Wild weekend!!!

This weekend we planned to take pictures to finish up some senior pictures for Danielle and take Belly pictures for a friend of ours who is 36 weeks pregnant.

It looked like rain on Friday and they were calling for possible storms so we postponed the senior pictures on Friday night. Instead, we went to the Horseshoe for a while and then came home and watched the end of the first season of How I Met Your Mother. (Thanks Ric for getting us hooked on yet another series, like meth addicts.)

I forgot to mention that the in-laws took the kids with them for the weekend. Shout out to the grandparents!!! WOOT!

So Saturday, I worked from 9 until about 2. Then, the plan was to go to the Mount St. Francis picnic to get some of the best dumplings around. The last Saturday of August every year. It's a tradition!

I say the plan, because we actually made it to the Mount, and when we got out of the car, our 36 weeks pregnant friend looked at me with a funny expression and then said, I think I'm wet. What a really cool experience! (Admittedly, maybe not for her.) I have lots of friends with children, and none of them have had their water break without assistance until now. After some conversation and checking, I suggested that maybe she should call her doctor. That was around 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, we immediately left and took them to their car after the doctor suggested that she go to the hospital to get checked out. Our friend is Japanese and this was her first pregnancy. She told me today when we went to visit them at the hospital that she was glad I was with her when it happened. I must say, I'm glad I was too and this was probably one of the best compliments of my life!!

I'm glad we didn't wait to leave until after we ate. Takaru was born at 6:45 p.m. Our friend didn't even have time to get an epidural and I think if we had waited, I would have been delivering my first baby in the back seat of my Toyota Sequoia. Needless to say, we didn't get those belly pictures. I think in a week or so, we will be taking some newborn pictures and I will ask permission to put pictures of the baby on my blog.

Heywood on the left with our master instructor from the Tae Kwon Do school that Michael goes to.

So while our friend was having her first baby, we were getting ready to go see Heywood Banks. If you don't know who Heywood is, look him up on you tube and check out some of his family friendly songs. Big Butter Jesus is one of my favorites. :o)

It was great to have a weekend without the kids, but I sure did miss them and am so happy to have them home. I think that every parent needs at least 24 hours away from their kids to recharge their batteries and be ready for the next wonderful, frustrating, heartwarming, moments that come along.

I hope everyone else had a great weekend too!

Gaining Some More Experience

Well, this past weekend was a really busy one. We had so much packed into it that we missed several things.

Michael and I went to Madison on Saturday with a friend from work, Karen, and her daughter Danielle. Danielle is a senior this year, and Karen and I were talking about it one day and she mentioned how senior pictures are so expensive, so I offered to do the pictures for her for a minimum fee and let her and Danielle decide which pictures they like best. Here are a few of the pictures that I shot for them.

This girl has a 1000 watt smile and she was so much fun to work with. Up for anything including climbing around on itchy hay bales.

It was her idea to take a picture with the horse. This beauty was so sweet and seemed to really love the camera.

We found this old Mack truck tucked away in a barn and I thought this looked like a fun pose!

Shot this one on the move! Thanks to Bill for the ride around the farm on the trailer, attached to the 4 wheeler. That's how we got the wind blown picture here. This one is one of my favorites of the day.

And last, but most certainly not least, here is a picture of Dani and Karen together. Are these two ladies not just GORGEOUS?!? ;o)

I had so much fun working with Danielle. We will be taking some more pictures this weekend on the river front with the wide angle lens and the Louisville skyline in the background. I'm looking so forward to it!

I will be working on the rest of the pictures I took this weekend to get them "finished" up. I didn't realize I was shooting on the RAW setting on the camera so I have to go in and save each image as a jpeg so that it can be printed. The up side is that I can edit out anything that shouldn't be there. For instance, the doggies that had so much fun following us around and popping there heads into a picture at just the right moment. LOL.

BACK TO SCHOOL!!!

