Everyday Heroes

While at BYU I TA'd for a professor who was blind. Brother Cowan. Although his sight was gone, you would never consider the absence to be a hinderance to his abilities. His bookshelves housed scores of titles filling floor to ceiling, wall to wall. When he asked me to retrieve books from these shelves, someone with 20/20 vision, he often gave up in his descriptions and just got the book himself. He could describe the width, texture, heighth, etc with perfect accuracy. He could identify students from up to 5 years past with the sound of one sentence uttered. In short, he was amazing. Not only were his physical abilities so commendable, but he still tops my list of compassionate and kind people.

He was an everyday hero. An inspiration to me to buoy my strengths and strengthen my weaknesses. If I were in Utah, I would love to nominate him for this great project my friend Alli is doing called Everyday Heroes. Alli is amazing and would love to photograph your everyday hero in order to raise money for a great cause! Plus, it's a great deal for you! Alli is an accomplished photographer, she can even make our family look good, amazing.

Happy Day

Make a Smilebox photobook

Ryan is in Brazil (brasil?). I'm in Montana. We miss each other. Happy 3rd anniversary to you Ryan!

Utah is raising it's (mishapen) head all over the country! Read on!

Trying to give your hair the defying gravity look? Don't have the Southern Idaho/Rural Utah 'extra lobe' gene? Watch this demo! Just don't tell anyone hailing from cities south of Provo UT, they just might go nuts trying to fill the 30 min they spend trying to create their bump every morning.

This is real, Ryan saw it on tv pulling an all-nighter for work while he was in LA.

Say yes to the dress

Guess what this used to be? It used to be one of those articles of clothing that inhabits the back of the closet for way too long. One of Ryan's old dress shirts. Then I made it into a dress. I even had to make my own pattern. I am pretty proud of my sewing prowess on this one.

Next project - recovering the chair Kate's sitting on.

insert red-neck joke here

Go ahead and laugh, but I did take out 4 targets with 7 shots.

Kate was impressed.

Our Little Lady Turned 2

In June I asked Kate what kind of birthday party she wanted. She said "caterpillars and ladybugs." I had a little internal celebration that Ariel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and the rest of the gang would not be the starring roles at this two year old party. Kate was all smiles when she saw her lady-bug lollipops and realized this was the party she had been waiting for - you can see a little glimpse of these guys in the corner of the first pic above. (I made little lady-bug pops in lieu of cake, I have no idea how to decorate cakes and didn't really want to tackle that task this year.)

When I watched Kate eat up every second of this party, literally and figuratively, I realized that this is her mantra. She's a mover and a shaker, a "carpe diem" driven soul. I know she will inspire me in the years to come with her tenacity and spit-fire ways. I have been caught by this little girl, hook, line, and sinker. Happy birthday to my favorite two-year-old.


What good is a lady-bug themed party without real, live lady bugs? Grandma Morgan tracked down a box of 1500 live ladybugs from a garden store, thank you! The kids loved letting these little buggers go while simultaneously attracting as many as they could. (I hope we didn't off set the natural balance of lady bugs at the un-named park where we held the party. On second thought, I know a good number of them didn't make it much longer than 2 or 3 minutes out of the box. Anxious and vigorous 2-8 year olds = squashed bugs.)