First Tooth

Today Avary lost her first tooth. This is also the first tooth that came in when she was 6 months old! The tooth has been loose for several weeks. But in the last week she has been wiggling and wiggling the tooth. Then this afternoon she came running into my room with tooth in hand. She went through a range of emotions....happy, scared, embarrassed, worried, back to happy and excited. Now she is just anticipating the tooth fairy's visit. Thankfully she is only expecting $1. Okay for now, but she thinks she will get $2 for her second tooth, $3 for the third and so on. Hopefully she won't be too disappointed.

Thanksgiving

As you have probably guessed by now this is one of my favorite pictures of the kids. I am so happy to have captured them like this. I was going for more of a "everyone look at the camera" picture. But this says so much more. I can only hope that they continue to be like this together and continue to love each other as they do today!

For Thanksgiving weekend Matt's parents drove down from Omaha so we could enjoy the holiday together and to also celebrate Grandpa Bob's birthday. It was nice that they could come down. For lunch all of us went over to my folks house for a fairly low key meal. This year instead of the normal 24+ people, we only had 12 (counting the kids). Kinda nice, but at the same time we missed seeing the extended family.

All of the pictures of the kids were taken in the sun room at my folks house. It is a GREAT place for pictures. Lots of sunlight without being outside in the elements. Each of the kids sat down for pictures, something that was nice for me. Since starting a business of taking pictures of other kids and families, my kids have not been in front of my camera as much as they used to be.

First up, my sweet and very beautiful girls.....
I think Claire is starting to look more and more like Avary. They have so many similar characteristics, but as with all kids, they are totally different.
Avary, my little doodlebug. She is doing so well in Kindergarten. I can't believe how much she has learned and the types of things she is being taught. At what age were you learning about fractions? How about graphing? or, actually reading books? I can say I was not reading books or doing fractions in Kindergarten.
Our little Claire Bear - she'll even tell you that is her name if you ask her. She is such a little joy. She is our early riser and when I say early, I mean EARLY. She can often be found coming into our room waking me up at 5:30 telling me "Mom I'm not sleepy anymore". We feel lucky on the days that she sleeps until 6:30. Still you can usually find her happy and smiling. She is quick to cry if you scold her too harshly. But everything can be fixed just as quickly with a hug and a kiss.
G-man! He loves his Mom and I am so thankful for that. He is all boy - rough when playing - very curious about every button or anything mechanical. He is my biggest challenge and probably the child most similar to myself. Not just because he loves taking pictures. He loves to cuddle and will do or say anything for a laugh. I see a little class clown in the making.

These are 3 of the most important people I am thankful for. It's been a crazy year with lots of ups and downs, but in the end they are what matter most. I hope your thanksgiving was as fun and special as ours was.

On the other side of the lens

Over the summer I was on Facebook and a few pictures displayed that a friend was tagged in. Through that one picture I found Jessica Strom Photography. Always looking for inspiration and enjoying seeing what other photographers do I became a fan of hers on Facebook. Then in September Jessica ran a contest, with the winner getting a free session. Easy enough and to my surprise I won. I was very excited. We were due for a family photo, our last one was in 2007. The best thing was Jessica is an outdoor photographer like me. That was great for us since I am not a fan of taking the kids to in store studios. A session in doors is not easy, can be very stressful and just doesn't show off the kids personalities the best.

The pictures posted here are a few of my favorites from our session. The kids had so much fun. They laughed as Jessica's husband Daniel made farm noises, funny faces and danced around like a chicken. He was very entertaining. Garrett was so tired after running around Loose Park and the Rose Garden that he didn't finish dinner, fell asleep in the chair and did not want to wake up to even dress up to go trick-or-treating.
Any time we can get good pictures of the kids it's a success. The bonus being a great family picture. To check out more pictures you can visit Jessica Strom Photography blog.

Halloween

Going to try and play catch up with the pictures here in the next few days.  Would like to end 2009 caught up, at least through Christmas.  But back to where we last left off.....Halloween.  

The next two pictures were taken when we were off to take the kids to the daycare evening Halloween party.  There were lots of fun games, prizes, food and of course candy for everyone.
Claire is dresses as a fairy princess, Avary is a genie (kind of like Jasmine) and Garrett is a pirate.  He had the arrrrgghhhh mate down and was ready to tell everyone what he was.
On Halloween night Garrett actually fell asleep before we could go trick-or-treating.  He was out around 5:00 pm and did not wake up again until the next morning - around 7am.  Guess we wore him out during our photo session on halloween afternoon.  Thankfully the girls were more than willing to share all of their candy with him.

Here are a few more pictures of the girls on Halloween evening as the sun set - just before we left to go trick-or-treating.

Aren't they just adorable?  I know I am a little prejudiced on this topic, but they are just too cute for words.  Take care for now and watch out for a few more posts in the next few days.

Pumpkin Patch

Wow, this blog has been so neglected.  It's not because we haven't been doing anything fun.  Just life has been way too busy.  But we have had a chance to do some fun things together as a family.  Here are pictures from our trip to the pumpkin patch.

In the past we have gone to a pumpkin patch closer to home.  The place is fun with animals, rides, a train and a TON of people.  But to enjoy all of that you have to pay for every little thing and you are basically picking up your pumpkins out of a pile.  So this year we decided we wanted to take the quieter, more natural, go to the farm approach to pumpkin picking.  

A friend of my from the twins club married into a family that has a pumpkin patch ~ Powell Pumpkin Patch.  The weather around here has been unseasonably cold.  But before the really cold stuff moved into the area we had a chance to head out on a little road trip to Louisburg, Kansas.  

The great thing about going to a family farm that keeps things fun and simple is the kids really have a chance to go pick their own pumpkins and to just run free where they wanted to go.  It was just so relaxing for us all.

During our "picking" each of the kids tried to pick up pumpkins that probably weighed as much as they do.  Thankfully we had Dad here to help out!

I think in this one Claire is giving Garrett and ear full about the pumpkins. She must have picked up 10 pumpkins to put in our wheel barrow.

But then you have something special like this between them...

Our collection of pumpkins - we came home with 2 LARGE ones and 4 smaller and 6 tiny pumpkins.  

One of the things the farm did have was hay-rides and we got lucky enough to ride with the Uncle that stops along the way to let the kids all have a turn at driving.  Garrett was the second child to jump up and ask to drive.  He probably would have done it all day if he had been allowed.
Then on our way back Avary had her chance to drive.  She had fun.Claire and Matt stayed back and did not join us on the hay-ride.  Matt because of his allergies and Claire because she just wasn't sure about the whole tractor thing.A few sights from the farm....