Friday!

Today is Friday! Yeah. Although - sometimes our weekends can get crazier than the weekdays. Luke is taking Lane to something called whirly-ball tonight with the 6th graders from church. Lane thinks it's cool to hang with the big kids. Cam will be spending the night at a friends - which leaves me with only Ryder and Olivia! I am sure I will spend the evening reading books to Olivia while nursing Ryder - amazing that I find that incredibly relaxing! The life of a mom. Love it.....majority of the time. Saturday will be filled with errands and soccer. Lane has a soccer game at 9:00 Sat. morning. I hope the weather is good. We have had so many games rained out.
Sunday will be an emotional roller coaster day. Right after church we are having a celebration for the new children's building that is opening. We are excited about that. But after that we are going to a memorial service for a church member that died this week. She was only in her early 20's and such a beautiful person. So sad!
My photography challenge this week is "people at work". I am struggling with this one. Will let you know if I get a good one.

Lighting challenge

This week my photography challenge is lighting. I took this one with all natural lighting. Taylor, I thought you would appreciate that I have one of my kiddos in this weeks challenge ;-)

Many faces of Lane

This picture was taken at an art show that displayed Lane's "award winning" picture.
Hiiiiii-yaaaahhhh
A little more serious....(by the way - do you like the new haircut????)
In this picture Lane is showing me a move that him & his

friends from school made up. Interesting ;-)

Another milestone

Lane feeding Ryder cereal for the first time.
Unsure of what's going on and why everyone is looking at him...
Not enjoying what Lane is shoving in his mouth.

Not ready for the next milestone!

Ryder held his own bottle for the first time today. I was happy about it for about one minute or so, and then I decided that I am not so ready for this step. I know the time will come all to soon when I am not holding him, singing to him, nursing him....hmmmm my heart overflows with love for him.

Spring Break in TN

This was at the Rainforest Cafe. We had so much fun and ate lots of food. Our kids took up almost the entire souvenier store. Emma had bouncy balls going everywhere. Parker had all the talking animals talking at once. Cam was imitating all the creatures. It was total madness. Here is a picture of the grandkids minus Houston, Emma and Ryder (they were at the other table). They had so much fun together.
This was at Lieper's Fork. It is a gas station/restaurant. It has yummy, home cooked food. It looks like a hole in the wall, but it is actually popular with some well known names.
Even though it is March, Aunt Lisa always thinks ahead. She planned an Easter egg hunt. The cute part was that the girls hid the Easter eggs, waited a while and forgot where they hid them. I think they ate the candy that was inside the eggs before they hid them.

Coach!

Aquarium in TN

I like this picture - Sophie is reaching down to "pet" this sting ray when it comes out of the water and scares her - she made a cute little squeal.

This is Sophie watching Cam and Harrison in the aquarium.

Olivia, Parker, Lane and Harrison checking out the fish

Lane using the shark blow dryer

A butterfly landed on Ryder's hand to enjoy some yummy saliva. The butterfly had no idea that Ryder doesn't mind eating anything alive. We caught him before he put it in his mouth!

Goofy Boys

Celebration of Life

It was a beautiful day to celebrate the going Home of Nana. There were a lot of friends and family at Cypress Creek to honor her.

No critiques!

Had class last night - no critiques!! Teacher liked my pictures, especially the one above. My next assignment is urban landscapes which will be perfect seeing that we are going to Nashville soon. Lots of opportunites to take pictures on the road trip.

Second Challenge

If I enlarged this pic you would see all the ants in there!

My photography challenge this week was texture and composition. Here are some pics I took at the park. I liked this challenge, it was easy and fun - although I don't see myself taking these types of pictures often. Class is tonight so I will see how badly they will be critiqued. I'm excited to see what the next challenge is.

Nana top banana

On March 5th Nana went home to be with the Lord. Although I will miss her here on earth I look forward to seeing her again in heaven. You know that song "I can only imagine" - about what we will do when we are face to face with Jesus - will we fall to our knees? will we dance? will we not be able to speak? well I really think Nana will sing for Him and if there is a guitar I think she will be playing the guitar for Him. That thought makes me smile and brings me peace.
This is the first time I have lost someone I love dearly. I have all these new emotions and feelings. It is very sad and depressing, but I try to look at the positive in the situation. She did not suffer in pain long, she went Home fast. After ten years, she got to see her daughters reconcile and hug each other - not too long ago, she got to hold her new great-grandbabies, Ryder and Campbell, she is not having to watch her daughter struggle with cancer, she got to experience love twice.....she lived a long life. Oh me - God is good.
I now look forward to the service on Friday. All the family back together in Wimberly. I KNOW that would have brought her so much joy.

Precious Pumpkin

We went for a walk today. It was so warm that Ryder spent most of the day in just his diaper. I love my babies w/ nothing on but a diaper. I get to see all their "rolls". Ryder is getting this precious grin and giggle and I just had to capture it. He is so happy and loves it when you talk to him - doesn't matter what you are saying - just has to be in a goofy voice!

He likes his exercauser - can finally sit up in it w/o looking like it's swallowing him. I like this picture b/c it shows some ripples in his arms - looks like he's been lifting weights.

Ryder looks so different in these two pictures; different emotions being shown, but the same precious pumpkin.

Action!

Lane

Cam
Neighbor, Alyssia

My First Photography challenge was to take action shots. I had my neighbor, Alyssia show off her dog's tricks - as you can see, Blaze is right there trying to eat her treats w/o performing anything worth praise. Alyssia has a very obedient dog, Blaze could use a lesson or... fifty.

I also took some shots of the boys being boys.

This was fun for me. I enjoyed the challenge.