Oil & Water or Best Buds?

Are they oil and water, cats and dogs? Or are they best friends? I'll go ahead and say both. These boys fight practically non stop. Pumpkin misses Mister all day long, and asks for him over and over. But when Mister finally comes home and gets off the bus, they're fighting before we even hit the front door again.


The other night Pumpkin started screaming and came running out of his room after they'd been in bed (or supposedly) for a while. He came tearing into my room in only his underwear, with spit all over his face and torso. Yeah.....brotherly love at its finest. Mister had apparently gotten angry and spit all over his little brother. Of course Pumpkin can be quite the instigator, but he didn't volunteer what he'd done to provoke the wrath of Mister.

I went back into their room to settle them down again and give them a good talking to about how we should treat each other and went back to my own room. Before I went to bed I went back in to check on them and lo and behold, they'd crawled into bed together and were snuggling up close, sound asleep.

That's the funny thing about these two. They fight with the best of them, but they do love each other fiercely. You should've seen the way Mister flipped out one time on a nurse who dared to give Pumpkin a few shots at a well child checkup. I've never seen him so angry at someone, and I've seen my share of his temper. :)



It seems that they are allowed to pick on each other and generally get under each other's skin (on purpose, many times). But when it comes down to it, they are very loyal and defend each other against others. While it can be exhausting to parent a duo with this dynamic, it melts my heart to see how much they really do love each other.

These pics were taken when I was scouting out a new photography location. I was trying to bribe Pumpkin into smiling for my camera and he was having none of it. Mister, my more cooperative photography subject, took him under his wing to try to sweet talk him into cooperating.

It worked and they both got their treats in the end.  Aaaah, brotherly love. :)

Featuring : Mister

Mister is our firstborn. He is the one who suffers the brunt of our parenting learning curve. Fortunately, he's a pretty good sport about it all. :) Mister recently turned 7, and it seems like every year he gets older I find myself saying "I'm not old enough to be the mother of a 7 (or 6, 5, 4, etc) year old." Now I know how my mom feels when she says the same about me. :)

Mister has a great temperament to be the oldest son. He's equal parts the responsible helper/example setter and also the big brother who torments his younger siblings. He's appointed himself our family's language police and will sometimes even tell perfect strangers that they can't say certain words. We rarely have to worry about him using foul language, so in that way he sets a great example for his younger siblings. He's a little over-zealous in his language police tendencies sometimes, but at least it keeps us on our toes and keeps us speaking more kindly to one another.

Mister has a fascinating personality. As a baby he was very independent and never wanted to be cuddled or held much unless he was sick. I secretly liked it a little when he was feeling under the weather b/c I could finally cuddle him! He was the most amazing baby. Sleeping through the night by 8 weeks old and being very easy about all the places we wanted to take him. I used to take him to the driving range and just put a few toys in his stroller with him while I'd hit a bucket of balls (with him safely out of range of my club, obviously). I'd take him to Barnes & Noble and browse books for an hour or so and he'd be perfectly content. Dinners out? No problem. It wasn't until he was about 15 months old (and more mobile) that he started protesting these outings. I think the main thing about him as a baby was that he was very serious and observant. He was fascinated with what was going on around him and was content to just watch and try to figure things out that way.

Mister is very sensitive. He is very empathetic and will cry when he sees others suffering or when he hears a sweet church hymn that touches him. It's very heart warming to see this sensitive side of him. He's so friendly and outgoing that he'll chat it up with anyone. He's so happy and loving that it breaks my heart when other children aren't nice to him.

Mister is a wonderful artist. He is so good at drawing and his favorite church or road trip "toy" is a sketch pad and some colored pencils/markers/crayons. He's always drawing us nice pictures that we love to hang on our fridge.

Mister is also a very intense boy. He's all or nothing with everything he does. He's intensely sweet and loving, giving some of the world's best hugs and kisses. He's also famous for his short temper. Hmmmm.... I wonder who he gets that from? I just can't fathom...... :) He can go from being in a super mood to coming completely unglued in a very short time. His toddler meltdowns are legendary. :) I definitely think Heavenly Father sent him to us first to give us perspective with our later children. No matter how frustrated I get with Pumpkin, I'm usually just grateful that he's not as temperamental as his older brother was at the same age. Thankfully, he's getting that under control much better these days. I think 1st grade has done wonders for him, really! It was rough as a toddler though, let me tell you.

He is a picky eater. As a baby he used to eat EVERYTHING, which was wonderful. Somewhere around his 2nd birthday though, he decided that he didn't like most things anymore. To this day he will not eat a vegetable or a piece of fruit. He will drink smoothies though, so go figure. And shhhh, don't tell him that I puree veggies and sneak them into the foods he DOES eat. :) He's a carb-a-holic. Again, no idea where that comes from. :) Cereal, pizza, sandwiches, pancakes, waffles, bread, rolls, etc are his foods of choice. He didn't even like ice cream until about 6 months ago. Seriously.

