243/365

Day Two Hundred Forty-Three.

Today was a rather forgettable day. I'm ready for it to be over and in the books.

O has been enjoying the "bigger" tub lately. We had been putting him the actual tub with the big kids when daddy was around, because he had a good grip on Owen and it was a quick way to bathe him...But I'm not that strong and Owen is a wiggly worm and I'd rather not drown him, so I went back to separate baths for the little vs. big kiddos. (Separate except the big kids are all up behind me trying to get in on the action!)

242/365

Day Two Hundred Forty-Two.

We survived our first trip to the library with all three kids. They were actually really good and loved picking out books. We have a giant stack and even three movies to occupy us for the next few days. :)

241/365

Day Two Hundred Forty-One.

This train toy used to be his daddy's. And Gavin is very attached to anything that was ever his daddy's. So it's gotten a lot of play time since I brought it back with us on our last visit home.

(He likes to blow the bridges up, Toy Story 3 style, and let the train fall down, until he as Buzz Lightyear...saves the train) :)

240/365

Day Two Hundred Forty.

He was my little tag along while I finished up a few family & newborn portraits for one of my best friends tonight. He was my lighting guinea pig here ;)

He was fast asleep in the {still running} car while we pulled over for this shot...The light tonight was just beautiful. It's slowly changing and becoming more fall-like, even though it was still over 100 when we were out there!

239/365

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Nine.

Gave them the choice between grocery shopping or swimming in the pool...guess which one won?
I guess we'll just go get milk tomorrow ;)

238/365

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Eight.

The joy of a box. Fun for the whole family! (It once held the dog food I ordered from Amazon- LOVE Amazon Prime- free 2 day shipping on 40 lbs of dog food- thank you very much to no more trying to stuff it under the cart with three kids along for the trip!)

Owen was eating it, Ellie was drawing (shortly after this she lost her marker/crayon rights because everything that is at her height in the kitchen now sports marker marks :-/ ). Gavin was just made that everyone else wouldn't leave it alone ;)

237/365

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Seven.

He was in a thoughtful looking mood this morning :) More on the family blog later, including where he decided he was d.one with the crib.

236/365

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Six.

We finally got some rain today(not much but it was still much appreciated!).
The wind came first and created a mini-sandstorm because it hasn't rained in almost two months. We hunkered down with a stack of stories and occasionally the kids would run to a window and look out...

Gavin's new favorite book is The Very Busy Spider (when read in conjunction with The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Lonely Firefly)...followed by his new Frog and Toad books. (I got on a vintage book from my childhood buying kick on Amazon the other day ;)- I freely admit that I'm addicted to buying books, especially books for the kids!) (also the vintage book feel ran over into how I edited the pictures...not my usual style but for tonight I like it).

So maybe not the best pictures technically b/c I was dealing with flickering power and darkness outside but oh well. ;) I threw in the iphone picture as a freebie, sometimes I just love to chunk the big camera away and just shoot with the iphone ;) I'm in a funk right now, so I'm just trying to keep taking pictures some way or another!

235/365

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Five.

Sigh. Shooting this family session tonight made me miss hubby even more. I loved seeing them together though, he's been home for his R&R and they are like giddy little school kids on their first date. :) Their happiness was contagious :) Can't wait to wrap my arms around my own sweet husband again some day soon!

234/365

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Four.

Well, it looked promising. But we didn't get much more rain than this :(

233/365

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Three.

This was the dragonfly that Gavin eventually convinced to land on him. (He's the bug whisperer I'm telling ya!) It was looking straight at me here, which is kind of odd (that dragon flies can "look" right at you, he was checking me out and hoping I wouldn't try to eat him, not that Gromit didn't try ;)

And in less charming wildlife...this is the typical scene all over the branches of one of our oak trees...cicada shells, it's kind of creepy- they are all in these piles of 10 or more where they climbed out of their "shell"....I've never seen them like this before!

232/365

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Two.

