BirthDate

Last night Shawn and I got a babysitter for the girls and headed out for his birthday dinner. It was an interesting evening. It started with seeing this:

Then we went to TXLC and Levi was the worst he's every been....as in, excuse me waiter, I know you just brought my food out, but can we have the check and some to-go boxes ASAP! People were staring and acting annoyed and we were doing everything we could to get him to stop screeching. We were giving him water out of our straws and tiny bits of bread and the MOMENT and I kid you not, the moment we stopped he would scream as high and loud as possible. It was bad. Shawn spent the last 5 minutes of our meal outside with him so that I could cut a few pieces of steak and eat it before leaving. Coincidentally, or maybe not, he also learned how to stick his tongue out during dinner, which I captured on camera today. This is me trying to cut my steak while holding a baby who wants whatever we're having.Next, we headed to the mall, where Levi was much better behaved (of course.) Shawn FINALLY found a new pair of running shoes...only took 4 shopping trips, hours of searching on the internet, and 3 close calls to get these! Woo hoo! He used some of his birthday money to buy them and even had a little left over! SCORE!! For the 30 minutes that he was at the shoe store, I headed to the Gap and found a little fall wardrobe necessity. I fell in love right away. I love love love this color. And my sweet hubbie bought it for me :) I can not wait to wear it!Last, we ended the evening with going by Starbucks for dessert. I got a decaf Mocha Frap and they just never disappoint. Shawn got some kind of extra hot, bitter, nasty, but delicious smelling coffee.

Icing on the cake: our kids behaved very well for the baby sitter !!! Yeah!!! Happy 34th bday honey!

Busy Chick

If you didn't know, I have a photography "business" and I use that term loosely. I take pictures for people, and I charge them, so technically it's a business. But, with three young children and a lot of other interests, it's a side business. No pressure, really, no advertising, no pushing to find people who want their picture taken. I just wait for someone to come to me and set a date....maybe that will change when all the kids are in school, but maybe not. I enjoy the low stress, no pressure style that I've got going. But this past week, The Click Chick, my official business name, has been BUSY! I have had a great time hanging out with people and taking sweet pictures of kids and families. I love to provide this service for people because they are always happy! Or at least, they act that way :) Yesterday, I had the chance to photograph some vacation homes for a friend who is wanting to rent them out. This was such a nice change from photographing people. There was no wind messing up the hair, and no distractions, and no blinking eyes, or mouths talking while I was taking the shots. Just plain ol' still life. The cherry on the cake was that afterwards, our little family went out onto their land and had a picnic. It was a very serene dinner and I can truly say that being out in nature in the quiet does something major for my soul. It causes more peace and calm than any amount of pain meds can provide. lol! Anyway here's my shot from last night. I laughed when I was looking at it on the computer this morning because I noticed that even Levi found a way to be in the picture!

Treasure Girl

A few days ago, Ava and I went on a walk like we do just about every morning. We decided to take a bucket with us and keep our eyes open for any treasures this time. As we were looking and finding things, she decided that she wanted to be called Treasure Girl for the rest of the walk. She was so proud of her finds and wanted to come home and lay them all out.

A list of the things we found:

-2 handfuls of leaves

-about 20 acorns

-purple flowery branch

-a yellow flower

-a bike reflector

-2 ball point pens, one black, one red-both still working

-2 dimes and a penny(my children take after me and find coins EVERYWHERE we go!)

-2 rocks

-a bottle cap

-3 dead stems with dead flowers on the end

-a broken sprinkler head

-3 plastic pellets

-2 pieces of weed-eater thread

-part of a sand dollar

Not included in the bucket was one silver hoop earring, which we left where we found it in case it belonged to the people living in the house near it, and a live tarantula. I was prepared to catch it in the bucket, but Ava declined the offer this time. (thankgoodness!)

After laying all of the treasures out, Ava proceeded to get my meat mallot and smash the acorns to smithereens. She had a great time doing that and thankfully no tiles were hurt in the process!

