jeans

i cannot tell you how different my boys are from my girls- or kira at least 🙂 each year they hate going school shopping, and for the last few years, i haven't really had to.. they wear the same things, take pretty good care of them.. and our weather doesn't have any crazy extremes so they can wear shorts and tee shirts all year long 🙂 so for the first time in about 4 or 5 years, cameron got jeans. 🙂

i dont want it to seem like we are witholding new clothes from him… it's just that he DOESNT care 🙂 and he LIKES wearing shirts and tees ALL the time. it could be raining out and he will want nothing to do with the one track suit pants he owns. 🙂 but anyways, yesterday while i dragged them out to get new clothes, cam voiced a desire to try jeans on.. so he did, he liked, i bought. chris came home later and noticed immediately. it's different to see his legs covered 🙂

caleb took this next pic. i love it so. 🙂 he has a serious picture bug right now.. so we're going to let him use one of our old cameras for a bit– can't wait to see what he gets!

oh and here's a layout for KI:

my good friend had a baby last night and i have serious baby fever. needing to journal about remembering little features and old habits.. this one for 2peas.

August 21, 2008 18

nu-uh!

this morning, chris took kira to register for 8th grade. her last year of middle school. in a few days, i register the boys for school.. cam will be in 5th– his last year of elementary school. NU-UH! the year after that i will have a preschooler, an elementary schooler, a middle schooler, and NOOOO WAY a high schooler. eeeek. im so not ready.

last week we had a few visitors.. crew of the crew 🙂

the 2 littlest rascals refused to be in the picture. 😦

anyways, school will be starting in a few weeks.. which will mean that my life will once again be ruled by the clock…constantly checking which child i will have to pick up next. as much as i long for long summer days, i do crave my schedule.

August 18, 2008 16

us

dry erase board drawing from caleb. 🙂 it's me and chris in case you can't tell 🙂

the summer has been flying by. i want to say it's been a relaxing summer with nothing to do all week long.. but it hasn't. just been plain busy. tomorrow is 'operation-media-free' day though. will be interesting to see what we end up doing. i vote for bake-a-thon 🙂 i will post again with something exciting. hopefully. 🙂

ps- cam just walked by and said ever so disapprovingly.. 'you haven't blogged in 5 days??'..walking away, shaking his head.

August 12, 2008 14

8.8.08

so tomorrow there are supposed to be thousands of couples getting married.. because of the date 8/8/8 🙂 the lucky day. chris and i will be shooting a wedding together– my oasis friends might recognize our bride! :) she's a loyal customer and student there– others who've taught there are also sure to recognize her loveliness!!

haaaaa– these pics are from our yosemite trip (rachael, yes i am finally gonna go thru them myself 🙂 ) minutes before we went in the water behind us for our anniversary white water rafting trip. excuse the 'yes we just woke up 10 minutes ago and it's ridiculously early and why isn't there a starbucks in yosemite?' appearances.

i like to think that in the midst of shooting weddings together… in the midst of the stress and chaos and trying to get the shots– chris and i take a sec to renew our own vows–often i will look over at him during an especially touching moment of the ceremony and i get a wink back. sigh, love when we are on the same level!! 🙂

so on 8-8-8— though we are not the superstitious type- i am happy, proud, overjoyed to be part of the chaos that comes along with all of this….with him.

August 7, 2008 24

almost 2 and a half

as we were heading out of the house today- she stopped and said, 'wait, wait.. one green, one pink.' how could i not encourage her individuality?! 🙂

we can't believe how fast time has gone (i know i am a broken record). she has said and done some of the cutest things lately… last night we watched nim's island. (which btw, if you happen to watch the previews, there is one on there for angel wars-yay!) and she calls watermelon, nima-nima-nima. so she kept calling nim that. and when it came to a close up of someone clicking on their Mac mouse, she said, mommy has that clicker! 🙂 she's also big on saying sorry. which i LOVE. she's also big on "doing it myself" which tests every ounce of my patience levels. ah, the wonderful age of two 🙂

August 6, 2008 15

i would have loved having a big sister

while growing up. these two are huge extroverts. huge girly girls. elsie has been over the moon having the big kids home. yesterday i had a big deadline and i pretty much left kira in charge. she painted elsie's nails, they did chalk together outside, they watched movies and just p l a y e d.

