

If it weren't for the rain. . .

There would be a picture of my "baby" goat with this post. . . but seeing as it IS raining there won't be one.  The rabbit cages would also be clean and their shed swept. . . but it isn't.  So I guess that I should just go and do math, dream about my plans for flower gardens, or do something else useful. . . my corgi says that I should pet him seeing as he is in charge, I don't think that he is in charge.  Maybe he should clean my room for me instead of me petting him. . . that probably won't happen. Hugh says he will take pity on the poor corgi and is now petting him. . .

The weather outside is....

Well... definitely not frightful!  I went out to feed the bum-lambs at noon today and it was forty degrees!  I really think that we skipped February and went straight to June.  Here's hoping that the weather stays warm....

Where did January go?

I know that it came, and I know that we did various things this month, but where did it go?!?!?!?  I have decided that since it isn't really winter but it really isn't spring that it really wasn't January...Cody (my older brother) dubbed this new season "Sprinter".  Well bum lamb season has definitely started and we now have instead of just two bummers, we now have three more.  School is flowing right along and I can't believe how far I am in some of my subjects...and how neglected others are (history anyone?). This is a picture of Hugh (6) with the latest Lego creation...

Geese in January?!?

Here's pictures of two very odd occurrences...

Caleb in a picture... notice how he avoids eye-contact...

Snow pictures

On the mini sledding hill

Shoveling the trampoline

 I was looking through my camera today and found some very interesting pictures of snow and my little brothers playing in the snow, here's a couple of my favorites!
      These past few weeks we have had a few major snowstorms to make up for the lack of snow prior to Christmas. The pictures of Hugh on the mini sledding hill, Dad starting the Barbecue, the Dryer vent, the Russian Olive trees, and the shoveling of the trampoline are all from last year. The only picture from this year is of Liam (10) and Hugh (6) breaking the "fort" with butter knives.

Starting the barbecue

The dryer vent!

Breaking the fort (with butter knives)

Another tree   

Russian Olive threes

And now here's a poem that is one of my favorites:

 

This Is the Key


This is the key of the kingdom:
In that kingdom there is a city.
In that city there is a town.
In that town there is a street.
In that street there is a lane.
In that lane there is a yard.
In that yard there is a house.
In that house there is a room.
In that room there is a bed.
On that bed there is a basket.
In that basket there are some flowers.
Flowers in a basket.
Basket on the bed.
Bed in the room.
Room in the house.
House in the yard.
Yard in the lane.
Lane in the street.
Street in the town.
Town in the city.
City in the kingdom.
Of the kingdom this is the key.

Anonymous

From "A Family of Poems"
Sort of a longer poem but it is entirely fun and games when reading it out-loud as fast as you can to a very hyper six-year old.