Great weekend

Well it was really nice to have a long weekend! Dustin had his first football game on Friday night....I wasn't able to go.....they lost 14-7.
On Sunday the kids and I went to my grandma's house, my sister was home from Denver for the weekend. My grandma helped the kids make fudge, sweet pickles, and rice krispy treats to enter in the fair. The boys had a lot of fun baking with GG. We didn't get home until late...it was a long day....but a good day!!
Today the kids did a couple more posters for the fair. They are really excited about entering their projects. The fair starts on Thurs. so we only have a couple more days to finish everything up.
Trace has his first football game on Thursday, he is pretty excited about it. I think this year will be so much better than last year for him.

5 Question Friday

September 4th Questions:

1. The clothing outfit you remember from childhood and why?

Hmmm....that is a tough one. Probably my most memorable outfit would have to be just a pair of jeans...lol. I did not ever have any "name brand" clothes growing up...my mom couldn't afford them...but I remember the first pair of jeans that I bought with my own money. I was in 8th grade and I saved all my babysitting money to buy a pair of PePe jeans. I loved those jeans and I wore them all the time!

2. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a veterinarian. I loved animals. We lived on a farm with chickens, ducks, geese, peacocks, lots of cats, a dog, miniature horses, rabbits, and we had an Umbrella Cockatoo....and I loved to just pet them and take care of them all the time. I have a sister, but she didn't live with us so I was alone A LOT....the animals were my friends...lol

3. What is your must have for Fall?

Hoodies!! I go to A LOT of football games in the fall and I LOVE hoodies! I don't really care for coats....too bulky...but I love the softness of the hoodies and the fact that they have a hood and pockets for my gloves! All my kids wear them too.

4. If money were no object, how many kiddos would you really have?

Since I grew up an only child I always wanted a lot of kids. I wanted them to share memories and stories and have each other when they got older. I already have 4....but if money wasn't a problem I would have at least 2 more.

5. The best part of your birthing story (other than the beautiful child at the end).

The best part is right after they come out and the Dr. puts them on my chest and I get to look into their eyes for the first time. And looking up to see Dustin's face.....how happy and excited he was too. I will NEVER forget those moments!

A lot going on around here

It is starting to become the busy time of year that we know around here as Fall. Football is starting for Dustin and Trace. Dustin has his first game tomorrow night at Hennessey and Trace has his first game one week from tonight.
Dawson and Trenton had soccer practice tonight and they have their first game on Tues....I am lucky that this year they can be on the same team. Every other year they will be in different age groups.
The Woods County Fair is next weekend so we are trying to get projects in order for the boys to enter this year. Trace will be entering Oreo, he is really excited about that. I think we are also going to do some other projects such as cooking, photography, clay, and sand art. The boys love to do things like that and I think it will be a lot of fun.
My sister Brandy is coming home this weekend so we are going to go to my grandma's for supper on Sunday and my G-ma is going to help Trace make her wonderful sweet pickles that she makes at Thanksgiving. He will enter those in the fair...maybe she can help him make her fudge too!
I got my photography blog up last night there are only a couple of pics on it, I am still editing the other session that I have done. The address to it is http://www.tiffanycanaanphotography.blogspot.com/ I purchased a brand new HP desk-top computer today to replace the piece of crap dell that we have had for 6 years. The requirements for my photo editing software exceeded my laptop system so I had to upgrade. I think I will be really happy with it. Tomorrow I will install my Photoshop CS4 and start editing...I am so excited!!
I will end tonight with a funny statement by Dawson this morning....he was petting the baby rabbits and Maisy (the mommy) after he was ready for school this morning and he came running up to me and said
"Mommy...I was petting Maisy on her side and I accidentally touched her milk tank" I had to giggle at that one!

2 Weeks Old Today

The babies are 2 weeks old now! They are sooo cute and fat....lol! Their eyes are open, they can hold their ears up and they try to hop around! Last night I got them out and let the kids hold and pet them....they were so excited. I had not let them touch them until last night. Here are some pics from last night.

