Happy Birthday Baby!

I can't believe that this little girl...







...is now this two year old little girl.




Abby has been the sweetest little girl in the whole wide world and even after 2 years she's as charming as ever. She loves kisses and snuggling and lately, yelling no and running away...but she did just turn two, after all.

We had a little party at home for her.

With cake!




We gave her a scooter that she LOVES. Now she won't have to steal her sisters anymore.

The Black Eye Story

The girls and I were scoping out the 75% off toy clearance at Target when Abby, who can no longer be contained in the cart and insists on walking everywhere, tripped over the cart's wheel and went face first into the isle's bottom shelf. You know, the one with the tiny little, skinny edge that could cut through flesh like butter. I had flashes of blood, gaping wounds and rushing off to the ER for stitches flash through my mind, but as it turns out, she just got a really good shiner.





The tough little cookie cried for about 2 minutes, then was ready to continue the toy hunt.

I'm a little tiny bit exhausted and short tempered today.

But then, I came across these pictures of my girls.









And now I'm just exhausted.

Look What My Family Can Do!

The kids all took a turn behind the camera. And not just any camera. My big ol' honkin' huge and heavy camera. They did pretty good.

Abby took these.




Madie took these.




Nathan took these of his own volition. He just stepped right up and took them and I didn't even have to ask him.


Look, Jared and I have the same quirky half smile happening, like we share the same genes or hang out a lot or something.




And Jared took these.




Ignore the junk on the table, we were unpacking groceries when the mood to play with the camera struck.



Not bad for a bunch of munchkins.

A Day in the Vineyard

Get ready for a bunch of pictures.

Or if you're not ready for a pictures overload, go get a snack instead.

I went out with some friends and their kids to take some pictures in a vineyard with high voltage power lines running through it. The sky was very blue with these cool wispy clouds floating around. Perfect for picture taking...if I new how to take landscape pictures. I seriously suck at them!

Take this shot, for example.

Pretty vines, nice sky, fun towers in the background, yet your eye just has no idea where to look. Ick.

So I stuck mostly to my munchkins.








I super-duper LOVE this one. I think I need to frame it.


















Cool clouds, eh?


So I took my lens off and held it on the camera backwards, ya know, just to see what would happen.

And this happened.

Kind of a cool, dreamy, fairytale effect.

Halloween

Halloween.

The one day a year your parents are happy to let you dress up as anything you want then send you out into the neighborhood to beg and threaten endless amounts of candy off of strangers.

The only requirement I have of my kids before letting them run wild is posing for an excessive amount of pictures first.

















This one was not so happy in the beginning.