thrilled

chris and i have been working hard on our new jac website makeover for a long time. (sooo close to being done!) so when it came time for us to get new photos of ourselves taken for the site, chris asked one of our favorite photographers. at first it was to just be him and i, but as the date got closer, i KNEW i couldn't pass up the kids not joining us. so we spent a few minutes with them before we headed out to do our own thing. i am SO GLAD WE DID.

click here to see the pics on his blog.

it was so interesting to see how the kids reacted to someone else taking their photos. the 3 older kids meshed with jon quickly and laughed along with him. i am so thrilled to see the beauty he captured in kira. she's becoming such a young woman now that it takes my breath away. love that he got cam with his guitar. and caleb just being silly caleb. the brother shots kill me! elsie was a little shy/nervous i think. so i adore the ones of her with her family and her with chris and i. that's where she is comfortable, with her clan. 🙂 and you can totally see that come through!

i can count on my hand how many family photos we have together and there's not a lot! so now i will treasure these little gems forever! it's somewhat addicting i think, now i am like- let's do it again! i want more more more! 🙂 we had such a great time with jon… we thank him with all our hearts!

September 29, 2009 15

friday :)

elsie again! i know. i need to take more pics of the other kids 🙂 on my to do list for this weekend. my internet connection is back. my husband is back. we have this weekend off before a few weddings ahead. all of the kids are happy at school. k is running her first cross country race this sat at FIVE in the morning. eeeek. cam has joined a fall baseball league. caleb is playing flag football with friends. the 2 day a week preschool is perfect for miss E as she still loves days of lounging around with mom, i am glad. today i am going to read through this week's stacks of magazines that came in the mail. i loooove doing that. and hoping to scrap for fun. miss that. we are good. have a great weekend 🙂

September 18, 2009 11

her first day

the night before the first day of school, she said to me, "i changed my mind, let's just cancel it, i don't want to go." (i'm laughing that she used the word cancel- she's 3!) there were lots of tears as she cried herself to sleep. she's attached to me, just as all of my children were- but she is very social so i knew she'd be just fine! this morning, the first thing she said to me when she woke up was, "stttaaaaaaay home." 😦 heartbreak! 🙂 now if she was child 1 or 2 i might have fallen for it but by child 4, i knoooooow better and off we went as i knew there were many adventures in store for our little social butterfly!

love that she was able to step right inside and do her favorite thing, the thing that i have little patience for: paint! :) that's what i pay them for! ha!

pick up. 🙂 the teacher made a chatty hand symbol to me, and i knew elsie had a great day. i asked her if she talked to her teachers and she said, "oh yeah, LOTS!" heehee, those teachers don't know what they are in for! 🙂 this face cracks me up, it's a bit of…."alright, you were right, it was fun." :)

this was the light at the end of the tunnel for her. i reminded her that the new barbie movie came out today and jamba was around the corner from the movie store. :)

i brought my barbie loving, sword fighting girl home- i'm super proud!

September 15, 2009 12

I actually

have pics and things to blog about but thanks to our ever unreliable Internet provider, I can’t! 😦 I have access on my phone but I have little patience staring at the little phone screen. it’s actually been refreshing, being forced to take an Internet/tv break (our Internet and tv are from the same company). I’ve been able to do some purging that I usually ignore because I’m sucked into the vortex of the world wide web. the kids have been forced to do thing like look up something in the dictionary rather than on dictionary.com! and though it’s nice to have a little break, there’s so much we rely on the Internet to provide for us, so after many frustrated calls- I’m hoping to get reconnected soon.
🙂

September 14, 2009 1

day off

our first 3 day weekend of the school year called for a day at the beach. i told els i loved this pic of her and she said, my bangs are too long. lol.

we are having this battle with the bangs. we tried to grow them out but i got frustrated because she wouldn't put them up, so we cut them but halfway through cutting we decided she had too much bangs so we should let that other part grow out and she could just have smaller bangs. well now she has 2 sets of bangs. confusing. the level of each 4 is according to their birth order. K- goes completely swimming. C- goes almost as far. C2- just at the shore. E- just at the sand. ha, love it. tomorrow is meet and greet for els' preschool. i am so excited for her! she is just a little social butterfly, i know she's going to love it!

