Ketchup :)

OK not Ketchup but Catch up. I have been doing nothing but looking for my camera, so I have not blogged about anything and I have a lot to share. I got my new camera last night. I am soooo Happy to have a camera again. I bought the camera from a guy off of craigslist. I took the camera to the Camera Company to have them look it over before I bought it. Well the guy is a professional photographer and he does a lot of business at the camera co. So I didn't have to pay for them to inspect it, Which was nice. Also I got a better camera then I had before. I now have the latest Canon model. The Xsi. It is not a whole lot different then mine. I don't think I would have bought this camera brand new. You are only paying extra for two more mega pixels and the fact that it is the newer model. It is just nice to have a camera again. I also got two lenses and a battery grip(Which I have been wanting.) and the magic lantern DVD and manual. The two lenses are nice. I had a 400 dollar lens on my camera so I now have the same lens back. The other lens is just the one that normally comes with the camera. I doubt I will ever use it but it is nice to have as a back up. Anyway after a lot of negotiating I got him down to 650. He had it listed for quite sometime so I knew he wanted to get rid of it. Lucky me! So now the camera drama is over....

I dressed Charlotte up in her Halloween costume and took some pictures. I want to take some outside but it is so darn cold here right now. It was 14 degrees this morning. We will see what happens this afternoon and if it warms up some I will take her out and get a few shots off. She was so cute on Halloween. We went to Dave and Monya's ,Steve's , My dad's, Jim's mom's, and then the camera drama started. She had a good time I think. She liked playing with her tail. It was a lot of fun for Jim and I

The next thing on the list is family portraits. We had our family portraits done for the church. We don't really go to church but we are still considered members so the offer to take our pictures for the church directory. We end up getting a pretty good discount on the portraits so I said what the heck. Jim didn't want to do it but I thought we needed a picture of the three of us. I am not a huge fan of the professional boring portraits but until I find a good photographer that has a little creativity and isn't afraid to be artistic this will have to do. They turned out nice. Boring but nice. There is a lady in Madison that does really nice portraits and I am thinking in the spring we will see how well she really does. I really wish the lady that took Charlotte's seven month pictures hadn't moved to Washington. I would love her to be our permanent photographer. She is coming back in December to visit her mom and she want to do a session with Charlotte. I am so happy about that. I love her pictures. I will have to get her something cute to wear.

The family soup dinner is another thing I haven't wrote about. It was a success. It was really nice to have Faith stay with us. I think we have become closer then we ever were. We had a lot of people in my small little house. We made four soups between Faith and myself and then Pete brought two soups which were awesome, and Charlie brought some really good homemade chicken noodle soup, and fresh homemade bread. Everyone else brought a little bit of everything. Our cousin Lynn brought taco dip that was gone before I even got to see it so it must have been good. Aunt Shirley brought this really good fruit and whip cream dish. ( I still need to get that recipe.) I am not sure who else brought what but we had a ton of goodies. We got a lot of pictures and everyone was able to look at the Allen book (Which Dennis Kluge has been so kind as to let me copy) and the Porter book. Then on Monday we went out to our Uncle Rick's and we got a bunch of copies of our grandpa's stuff and we got a ton of old slides and 8mm movies. Faith and our Uncle Bob and Aunt Shirley have both helped to pay for the tools to transfer these on to DVD and to copy the slides onto the computer so I can make copies for everyone. I have been working nonstop scanning pictures, coping books and I am waiting for the film unit to get here so I can start on that. It has been so much fun. I really can't wait to get it all done so I can start doing some research on the family. That is what I really want to do. We have a great start but there is so much more to do. I know that now we will be able to date our family back farther and we will be able to get more information then even the two books have to offer. So I better get busy.

Charlotte has taken her first few steps on her own. The great part about it is both Jim and I were there to see it. I honestly can't believe how fast she is growing. Everyone says they grow fast but I guess you really don't understand until it is happening to you. Two months from now she will be a year old. It is crazy to think about.She has also gotten her top two teeth in. She was really cranky there for awhile. She wasn't very cranky with the first two, but these two were a nightmare. Now everyone keeps asking when we are going to have another one. Well my answer is....... Not anytime soon. I am having a great time just enjoying Charlotte. I also need to figure out what I am going to do with the store. I am just barely breaking even and even some months the money is coming out of our pocket. I don't know if we can keep this up. I really wish I would have waited to try and do this until Charlotte was older and the economy was better. Oh well, you only regret the things you haven't done. That is what I keep telling myself. OK I think that is it for now. I am all caught up.