So. Last night, we helped Eden get her shower, (she's still figuring out how much liquid soap and shampoo to use) and we get her hair dried and get her to be at 9, (her school days bed time) and she comes in to see me no less than three times. "Mom, I just can't sleep, I'm way to excited!" I tried to remain patient and I explained to her that I understand that she's excited, but she had to get some sleep. The first day of 3rd grade is going to be GREAT!!

Well... this morning, the alarm clock goes off again (we like the snooze A LOT) at 7:00 and Michael rolls out of the bed, because he gets up better than I do, and he comes right back in and says "You gotta come see this." Well, I'm exhausted, because, have I mentioned that the 4 year olds don't sleep through the night? So I ask him "What's going on?" and he says "Eden is sitting on the couch with her back pack." She had been up for God only knows how long and was dressed and ready to go, had brushed her hair and teeth and had her shoes on, just waiting to go to school. That was at 7 am. We can't drop her off at school until 8:10 so needless to say, she was excited about going back to school.

I'm so glad that she loves school so much. I remember liking school until 4th grade. I had an awful teacher and I got a really terrible assignment to write an essay about a heart transplant. I'm about to reveal my age and say, "Back in those days, there was not an Internet, we had to go to the library and look it up in the card catalog, or read about it in the newspaper." In 1982, heart transplants were BRAND SPANKING NEW and there really wasn't much to go on, so I didn't do well on that paper and it was my first bad grade on anything and it just ruined me for the rest of my school career. I liked Choir and Math until 9th grade when they threw me into an algebra class before I had taken a "pre" algebra class. My teacher was a horrible drunk, who never explained anything so I failed miserably and had to take it in summer school. I'm so SO very glad that my kid takes after her daddy when it comes to school. She's so smart and so is he! I couldn't be more proud of either one of them.

So now the pictures.

Here is what the sky looked like when we got in the car to take her to school this morning. Gorgeous!!!!

Look at those rays of sunlight!!!

Here is the excited student! Come on! Let's go!

Another picture of the sky from the parking lot of the school on the way into the building.

Here she is sitting with her classmates, waiting to meet her new teacher. (Only problem is, here teacher is on maternity leave until Sept. 14th) But she does like the substitute that will be teaching class until Ms. Walsh returns.

Look at her with that scarf. She loves dresses!

And last but not least. Here is a picture of Tyler. He is upset because he has already been told that this is sister's school and he can't stay with sissy.

The upside is that after Labor day the boys will be starting PreK and going to their own school three days a week to start their learning process. They are so excited to get started. So, be looking for the "OH MY GOODNESS, I CAN'T BELIEVE MY BABIES ARE GOING TO SCHOOL" post that will be coming in just a few short weeks.

Weekend fun to celebrate the boys' birthday and our anniversary

This weekend we took the kids and went to French Lick to spend a free night, and a half price night out of town. They send me offers like this almost every month and it was a nice way to take a mini vacation without spending a ton of money.

We left right after work Friday and when we got in to the room, we all changed clothes and headed to the indoor pool. I would like to say it was nice and warm, but it really wasn't it was pretty cool and the boys and Eden loved it. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of our pool adventures, the camera's are just to big and this is one of those times when we realize we could really use a good point and shoot. Maybe we should go ahead and by Eden that Canon she's been asking for and we could use it in these situations. But I digress...

Saturday, we got up and got things packed and ready to head to Patoka Lake Beach. I opted out of wearing a swimsuit for Saturday, Michael took his trunks and we both kept an eye on the boys while our little fish went swimming in the lake. Eden loved it, she wasn't intimidated by the lake at all and wandered a bit to far at one point. Mike and I both lost sight of her for a split second and we both hit panic mode in less than a micro second. Needless to say, we called her in and I had to explain to her that it was important that she not get to far away from us because there is no lifeguard on duty. Here are some of the pictures from our fun day at the beach.

They started out by making a lake out of sand. A lake at the lake if you will. It had to be precise. The water had to be able to get in when a wave came in, but there had to be enough of a rise that the water wouldn't just rush right back out. Eden was the master of this design and the boys took direction really well.

Here's Jake after returning a tool to the beach toy pile. You can see the buckets in the bottom of the picture. They thought it was fun to drop these sand filled toys on me.