We are so grateful to have Mister as our son. He teaches us so much and humbles us with his kind and gentle spirit. He's constantly aware of how we treat each other (which interestingly enough doesn't apply to how he treats Pumpkin sometimes). He's always reminding us to speak kindly and to treat each other like Jesus would want us to. It's hard to stay mad or continue an argument when our sweet 7 year old is asking us if that's how Jesus would want us to talk to each other. :) He's actually a very good peacekeeper.

We love you Mister!!!! :)

Featuring: Pumpkin

Pumpkin recently turned 4. How on earth 4 years has passed since this amazing child came into our lives is beyond me.

It all started out 12 days before my due date. I was so huge and miserable (like any other preggo in the home stretch) and this amazing little guy was so cooperative and came early!!! I could not have been more thrilled to meet my new sweet baby boy and to be DONE being pregnant. Have I ever mentioned that I don't like being pregnant? No? Well..... let me just say, it's not pretty. For anyone involved. :) So anyway, there we were, in the middle of a snowstorm, having our sweet baby early.

We have been blessed with 3 amazingly well-tempered babies. All of them have been amazing sleepers and were just so content. We could take them pretty much anywhere and they were fine and happy. Mister and Baby Bear were/are very observant and more reserved as babies. Pumpkin was all smiles. It was ridiculous - he was the happiest baby I've ever met and it was physically painful to hear him cry because he so seldom shed any tears at all. That may have changed once he became a toddler though...:)

He has grown into the most amazing little boy. His curiosity and thirst for knowledge astound me. His idea of fun is to work on a puzzle, complete dot-to-dot pictures, and to have me quiz him on random things like the different numbers/colors/names of all the trains on Thomas the Train. He loves to sit in my lap and read stories. He knew his letters (upper and lower case) before he was 2. He knew all of their sounds by shortly after his 2nd birthday. He's been counting past 100 (without hints) for a few months now. He got a floor puzzle of the United States for Christmas and now knows nearly every state's name and where on the map it goes. Although those tiny New England states still give him a bit of trouble. :) Now he's asking me what the stars are on the puzzle pieces. This kid will have the state capitals down by the spring at the rate he's going (because we seriously do this USA puzzle 4 times a day). And I have to say that I'm LOVING this! Mister is very smart, but he doesn't equate doing learning exercises as "fun" the way Pumpkin does. I love having a "nerdy" kid who is just like his mamma in that way. :)

A couple of his funniest quirks right now really crack Scott and me up and will be the stuff of family legend. First, Pumpkin has very nice manners, but he also has a temper. He will be in a fit of rage, but still using his pleases and thank yous. For example: He'll be asking for you to do something and he'll keep escalating his tone until he's screaming bloody murder yelling "COULD YOU???" or "MAY I????" or "PLEASE?!?!??!" It's pretty funny actually. The second thing is, when he asks you a question, if he doesn't like your answer he'll just say "I can't hear you." Literally 2 feet away from me. He'll ask the same question over and over again and say "I can't hear you" after every time you don't give him the answer he wants. He's very persistent and will wear you down. Sometimes Scott and i just look at each other and say "Let's just say yes now so we don't have to deal with this for an hour (because literally, he WILL NOT STOP) and then finally break down anyway." He's VERY persistent. If he doesn't think you're giving him the attention his question deserves (or aren't giving him the answer he wants) he will literally climb up, take your face between his hands and get about 2 inches from your face and ask you again. We're really hoping he channels that perseverance into one of his strengths as he grows up. :)

Pumpkin has always been active. I should've known when they had to do 3 ultrasounds to determine his gender b/c he was moving around so much they could never get a clear reading on that let alone do all the measurements they needed to do.  I took this picture a week or so ago, and this is the most common sight in our house. No matter how many times I ask him to stop, or remind him of the house rules, it's in one ear and out the other. Just like that. Poof, it's like he never heard me say it. I mean, the kid runs full speed all the time, rarely even looking in the direction he's running, so yes, he even crashes into the walls in our house. Every night I tuck him into bed without any new scars or goose eggs, I say a prayer of gratitude. :)

Because of his tendency to live with reckless abandon, he is often sporting some pretty fierce scabs, scars, fat lips, etc. Case in point:

And that's our Pumpkin in a nutshell. He's a smart, curious, reckless, happy and determined little guy. We love him just the way he is and feel so blessed that Heavenly Father has trusted us to raise him in our family.

Recording the Little Things

I absolutely love having my own photography business. It's so exciting to be able to earn money while pursuing my passion. I love meeting new people and capturing beautiful images of them and their families. I love downloading the pictures onto my computer and editing them so they are the most beautiful versions of themselves. I literally get giddy over them. I'm like a kid in a candy shop!

