outtakes

Remember when I mentioned that my little family is next to impossible to photograph.

Here are some of our outtakes...you be the judge.

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randomness

In one of my favorite books there is a quote from author Anna Quindlen (and I may have mentioned this one before) on mistakes she made while raising her babies, in it she says:

"The biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make...I did not live in the moment enough. There is one picture of the three of my children sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less"

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Super inspiring!!! So from now on I just want to post a little more about our everyday!

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Lately.........
He's been trying to let go and balance a bit

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She has been reading NON-stop (and I love it)

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He can't seem to not hurt himself every 30 minutes

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She is getting even sillier and wants to be at mom's heals all.day.long

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The Mrs. has been spoiled by the Mr. with fancy treats and she needs to rethink getting her gym membership



We have been working on reading scriptures as a family, trying not to say poop at the dinner table, deep cleaning each room, and trying to force myself to be more domestic by making more meals from scratch. Pioneer Woman is my homegirl!

Mortenson Family Pictures

During the Holidays one of my friends from way back came back into town. He is an amazing photographer and he brought along with him more photography equipment than I had ever seen in my life.
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In fact he even invented a piece called a Jarvie Window and we all had fun playing with it.

Knowing that my kiddos are some of the hardest kids to take a "all looking at the same time" picture of, I didn't get my hopes up.

But Scott (that's his name) he likes to take my favorite kind of pictures.

Everyday, un-posed, real life shots.

He got some great ones of us (minus my creepy post surgery fish eye...still waiting for that to un-dilate) and honestly this is the first real Family picture all of us 5 Mortensons have actually taken together.

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We have a bazillion professional pictures taken of us girls together but my parents never had an entire family picture taken.

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I think the ones of my Dad are my absolute favorite!!

Such a handsome Grandpa!

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We are so excited to have these and can't thank Scott enough for capturing these moments for us!

new baby

We have a new baby cousin!!

Beautiful little Miriam Sol Becerra

confession

I may have played xbox Kinect till 2 in the morning last night with a room full of mommies.

I may have lost a pound of my body weight in sweat.

I may have seriously embarrassed myself with my attempts at mastering my dance moves to Brick House.

I may have thought about this game 10 times today.

I may have a new addiction.

little sibs

My sisters are the greatest. I am so thankful for them and their support.
I love having someone to talk girl talk with at any hour of the day or night. I love that they listen to my rambling, my ideas, my fears and my advice.

We are all so different in some ways and almost identical in others.

We share similar passions and dislikes. They make me think about things and cry about things and can get me laughing till I think I'm gonna die!
And I have to give them credit for taking the fact that I am the favorite so well.

Don't fight it....you know it ;)

leaps and bounds

I use to think that since Sawyer was our last baby that time would go by so slow with him and I would get to relish in every new phase. Ummmm not so much!

Since Christmas break (2 weeks ago) he has mastered the crawling,

learned how to pull himself up on Everything, walks along the couch, got his first tooth...and then another,

and my favorite he now cries for his "mama".

I feel like he is so old already and I am so sad because I wanted him to be a newborn baby forever. We think he is just dreamy!

playing

I really don't know how we hadn't known about Annie Creek here in Oregon. It's just the best sledding place EVER!!

Scott and his buddy took all the kids one day a month or so ago and they spent 6 hours in the snow sledding. All the kids were even in the newspaper for their sledding skills.

Scott loved it so much he said we had to go back again soon so we loaded up the snow gear and headed up with some other families.

Sawyer and I mostly stayed in the little lodge they have up there and stayed nice and toasty by the fire.

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They have a huge hill full of about 5 or so sledding runs. Across the "bowl" they have runs for snowboarders, skiers and some of our friends even went snowshoeing.

The kids wore themselves out going down and then climbing back up. The first day we went the snow was nice enough that the kids didn't even use sleds they just laid down and went on their belly's.

We brought our whole family up here during the Christmas break and needless to say we have been several times since. Fun little day trip that poops the kids out and they sleep so good that night.