A picture of Eden and Jake being nice to each other and just before Eden found a friend to play with that was closer to her age than her brothers are. She also found a random pair of goggles and put them on. I have absolutely no IDEA where they came from.

Here they are looking for shells in the sand. Believe it or not, there are a few shells to be found, mostly tiny, but what can you do??? It's not like it's ocean sand, it's a man made beach. Regardless, they really did enjoy playing. So much so that Eden, my own personal Coppertone baby, ended up getting a little pink, and Mike still looks like a lobster on his back today, which is a first for me. In the 17 years I have known him, he's never STAYED burnt. He is tan within 24 hours of being in the sun. For the first time, his shoulders have blisters. I ended up with my shins and calves being burnt. The boys were well covered in sun screen and got a little pink, but nothing to speak of. I think their color was more from being sweaty than from the sun.

The trip to the beach was the highlight of the weekend. It was wonderful to see the kids playing so well together and not arguing with each other for a change. I hope you all had a good weekend too!

Here is one of my favorite pictures without the family in it from the weekend.

Locks of Love

School will be starting in just a few short days, and in preparation for the new year, I took Eden to see Carrie to get her hair cut tonight. (which will probably be last night by the time I finish this post, I'm getting a late start) We got there a few minutes early because Eden had decided that she wanted to cut her hair short, but wanted to look at some idea books. We weren't able to find any of the style books, but we waited just a few minutes for Eden's turn and when Carrie came over to get us, she asked what we were going to do. I told her, "She wants it short." and she asked us "How short?" and when I told her at least to her shoulders, Carrie asked if we wanted to donate it. She said she thinks it's long enough. The requirement for donating your hair to locks of love is at least 10 inches.

I'll be honest. It never occurred to me that you could donate a child's hair. My best friend Billie did this several months ago and was so happy with her decision.

When Eden sat down in the chair, Carrie pulled her hair back in the ponytail and explained to her what donating her hair would mean. My sweet little girl (not always so sweet, but what can you do?) looks at me and says, "Mommy, didn't aunt Joy have cancer?" and I said "Yes, sweetie." and she said "I'm so glad that this time I get to donate it to someone who really needs it instead of just watching it hit the floor and get thrown away."

Can you see my pride shining in these words???? If not, you should be able too. Not only am I proud of her, but she's pretty proud too and she's already talking about letting it grow out long enough to be able to donate it again. I think it might be because we called aunt Billie and she says that she's growing hers out again right now, just so she can donate it again.

So, here are some pictures of my baby girl and what she looked like before and after her new hair cut. I'm not sure how good the pictures of her getting it cut turned out. I forgot to take the camera with me to the salon so I had to improvise and I used the camera in my little phone.

Here she is in May at the zoo. I know it's not a great picture of how long her hair was, I just really like this picture of her.

This one is a little better. This was the beginning of June at the river.

This is her with her Kodak camera. She has been lobbying for a Canon for a few months now. We just keep telling her that maybe Santa can bring her a Canon.

This one shows how long it was in the back. If the backpack wasn't in the way, her hair reaches to the bottom of the little blue pocket.

She hopped right up in that chair and didn't even think twice about cutting her hair so short. I want to say that I was kinda scared she's be upset once it was so short, but she wasn't at all. Not even now that it's been cut into a really cute little bob. I guess these didn't turn out half bad considering it's just a little camera phone. I think it's 2 mega pix.

Does this look like a kid who's sorry she cut ALL of her hair off?!? She's ecstatic!

Side view so you can see how short.

and the view from behind. We just let it air dry tonight, I'm sure when we blow dry it, it will curl right under and lay in a perfect little bob.

Is she not one of the most adorable little girls you've ever seen?!

I couldn't be more proud of my smart, funny, precious, loving, caring little girl! She never ceases to amaze me!

Here is a picture of her hair in a ponytail. I will be packaging it up to be mailed out to locks of love in the next few days. To learn more about this incredible charity, you can check out their website at locksoflove.org.