Daddy surprised us by showing up last night at 1 am. We are enjoying a short but fun weekend with him before he heads back to PIT. We went to the boardwalk for lunch and a little shopping, frozen yogurt, and carousel rides and then home for family naps :) We've really missed him- especially Gavin. He didn't let Daddy out of his sights all day!

231/365

Day Two Hundred Thirty-One.

Owen and Wallace enjoyed some tummy time this morning (after Owen's very early nap). He woke up at 5 and was down again at 8. It's been a long day! Wallace loves the kids when they are babies...I think O may be nearing the age where Wally keeps out of their reach for awhile...they always seem to gravitate towards his nose and ears, while essentially ignoring Gromit. It's kind of weird. They laugh and smile at Wally first and then when they are bigger, they realize that Gromit LOVES them and would let them crawl all over them without a care, and then Gromit becomes the favorite :)

230/365

Day Two Hundred Thirty.

I took a picture with my phone (the one that is either working great or completely worthless- just give it five minutes to decide which one it is) while it was alive, and now it's dead again and I can't get the picture off of it...SOooooo. Hopefully I'll get the picture off later when it comes back on.

(I hate iphones right now, ONE button on the whole phone and of course it spazzes out!)

The picture isn't anything fab either- it's just about the bedtime story argument we had over whether or not there were 7 chickens or roosters in the story....Gavin got a little angry and said, "THEY ARE NOT CHICKENS!!!" and asked me to take a picture to send to Daddy so he would decide for us (my answer is not good enough obviously);).

229/365

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Nine.

It went something like this tonight while I was fixing dinner,

"Gavin! O is crying...can you find his fwa? {our family word for pacifier}".....

Hmmm....Fwa DOES rhyme with saw....at least it helped Owen stop crying ;)

228/365

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Eight.

Watching squirrels from the window after his bath, he was waiting for his good night phone call from his daddy. An hour later I found him sound asleep, clutching the phone- he'd fallen asleep on his stories :)

227/365

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Seven.

Life is good. Had the honor of photographing the arrival of this sweet little man today, what a fun and exciting day. Welcome to the world and Happy BIRTHday Mr. B!

226/365

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Six.

Contemplating the fine art of eating a Mum-Mum. (He cried when it was gone and munched down half a jar of bananas, his first fruit) He likes eating {like a big kid} I think.

225/365

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Five.

We spent almost three. hours grocery shopping today. A half-hour of it was spent in line. Thankfully all three kids were really good. Seriously. Owen got fussy by the end of it but that wasn't too bad. As usual, it makes me giggle at how many people tell me I must have my hands full...I like it when it's said with a smile by the older people that probably miss the chaos...I'm not so thrilled when it's said by younger baggers who look like what they really want to tell me is that I'm insane for having three kids.

The second picture is of another of Gavin's "friends". He is quite the bug catcher lately. And as long as it's not poisonous, doesn't sting, and doesn't stay in the house...I don't care. It's also super adorable when Ellie finds bugs outside, she yells..."BRUDDER! Come see! I find beetle for you! Catch him! Put him in bug house!" (Gavin has a bug house that gets plenty of use). E's not too afraid of the critters either and like I said....as long as it goes back outside and I don't have to touch it...He can catch as many critters as he likes ;)

224/365

Day Two Hundred Twenty- Four.

Life is messy. Today was especially so.

But somehow, no matter how frustrated I get- 15 minutes after they are asleep and I'm so relieved that they are finally quiet....I start missing them and their antics ;)

223/365

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Three.

Oh how I adore him. My sweetest snuggle bug (who is starting to not want to snuggle as much- he's got things to do and places to go!) Probably why when he sometimes still wakes at 2 or 3 in the morning I bring him back to bed with me, because he doesn't want to be held as much during the day *cue Mama's tears*

222/365

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Two.

I enjoyed seeing lots of friends posting their "first day of school" photos today but I'm so glad I still have little kids that aren't in school yet :) We had just another day of summer (but not til 7pm b/c all.day.long I have been clearing out closets upstairs because the ants left the dining room and decided to move into our closet and Ellie and Owen's closet/room :( So after dinner we got out the sprinkler and had good old fashioned fun :) It was a great end to an otherwise awful day.

