We’re sure many of you are wondering why there are so few posts coming in here as of late. We may refer to it as the ‘Facebook effect’ – since the vast majority of our friends are on Facebook, a lot of the smaller updates go there, and the blog goes without updating. But every once in a while, we will get on here and post photos – because a lot of our extended family doesn’t do the whole Facebook thing, but they will visit the family website to see pictures of the kids. Hence today’s blog post.Instead of just putting up a block of 80 or so pictures without any explanation, please bear with us as we give a little background this time.

First are a number of pictures taken in August at Murray Park. We had promised the kids an activity that evening, bowling. But they wouldn’t take our coupon, so we went to the park instead. It turned out to be a great activity, and we got some good pictures. In particular, one really good picture of a very unhappy baby Glen… it was taken near the end of the visit, and he was tired.

Okay, so we ended up taking a lot of pictures of Glen…but hey, This baby is hecka-cute!

Okay, okay, we took pictures of the other kids as well…hold yer horses…

Alright, the next set of pictures is the biggest, but it was worth it. We took a Sunday afternoon drive up to Silver Lake (a very nostalgic place for Johanna and I) for a relaxing hike. The kids love it because we can skip rocks and feed ducks there. Johanna was excited because we were going to get pictures of Glen that match some family photos we had taken last year before he was born.

Those last two of Aiden were some of the only ones where he wasn’t making a completely rediculous smile at the camera. It’s like pullilng teeth sometimes, trying to get a good smile out of the kid…and Mike is the same way! Enough of that…more photos!

There were some great shots we got while feeding the ducks up there, and also a few where we found this really, REALLY cool fallen tree which was just the right size for the kids to sit in. Incidentally, while organizing these photos in Picasa, we discovered that it really does an amazing job when you ask it to suggest how to crop a photo – some of these things just turned out great! The thumbnails below will be square, but let’s hope the full-sized ones don’t get re-cropped when they are published to the blog!

And now for that fallen tree we found (and a few others.) By this time we had discovered how to turn on the ‘multi-shot’ feature of the camera, and it made it a bit easier to get a good smile out of both Aiden and Glen (the little wiggler).

The rest of the photos from the lake were just some that looked good when we cropped ‘em. They don’t come from any particularly interesting part of the hike, but they are still worth sharing.

Fast forward a few weeks, and we get to our ward’s Primary Carnival. There was a face-painting booth there, but nobody running it when we arrived. The kids were anxious, so Mike decided to jump in. Soon, he had not only painted James like an ‘Army Guy’, but Aiden and his cousin Adriana both wanted to be ‘Lions’, cousin Alex wanted to be a ‘Zombie’, and Mike decided that Glen wanted to be a BYU fan (heck yes he does!!!) From this experience, Mike is officially designated as the official Halloween Face Painter in the family – the kids actually turned out pretty good!

Last, but not least, we do have a couple of ‘everyday life’ pictures that are blog-worthy. At a yard sale we found a tent that is the perfect size for sleepovers (thoroughly tested by the kids), we have a couple of G-rated bath-time pictures, Glen’s first ‘silly hat’ outing, and James’ first day of preschool. If you have stuck around this long, congrats! The end is near! Enjoy!

I can hear some of you saying “Why don’t you just use facebook or picasaweb and host your photos on their servers? Well, because doing so often times means they can use those photos for their own purposes…so they are no longer mine. If you don’t believe me, take the time to read some of their legal agreements when you sign up for their services, it’s in there!

So anyway, now that I can get the pictures from my computer to the website with minimal fuss, I got the camera and uploaded a whole bunch of photos, many of which I am sure parents/inlaws/siblings would love to see! Enjoy!

In other news, this Thursday, Johanna and find out whether the bun we are baking is a little boy or a little girl! Needless to say, everyone is pretty excited around here. Not to jinx things, but we are both hoping for a little girl, and the chinese fortune cookies from lunch last week say “You will get your hearts’ desire” – that’s gotta count for something, right?

Missionary Mary has sent us some pictures, which will make their way into the appropriate gallery in a few minutes here. She seems to be doing well, as always, but the email this week was a little scattered. She wrote a huge, detailed one, and it got deleted before she could send it, so the remaining time was spent trying to patch together thoughts. She did ask me about posting video on the site…I will have to write her and ask her to just send them to me. I will need to downsize them before posting them – full resolution video might be too much for my internet connection to serve up right now.

Aiden’s first week of school is going well, for the most part. He has been disciplined once already, moved from the front row to the second row because he can’t stop talking to his neighbor. The teacher put him next to a girl, hoping that might quiet him a little. She doesn’t know that all his best friends in the ward are girls. This could be interesting.

Lastly, Johanna is about to delve into the world of scouting, as this week she starts her new calling as the Cub Scout leader in our ward! I think she is excited, but probably not as much as I am. I loved scouting as a kid, and am looking forward to helping out where I can. I know that Sarah has a wealth of knowledge on how to do the scouting stuff, as she is her wards’ Primary President and all. We’ll have to touch base some time and get some killer-awesome hints on how to keep little boys entertained with rocks and sticks without throwing them at each other.

Anywho, this is getting sorta lengthy, so I will go post the Mary pictures now. TTFN!

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Just two days ago, Johanna emailed me a link to the gallery our wedding photographer had just posted of our wedding photos. She was beyond excited, and wanted me to see ‘em all.

And so I went to the gallery and looked around, and I must say that some of ‘em turned out pretty good. I have my favorite, as does she, and soon we will be going to our photographer’s house to get a CD of our pictures.

One of the great things about this guy is that he is giving us full copyright on the pictures…we can make as many prints as we want! Pretty rare for a wedding photographer, from what I hear.

So the wedding photo idea started out really well. Then, last night, I got to give her sister our ‘wedding gift’ of editing her wedding announcement photo in Photoshop (I love my job and all the kewl programs they give me.) It wasn’t bad, but it took four hours to get it all done. She was happy, in the end, which is all that matters.