GIVEAWAY!

I'm doing a giveaway through one of my friends' blogs and my Blog Design Site! Make sure you go on over to her blog to enter too!

Here are the SPECIFICS:

One winner will be chosen at random from all of the entries to receive one blog design by KMann Designs. This design will include a custom background, matching header, font change for all of the post titles and sidebar titles, and a matching signature!

Here's how you ENTER:

• Comment on the KMann Designs post and tell me what your favorite thing about Christmas is. (1 entry)
• Comment on DABNEY'S post about this giveaway and tell her what your favorite Christmas song is. (1 entry)
• Comment on THIS post about this giveaway and tell me what your favorite Christmas movie is. (1 entry)
  
• Write a post about this giveaway on YOUR blog with a link to either KMann Designs or Dabney's blog. (1 entry)
• Become a KMann Designs Follower. (1 entry)
• Become a Follower on Dabney's Blog. (1 entry)
• Add a KMann Designs Button to your blog sidebar! (1 entry)

So all together you have 7 chances to enter!

The giveaway will end Thursday, December 3rd at 6:00pm (Central time) and the winner will be announced Friday morning!

my latest design!

I just wanted to share with you my latest blog design!! I just love this one, and I love the sweet girl I did it for! Her name is Cherry and she just had a baby boy a few weeks ago! We met back at ACU and have really been reconnected through blogging! Thanks, Cherry, I had a blast!

Don't forget to check out my Design Site!

We're headed to Houston in about an hour! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Fall Decor & the Camera..

I have been wanting a fall wreath for as long as I can remember... something with rich fall colors that isn't over the top of any specific holiday, but that could last from Halloween until Thanksgiving, and maybe even on into Christmas.. that is, until the Christmas ones go on sale and I talk myself into buying one for next year. In fact, I already have one picked out, I'm just waiting for the sale signs to go up.. or better yet, CLEARANCE!

So with all of my window shopping that I do (which is mostly Friday afternoons after work if we aren't leaving early for a football game) I know who has what and how much it all costs. I have been eying this one fall wreath for quite some time at Pier 1 and even though it went on clearance to almost 50% off, I just couldn't bring myself to buy it because I'm that stingy. Well, finally after about 5 weeks of seeing this thing on sale, I gave in and bought it! Did I mention that I get a discount of 20% on everything at Pier 1? So really, it took me over a month to convince myself that spending $18 on this wreath I had wanted for so long was worth the cost.

When it came to purchasing the wreath I decided that with the money I was saving I wanted to buy a cute little wreath hanger with birds on it.. a spur of the moment decision, unlike the wreath itself. Don't try to understand my thinking, you'll never get it. Ok, maybe my Mom does, but only because I learned from her!

I didn't take any full on pictures of the wreath because I didn't plan on even writing about it, but then I saw how awesome the pictures were (and I didn't even edit them) so I decided to show you too! I have to admit, I wouldn't have even thought to take these pictures if it weren't for the following events that perspired on Thursday and Friday. I'm sure most of you know by now that I got a new camera for Christmas... back in September.. from myself... don't judge me.

Here she is in all her glory.. at least all of her manufacturer's photo glory! So last Thursday I pulled out the camera to snap a few quick pictures and she would not take. If you've never used a Digital SLR camera, you should know that there is a setting that forces the image you are taking a picture of to come into focus enough before it will allow you to take the picture--In which it beeps at you to let you know it's ready. I know I'm not explaining that technically or anything, but you get it, right?

Moving on. So I'm sitting there trying to take the picture and the autofocus is working hard, coming into focus and then settling out of focus and not allowing me to take the picture. I thought to myself, this most likely has something to do with my battery... I had just received a new one because the old needed to be replaced, but I had yet to charge it. With that, I went home and charged the brand new battery that night. First thing the next morning, I popped the new battery in and gave her a go. To my disbelief, the same thing kept happening.

My stomach sank. I thought, "what have I done!" The entire drive to work I was thinking to myself, "what am I going to do.. this is NOT going to be cheap.. and right before Thanksgiving and Christmas?... right before my Brother gets home from deployment? Great." I got to the office and headed straight for the office of one of my co-workers who is a complete SLR guru. I walked in and said as miserably as I could, "Kevin, I need your help... my camera wont take pictures..." After taking a look at it for a while, he concluded that he didn't have a clue what was wrong.

In Abilene, there is no camera store.. you have best buy and then Wal-Mart. That's just how we roll here apparently. But thankfully I asked the right person. Kevin gave me a number of a guy in town named Bill and he is my new best friend! Bill is the most precious old man who used to own a photography store here in town, but now he works out of his shed in his backyard.

My heart sank when he told me he might get it back to me by Christmas. I just walked to my car trying to figure out what I was going to do. Within the hour he called me and said everything was ready to go! I could not believe it! When I got there, he told me that the problem was in the lens, which is a good thing and a bad thing. Good because I have another lens I can use for the time being, bad because the lens is the most important (and most expensive) part of the whole getup. 

Thankfully Bill knows of someone who can get it fixed for me for much less than buying a new one, so I'm pleased. Hopefully I can get it back by Christmas, but I'm going to be patient. So back to the pictures... I had never used the other lens before, because it wasn't as fast and didn't have the range of the one that broke, so I spent a few minutes testing it out on Friday afternoon--after all, I had to be ready for Saturday's game!

