Summer means Birthdays

Where has the summer gone?  No idea.  How has it gone?  Beautifully.

 This little mischievous boy, Dakota, is pretty quick with his hands, especially when I am changing his diaper.  He had fun with the powder on this occasion!

 If I had a dollar for every time that neck has been kissed...

 Look at the love in these eyes.  Quinn took this photo of Cora (his favorite subject) with my Nikon D200.  She is happy to oblige, and loves him so much.

 Sometimes Love can get a little Squeezy, and can even temporarily cut off your air supply.

 Cora posed this way on her own, and she did her hair as well.  She felt very pretty in this moment.

I have been known to laugh this hard on MANY occasions with shoes on the wrong feet.  So funny.

Wow, my son Quinn has just turned 5.  And what an affectionate friend he has become.  We officially start kindergarten/1st grade next month!  So excited.

Quinn's birthday at the park

Hello all...

Quinn's birthday was just a month ago, and I am finally getting the chance to sit down and throw some shots up on the blog...

We have been a busy little family of 4 this past month, and October is looking even more crazy, but we like it that way, I think? We just got back from the OBX where we had a blast for 4 days. And then Israel was in Detroit the week before that. I've been working as much as I can on my forensic consulting job every night, so the blog gets pushed to the wayside... I worked 3.5 hours today. This was only with the Lord's help today as I also managed to clean 2 out of 4 bathrooms, play Legos, cook dinner, wash 20 diapers, and fold/put away 4 loads of laundry...Some days are clearly more productive than others!! Some days look like this... make my bed, work for half hour, barely make something edible for dinner, and change a few diapers.

I am sorry in advance that not all the people at Quinn's party got a photo with him! We will have to remedy that. So I am not showing favoritism with the aunts and uncles! And I hope to see some of my family over the holidays, Lord willing!!!! Yippee!

Cora got a little purse from LA, thanks Johannah!

The McCotter's visited a few weeks ago, as well as 2 of their boys, Titus and James. The Groveman's grew up with the McCotter's so it's always good to see them when they are in town from Denver.

I will have some fun OBX photos to put up soon!

Quinn is 3 tomorrow!

Words can not express the love we have for this special boy... We thank God for him every day.

Israel put up a wonderful blog post from photos he had taken this past year, so sit back and enjoy.

Cora's birthday celebration!

I love this first shot because it is such a tangible expression of Cora's deep love for her daddy. She absolutely LOVES Israel and gives him long and lingering hugs each day. He thinks she's pretty special too, to say the least.

Cora had such a wonderful birthday on July 7th. She turned 1, and she was very happy about it! We really missed all the extended family that couldn't come, especially my mom, dad, and sis, and Kyle, but they were all here in spirit!

Cora got to sit on Uncle Judah's new Harley, which she wasn't too sure about, but I think she looks like a natural biker chick. yikes.

Quinn looked pretty cool on the bike too. He was clear that he didn't want us to turn it on while he was on it. haha.

Cora had to take a water break in between opening her gifts. She was working up a sweat. She drank for about 30 seconds. ha!

As we did with Quinn (which would be fun to post his 1st birthday photos here too), we let Cora dig into her cake. She loved it, and dove in head first!

We are looking forward to Quinn's 3rd birthday next month!

someone turned 1 yesterday

Cora had a very special day yesterday! We are so grateful for her and how much joy that comes bubbling forth every morning, noon, and night! More photos to come!