Hannah's New Room -- A work in progress

So we aren't done yet. Its just not in the budget to finish it right now...but we'll get there. We turned this lilac room upside down last weekend. Marc painted it a beautiful shade of pale blue-green (it was supposed to be that old-timey vintage color). Eventually I'm hoping to retire the reds and browns that she chose and go with white...but for now I let her do the pickin'. I think we did a pretty good job. We got a desk today to match the bookshelf. So we just need to get an off-white night stand, dresser/mirror, and possibly a headboard for the bed. In the meantime, I'll be painting the oak ones that we have in there now to match :) So if anybody wants to make me a deal that I can't refuse on any of these pieces... I'm all ears! I will have to make the dust ruffle for the bed as this is a storage bed from ikea and you can't use a standard dust ruffle on it.

Back to school!

Away they go... off to school. I was talking to them last week-- sarcastically saying, "I just don't know what I'll do with all my time while you girls are in school. I'll miss you being here with me all day long (which of course was true-- but it was getting old with me trying to work 3 days a week, and them wanting to do activities 24/7). What will I do with my days?" Ashley, being the little smarty pants that she is, replied "Hmmm, maybe you could clean the house?" Well, I didn't do that today! Maybe Friday! I have a ton to catch up on before then!

So Ashley is off to the 1st grade. Her first year going to school for the entire day. We met her teacher on Friday and I think they'll hit it off. She memorized her lunch number so she's all set!


Hannah is an old pro and is very excited this year about 2nd grade. She is hoping to learn cursive handwriting and was already looking at the class schedule to see what new subjects she would have.

Toothless!

My baby girl is toothless-- well not really, but she's got a very large vacancy!

Happy Birthday Brit!

Today is my lil sis's 25th birthday! Happy Birthday!

After two girls...

Two things about these pictures never happened with either of my girls. I always heard stories about little girls (or boys) sneaking off, being too quiet, and mom or dad discovering a child covered in lipstick, eyeshadow.... or magic marker. Through raising two girls, none of this happened. Monday-- today is a day off from photography for me-- so I try to spend the day with the kids. Jacob didn't nap today, so I was trying to catch up on some email while he was sitting quietly reading in a chair. He was very quiet, but I kept checking on him and all was well. The last time I checked on him, I saw him quickly toss something and when he turned to look at me-- I didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Here's what I saw:



And this was the culprit:



As you can see, I took him out to the deck to take these pictures... but the only way I got them was to let him bring his favorite toy and most prized possession, his metal Disney Cars backpack lunchbox full of his favorite cars. I have never seen a child so completely in love with something with wheels. His latest is to line them up in a row and make them crash off of whatever they are on-- in the picture above it was the grill ledge. He went to bed tonight in his cars pajamas with cars in the pockets of them!

Playdate at the park

Last week we joined some friends for a play date at a park in Great Falls. This was the first time the kids had seen a Merry Go Round. They spent over an hour running and jumping on the big metal catastrophe in motion. Both of them ended up with banged up shins from running as hard as they could to get it going and then jumping on but not quite judging the distance and speed correctly. I tried to sit with Jacob in the middle, but only lasted a couple rides. My stomach is a bit weaker than when I was a kid! As you can tell in the pictures, they had a blast. However, a tired little guy took a tumble off the edge of one of the pieces of equipment and gave me quite a scare. It was no taller than a bed and he landed in mulch, but I wasn't quite sure whether he hit his head/neck on the pole on his descent. All was well, thank goodness!

Hiking on the Appalachian Trail...

We've planned to take the girls for a nice hike for the past month. Marc actually took them to the C&O canal a couple weeks ago for a nice flat hike... but we wanted something a little more scenic this weekend. Marc had found some information about a great hike with beautiful waterfalls and waterholes for swimming on the Cedar Run Trail in Shenandoah National Park, but we both agreed that it might be a little difficult for us with the girls. So after seeing my friend Trace-Ann's post about her recent hike to Weverton Cliff near Harpers Ferry, we decided to give it a try. It was perfect for us. We ate lunch, hiked up to the top to see the view, and then back down to the Potomac for a swim. It took us a few hours and the girls, while tired, had a lot of fun. We all slept well last night!

What, you have time to digiscrap again?

Well, not really! But since I do take a ton of pictures, I have been determined to find a way to use them more than just on a blog... and I only have so many walls :) So... over the past few weeks I've been researching book vendors for my photography business. Obviously these books are nice, but too expensive for me to print several copies for family or do books of every event.  Anyway, in doing research I found some really nice templates available at a site called Oscraps. In particular, these two scrapping designers have quickly become a favorite: Taylor Made Designs and Paislee Press. I love the classic, clean, and simple designs that they create. So I made my first Shutterfly Book using some pictures I took from the Outer Banks and a Dream template. When I get it next week, I'll let you know how it turned out.... but for now here's a look.

