painting and pictures

for one of my elementary education classes, my MUSIC class, we have to illustrate a children's book to a song from a specific list. well, i am as far from an artist as you can get. my stick figure people are ridiculous. and apparently i have low self-esteem too because i was fully prepared on basically coloring color pages for my illustrations. neat and easy. well, luckily, i have an absolutely amazing best friend who pushes me and challenges me to be better than i am. kendall hutchison, yes, i am talking about you. she invented this genius way of flipping a clear craft drawer over with her droid-flashlight shining underneath it to make tracing from a picture easier. she convinced me to give it a try by choosing an adorable picture of my little brother cole from facebook and printing it off for me. for my first attempt.... not too shabby!!

this is soooooo much cooler, not to mention sentimental and meaningful. even my father asked for a special copy for himself. i think mostly everybody is just surprised something like that came from ME!

over general conference weekend, my mother scheduled family pictures with Carrie Mae Photography. i just love her work. she did my senior pictures. 

she did my bridals. 

and now she has done our family pictures!

the weekend was filled with fun supporting our siblings in their sports. saturday morning was josey and cole's soccer games at marsh valley. i'm still so surprised at the competitive edge josey possess. she has so much fight! and coleman surprised me with his yelling from the sideline. geez he's gonna be a handful! 

then, off to american falls to watch dassia and cinta play soccer for marsh valley high school. they are both such studs. i love those girls with all my heart! they are the most beautiful, sweet, kind, kick-a girls i know. then, we went on to watch caden's football game. it was definitely the most intense game of thirteen-year-old football i've ever seen! caden is a star. he's the biggest kid on the team, he's in on every tackle, he carries the ball, and he successfully pulled off an on-side kick. go caden! he seriously will be SUCH a stud one day...

then we celebrated the father-in-law's birthday at buffalo wild wings.... it's been waaaaaaay too long!! i love that place. love. that. place. it was just chris, sarah, drake, and i. a cute double date now that we're adults. while we were at buffalo wild wings, we saw jarik on his lunch break. small world. yup, idaho.

after spending the night at the mays' we stopped by my parent's house before heading back home. 

we took the horses down to the arena for some riding. drake hasn't spent much time on horses before, but he did great. josey and cole came with us, then we played some football at the park. basically, my kid siblings showed me up on just about everything, but they were the sweetest! cole went out of his way to compliment me and high-five me and make sure i wasn't getting too discouraged. he's the best brother a girl could ask for. and dang, he's a cutie!!

overall, we had an amazing weekend home! although we missed most of conference :( we're going to watch it all in the coming weeks- thank goodness for technology!! but being with our families was great. we are so blessed to have the people in our lives that we do!