OH MY! (and Easter)

I got ahead of myself...I thought I had uploaded all my pix from my camera to our mac, but I hadn't...and I just discovered wonderful photos. I had thought for sure that I had taken more at the beach. I had. So I'm back-tracking now. I even forgot about Maisy-Daisy's birthday!

Easter Photos of our 4 sweet and crazy kids!

pix from the wedding

Since we all looked nice, I wanted to try to get some photos with the kids and me. Maddie was highly cooperative.

And we managed to get these sweet ones of me and Maisie. 

Maisie decided to do her nose trick for most of the pix Braden snapped.

I did get this one...it's not a glamour shot but it is the real us! Nose tricks, toddlers, 8-year old humor and all.

Easter Sunday Morning

I always try to take a few photos on Easter Sunday. I tried (and failed) with the "all 4 kids" photos. Alas! First of all, lens fail on my part. Secondly, is anyone else noticing a theme with our youngest and holiday family photos?

But I did capture a few cute pix of various kids together. 

Both kind of say, "I'm not into photos right now, Mom."

The Sillies

And just in case you haven't yet picked up that the Duke was NOT into having his photo taken at this point in time, I'll add two more. If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you will see the sad, sad tear coming out of his eye.

Well, we made memories. :)

The adventure of taking a Christmas photo

So I always take my Christmas card photos in November so that I can have them ready to send out in December. I had a cute idea to try in my head, but I kept forgetting about it, or something would happen when I intended to take photos, one of the littles was napping, etc etc etc. Life with four kids.

So finally it was getting late into November, and I just needed to take photos NOW and get a picture. So I dismissed my creative idea and gathered the kids and upon viewing their clothes decided that this photo would definitely be black and white. Duke and Maisie were nearing nap time and changing of clothes was just not going to happen. I was lucky Maisie's hair was fixed.

And would you believe I got THIS...

...out of THIS???

(Well, not exactly...I lost the original colored pic of the final fixed photo. But this is the general idea!)

Thank goodness for some simple photo editing! Wow.

I was stuck with Duke screaming because he wanted nothing to do with a photo at the moment (though he normally LOVES it and says 'cheese' all cutesy-like), so I decided to just go with it. At first I was going to delete all the photos and try again later than day, but after all, it was a great crying face. And you know what, that's REAL LIFE, folks! So I went with it, irony and all...twinkly stars, magical moment and ...screaming baby!

So after my positive experience with photo editing the kids' pic, I tackled the task of finding a picture of Braden and me. We rarely are in photos together because I'm normally behind the camera. We occasionally get Maddie or Caleb to snap a photo of us, but those are more often than not out of focus or come with heads chopped off or from a weird low angle. (Note to self: I've got to teach at least one of them some basic photo skills.)

So I started working with the only two halfway decent photos of us I could find from the year, and I was pleased with the results of one. Not so bad, eh? It was going to be pretty small on the card anyway, with the kids' picture being the large one.

HOWEVER, Braden saw this pic and said he looked like Fabio and blah blah blah. I said that was crazy and he didn't look like Fabio because Fabio has long hair. And please, we don't have any other photo of us that works or looks halfway decent, and it is just a Christmas card that gets thrown away anyway. And our picture was just going to be tiny on the card.

He let me use the photo.

We sent out the first few cards and one of our friends texted Braden two days later and said he loved the glamour shot of Braden. Sigh.

I told Braden he won and I'm sorry. So don't be counting on another glamour shot of us for 2014!

Just a quick shot of the four

Merry Christmas!

Easter 2013

For Easter, I was home with the kids. Duke and Maisie were sick with fevers and colds. Caleb and Daddy went to church, thus Caleb was dressed in his Easter best.  Can't you tell just how much he loved his outfit?

There, I did finally coax a smile from him.  :)

Since we were going over to my parents' house for lunch, I put Maisie and Duke in Easter clothes for lunch.  Just because. 

Maddie wore floppy bunny ear pigtails.  

And we took two quick pix of the kids before we left.

our kids

* Merry Christmas!! *

just returned

We have just returned from Ohio where we had lots of fun visiting Uncle Thad and Aunt Louise over the 4th for the second year in a row.  (For last year's account, go here, here, here, here, here and here.)  Thank you so much Uncle Thad and Aunt Louise for your welcoming of us and your generosity toward us!  We so enjoyed our visit!

Miss Maisie was the star of the week.  Absolute perfect traveler!  (I have another Maddie.)   She would wake up every 3-4 hours for a bottle and diaper change, then back into the carseat she'd go and happily drift off to sleep. She did super in Ohio--loved on by everyone and went here, there and everywhere like a champ. 

Maisie also got to meet Aunt Gail and Uncle Jim, who drove into town for the day on Sunday--we are so glad you two came!  Here she is with Aunt Gail and Uncle Thad.  Somehow we never got a picture of Maisie with Aunt Louise...not sure how, Louise spent an awful lot of time playing with, snuggling and feeding Maisie. Louise's mother Maj-greth also spent some time with Maisie, who quickly smiled right at her. 

 

We spent our days at the pool, went to Graeter's (of course!), ate good food and did lots of talking.  On the 4th we went into downtown Hamilton for the fireworks.

 A family photo...I think our first since Maisie's arrival.  Caleb is posing 'serious' with his sword a.k.a. "lightsaver" Uncle Thad bought him.

And of course the night couldn't pass without a picture of us, remembering July 4th nine years past.

* merry christmas *

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah...from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days...And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace. Micah 5:2-5

thanksgiving 2010

aren't they cute?

OBX | firsts

This weekend we returned from two relaxing weeks in the Outer Banks. Despite 3 hurricanes out in the Atlantic we were still blessed with good weather for most of our stay. This vacation was particularly memorable in that there were quite a few 'firsts'. Our family's first time vacationing on the Outer Banks. Jess's first time flying with a baby. Devin's first time meeting Braden, Caleb, Nana & Grandpap. The first time my parents had all three grandchildren together in one place.

party central

Yep! Just call us Party Central. From last week's double birthday celebration, to this week's birthday-Father's day combo and another double birthday party to come, it's just party party over here! (I must say, no one seems to mind.)

Sunday morning came and Caleb dressed himself.

I would ordinarily never let him wear a t-shirt to church...but Braden saw him first, laughed and approved his Father's Day attire. :)

After church, my parents and La came over to celebrate Father's Day and Caleb's birthday.

My gifts this year were photos. A portrait of myself and the kids for my dad.

And for Braden, the same one my dad has, plus individual portraits of myself, Maddie and Caleb, plus this big one here.

Braden's office has been seriously lacking photos of the kids and me. He's mentioned this oh, a few times. Well, his office is empty no longer! Happy Father's Day! :)

* Coming up: Bobe's part of the party. *