zoo trips

Here's a bunch of pictures from our various zoo trips this year. The weather is still looking great so maybe we'll get a chance to go one last time before the rain sets in!

july continued

fritz

Carrie and Jason had to have one last meal at Fritz before they went off to Texas (because really, how are they going to find Belgium fries there??). And of course the kids love going there too and playing around the fountain.

Abby thought it was hilarious to feed Chad the fries:


The kids run around:



Twirl time with aunt Carrie:

Obviously upset about something:
The kids try to twirl by themselves:



oopsie!
Abby's turn:

Chad's birthday

On the morning of Chad's birthday, the kids I went out to buy him a present (because I am so the procrastinator!). I knew they would spill the beans so I purposely did not tell Jamie what it was called when we bought it. And then I had brought the wrapping paper in the car so I wrapped it up before we went inside. The kids were so excited to give him the present that he had to open it immediately, and they had to help too!

misc

Sometimes naptimes go great while others are quite trying. If Jamie is being too disruptive, I will pull his mattress off his bed and put it on our floor in our bedroom. Although the rules are that he is not to play with my shoes, I could not help but chuckle when I peeked in and found him asleep like this:

One of Jamie's latest things is to close his eyes and exclaim "Mom, I can't see anything!"

This was Abby's first major haircut, besides a trim I gave her last year. If you can't remember how long her hair had been, go back to the 4th of july post.



I did a few portraits of Jamie on the big rock at the park:

I started working on some gardening, so my first task was to dig out this stump, at least as much as I could so Chad could finish it off. The kids helped too.
Can you see the layer of dirt covering Abby's skin and clothes?

Cousins!
Trying to steal a kiss!:
Here is the flag we made once we had to give Otto back his:

leaving for Texas

I was dreading this day for quite some time, but there was no getting around it, my little sister was moving to Texas. It's still pretty hard to have her so far away, but we'll always be best friends!

bye-bye!

family photos

Before Carrie&Jason headed off to Texas we attempted to do some family photos down by the lake. Key word here: {attempted}


Say cheese!


The best of the bunch. I had to wash it out to get Charlie's face out of the shadows, maybe with a little more touch-up, I can get it to look a bit better. Or maybe I'll just make a really good scrapbook page and you won't notice the photo anymore. LOL!
The sisters shots turned out good (probably because of the subject!):

Here's one of the siblings. And speaking of siblings, a t-mobile operator with a strong Indian accent was helping me the other day and asked how many siblings I had. I told her 3, and asked how many she had. She said her and her boyfriend are planning on one. Nothing against her, but I think she had a bit more to learn about the english language...