Violated

I won't go into much detail but all of my personal information has been compromised so for those of you who have my e-mail account dlmeldrum@hotmail.com that will be shut down. I'm leaving it open for a little while until I can make sure everyone has transferred to my new e-mail address which is deborah.murdock@live.com. I won't have access to my computer for a few weeks until we can reformat everything. I'm so sick about this hopefully I can recover all my photos, recipes, digital scrapbooks and journals that I had on my PC. Shame on those people who deliberately frustrate people's lives through malicious computer activity. My facebook account will probably be closed also since that has also been hacked into. Do not open any attachments from my old account or any URL's or videos posted on Facebook.

Catch of the Day

I got an excited phone call Saturday afternoon from my 4 year old. The only thing I could make out of it was fish...catch...wow...cat. Matt took Maryn fishing for the afternoon and I thought for some reason she was saying cat fish but she was telling me that she caught a fish. When Matt took over the phone he said that she caught a beautiful Rainbow Trout! They had the poles propped up on the beach and there was a tug so Matt called to Maryn to come over while he tried to save the pole from going in the water. He could not even explain how excited her little face got as she ran across the shore. She reeled in the fish and everything. I asked Matt to write in Maryn's journal since he was there and I wasn't. So here it is:

Maryn went fishing for the first time today. We (Maryn and Matt) left our house at about 3:00 in the afternoon after Deb’s fundraiser was finished. We went to Jordanelle reservoir to try our luck. I had never been there before and wasn’t sure where to go. After some exploration we found a trail that led down to the shoreline. We grabbed our gear and started walking. We eventually found a suitable place to start fishing.

Earlier in the day Maryn and I refurbished an old fishing pole that I had used as a young boy. After cleaning and restringing it with new line we did some practice casts in the backyard and Maryn reeled in the sinkers that were attached to the line.

As we sat on the bank of the reservoir I started thinking about how much I really hoped Maryn would be able to see a fish because this was her first fishing trip. I no sooner thought it then her pole started to wiggle. I picked it up and knew that a fish was hooked. I then had her take the pole and start reeling. All that practice in the backyard paid off. She reeled the fish in very quickly. We were both very excited. When I first picked up the pole I thought it was just a small fish but when I saw it coming up out of the water I realized what a nice fish it was. It was a beautiful rainbow trout about 14 inches long.
I can’t describe Maryn’s excitement. It was so fun to see her light up with thrill. I had her hold up the fish for a picture and then we released it back to the lake. It was the only fish that we caught. I can only remember a few times in my life when I was out-fished and Maryn out-fished me. I think she is going to have her daddy’s famous fishing luck.

HOW COOL IS THAT!!!

Easter Egg Hunt

Can I just tell you how awesome our ward family is? We don't have immediate family down here so wherever we tend to end up we make our family the good church ward members around us. Everyone in the ward donated candy and I should've taken a picture of the field it was covered in every color easter egg you could imagine! They let the 0 to 3 years of age kids out first. I caught a couple shots of Macey. I think she was more interested in the grass because this was her first experience with it. Since she was born it's been covered in snow. She didn't know quite what to do with the eggs that I threw towards her either. Maryn was off and going when they gave the whistle for the next wave to go. There were eggs scattered everywhere but she chose to go to the outer area where they were harder to find. Guess she likes a challenge. I was laughing because every egg she would pick up she would open to see what the candy was. Daddy was gone out of town dirt biking with the guys. Thank goodness he came home in one piece.

All these people are my neighbors. Picture on the left is Maryn's partner in crime Sam and Ronalee is on the right with Macers. I could practically throw a rock at both of their houses. Too much fun!

Uncle John visits SLC

Over conference weekend I had the opportunity to see my little brother John a.k.a Bobby. We hadn't seen him for 2 1/2 years. During that time Maryn has grown and he had never even met Macey. The girls took to him right away because he such a bubbly guy. We picked him up at the airport and headed straight to Temple Square. He had never been to downtown SLC so we got to do the tourist thing. We took a tour of the conference center then went to see the Christus only to remember that Maryn left her ring in the bathroom at the conference center so Mommy went and retrieved that before the floodgates got too uncontrollable.

When we got back to the house Uncle John played hide and seek while I took care of Macey's needs and even taught her some card games. Maryn tried to pull a fast one on Uncle John and tried to change the rules to benefit her. Uncle John also got Maryn saying "Macey the wonder girl, if you poke her she will hurl".

That night we were able to do a session at the Salt Lake Temple. Watching him in the session he looked like he was mesmerized.