Yikes...another lazy day

Oh boy did today ever fly by!! I did not get anything done except clean off my computer desk and 2 loads of laundry!! I had A LOT of things that needed to be done....I just didn't do them. I hate when I do that b/c then I feel bad....like I wasted the day.

Guess I will have to do double tomorrow!

I received my new program...photoshop CS4 yesterday....now I am soooo excited to use it. But I have to wait until we get a new pc....our Dell that we have had for about 7 yrs died (which it was a piece of crap so it will not be missed..lol) and my laptop doesn't have enough memory on it to load the program. We are expecting some insurance checks this week (from hail damage on our vehicles) and as soon as they come I am getting a brand new HP desktop with a 20in monitor!! I can't wait....I feel like a little kid at Christmas.

Here is a pic for today! I wanted the waterfall in the pic so cropping really wasn't an option but I felt like the pic was too dark...so I did a color pop action in PS elements and I think it made it look a lot better!

I can't wait to start posting pics with CS4...it amazes me what you can do with it!

Update on babies

The babies are 9 days old today!! They should be opening their eyes any day now! They are little butterballs.....so cute.....and soooo fat...lol!!

Here is a pic

I love to hold them...they will just cuddle in my hand....they are so soft. Can't wait til they start hopping around.

Lazy Saturday

Well I haven't felt well the last few days so I got to sleep in for a little while today....didn't get out of bed until 9:30.....didn't get dressed until 4:00 :)

I have a sinus infection so I haven't been able to sleep very well for the last few nights.....my meds are finally kicking in and I am starting to feel better finally!

Trace had a scrimmage at 5:00 tonight....I was so proud of him! He had 2 interceptions, one of them he ran back 60 yards for a touchdown. He had several blocks and tackles too. He played almost the entire time on offense and defense. He did not have a very good year last year so I really didn't think that he was going to go out again....but I am glad that he decided to give it another try.

On Thurs I had two photo shoots for newborns....it was soooo much fun!! I LOVE babies....it makes me wish I could have another one...lol! I can't wait to get my photography blog up and running and I will post photos there. I am really hoping this turns out to be a good business venture for me.

Speaking of photos.....i took this Weds night of Trinity....I LOVE this pic!! This is probably one of my all time favorites of her!!

She is really hard to get pics of...she always looks away from the camera and she never sits still...lol!!

Almost forgot

I almost forgot to post a snapshot from today. I received a new lens today that I had ordered so I was very excited to open it up and start snapping pictures. Trinity was the only one around so I just started taking pics of her from all angles....she was watching I Carly...so she didn't move...lol.This pic I just cropped and added some color back into her face.

Tomorrow morning I am going to shoot my first baby. I was scheduled to do it today but we had to reschedule for tomorrow. I am really excited and nervous! I can't wait to see how they turn out and what neat things I can do!

4 Days old

The 2 remaining babies are 4 days old now. They are getting quite fat. When they were born they were naked and now they have some fuzz....it is so soft.....it feels like velvet!! In about 6 more days they will open their eyes.

I took these pics today with a new lens, so they are better than the last ones!

This is Oreo, the daddy, he is a sweetheart, thought I would post a pic of him! The baby that didn't make it would have looked like him :(

New venture for me!

I am very excited to announce that I am taking on a new hobby (hopefully more)...Photography! I have always loved photography and now I am hoping to take that love to a new level. I have a long way to go before I can say I am a professional...but I feel like I can say that I am above average...lol!

I have really been working hard in photoshop and recently purchased the newest version cs4.....I can't wait to start playing with it!

There are soooo many things that you can do in photoshop....it just amazes me!

I will probably be starting a photography blog soon to post the pics from my sessions. And hopefully I will get skilled enought to design my own templates and actions and would love to share them with other beginner photographers!! Speaking of sessions, I already have 3 babies lined out for this week! I am so excited!!

