Riley's Baptism

Saturday, March 26th was a special day for us all as Riley was baptized along with his cousin Landon Kimber.  It was a great day and a great Baptism Meeting.  Skyelie gave a talk on B-A-P-T-I-S-M in which she talked about how each of those letters helped us remember important things about baptism and the covenants we make.  She did a SUPER job and we were very proud of her.  Afterward we went over to Jannica's brother's home, nearby and had a super lunch.  All in all a wonderful day.

WAY TO GO RILEY!!!

We are so proud of the wonderful decision you made.

Special Day, March 13, 2011

I thought it would be good to have a record of the family on the special day when Jeff was sustained and set apart as the 2d counselor in the new Bishopric in their ward so I took some photos. It will be interesting to see how he and they have changed by the time he is released.

While the camera was out I got one of the two sisters together.

Jane has been doing this new thing with her tongue lately that is so cute, but, of course, she wouldn't do it while the camera was there.  We did get this really cute expression though that I thought everyone might enjoy.

Big Fun in the Snow

I have been talking to Eric and Jeff about getting the grand-kids out for a sledding party this year. Sunday night at our family get-together I realized that Monday was Presidents' Day and a school holiday so we quickly put together a sledding event. Unfortunately Jeff had to work and Avery and Jane had coughs, soooo that just left Eric's and Wade's families. Also unfortunately, Skyelie had recently had her tonsils out and didn't feel up to coming out with us and Makenzie's knee was sore and so she didn't come. Tooo bad darn it, because the rest of us had a great time at a place called Hidden Hollow with sleds, tubes, Hot cocoa and donuts.

Awesome Visitors

I'm only about a month late in posting this, but we had an exciting visit just after Christmas last month when Margie Uminski Walker and her husband Andrew stopped by to visit and introduce us to Andrew.  There blog is here.  You should go visit it if you haven't recently.  We are so pleased that they stopped by.  If you read this Margie and Andrew, we hope you won't be strangers next time you're down this way.

Christmas Memories 2010

Christmas has come and gone and we were blessed to have almost the whole family make it to our house this year.  Because for me the highlight of Christmas is family, to see them and visit with them, I thought it would be fun to have a photo of each of the grandchildren with my Santa hat that I like to wear as often as possible during the Christmas season.



















Darling little Jane is growing so fast.

Davis really enjoyed Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Avery thinks visiting with cousins and aunts and uncles is the best!

Presley loved the cousins but loved Missy even more.

Campbell likes to bring fun wherever he goes.

Addison is a national energy source with an ever present smile.

Megan keeps a close eye on the beauty of the world around her.

 Riley loves to make his parents happy and proud.

Colt loves football and everything about it.

Hallie was Missy's favorite baby sitter, but she loved it.

Taydon loves golf and baseball and always "brings it".

Cody loves the little ones and they love him.

Makenna is the fun loving serious Soccer player.

Skyelie is our woman of mystery as we wonder what's going on in that pretty little head.

Makenzie keeps so busy with the Young Women, school and work.

Tanesha was counting the hours until she made her mom and dad grandparents.

Though we were so happy to have so many grandchildren with us we were ever mindful of those who couldn't make it this year, and their parents too.

I'm so happy that we got photos of them also donning there very own Santa hats.

 I'm sure this is how they felt when they found out they wouldn't be with Grandma and Grandpa Law this Holiday season.

If any of you would like a copy in a higher quality file for printing or just for your keepsakes just let me know.

Questions Answered

This photo can be enlarged by clicking on it.

Okay, here is the breakdown of the family photo.