im so glad these guys have each other 🙂
ANNND! I didnt want to leave caleb out! 🙂 he's been surrounded by girls since cam is at camp ALL week 😦 and with dad at work, he gets girl overload. but kira has been SO good to him too. they have a different relationship when cam is gone.. caleb has more patience for her-haha, the other night they were giggling– she made a game out of sniffing all her lipgloss and having him guess what flavor it was. yeah, he would have never put up with that if cam was around 🙂

chris just sent this from his iphone– he relieved caleb from the girls and took him out to a dodger game for some male bonding 🙂

July 31, 2008 14

we just had an earthquake!

it was scary for the kids but nothing fell off my shelves (and i have a LOT of shelves with stuff on them) and we are okay.

and here are your winners via the lovely kira:

Posted by: Anika | July 28, 2008 at 12:18 PM

Posted by: Megan Spinks | July 28, 2008 at 05:55 PM

please email me your info and i will get it to Trish who will mail your kits to you 🙂

again.. thanks everyone. your comments are much appreciated. SO sweet. for the questions about how i get stuff done.. i am pretty fast. those 2 layouts were done in an hour or so. and lately, i’ve been going downstairs to the dining room and scrapping while the kids are playing there.. so i am not holed up in my room. i take a few things and scrap with them near.

thanks!

July 29, 2008 18

we’ve been busy!

usually in the summer, i feel like we have hours upon hours of 'nothing to do' time.. this summer has been different! we have been on the go go go! this one has been busy with cheerleading camp, mucho sleepovers and babysitting…

these guys (my boys and their cousins) have had like 10 playdates in a row! my SIL was in town so they played all day/night long.. been busy with day camp and summer school. but now the cousins are done (wah) and this is the last week of summer school, before soccer camp and another church camp starts for cameron.

and this one has been busy– trying to keep up with everyone above. 🙂 she managed magnificently.. when they ran around the house with swords, so did she.. when they dressed up in costumes, so did she.. when they took off their shirts and ran in the sprinklers, so did she.. when they sang and performed at church, so did she… she is SUCH the little sister.. there's something that totally gets me about a little girl with older brothers to follow 🙂

my 10 day playdate with my SIL is now over too.. 😦 so i am catching up on assignments and editing. and in totally unrelated news.. this came to an end this weekend. i don't think i have ever followed a cartoon like this since i was 10. everyone in my family loves it -from elsie (2) to the boys and kira (13!) and chris and i…. i just can't believe it's over. i loooooooooove avatar. it's so good. i even saw batman last night.. that didn't come close to my appreciation for avatar 🙂 i know, major dork 🙂

off to cook dinner.. which i've also had a major break from for a few weeks 🙂

July 21, 2008 19

taking the day off

after a chaotic day with elsie in the craft room, it was suggested i take the day off today, LOL.

yesterday's craft was to make a bird feeder with peanut butter. while i was assisting the kids, elsie was sticking her hand in the jar of peanut butter, licking it off her fingers.. and managed to get a handful of bird seed in her mouth… which she continued to spit out ever so dramatically. while the other craft leader was giving directions to the kids, elsie stood up on the chair and said, "no no no no". there were other instances that made the day verrrrry long for mommy. she'd sense that mommy was losing it, she'd make this face at me and say, 'do you like this face mommy?' or 'you happy, mommy?' which of course, i could deny neither 🙂 so today we are taking the day off. we'll drop all the kids off and just have some downtime. we'll give the craft break room a break from elsie. 🙂

July 16, 2008 13

day camp day one

this week we are volunteering at our church's day camp– well, me with crafts and photos. the boys go to class and kira is a counselor. elsie is to tag along. she did her best considering day camp is right smack in the middle of nap time. my lovely sister in law is here from WA so we are playing tag with elsie between her class and mine. by the end of the day, this was els. "i ti-red. i want blue blankie. i wanna go hoooommmme."

lovely. but i did manage to get them somewhat together – not really a great effort on my part– a quick pic 'for daddy' as he is away on business. i love that caleb is still totally into craft time.. dig the visor and necklace! 🙂

a quick fill of the tummies at in n out. our FAAAAAAAVorite.

and a sweet one of my sister in law with elsie. it has been fun chasing all of our kids (between us we have 7) all day long! she has bonded with els during this trip.

and i just have to point out that chris rented this fun lens and put some of my most favorit-est lovel-iest wonderful-ist pictures of elsie on our jac blog if you wanna peek 🙂

(thanks for the top, brooke!) and i miss you chris 🙂 xo

July 15, 2008 14