The only problem? Sometimes I get so caught up in photographing and editing other people's sessions that I forget to capture the little things in the lives of my own kids. One of my New Year's resolutions was to be better about my journaling/blogging and I think photography is a huge chunk of that. So, I've resolved to try to be better about getting out my camera while we're just hanging out at home and not waiting until we have some sort of "outing" before that happens.

So with that in mind, here are two I snapped while we were home the other day. I caught Baby Bear peeking at me over the top of his crib after waking up from his nap and I just love that you can see his big blue eyes. Hopefully they'll stay that color, unlike Mister's and Pumpkin's whose eyes changed color as they got older. I love that he's got his paci in his mouth since that's very "him" and that you can see a peek of his tiny fingers.

This one of Pumpkin is one of my new favorites. He is forever running away from me when I bring out my camera. If he does decide to stay in one place, he rarely looks at the camera and if he does it's usually with a pretty fierce scowl instead of a sweet smile. This one is priceless to me. Just him how he normally is. A sweet kid. :)

New Year Resolutions

This year I have some New Year's resolutions that I don't believe I've had before. I mean, this time of year is when I'm always determined to get into great shape, eat better, and generally be healthier. Those are still my resolutions, but they're my good ol' standbys. This year I've got a couple of new ones.

1. Keep up better on my blog and journal:  I got so bad about this the second half of last year and I'm kicking myself in the pants already. I go back and read old blog posts or journal entries and I am reminded about fun (or not-so-fun) memories that I've already forgotten just a short while later. That got me thinking "What have I already forgotten from last year?" So my goal is to be better about it. At least one entry on either the blog or in my journal per week.

2. Use a kinder voice:  I want to avoid sarcasm as much as I can and use a kinder voice with my family. The tone of voice is more important than the words you say, in my opinion, and I'm guilty of having a short fuse. I want to work on lengthening that fuse and it's my goal to speak kindly to others, even when I'm frustrated or angry.

3. Get into more pictures with my family:  As the photographer, I'm rarely in shots with my family. But I don't want my kids to grow up without pictures of us together. I generally don't like the way I look in pictures these days, but later down the line when the kids are grown, they're not going to care that I didn't lose the weight from Baby Bear's pregnancy. They're going to care if they don't have any pictures of us with me in them too. So I'm going to put my vanity aside and try to switch off my control-freak nature when it comes to my camera. I'm going to take deep breaths and hand it off to someone else to take a picture of me with my family. Then I'm going to dive head-long into making memories with my family that have nothing to do with the size of my thighs. :)

So that's it so far. Wish me luck! Oh, and aren't Mister's eyelashes just to DIE for? Ummmm, he didn't get them from me, I'm just sayin'. :)

Can you say SLACKER?!

Wow, I seriously can't believe it's been since Halloween that I posted on here. Shame on me! We haven't been up to too much other than the regular day-to-day, but still, it's no excuse. Things are going well for us and we're busy prepping for Baby Bear's 1st birthday on Friday (can you believe it?!) and then all the Christmas festivities to follow. :)

My photography business is going well and I'm enjoying myself so much! My boys are enjoying it less so, since I've always got my camera in their faces trying out new things or just getting in some extra practice. Pumpkin is especially camera-shy. It seems like I have to talk about gross bodily functions to get him to smile for me. Such a boy thing.....

Anyway, here are some pictures from our trip to the park today:

Fall Favorites

We LOVE fall in this house! It's our favorite season by far! So many reasons..... but one of them is for the beautiful parks, leaves and weather. Here are a few pics of our recent fall adventures. And yes, I totally bribe my boys to get them to sit for the camera! :) How can you NOT love fall with all this beauty around?

I love the colors, the light, the smell of all those yummy spiced goods like pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, apple cider, gingerbread, etc. Even adding a little cinnamon to hot cocoa makes it taste more like fall. I love jeans/sweaters/boots, vests (before we need the full-on coats), pumpkin patch trips, pumpkin carving parties, tractor rides, fresh-pressed apple and pear cider, etc. Yes, I mentioned that twice - it deserves it in my opinion. Mix in a bit (or a lot) of football and we're a super happy household! :)

In fact, I think we get out of the house more in the fall than any other time of year. Yes, we spend a lot of time in the backyard, etc during the summer. But sometimes it's just too hot to go on long hikes or to feel motivated to venture much farther than my own neighborhood. It seems like I get extra motivated by the return of cool weather and we seem to take the boys on lots more family outings once the weather changes. We've been blessed so far this fall and have had really dry weather. Fortunately for us!

Cheers to fall!

Couldn't you just gobble up all those cheeks?! All my boys have had such scrumptious cheeks, I literally have to restrain myself sometimes from nibbling on them. :)

Oh - and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!! :)