a happy mail day

Yesterday all three of the shipments I have been expecting were delivered. I got new photo books and a new math curriculum for Emma and Slade. Last but not least, we also got this:




My favorite moment of the night was when Slade, who was frustrated about everybody stealing his bounce, said, "Okay, everyone who is not me, stop." The kids are out back happily jumping away right now. Yeah for trampolines! Yeah for good mail days.

sweet freckles

Emma has been outside quite a bit soaking up the spring sunshine. She has a cute sprinkling of freckles across her nose to show for it.

baby blues

My children are getting a bit tired of me and the camera so I practiced on my friend's children today at the park. Aren't their eyes awesome?

birthday cake

Each birthday, I make a cake for the birthday kid. I've done a princess, butterfly, Rainbow fish, Dora, bug, snake, ball, castle, and others I can't think of right now. Some of them turn out better than others. This year Slade requested a Darth Vader cake. I searched on-line for ideas/instructions and didn't find very much. So I improvved using Slade's new mask (thank you Grandma) as a model. I used fudge frosting tinted with LOTS of blue and green food coloring. It never really looked black but it was good enough.



It was definitely not the best cake I've done. However, it did look enough like Darth Vader that Slade was happy. It seemed more impressive when I sang the Darth Vader theme as I cut it. We invited two families over to eat it with us and it was almost all gone before they left. Slade and Nathan finished it off for lunch the next day. Yum.

My mother is so great

I shared this post with my family and asked them to comment. Well, my mom wrote her whole weekly entry about the article on her blog. Read it. We all need the reminder to "stop and smell the roses". Someday I hope that I will read a great article and think "that reminds me of a talk/scripture/poem..." and then write about it on my blog in such a thoughtful and cool way. For now, I will just continue to admire my mother.

High Five!

Slade turned FIVE today. We began the day with pancakes. I tried to make him a #5 pancake but my griddle is done being non-stick so it stuck. Three times. Oh well. Instead, I made the pancakes little and that was different and therefore exciting. We played outside in the morning and then came in for sandwiches, Cheetos, Trix yogurt and grape soda. Presents were opened when Dave came home for lunch--Power Ranger figures, toy snakes, ninja weapons, clothes and the best of all "Super Smash Brothers" for the Game Cube.

He spent most of the rest of the day playing the new game except when I made him take a break and go play outside. We finished the day off with the requested Chicken and Rice and bacon. I added in some yummy strawberries and whip cream for the rest of us (Nathan enjoyed dipping his bacon in the whip cream). The evening was spent playing some baseball outside and then more video games with Daddy (who was handily beaten by the five year old, I must add).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SLADE!

Pearls Before Breakfast

This article in the Washington Post is about what happens when you put a world famous concert violinist in the Metro. Do people stop? Do people recognize the genius? Do people throw money in his multi-million-dollar-Stradivarius-carrying case? It's a long article but very interesting.

My new sweet spot

I love this park in our neighborhood. There is a RED bridge. Hello! And a creek. And a walkway. And a playground. I just get giddy with the visions of all the wonderful pictures I will be able to capture here.

for Heather and Brett

ETA: My brother-in-law, Brett, is being deployed to Afghanistan for a year. His wife asked me to take pictures of him with their three boys. Talk about feeling pressure! But I think I managed to capture a few good ones.


And here is one of Tyler just because its cute.

conversation overheard

We got a Game Cube for Christmas with the game Star Wars Legos. The game has been enjoyed by the kids. So much so that it was scratched and damaged beyond repair. We bought another one and then made the rule that only a grown up could take the disc out of the console. Today as I was in my room folding laundry, I overheard the following from Slade and the 6 and 4 year old neighborhood boys that were here:

6 yo: Hey lets play Star Wars Legos!
Slade: Yeah!

They start to get out the Game Cube and controllers...

4 yo: But we can't change the CD.
6 yo: Only grown ups can change it.
Slade: Okay, raise your hand if you're a grown up.

I thought it was very funny.

We're so glad when Daddy comes home

Dave is back! Wahoo! Yipee! Hurray! Seven weeks. So glad to be done.

He is back on Daddy Duty which he does so well.



Last night he and the kids "camped out" in the basement. Today he took them swimming.

Oh yes, we are all glad as we can be to have our Daddy home to stay.

10 things I love

I was checking in on Jessica Sprague's blog. She challenged her readers to list 10 things that make them happy right now. Here's mine:

1. my wonderful husband, who loves me, listens to me, and supports me. I am so glad he is done being gone for a while.


2. my four great kids--watching them grow, learn new skills, interact with each other, get excited about life's adventures

and since I can't resist sharing more pictures....


3. blogs
4. the forums at ILP (www.ilovephotography.com)--spending way too much time there but I am learning so much
5. my camera--I'm so excited that I am starting to really understand things like aperture and shutter speed. My eyes don't glaze over anymore! Plus, I am actually shooting in manual and getting some pretty good shots.
6. books, books and more books
7. cheeesecake (really dessert in general, but especially yummy cheesecake)
8. chinese food--made some really yummy Orange Chicken the other night. Mmmmmm. There is just something about chicken over rice that I just so enjoy.
9. my Library of Memories class at Big Picture--Stacy Julian is total genius!!!
10. "You can do anything for 15 minutes"

Sawyer is six months old today

He is growing so quickly. Sitting up. Eating baby food. Making the cutest baby talk. I am glad I get to be there to see it all.

a new skill

Sawyer sat up on his own for several minutes today. Just thought I'd share.

terrible twos, the sequel

Nathan knows my threats of selling him to the gypsies are empty so he continues to torture me with all of his twoness. In recent days, he has:

-spit out chocolate milk all over the TV, couch, and carpet
-taken a cube of butter I had softening on the counter and spread it on his clothes, hair and the carpet
-squeezed out Gogurt all over the couch and carpet
-ripped open the package of Sawyer's rice cereal and spread it all over the couch and carpet
(I see a recurring theme here...)
AND
-after getting him out of the bath to clean up from the butter incident, he peed on my bed!


This lovely toddler mayhem began to manifest itself when Dave left for Boise. I am hoping that it will come to a screeching halt when we return to normal life. This is our seventh week but he flies home on Friday to stay! Yay! Yes, perhaps this is all just a reaction to Daddy being gone and he will go back to being sweet, mild-mannered, happy Nathan. However, this brings back so many memories of Emma's toddler mayhem when she was this age which had nothing to do with Daddy being gone. Alas, things are not looking too good.

first "photo session"

I asked my cousin Britt to let me practice on her sweet two week old baby. Photographing someone else's child was ever so much harder than I thought it would be. It was a good learning experience for me. I even posted these on a photography forum for critique. Now that is a little scary but how else do you learn, right!?







She is super cute. Thanks Britt for letting me play!