Day 37-  Rock Band...  It is February...  Don't all singers wear bathing suits?

Day 38-  The boy LOVES to be outside...

Day 38 (again) 

Day 40- The stomach bug strikes again!

Day 41- Peanut Butter by the handful...  ewwww!

Day 42- Celebrating 16 years of marriage!

Day 43- Communal Art

Day 44-  Valentines Party

Day 45- Valentines Day Goodies

Day 46- Eye doctor says no need to patch!

Day 47- Watching Daddy work..

Day 48- Homework and Kyoot spelling!  :)

Day 50- Dog treats!  Yum!

Day 51-  Grandma's Birthday!  

Day 52- Donuts in honor of Erin!

Day 31/366 The Monster shoes.  

The 12 year old wears a womans 11.  big feet...  The latest shoes that she has gotten only seem to emphasize her shoe size.  

Day 32/366 Simple Joy

Love this picture...  mid jump... hair flying...  the simple joy of trying to grab the tree branch.

Day 33/366 Pouty at the Park

She is the queen of pouty looks.  This one is a little more tame than the looks I get most of the time.  Her older sister always said that she was fierce.  Can't you see it?

Day 34/366 Sisters

So sweet.  All dressed up to go to the Father Daughter dance with their Daddy.

Day 35/366  Everyday Items Make Great Toys

Just another "toy"  that my son has found.

Day 36/366 He Sits Still

Ummm... for a split second...  Truly, right after I snapped this he was running around like the crazy boy that he is.

I went to go wake up the boy from his nap and he was so adorable.  His little feet were tucked under his bottom...  It was a little bittersweet.  Those feet are FAR from the tiny sweet nwborn feet he once had.  ...but look at the sheet marks on his sleepy little head.  Could he be any cuter?

My girl just humoring me as I worked on some lighting.  The cool thing about this image is that it is, in photographer talk, SOOC.  That means that the only editing that I did on this was to resize it for the web.  Generally I spend way too much time editing my pictures and I really need to work getting the images I want in my camera.  I love for my subject to be brighter than my background.  When using natural light only, that can be pretty hard.  This is adding some OCF (off camera flash) which I LOVE, but rarely pull out and use.  

Funny thing...  I did her make up for this...  She thinks I went WAY overboard.  Now, she is only twelve and I would probably balk if she wanted to go to school like this, but it makes me laugh that SHE thinks it is too much.

I think that the best sound ever is that belly laugh of a toddler.  I am not sure what happens as they get a little older, I mean children's laughter is great, but NOTHING is better than the infant/toddler laugh...  especially when it hits that point where it is rolling.  I LOVE it.  When you get the boy going, he gets a little wild, but it is still adorable.  

We are 7 months post cross country move which is, admittedly, really hard on a 15 year old.  My awesome daughter never complained.  She misses her Washington friends, she's not crazy about her school, but she has made some new friends.  It makes a mom happy!  And they let me take pictures which really makes a mom photog happy!  :)

I am not sure where my baby has gone.  Sometime over the last couple of months this little guy emerged.  He sleeps in a big bed now.  We have gone 3 days now without the pacifier.  He has even peed on the potty a couple of times.  

He is a wild child.  Busy...busy...busy.  This picture is very deceptive.  He rarely sits still.  He is usually climbing on something, getting into something, or whacking something with a stick.  I love him...  even when he drives me crazy... which is often.

They like each other, most days.  They are so alike, yet they are so very different.  I guess that is just what it is to be sisters.  I have had people tell me that they look alike...  really...  They have very similar coloring.  That is where it ends.  One has curly hair.  One has straight hair.  One stopped at 5'4".  One has hit 5'5" with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.  They both are artists.  They both love music.  They both enjoy science fiction.  They both are avid readers.  They are both awesome, but in different ways.  I love them both!

This morning I woke up and had 2 coughing girls.  The preschooler doesn't have school today, but the kinderrgartner announces that she is too sick to go to school today.  Hmmm...  It is a cough.  No fever...  It is not even a constant cough...  Uggg...  Sometimes I wish my kids would be either sick or well because I have such a hard time when they are borderline sick... but it is only kindergarten, so why risk it...

Puttering around in my pjs making breakfast, getting the 12 year old off and waking the 15 year old up, when I realize that the dentist appt that my 15 year old has on Thursday, isn't on Thursday.  It is in 30 minutes.  Grrr...  Luckily I don't have to miraculously dress the 3 small ones only to entertain them in a waiting room.  This is when having a husband that works from home on Pacific Standard time comes in handy.  I quickly dress myself and wisk her off to the dentist.

The rest of the day was the normal craziness of the 3 small ones home.  The cough wasn't bad enough to keep the 2 girls calm...  or still... or NOT bouncing off the walls.. and arguing.  and the boy...  he is almost two...  need I say more?

The 3 small ones were fighting over who got to help me make dinner.  The sound of the chair being dragged over from the table only to have little people fight over who gets to climb up on it so that they to can stand next to the hot stove...

Bedtime...  pajamas on...  stories read...  the boy was even rocked, although he still cried when I left his room and closed the baby jail gate...  the girls were kissed...  lights turned off...  tea made...  water drawn...  and ahhhhh....  me time!

...and I still haven't figured out how to adjust the bubbles for a water softener.  I swear I didn't put in THAT much bubble bath.

Friday-  This picture captures how for some reason my children can't sit properly in a chair between the ages of 5-7.   They insist of sitting half on/ half off...  The inevitably fall off in the middle of dinner.  My husband and I are befuddled, but she is the 3rd of our children to go through this stage, so I guess it is normal... at least for our family.

Saturday- We went to a fun birthday party at the Houston Fire Museum.  

(download)

Click here to download:

days-20-23-catching-up-GsDrEfJjhCmrwubEuwsx.zip (933 KB)

Sunday-  Er... Um... well, techniaclly this was taken on Saturday, but I am cheating.  My fiesty girls insisted that Pappaw take them for a ride on the four wheeler before we trekked back home.

Monday- If you were to come to our house as a guest, you would never guess that the hyper, crazy, jumpy creature that meets you at the door could ever slow down and be this creature, but it happens.  When nothing exciting is going on...  she is usually just lying in the middle of a bed, sleeping the day away.