And the wreath was the perfect subject! So there you have it, my lovely fall wreath and my other lens that I am growing fond of the more I use it. I just love the bokeh in this picture!!

p.s. Dad--if you're reading this, and you feel compelled to by me a new lens for Christmas, feel free to check out the Nikon 50mm 1.8. It's what I want next, and it's not expensive at all, in terms of lenses. :)

We're in Business!

So, over the past two weeks I've been working on something, and that some thing is this:


KMann Designs! I've started my own blog/print design company! I never really thought it would turn into much back when I started helping people design their blogs for fun, but then I sat back and realized that I had a waiting list, and I really enjoyed doing it so, I decided to start KMann Designs!

Go over and see what it's all about, grab a button if you'd like, and follow me!

Behind the Scenes

Friday I let Kirk take my other camera with him to take pictures of the Cowboys' Stadium, so these are his pictures.

This one's a little blurry, but you can see that it is Tony Romo, Jason Witten, and Miles Austin's lockers in the locker room.

And these next few I should have known were coming...

When you give a high school boy a camera and let him go in the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' locker room, you have to expect pictures!

boys will be boys

This is Herschel, he's an awesome football player. In fact, he usually manages to average just about the same amount, if not more rushing yards than the other team's total. Kirk was trying to get him to do the Heisman pose, but he wouldn't, so I just like to claim that he's too fast, that's why he's blurry!

This might be the coolest thing there.. ok, maybe.. but still, I think it's pretty cool that they put their names up on their lockers!

In other news, this morning we woke up to the first freeze of the season! In light of that, I decided to go ahead an break my number one rule and turn on the Christmas music before Thanksgiving... I know what you're thinking, but I wouldn't have even considered it except that XM Radio sent me an email yesterday with all of their holiday channels so it was fresh on my mind.. and I'll saw this, and I happily sung along at the various times in my day that I was driving!

Hooray for cold weather!

Can You Guess?

Can you guess where we were on Friday? I'll give you a hint... it involved football.

Any guesses?

No?

OK, well here are some more hints:

There were a whole lot of these...

a ton of this...

a handful of these...

Any guesses yet?

no?

OK, maybe this next clue will help you...

a pair of these... and they were MASSIVE!

Have you guessed yet?

Hopefully!

Did you guess this?

That's Right! The new Cowboys' Stadium!

So now that you know, I'll tell you the story, and show you all of the pictures! (WARNING! This post contains a high volume of pictures. Proceed at your own risk).

Friday night, Abilene High played their first play off game in the new Cowboys' Stadium. Can you believe they sold over 20,000 tickets on the Abilene side alone? That makes over a fifth of the city! and you have to factor in that Cooper and Wylie both had playoff games this weekend as well! Leave it to Abilene to show everyone else how it's done! I wasn't kidding when I said before that West Texas football is in a whole other league, and I LOVE it!

We left right after lunch and headed to the stadium. We were not the first ones to get there either, by far... and we showed up about 2 hours before game time. So after we waited in line to get in we headed to save seats (we were saving 19, so you can imagine how difficult that would have been if we were any later). Using every piece of removable clothing and accessories we had (i.e. purses, jackets, our own bodies...) we managed to block off enough seats on 3 rows. And this was our view.

Not bad for $8, but then again all of the tickets were $8 if you bought them in advance!

Then we saw Kirk! Yes, I know they're just stretching.. It was so nice of him to wear my initial and last name on his jersey wasn't it? Good thing I was wearing the shirt I had made that matched!

a little warming up..

When I was sure that our seats were not going to be taken, I headed on over to see the girls!

They love me!

But really, they were all so excited to be there!

...and they were excited about gummy life savers

Then I saw the Senior Girls!

Next was the Alma Mater

You can't even fathom how big this screen is..

a lot of family came to the game (hence the 19 seats we saved) and I got to sit behind sweet Abby.

She had specifically saved that sucker from being thrown away to bring to this game. She even made her dad hid it in his boot to get past security! This was when she had finished it, which I'm sure you can tell by the blue tongue and sticky fingers!

either a sugar-high, or just happy to be there.. which one?

I think the sugar had something to do with it...

This is the face Carson gives me just about every time I say his name..

...and this is one of the many reasons why I love him!

Grant must have stolen some of Abby's other candy she and her brother smuggled in..

It was such a good game, not because Abilene High won, but because this screen put a whole new perspective (quite literally) on the game. It was cool to be able to see their faces as they were getting lined up and everything. Most of the time, I found myself watching the screen because of just how BIG it was! ...and between plays, they would video people in the stands much like at a professional game. You should have seen what people did when they were on camera!

Here's Kirk (he's on the bottom left). There were a couple of times that he was up close on the screen, but I kept missing it with the camera..

This one was pretty funny. You remember the senior girls from above? Well, they were on the screen cheering and waving their "rally rags" around when Hannah (the blonde on the right) smacked Molly (the brunette holding her forehead) right in the head! I was so glad that I got this picture, and don't worry, I've put it on facebook and tagged them in it!

It was SO BIG!

such cool views too!

afterwards, the team got together to take a picture on the field

and sing the school song!

then I ran into Ellen and Drew!

and finally, we took a group picture--minus my husband who had wandered off somewhere! ...and those people on the bottom of the screen who I couldn't crop out.

Cowboys' Stadium, it was real. Thanks for providing me with a cushioned seat and a $5 Dr. Pepper. I hope to see you again soon!

So next week we're headed to Midland for the next game on Saturday! Wish us (well them) luck! Stay tuned for Kirk's view of the stadium tomorrow--I gave him my other camera to take some pictures and while he didn't get as many as me (I mean, I guess that's ok, he did have a game to play) he got some from behind the scenes!