Snow Fun!

I'm doing a Christmas Photo contest for my photography page and this is the photo I took of Kira this weekend. LOVE!

More photos are found here: http://photographybystaceymoss.blogspot.com/2013/12/kiras-fun-session-in-snow.html

Picture Frame Craft!

I actually made this last year for Christmas. I have one in Green/Red and one in Blue/White. They are SO easy and fun! Hang them on your wall, from a stand or lean against the wall somewhere. It's a fun and unique way to decorate for the Holidays. 

What you'll need:

Picture Frame

Paint

Ornaments

Ribbon/String

Stapler / Glue Gun

What I did:

1. Paint the picture frame a color of your choice. This one is a deep red. My other one is a sky blue. My other frame is also very skinny compared to this one. This red one measures about 11x14 but really you can make whatever size you want, you'll just need more or less ornaments and longer or shorter ribbons. 
2. Tie ribbon/string to the ornaments in different lengths. I did this as I started to hang them on the picture frame so I could see where they would hang. I arranged them by color and size. The ribbon is stapled/hot glued to the frame in a 3 inch area on the back. I left room to hang the frame from it's original hanging bracket. Some of my ribbon worked well with staples and others didn't hold so I used a mixture of the staples and glue. The ornaments I used were all ones I had at my house that I use on my tree. I learned that using glass/breakable ones is hard to store them, so just beware it's not the easiest decoration to store. My blue one broke an ornament over the summer but the one pictured was fully in tact. 
3. Once everything was attached to the frame I turned it around and inspected the lengths and positions and adjusted as needed. Keep in mind it isn't going to hang just right so let it be a little off, it gives it character! 
4. Hang up on the wall and wallah! Your done. 

Very simple and super cute decor. 

Being Thankful

I have a lot of things to be thankful for in life. With this time of year and being November/Thanksgiving it makes me think of how lucky I am to have the life, job, family, friends, and home that I do. I've really been blessed this year. I took on a new position at work, traveled to about 6 amazing places this year alone, purchased a new home, have great family and friends and I've tripled the amount of business I've done in Photography this year. I'm truly humbled to be doing so well. Read more here: http://www.photographybystaceymoss.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-im-thankful-for.html

Darling Dancers

Kira is a darling dancer. She takes dance at La Shars where her mom teaches. We got to go watch her dance for their Halloween showcase. They each got to dress up in a Halloween costume. I had only found out that Kira needed to dress up in a custom the night before at about bedtime so we just went with something we already had. I let her pick Cinderella or Ariel and she picked Ariel. Pretty cute little mermaid if you ask me. She knew her dances and paid attention a lot better than at last years performances I saw so that was fun. She also danced next to a little girl who's dad works with Andy and I so that was fun to see them together. We hung out in the parking lot with Andy's sister, nephew and brother in law for a bit and then went over to Andy's parents for breakfast. Super fun. 

A Spooktacular Halloween at Hycomp

Halloween is one of those days you don't want to miss if you work at Hycomp (or at least I don't want to miss). We dress up every year and go to lunch. It's a Hycomp Tradition that's been going on the entire duration of my employement. I actually counted all the Halloween luncheon's I've been to and there are 10! Amazing and funny. I pulled up all the group shots and put them in a time line to see how much Hycomp has grown over the years... those are at the bottom of this post. 

This year did not disappoint. There were some good costumes! A few of my favorite were: Marty as the Tooth Fairy and Brian L as Mad Hadder. 

 Andy and I actually dressed up together. 

A little bit of Halloween History!

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Loving the Fall!

I'm just loving the fall here in Cache Valley! Kira and I played in the leaves this weekend and she was a super helper to bag them all up with me. She loved jumping and laying in them. 

My parents have been in Texas for a few days so we got to have Quincy over to play with Max. They are really good together and have tons of fun. 

The other day kira was playing dress ups and Daddy painted her nails so in return she painted his toenails. Pretty cute if you ask me - And she is sure lucky to have him as a dad, he'd to anything for that little girl. Andy occupies most of Kira's time because she is very much a Daddy's girl. 

This past sunday we went to the weekly Sunday dinner with the Hansen Family over at Maria's. Andy's sister Angela made these fun and yummy treats! I don't like chocolate but I at least tried them. 

A few More from Moab!

I found a few more photos on my phone from the Moab Trip! I just loved the panoramas so I had to share!

This is the Moab Winery

Megan and I on the Jeeping adventure

Moab Trip with my two Best Friends!

When your best friend asks if you want to go on a trip to a place you LOVE and can do two of your favorite activities why would you even hesitate? Well I sure didn't! Megan wanted to head out of town over UEA and suggested Moab because she hadn't been there before. Well as you may know, Moab is the mecca for Jeeping and also hiking. Andy and I jumped on board immediately. We were stoked! She even agreed to go jeeping with us, score! 

Andy, Megan and I headed to Moab last Thursday after work. Friday we went to Arches to see if we could get in on the Fiery Furnace guided tour because it was booked online. Sure enough they only had 1 cancellation so the three of us couldn't go. Megan and I went over to the gift store and Andy came back and said score, we are in... but we are doing it on our own and they could only get us in on Sunday which actually worked out great. So we headed into Arches to look around and did a small hike around the Windows. Then we went up the Colorado river to the Moab Winery (Red Rock Cliffs Winery) for lunch. It was a beautiful area. 

That evening we went back to Arches to hike to Delicate Arch for sunset. It was an awesome experience and was super popular. There were SO many photographers and foreigners i was amazed. Megan wanted to get a photo under the arch so we headed over that direction only to get yelled at by the many people waiting for the perfect picture (it would have taken less than a minute!) Andy snapped a quick photo of us as close as we could get and then we watched the sun set and the moon rise on the LaSal Mountains. It was great evening. The hike was harder than I thought but the hike down was fun with the full moon. There were people hiking up when we were on the way down with kids, in the dark - crazy! We went to Zax for dinner and margaritas and then crashed at the hotel. 

Friday we met a guy from work and his friends and went jeeping on the Poison Spider Mesa, Golden Spike and Gold Bar Rim trails. It was a long day but we had a lot of fun. Andy drove most of the way but I managed to get a little drive time behind the wheel. My jeep proves to be pretty good at what she does (of course there is always room and reason for more upgrades). Moab is amazing for jeeping not only because of the great trails but the scenery is surreal. It's just a calming place to be while having a great off road adventure. We finished the night at Pasta Jays with dinner for 5. 

Sunday we work up and headed back to Arches to delve into the Fiery Furnace.  I'd admit, I was a little nervous about getting lost since they typically recommend a guided tour. We had a lot of fun though and we even managed to see 5 arches in there. It was an amazing area and I'm sure we only covered a small portion of the actual furnace so I'm sure someday Andy and I will be back to conquer some more when we have a full day. We headed out of Arches for home around 11. 

It was a great weekend with my two best friends. What more can I ask for? 

This is the picture of us next to the Arch!

This is the same photo. The one on the left is what it actually looked like. When I played around with it in LightRoom and took the shadows away to show the amount of people that were there I was amazed... and I was standing in the middle of the crowd so times that by about two.