Happy Birthday to me!

What I woke up to.

Donuts from the best donut shop in town.

Smiles and hugs all around.

A 50mm f/1.4

This email from Aria.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! You are now 31. So lets get to Silverwood and get in the sun. We will have so much fun! P.S.


if you get this email later happy late birthday!




i love you
love aria . pps if you get this email even later happy even later birthday ppps if you get it soooooooooper late happy
soooooooooper late birthday.

And Gabe said...

"MOM! I have a present for you!"



"It's FISH LIPS! It's really good 'cause I practiced in the mirror for a long time!"

And now my kids are all sharpie tattooed with my cell number and we're off to a fun day with some of my very favorite people in the world!

Happy Independence Day!

We had a really fun 4th this year! We spent the day at the lake with my brother-in-law's family. The kids had a blast and what better way to watch the fireworks display than on a private beach? I mean, seriously! It was rad.

The rope swing was a huge hit.




As was the lake. Even though it wasn't exactly warm yesterday.


At one point, these three seemed to think it was a clothing optional party. But we got them dressed again and stuck them in the boat on the shore and they were happy.


They pretended to sail off into the sunset.


Which was very pretty, btw.


After nature's show, we enjoyed the fireworks display!

Our summer in pictures

We are having a super fun summer so far! Here's a sampling of it. :)

It started out quite rainy. So we splashed in puddles.










On Nathan's birthday we went to an open track meet and all the kids ran a couple races.

Here's Mae winning the 50 meter dash.


and the 100 meter dash. lol.


Poor Clara was terrified, but she just kept running!






Gabe giving it his all.


Aria is all concentration and determination.


Nathan. We couldn't find his shoes before we left so he's wearing his sketchers. They didn't do him any favors but since I cut them out the picture looks pretty cool. lol.


After his race he wandered around talking to a girl. I'm pretending I didn't see it even though I was all stalkery with my camera. lol


Then we had several hot days we set up Nathan's slip and slide and they turned the slide on the swingset into a water slide. They were flying down that thing. It was pretty awesome.

Nathan's Expressions: An Interpretation

My boy. My oldest. My firstborn. Or as he describes himself: "the holder of the birthright."

Nathan. My strong, silent, but secretly witty and hilarious child.

He turned 9 this week. Nine! That's only a year away from double digits. Sometimes I'm startled by the fact that he'll really remember things from this part of his life. Then I just have to hope I'm not screwing him up too much.

Anyway, I will now interpret his stoic expressions for you.

"WOOO-HOOOO!!!! My first present of the year! YESSS! Grandma rocks!"


"geez, what'd they have to wake me up for? Haven't they learned that I'm not a morning person? Hey...there's a bike there. Nice...I guess I forgive them."


"mmmm....donuts" (Dave got up early and drove up north to get the best maple bars in town fresh from the oven. I think Nathan ate 4 or 5 of them himself.)


"Dude. My friend is awesome. Check this out! He totally knows what I like."


"What kind of wrapping paper is this supposed to be?"


We finally got to the cake right before bed after a long day.
"Mo-om. Are you seriously still taking pictures? I'm really sick of being the center of attention"


And later in the week he promoted to brown belt in karate.
"Yeah, I know I'm bad with my black eye and brown belt. You wanna take me? Ha. Go ahead and try."


I love that kid.

But really, for all I know, the Sponge Bob song could have been playing in his head all day. Or maybe he was watching a movie in his head. I remember doing that when I was a kid and I wanted to tune out...

Diabetes - it's not always drama

My last diabetes post was pretty dramatic, and a lot of the time, it is. But sometimes...sometimes I just can't help but laugh. A lot. At Dave.

When I know he's in the safe but stupid zone, it's okay to laugh. This is when he or I noticed he was going low and got sugar into him before it got scary, but we still have to wait for him to come up out of the low, so he hangs out in the "drunk" zone for 20 minutes or so.

There was the time he squirted Pam all over the babies swing because it was squeaking.

There was the time he was in the car and the door was open, keys in the ignition, so it was beeping and when I went out he was repeatedly hitting the dashboard to try and turn off the alarm clock.

There was the time he went in to our friends house and hugged his friend and was all "I love you, man" (seriously...total cliche, I know)

There were times he would hold his food up to his face and closely inspect it before eating.

There was the time he was annoying me, so I just pushed him off the bed with my feet to snap him out of it.

The funniest was fairly recently. He had been watching Star Trek as he went low and he started trying to have a conversation with me. It didn't take long before I realized he wasn't all there and I actually started recording the conversation with my phone. The TV was on static or something similar at this point. It distracted him and he looked over at it and was all "it's not working." I told him it wasn't on and that wasn't good enough. We debated for a couple minutes on whether or not it was broken or off when he suddenly stares at the TV, points his finger at it and says "Increase magnification....four....EIGHT!" and then flopped back on the couch.

Hilarious.

Clara's new favorite outfit

She wants to wear it every day.

huh...

Sometimes I really wonder about the randomness of those random word generators that are supposed to prevent spam.

Sometimes they make me giggle, but sometimes...well, see for yourself. I was just voting for my friends little girl and this popped up.

Check Gabe out!

Hopefully this works. I know the left hand doesn't really match the right yet, but he's been working hard at playing them together. He plays by ear.

You know what's fun?

Giving your little kiddos airplane rides and trying to take pics at the same time. aka...Dave's out with one of his friends, (and it's almost dark out so no going outside with the kids) and I'm bored.





Look, Ma! No hands!

I'm teaching a 6 week photography course

If you're interested, jump over to my photo blog and get the information!

A single glorious thing

I love Lilacs. They bloom for such a short amount of time each year and I'm always excited to see them and a little bummed when they're gone.



I try to make it to the local Lilac Garden each year, although I don't always make it. Yesterday was gorgeous out, so I took my younger kids to the park so we could walk through the garden. Rachel and her kids came along.







There was a moment, while we were walking, surrounded by lilacs, that a breeze blew through. Suddenly I was hit with a lilac scented breeze that stopped me in my tracks. It was absolutely lovely.

Clara liked it too. (Sometimes when I'm shooting, I get that perfect shot of the day. This is it.)



We walked around while the girls smelled all the different colors. (with how different my sister and I look, I'm always surprised at how similar our girls look)





Then we walked to the Japanese Garden and wandered around for a while. I love it there, too. It brings back memories from Japan. I hope to go back someday.



These pictures don't really show the gardens, I just think my kids are the cutest. I love that they happened to do the same pose opposite of each other. Total fluke.



Gabe likes any tree that he can climb. He needed a little help with this one cause his shoes kept slipping on the smooth bark but he loved the seat.



Then we made a quick stop at the playground on our way out of the park.