April 2012

Kind of fun to look back a year ago and see how big everyone has grown, (luckily most of the adults stayed about the same...none of us wants to grow I don't think).

Katie and I also took the kids to UA and did some pictures around campus. Most of which turned out terrible, but I think that's to be expected when you photograph toddlers who would rather be doing just about anything but cooperate.

 Evan took off his glasses so I could see his eyes, he has transition lenses that turn dark in the sun, which is great except when you want a decent outdoor shot.

 Della was mostly unimpressed by me and my hair brained ideas for photos.

 Look at those adorable freckles on my girl. :)

 Grammy decorated this hat for Della, but she was not really interested in wearing it, and every shot was some state of her removing it or waving it around.

 Ummm...boys.

 One of my favorites of Collin and Liam.

 Easter dinner  babies without pretty dresses. Smart mommies huh?

 Liam.

 Miss Avery.

 The ever lovely GGB.

 Katie and my mom (and my elusive husband in the background there).

 Some decent shots of Katie's kids from the UA.
Liam.

 Collin

Della

 April is also the Pima County Fair. We always go in a group, which gets a little chaotic and can be a challenge when looking for a place to sit or when only half the group wants to go on a ride or something, but we have a really good time in spite of all that.

 In the kids area they had these big blocks. Kira helped Della and Liam stack them up really high and then let them kick them over. They did this over and over again.

 Miss Olivia looking super cute.

 Kira, Della and Aunt Kimi.

 Della and her mama, Katie.

Miss Avery and a smile! :)

 This is what the guys like best. Find a table, then find food that no one should be eating, then eat a lot of it.

 We buy our ride tickets early, and then they are 10 rides for $10, that way the kids get lots of rides, but we don't have to pay so much.

 I also got the opportunity to see my friend Kelly. She and I met online on a pregnancy message board when I was pregnant with Kira. Her daughter Kyra was born one day after Kira. In 2005 a group of us went to Vegas together. Kelly is really the only one I stay in touch with regularly. It was really great to see her and to catch up.

Also in April, in Tucson, its like summer for everyone else. We start hitting the 90's on a regular basis and so we find ourselves in the pool.

Here is Olivia, floating around in style.

Easter 2013

This is hard for me, because I think part of my hang up with getting my blog done is that I want to edit *all* of my shots. This isn't very practical. So I have to learn to let some things go. Perfectionism is in my blood, but I have to remind myself that the kids would rather have a fun blog and some "meh" looking pics than no blog at all, which is what happens when I chase my perfectionism down the rabbit hole.

Easter around here is always a good time. Lawson and Phoebe host a huge egg hunt. Everyone brings filled plastic eggs (we try to avoid chocolate because it almost always melts in the heat...it was in the mid-80s here Sunday). This year there were 125 eggs, and only 6 kids to hunt them. The kids made out. From candy, to stickers, to cash. It was a good day for them.

We also had a nice lunch, cold cuts, cheese, rolls, salad and veggies. And we Kim made super cute Easter cupcakes but I forgot to take a picture of them.

Here are some fun shots of the festivities and the kids in their finery. (There was not a cooperative one in the bunch though, no one wanted their picture taken alone, collectively or otherwise, so I just took candid shots and got a few 'Hey, you! Look at me" shots. Liam was especially not impressed with this tactic. He told me that I already "took a picture and to stop it NOW! You only can have ONE!" Three year olds are so sweet.

 Evan and Collin were racing around, in spite of the fact that the big kids (just 3 of them) had the entire front yard to themselves for about 15 mins.

 My adorable niece Olivia and her pretty mama Kim.

 So when everyone else had found their allotted number of eggs, Evan had found 11. He misunderstood and thought that you could only find what you could find, so he passed up all the easy eggs that were placed out in the open, so that the babies would be able to find them. Such a good heart. After we told him that he could find any eggs, he let Liam (who was already done) "help" him. They went all around and Liam was so proud of how he "helped" Evan find all the eggs that he had missed.

 Avery refuses to look at the camera if she can help it at all. But catch her when it's past her nap time and you are just SOL. But I do have some pretty cute nieces.

When you have a 9 year old boy, you take what you can get. :) I think that this age of boy might be harder to capture than toddlers. 

 

In the middle of the egg hunt, Phoebe came out and got Terry to help her. There was a lizard in her bedroom. This was not at all what anyone expected he would find! This guy is huge. But no longer lives under Lawson and Phoebe's bed. 

 The messy aftermath of sorting through to see what they found.

I have a few more pics on my other camera, but I have not downloaded them yet. I will edit the post later today and get them on here. So be sure to check back later if you want to see more of the little guys.