Hairy Legs

No, this post is not about me...well at least not about my legs. No, today I come before you as a new woman...a woman who's cool status has been upped a few levels by what I did today. I caught, no wrangled a tarantula! That's right...I purposefully and with all my senses about me wrangled a tarantula while my 4 year old looked on in awe. It was awesome and lest you think I'm full of courage, and for the sake of keeping myself humble, I did scream very high pitched and loudly and dance around like a 10 year old girl who has just seen Justin Bieber, after I caught the spider. I wasn't dancing out of joy, I was dancing out of full body heebie geebies. Anyway, we proudly showed it to Shawn at lunch and then showed it to Elle after school, before setting it free in the field across the street. We've come a long way from our first tarantula experience.

That's not a smile, it's a cringe.

Here's Shawn not respecting my wishes and touching the spider after I told him point blank NOT TO TOUCH IT! At least he lived.

I love a man who's not afraid of pink....it really is manly to me :)

And what else would you do with a spider that you find just a few weeks before Halloween...make him (or her) pose on your pumpkins, that's what! It does make a pretty awesome picture :)

And a quick shout-out to Gramme for buying the girls that bug catcher a few years ago!

Gut Buster

Sometimes the meal is so good, you just gotta unbutton your pants and let the belly be free.

Punkin Patch

We headed out to the pumpkin patch today and I was pretty happy with the photos I got. Lest you think that this was a quick trip where I took just a few pictures and magically they all turned out, I'll have you know that I took close to 100 pictures and cut out about 75 of them. It was crazy! After we finished and were getting in the car, Shawn and I agreed that getting three children to all look at the camera at the same time, not blink when the picture is being taken, all smile and have the camera work correctly(being in focus and such at the right time) can be likened to winning the mega million lottery. I wouldn't say we won the lottery today, but I'm trying to lower my standards for what makes a great picture. Furthermore, my kids enjoyed picking out a pumpkin so that made the trip a success! Afterwards, we went on a picnic because Elle had filled up another line on her good deeds chart, which is still going strong! All in all, it was an exhausting but wonderful fall afternoon. Oh, and Levi tried sweet peas today. If he could give a thumbs up on purpose, I think he might have. I wouldn't say he was begging for more, but he wasn't clamping his mouth shut either!

She just has a natural knack!

She's holding the pumpkin that she insisted what the right one. The girl knows how to make up her mind!

This is my favorite picture I've taken in quite a while. I kid you not, we took about 25 pictures of this exact pose and could not for the life of us, get him to smile!

1/2 year

Levi has been here for half a year now! We are having so much fun with the final member of our family. I am so so so thankful that Shawn and I made the decision to add one last baby to our group! This month Levi has started eating food, learned to roll onto his tummy, started laughing more, smiling spontaneously, and started throwing fits when a toy is taken away or he gets bored. He is our daily and nightly entertainment and gives all of us a reason not to take life to seriously. Today at his dr. appointment he weighed in at a slim 14 lb 6.5 ounces and a long 26 inches. We plan to start introducing veggies and fruits very soon and that will be a new fun adventure. We are more blessed than we could ever have imagined!

He'd rather munch on piggies than rice cereal.

He can sit up on his own for a few seconds at a time now!

The obligatory carseat shot at 6 months


Well hello handsome!

You still lookin at me?

My handsome boys and the first time Levi wore shoes...this lasted approximately 4.7 seconds.

Little bit of Green

Shawn has been wanting to start a garden for quite a while and he finally decided to dig in! Last weekend he got the whole thing planted with the girls. They loved playing in the dirt and mud and finding worms. He planted carrots, peppers, brocolli, spinach, and strawberry. We'll see if he and the girls have a green thumb!

Before, Before, and After

I finally did it! I got on the scales this morning and finally hit my prepregnancy weight!!! Woo hoo!!! I have really been working hard the last 2 1/2 months on the final 10 pounds and I've done it! Working out at a gym everyday has been incredibly difficult to squeeze into an already crazy afternoon, but now I can say I'm glad I did! My membership at the gym is up in 1 1/2 months so for that time my plan is to lose 5 more pounds so that my clothes are more loose on me. A special shout out to my husband who really helped cultivate my willpower by asking if I wanted donuts from the donut shop for breakfast, bringing me soda to show how much he loves me, eating my favorite icecream almost every night, and even last night, bringing home a bag of circus peanuts and then throwing them one by one at me. Great guy! He knows the way to my heart....unfortunately, he underestimated my willpower! ha ha! Here's my befores and after!

4 weeks pregnant

In labor in this picture!

almost 6 months out!