Parents:  Jeanne (#10) and Scott (#22)  - West Point, UT

Oldest:  Wade Stephens (#18) & his wife Lori (#4) - West Point, UT

Children by age:  Tanesha Spader (#2), Makenzie Stephens (#28), Makenna Stephens (#1),

Cody Stephens (#3),  Colt Stephens (#17)

Next:  Eric Law (#24) & his wife Jannica (#12) - Syracuse, UT

Children by age:  Skyelie Kimber (#11), Taydon Law (#30) Riley Law (#29),

Addison Law (#25) Presley Law (#23)

Next:  Dustin Law (#19) & his wife Tamra (#6) - Albany, OR

Children by age:  Dustin Sean Law (#5), Anna Law (#7)

Next:  Kathryn Grubbs (#14) & her husband Trevor (#27) - Kennewick, WA

Children by age:  Hallie Grubbs (#15), Megan Grubbs (#16), 

Cambell Grubbs (#26) and Davis Grubbs (#13)

Last:  Melissa Leger (#9) & her husband Jeff (#21) - Layton, UT

Children by age:  Avery Leger (#8), Jane Leger (#20)

 

Who Are All These People

The other day a close relative wanted to know the identities of all the people in our family photo, so soon - probably after Christmas - I'll post a photo that identifies each person.  If that is of interest to you, check back in a couple weeks or so.

This will probably be my last post before Christmas on this blog, although I am posting Christmas photos and wishes daily on my photo blog.  I have a very special photo that I'm very excited about that I will post on Christmas Eve so stop by there.

Need Your Input

After about four or five (maybe more) years of being a total slacker I finally got Christmas cards out this year.  Here is what it looks like.

As you can see I put the URL to this blog on the card, so if anyone is interested they can take a look.

As my family knows I post almost daily to my photography blog but like I have been with Christmas cards, I have also been a total slacker with this blog.  Sooooooo, I figured I'd set a goal to post at least weekly here on this blog in 2011.  I believe this is the 12th post for 2010 so that means I've only averaged one per month this whole year.  Once a week would be about a four to five hundred percent improvement. 

This is why I "Need Your Input".  I would be happy to try to keep this blog much more up to date, but only if there is some real interest.  So please leave a comment or email me and let me know if you want me to increase my efforts to keep this blog up.  Puhleeeeeese don't respond based on what you think I want to hear.  If you don't have a yearning to see Jeanne and I work harder on keeping this blog up then don't respond that you do.  We fully understand and appreciate that lives are busy and complicated.  There is only so much time in a day or a week.  If you are happy with the way it is, or you get enough "Scott time", by viewing my photography blog, then just ignore this.  No response simply tells me that the status quo is working fine. 




This may be my last post on Empty Nesters for 2010, so have a wonderful Christmas and a great 2011.  




OBTW, I did post a photo of Jeanne and I in Zion National Park that I took last week while we were down there.  You can go to it by clicking here.

Finally 2

I said in yesterday's post that I finally had it, but if you read clear to the bottom you may have noticed that I also said there were still some problems and if I got new energy I'd give them a shot.  So. . . Another 3 hours with Photoshop and here you go.  Remember that by just clicking right on the photo you can see it much larger.

Do you see any changes?

Which do you like better?

Finally

I have procrastinated and procrastinated the finishing up of our family photo for numerous reasons, but finally decided it was time to tackle it.  First I had your mom select the one of the originals that was the best.  In case you don't know by now, when you get this many people together you will never get all of them looking good at the same time.  One of the biggest problems was that Hallie's face was hidden behind Megan in every single one that had the whole original group.  I have indicated some of the other problems on the images below.

NOTE:  You can see either one of these photos significantly larger by just clicking on it.

This is what we started out with.

 And this is about 6 hours later with me and Photoshop.

Was it worth it?

Yes there are still things I'd like to have different and better and I may rest up and tackle a few more things tomorrow, but believe it or not I'm tired and have a headache from this.  The most important thing is that I'm so grateful to finally have a family photo with everyone included even if it was a lot of work for everyone.  Thank you so much for everybody's help in making this happen.

Don't try to use this one for printing, it is too low of resolution.  Everyone will be getting a CD with every photo on it, obviously including this one in the maximum resolution that we have.