Friday we drove him down to a missionary reunion and the girls and I got to visit a friend we haven't seen for a while. She's so much fun to be around! Thanks again Shannon for the Easter Basket.
Saturday we headed up to Cache Valley and got to do family things with the Murdock side. John tagged along and I hope he had a good time. On the ride home Matt and I gave him our off the mission speech and hopefully we helped him instead of discourage.

It was so much fun to see John...I still remember him as a little kid and it's crazy to think that he can actually marry now. By the way girls he is available...so if you know anyone he is attending BYU-I in the Fall!

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Last week Maryn was playing hairdresser to Macey and couldn't understand why all the clips she was trying to put in her hair would not stay in. We were finally able to get one hair roller to stay. Sorry Mace but you have a lot of catching up to do with your sister in the hair department.

Digital Scrapbooking

I just realized I share only a minimal amount of what I digitally scrapbook. A few years back my husband bought me this sweet program to digitally scrapbook. I think it was because I was spending so much on supplies. I was torn because I loved the traditional way but I'm finding more and more ways to be creative and digital scrapbooking really has taken off. Benefits are I don't have to get all my stuff out and have my kids rummage through all my tools ending in me being frustrated. If I make a mistake and cut too much off all I have to do is click the undo button. If I don't like the color...I just change it. I have done a few pages where I mix traditional with digital but mostly I think I'm converting. I would love to have photoshop elements because you can create your scrapbook pages with that program but for the time being I'll use what I have. For editing my pictures I've been using GIMP...it's a Linux based program. Here is something that I created today. It was inspired by a woman named JenniferZ from the scrapbook communites I frequent. They have so many cool ideas. Sometimes down the road I usually add more to the picture but this is what I have so far.


Photo by Shannon Hadden Photography
The paper and elements used are from the Kiwi Urban Digital Kit from ShabbyPrincess.com

Open mouth insert foot

Ya know the expression "you really put your foot in your mouth". Well Macey can actually do it! She loves to nibble on her toes.

Tons of Catch up

Sorry I've been missing in action lately. I have not neccessarily been busy but my mind has been occupied. Well I guess looking back at the last two weeks I have been busy. I'll get everything posted. And I'm doing the 100th post drawing today. So if you people who didn't notice that 100th post drawing I'll give you til...eh, lets say 2:00 this afternoon to put a comment on that 100th post if you want to be entered(even though I said it was done on March 23rd)! Just go back to my older posts and you'll find it. Just a few random things. The girls are a little feverish today so we're gonna keep everything low key. Being up for most the night makes ya not want to do a whole lot during the day. You'd think they could coordinate their waking up but after I would get one down the other one would wake up.

One of the General Conference talks really struck Matt and I in a odd way. Not the way I think the speaker had probably intended us to react to it. Can't remember the name but he asked us to close our eyes and walk into our house and what did we see. When I imagined walking into my house I saw my beautiful piano then Matt and I opened our eyes and looked at each other and both of us said we have no pictures on our walls. I am HORRIBLE at decorating. I have great ideas but everything has to look perfect in my mind of what I envision before I can start buying things and EVEN THEN I second guess myself. For example, I went to this cool craft store named Hobby Lobby and had my cart full of stuff to decorate and all of a sudden I went through the whole store putting stuff back where I got it and left...with nothing. I know this is crazy behavior but I have issues people. But I'm happy to say that I was able to at least get a few pictures hung up on our walls this past week. I want people to come into my home and see pictures of my beautiful children and feel the love and just to have it feel warm and welcoming. I edited all my pictures (that I took of course). I took a picture of the girls together and have separate portraits of them. Got them printed off and now I'm just looking for frames to go over the piano. I was able to buy a painting for the guest bathroom with pretty reds, golds and olive greens. And last but not least I was able to make pictures to hang in the girls room. I got this idea to scrapbook photos of them and frame them. They turned out better than I had imagined. It's amazing how pictures change the feeling of a home. It almost opens up a whole new realm to explore and tells a story...if that makes sense. Here are the pictures I posted in the girls room. I was able to get white 8x10 frames for them.

Photos by Shannon Hadden Photography

I still have plans in the works for other areas of the home. Hopefully I can make this look nice. I have designed a wood sign for my kitchen and I finally decided on all the dimensions but scared to get it made. Why am I so scared that I'm going to mess up something? Seriously I have issues!! Anyway I'll post that too. It goes with my cafe theme. Might go a little more french style...more classic looking. We'll see haven't decided yet. If anyone knows where I can find a black chalkboard and miniature bistro set to decorate let me know! I found a little bistro set at Hobby Lobby but it was missing a chair.