Owen hung out in the shade...sweet baby. He can't wait to be all up and playing with big brother and sister!!

221/365

Day Two Hundred Twenty-One.

I had the honor of photographing a sweet friend's husband's homecoming from I.raq today. It was so exciting and emotional and I cried half the time there and the whole way home. It was just wonderful. There will be a sneak peek up on the business blog later. :)

Also- I got the bee post up on our family blog if you're interested in more honeybee pictures!

220/365

Day Two Hundred Twenty.

I can't imagine what was so fun about the shoe organizer at the playground, except maybe they were talking about how awesome it would be if they had that many shoes to put away...Ellie had a ton of fun playing with her bestie this morning, we beat the 107 degree heat and played inside! :)

219/365

Day Two Hundred Nineteen.





So much for coming home to a clean peaceful house. You know, like I left it...
No, while I was gone- thousands of fire ants moved in, apparently looking for water and that one piece of dog food left in the bowl. I'm not even exaggerating on thousands. Ugh. I think I finally got rid of them and hope I don't wake up tomorrow with a few hundred new ones! I'm about out of ant spray!

218/365

Day Two Hundred Eighteen.

Today I had so much fun helping my dad with his beehives. He recently cleared a hive of bees from inside their church's walls and he moved them home. I've got a huge post to share later (when I'm back home with fast internet! tomorrow!) but here's a little peek. I even wore a bee keeping suit (and didn't get stung!). Here these two lovely ladies were cleaning honey off of each other after the move.

217/365

Day Two Hundred Seventeen.

Long day. Mostly because it was a long. night. Not because of kids, but because my parent's dog, Gus, (backstory on him: someone heartless dropped him off back in April- so he's this big not so bright puppy) likes to sleep outside, under my window...and bark.

Not bark all the time. Just every fifteen minutes or so, setting off W&G who are here sleeping in the room with me. And then Gus teased me by barking every twenty minutes or so...he was like a real live evil snooze button....allll night long.

Anyways, Owen has been grouchy today too- I don't think he feels all that well- no fever, just whimperey (made that word up!). He found a little comfort in his doorway bouncer at least. It kept him pretty happy after dinner while we waited for today's storm to pass (yay for more rain!) PS. Thank you ISO 5000 ;) What did I do without you?

216/365

Day Two Hundred Sixteen.

A big storm popped up this afternoon and happily, we received a ton of much needed rain. Unfortunately, the power was off a couple hours and the storm was pretty scary (lots of lightning and wind!). I went out after the worst was over and took this shot of the rain pouring down. Or at least I thought the worst was over...I could've gotten a fabulous lightning shot too if I hadn't pretty much run back into the house screaming...

215/365

Day Two Hundred Fifteen.

Neither of us were that into pictures tonight...I tried to make it work because the light was so beautiful but I was in the beginning stages of a migraine and she was completely in the throes of being a two year old :) Better luck next time, eh?

214/365

Day Two Hundred Fourteen.

Oh Ellie girl. She was too much fun tonight, dressed up like a "pincess" for belated two year pictures. Since I'm still away from home I did a down and dirty edit on the 2nd one but I can't wait to get these home! Of course the computer here isn't calibrated so for all I know she's neon orange! She's taking direction a little bit more with pictures these days {yes, I had to bribe her with chocolate....but still!} She was quite the little ham for me :)

213/365

Day Two Hundred and Thirteen.

Today we celebrated my birthday (and Owen's 5 month birthday!) quietly. Well, as quiet as a house with 3 kids in it can :) The kids were more excited about my birthday than me, Gavin came in at 6am and said..."Mama! It's your birthday....GET UP!" He was a little disappointed there wasn't a party and lots of wrapped presents but he was impressed with the cake :) It was just a simple yellow cake with chocolate icing (my most favorite) but he begged for seconds...and thirds!

Anyways- I went with the now monthly traditional kids kissing Owen picture for today...I missed my sweet hubby today, but these sweet faces made my day perfect :)