Click here to view this photo book.

Looth Tooth turns snaggletooth...

Last weekend Ashley announced that she had a loose tooth. I didn't really believe her, but when she showed me, sure enough one of her top teeth was loose. She wiggled and wiggled it over the weekend and by Sunday it was pretty loose... but not quite ready to come out. We went to pump-it-up on Wednesday evening and Ashley banged into Hannah's head. She was crying, her mouth was bleeding, I was just sure that the tooth was gone... but nope it was still in there. She had a bloody lip, but nothing serious enough to keep her from playing. Then last night she was eating a tootsie pop and again she came running to me crying that her tooth got stuck in the lollipop... but it was still in there. Finally this morning I looked at it and it was just barely hanging on. I barely touched it and it came out. Wow! That's the first tooth I've pulled since I was a kid! I usually leave that to Marc! She looks pretty cute as a snaggletooth, soon to be first grader!

I can't make a post of Ashley without including pictures of Hannah and Jacob! Here's a couple from today.

Blast from the past!

Some friends might remember way back when Marc and I first got Copper (our 10 year old dog), we had a small problem with our first baby. Pugsley, the fluffball cat didn't adjust well to having a crazy puppy in the house. We thought that time would change that, but day after day Pugsley slept in the sink. We felt really bad for Pugs, so my mom took him for a while... but that didn't work out after he started messing up her rugs. Our good friends Grant and Shannon adopted him. Little did they know that his issue with going to the bathroom on my mom's rug would continue... the rest of his life! Sorry guys :( So when I visited last week, who should I meet? Mr. Pugs, of course. I don't know if he remembered me, but he did let me pet him for a while and he even posed for a couple pictures. This one was my favorite!

BEACH OR BUST!

We made it and are really enjoying the Outer Banks. Other than a slight sunburn for me, we're all having fun in the sun, the pool, the house... and we even got to hang out with some friends from home yesterday!

Hannah's new haircut!

So Hannah decided that her hair was ratty and that it was time that she got it cut. So she told the lady at my salon exactly what she wanted and while it looks adorable, she looks so grown up. Instead of a little girl, she looks like a big girl-- 7 going on 17! We know we've got trouble on our hands!

So we're headed to the beach on Saturday. It will be Jacob's first trip. I'll try to post pictures while we're there... but no guarantees :)

Happy 4th!

Lollies for Little Man

Jacob loves lollipops, but like all little kids, he makes a horrible mess out of them. Since it is the end of the school year, the girls are bringing treats home all the time and so he's had more than his fair share of lollipops over the past week or so. This day was particularly funny as he kept "dipping" it in the grass and then trying to eat it. I'd go to take it away to wash it off and he'd dip it again. I finally gave up and decided that a little dirt never hurt anybody (I don't think). Then in that last picture, you can tell how much he really loves his sisters!

Oh me, oh my, its caterpillars and butterflies!

For Ashley's birthday, Grandma got her a butterfly garden. It was such a great gift for her. She's so interested in science (planets, bugs, animals, flowers-- you name it). In her classroom they had been studying the stages of life for butterflies and frogs. As a part of that unit, they had gotten tadpoles in the classroom. Ashley came home one day and asked if we could order a caterpillar kit. I didn't know what she was talking about at first, but then I found it online and since it was right before her birthday and everybody was asking what to get her, I told Grandma and Papa about it. So it arrived with little caterpillars in cups. They crawled around for about 7 days eating and growing, then one day they crawled up to the top of the cup and started spinning their cocoon. After the cocoon was complete, we moved them to the butterfly tent. In about 7 days, we woke up to little butterflies fluttering around. The girls were so excited! We watched them for a few days and then let them go. These pictures show the kids releasing them in the backyard.

Narrow escape...

Well, if you've missed me-- I haven't updated the blog in a while because I had a computer crash. They always say its not a matter of if your hard drive will crash, but when. I was pretty lucky as I did get some warning and was able to get most of my stuff off of the computer. The crash forced me to make some decisions that I had been hoping to put off for a while... I finally made the switch from PC to MAC... well sorta :) I purchased a Dell pc and a MacBook pro. The biggest thing that this taught me was that while it is important to have data backed up... keeping a listing of all the applications and GETTING THEM ON DISK rather than downloading them is important. That's been my biggest nightmare and I'm still not fully back online with photoshop. Its been a costly process BUT I know that I am coming out stronger and more knowledgeable. Now as a result of the crash, I ended up corrupting an external drive-- so I still need to recover that data.I had focused so much attention on backing up what was on my internal hard drive that I missed backing up the external. That's mostly my personal files (which you can't put a price tag on)-- luckily I have most of these in other locations, but I still want that what's on there! Anyway, I'm slowly digging my way out and will be back to posting soon!