I have decided (in light of my new hobby) to start posting a "snapshot of the day" photo on here. It will not be a "professional" pic...but just a snap shot of one of my kids, flowers, sunsets, etc. I will post a before and after photoshop pic.

This is the first one...this is Trenton in my friends backyard....this is a pretty simple one.

I felt like this wasn't a bad shot to begin with...but the color was a little blah...so I wanted to make it pop a little! This was done in elements (I haven't received my cs4 yet) and only took me a couple of minutes.

Let me know what you think!! Can't wait to get really going with this....I will actually be doing something I love!

Sad day at the Canaan house

We lost one of our babies this morning. I have been waking up in the middle of the night and checking on them, but they had always been fine. Last night when I woke up I decided not to go and check on them, I just rolled over and went back to sleep. I woke up this morning and went in to check on them and the white one was barely moving, I picked it up and it was pretty cold. So I decided to wrap it up in some towels to try and warm it up. I also called a local lady that I know that runs an organization called creature concerns, she came over to see if she could help. We put it on a heating pad and she tried to bottle feed it. Our efforts were simply not enough, or came too late. The poor little baby quietly passed on. I cried. The kids do not know yet, they had already gone to church. I will have to give them the bad news when they get home....I am not looking forward to it.

A Tale of Two Rabbits

Well I bought the boys two rabbits in the spring, I bought Trace one so he could show it in 4H and decided to get the other 2 boys one to share so they wouldn't bother Trace's rabbit. I let them pick out which ones they wanted and when we checked out they sexed them...of course they picked a male and a female! They were just babies so I asked how long we had until they would mate...we were told they couldn't have babies until they were between 8mos and 1 yr.

On Thurs I had to go out of town for the day. About 11:30 I get a call from Dustin that there are 3 baby rabbits in the cage...I about died!! They are only 6 mos old!! So now we have 3 baby rabbits, 2 are black and one is white with black spots. I had never seen baby rabbits before...they are really cute for as naked as they are.

Maisy, the mom, seems to be taking good care of them so far. They are about 72 hrs old now. The boys LOVE them. I really think this will be a good experience for them to be able to watch the babies grow up....I hope they all survive though! I will take pics along the journey and post the here.

Here are the pics from the day they were born and yesterday.

Returning with a new look!

WOW....it has been a while! We had a very busy spring and summer, but now that school has started again we are back in a routine and I plan on having more time to update regularly!
All 3 boys played on different traveling baseball teams this summer, so we were BUSY!! Dustin also took over the Cardinal baseball organization, so that made me his secretary (as he calls me)....lol. We were on the go 5 nights a week to ball games. The month of June went by really fast....and was a total blur! But we made it through!
In July we went to Colorado to see my sister Brandy, the weather there was beautiful! We missed the record high temp in Alva (some say it was 114 and some will tell you it was 117) either way it was HOT and we missed it. We were enjoying the 80 degree weather in CO, in the evening it was in the 70's. We took the kids to the zoo, childrens museum, elich gardens, and a baseball game (the Braves, our favorite team, was playing the Rockies). We cooked out almost every evening at my sisters house...it was really nice and relaxing!! When we got back to OK...we did not want to do anything...lol!
But now the weather is cooling off, school has started, and football is getting ready to start, we are ready to FALL!!

It's been a while

YIKES!! Where does the time go? The last couple of months just flew by. We stayed really busy through the Holidays and things are finally starting to calm down a bit.

The kids have all had the congestion crud along with a nice cough, so everyone is on medication. They form a line in the morning before school to choke down their medicine before heading out the door.

The kids all got tons of new things for Christmas that they didn't really need!! LOL!! One of their favorites was a new 4-wheeler from Grandma and Grandpa Melton. They love to go out to Dustin's grandma's farm and ride it.

Dustin has already started baseball practice so he is not home a lot. I have been substitute teaching at the schools. It is going pretty well, I actually enjoy it and I am looking into becoming certified to be a teacher. We will see how that goes.

Hopefully things have slowed down enough that I can stay caught up!