Birthday cake!

birthday bash in the woods part 1

busted

bub bubs

Squishy baby in too small sweater. Oh the cuteness. Those perfect little fingers are almost too much.
This sweater was one of the very first baby things I ever bought. Yep, he's dressed in his sisters clothes.

I went to the animal fair....

We attempted to go to the zoo. But alas, it was a free day. Which meant that traffic was backed up out to the interstate exit.  Um, not exactly sure how all those people fit into the zoo? So then we thought we'd keep going and play some mini gold in Sieverville. Again we were stopped by traffic!  Soooo, onward we forged, out to a drive through "safari". Poor baby was awoken from his nap only to be terrified of the animals that kept popping their heads in our car window. The girls loved it! He did enjoy the petting zoo so it wasn't a total fail of  a birthday activity. I will admit that I do not normally enjoy these types of places but this place was sooo clean and the animals all looked extremely well taken care of.  This is the one that is out past Sieverville, not the one closer in to Knoxville.

birthday breakfast

It's a funny thing to be number 4. You're kind of unimportant to the outside world. And we Mama's take our children's slights and multiply them in our hearts. I was so sad that he wasn't special enough to be celebrated by anyone but us. So instead of doing  what I should have done and made a big todo (birthday pancakes, anyone?) I just moped. I literally sat on the couch and was all teary. (And I might have even called my own Mama  and demand they meet us the next day - even if it meant driving 2 hours.) But he, being the awesome, super little dude that he is, had other plans than watching me blubber. He made it very clear he wanted his cheerios in a bowl and with a spoon and with milk! And so he got them. And made me laugh in the process.

braids!

I didn't think we would ever get here. A year ago we were growing out yet another self inflicted "hair do". But, finally! One year later and no more scissors have been used. It's become a bit of a running joke between us, anytime she gets that guilty look I say "did you cut your hair ?" and she responds with "MAAMA. I DIDN'T DO IT" and then she usually proceeds to tell me what she did do instead. Love it.
Girl has got some fluffy hair so you can't ever really tell how long it is. I didn't even realize I could braid it until just the other day. Cuteness, right?

no more nicknames please

She's requested that we call her by her given name. Why does she want to grow up? Make it stop!

Daddy love

Or alternately, attack Daddy. Pretty much the same thing when you are ALMOST ONE.

to brighten your day

I have to edit this to add a little fact. If you haven't actually met the boy you probably just think this is a goofy picture. Nope. This is his snuffle face, where he does his best nasally challenged animal impersonation. He won't say "mama" but he will sniff on demand.

leaves

He doesn't want to play in the leaves. Oh no, he wants to use the tools and rake them. Every time I sat him down in the leaves and the girls and I threw some up in the air he just looked at us, like he was saying "what is wrong you?" When I took the big rake away from him, he went and found the sand toy rake and proceeded to walk all over with that.

holy eyeballs, Batman.

Just my gorgeous girl.  And what was she doing?

Don't all oarsmen wear striped hoods? And don't all  Moms pull them off the boat to take a picture when they realize how pretty their eyes look ?

Happy Halloween

Winter, spring, summer or faaaall. All you've got to do is caaall. Rosie was the mastermind behind the costumes this year. Pretty proud of our clever girl! Too bad it was 40 degrees when we went to Boo at the Zoo last night and we had to cover up all that cuteness.

bat boy and his last first holiday

a new tradition?

We did this last year when I was so very, very pregnant. The girls were dearly wishing to go camping. And I just couldn't. We compromised by making their favorite parts of camping happen. And they remembered! As soon as fall weather hit they've been asking, does 2 years in a row a tradition make? Campfire with hotdogs(a super huge, very rare treat around here) and smores. I can get behind a tradition that involves me throwing a bag of chips at kids and handing off cooking duties to Daddy.  How often does it happen that Mama has zilch to do? Good times. The only hiccup? Evie was very fussy this year. She couldn't get anything to her liking except maybe the amount of mustard she used.

ewww pumpkin guts

I can't believe I don't have images of the final products. Seems I need to make a trip to the front porch this evening! I used Fletchers hand as a template for my pumpkins eyes. It was quite amusing that he thought the he scraps were to eat. Maybe I need to make the boy some pumpkin bread?  The girls were soooo funny this year.... lots of squeals and squeamishness.

book pages

After the great hard drive crash of 2012, I realized how important it was to get stuff off the computer and into our home. Recent vacation pictures seemed an easy place to start. I have close to 20,000 images from years past and quite frankly I don't even know where to begin with those. Vacation album is easy though, right? I can't decide if I want to leave them as is or add some elements. I used a new to to make these - a script compositer. Easy peasy. You add the pic you want on one page and it shows you any and all possible layouts. I tried using some of the online album makers but the lack of control was frustrating. I am not very good at digital scraping, the tools make it too easy to never ever finish a page. Glue and scissors tend to make your decision for you. When it's glued, it's glued, right? So that's why I am sticking with the simple modern approach ... so it will get done and printed! And I'm trying to let go. I even shot half of these with some presets in camera and then didn't touch them in photoshop. Are they perfect? No. But an imperfect album is better than none.

Family Vacation

I'm working really hard on getting theses into an album so I'm not going to post a whole bunch now. I think you can usually share the albums when they are done? We'll see....
We decided to mix things up this year and went to the NC coast. Meh. We only had 4 days b/c of Nate's terrible vacation day policy but it was still nice to sneak away. We didn't think we were going to be able to so that only made it that much sweeter. We packed a lot in, visiting the beach, an aquarium, hunting for Venus Fly Traps, pool time and a fun ferry ride.
My favorite part was watching Fletcher walk on the sand. Take two steps, fall down, get back up and continue.

I think we can all guess how this turned out.

And in case you were in doubt just check out Juju's face. Chicken poop - the new conditioner?

chill

Major computer problems around here. MAJOR! I really do have pictures of the other kids just trying to get stuff sorted out. Didn't want to leave you hanging for too long.

coloring and styling

something to make the game interesting

What do you think? Don't you think Tinkerbell jammies and hoola hoop targets might make golf a wee bit more entertaining? edited to add:  not hurt. just a play bandage ... it's the band aide an hour phase so when she had a legitimate scrape from our creek adventures dr. daddy stepped it up a notch to make it super special.

happy art supplies

Doesn't it just make you want to make a mess? My girls apparently think so.

rockin out in his crib

Had some music on when he woke up and started dancing. I just happened to have my camera within reach so I caught him totally rocking out doing his signature finger pointing move.  He was happy for about 5 seconds and then he he's starting to wonder why he's not getting picked up. Can't you see it on his face ... like what is going on here. But he still kept up the pointing and bouncing!

not gonna' lie

I love the stage where they dress themselves all goofy. I'll take preschool funkiness over a tween stage any day. 

meet Oliver

Our neighbors are hobby farmers and the other day they lost a mama chicken. She brought over baby Oliver for the girls to raise. Thanks, I think?

mr. big stuff

Baby steps! But only on Saturdays, other days he's apparently not in the mood. He is such a funny little man.

his favorite toy

Such a boy. And again with just a diaper? That would have never happened with the first or even any of the girl children but he hates, hates, hates to have his clothes changed.  I'm all about easy these days.

let the corruption begin

If you can get past the awfulness of my baby boy already being engrossed with the video games - check out how cute those fat little feet are poking out from behind the game.

a circus. literally.

another of "jujiana kate"

This is one of her classic, sparkly eyed looks that borders on a smirk. If you happen to see this, you had better pay attention, something outrageous is sure to follow.