September 9, 2009 8

first day

i said, just one picture, and cam literally stood for ONE picture.
and kira is in some with her friends but i don't feel comfortable posting friend pics on the blog. 🙂 one of her friend's dad told us about a great tradition he has, taking a pic of his daughter on the first day, every school year, holding up a sign showing the grade she is entering. we are sad we missed that with the kids but will definitely start up with miss E! who is home with me for another week, then will start her preschool. we've had many tea parties and dressup days. she has perfected the art of lip gloss. geeeeeez. im just happy it's actually on her lips and not all over the rest of her face 🙂

i watched julie and julia with my MIL the other week and it made me miss my love of blogging. i'm trying to think of what i can do with this blog….. for now, i'm just happy i posted twice in a week…..again! 🙂

September 3, 2009 6

first of september

how is that possible!? the 3 big kids went to school this morning. 2 of them at new schools. i couldn't help but get a little teary eyed when the last one left. i woke up at an obscene hour to make these muffins, was out of sour cream so i used my precious favorite yogurt. (the vanilla with the cream top- delish! somedays i eat only that all day until dinner 🙂 ) i can only get it at whole foods and have developed a crazy obsession with that store.

a few of my layouts that went up today for two peas.

the theme is found objects. i love that little to do list thing i found in a Real Simple magazine.

and one of chris and i in italy. missing that place lots lately! lots of found object goodies, map from italy and the little button holder thing from one of chris' shirts- held on to that for years!

i did take pictures of my children this morning, so proud of myself. will put them up another time, another excuse to blog 🙂

September 1, 2009 4

morning

our mornings are about to change next week. the 3 big kids will be going back to school and a few weeks later, els will start 2 day a week preschool. here's a glimpse of how many of our mornings have begun this summer.
both of the boys wake up early to watch morning cartoons and play video games. one takes a break and usually hops in bed with els as she is super snuggly and warm.

she takes after me, she likes to sleep in and it takes her awhile to get out of bed.

and that's enough 🙂
as crazy as it gets sometimes with all 4 kids home and running around like wild children, i absolutely love summer. i love having them here with me.. no itinerary, no where to be. we spend a good portion of our days in our pajamas and only leave the house if we must 🙂 this year is going to be a huge chapter in our lives. 3 of the 4 kids are starting at new schools. as i was downloading these pics to my august folder, i was embarrassed to see that i only took photos one other time this month. geeeeeez. wedding season does that to me. i'll be camera ready for these new chapters i speak of. 🙂

August 28, 2009 8

seems like so long ago

but it's only been 2 weeks since we got back. i think it's the weather change that makes it seem so drastic. i look at the clothes we are wearing in the pictures and it just seems like forever ago since we wore winter clothes! a few glimpses that caught my eye the other day while browsing thru our enormous file of pictures. i l o v e this one. the kids at a maze with chris, in the rain. you can see the raindrops in the picture!
also love these so much.
one at merrick's- with our auntie jo who took very good care of our massive crew. she fed us yummy dinners and our first kangaroo. she also took a family photo of us right after but for some reason it got lost along the way. im so sad! 😦one of her tasty meals 🙂
we fell in love with fitzroy and came back to do one of our family shoots there. you can see that one on the jac blog, click here.

kira said it was the best hot chocolate ever:
we thought the flat whites were especially delish.
sorta family pic, without moi.
luna park:

chris' dad who graciously had us over for many night and days, trekking our big family to his beautiful home in the mountains as well.

at the cabin, chris and caleb went on a fun gnome hunt in the village:

these guys geared up to go skiing/snowboarding as i stayed back with the little two.

a night of scrabble. NO KIDDING. caleb drew all of these letters. seriously!!!!! driving back to the city, through areas where the fires had passed.

st kilda, this shot is wrong with the water being crooked. but who cares. look at els' little hand gripping chris' jacket and caleb's little face watching in horror or amazement 🙂

sea glass in aus…that i later found in my bag once we got back to the US

maling road. love this area. chris' mom grew up around the corner. favorite little spot. found dr pepper there for 3.75 a can. i missed it but just couldn't stomach that price! we didn't get to see any koalas in the wild this time, we sure looked but didn't find any. the kids one request was to see some. 🙂 these are at healsville sanctuary. special treat, a bunch of active koalas and a little baby on it's mothers back. sweetest thing! and up close with a kangaroo…. they even got to pet it.

time with cousins.
we think their icy poles are better than our otter pops!

we were fortunate to have some really beautiful days of weather while there, kira was saying she wished she packed her flipflops and cam wished he packed shorts! but it was still chilly for me!

long chats with donna and snuggles with baby max.she housed us as well… both families together = 12. such good times. we are so grateful and will always remember it. thank goodness for ichat 🙂
and one more. though it's blurry, such a good memory. girls performing for us. learning a routine and practicing till it's time to perform. (i used to do this with my cousins, so i love seeing kira do it as well) 🙂

chris will have some of his film shots posted at the jacshoot blog sometime today.

as my air condition is blaring beside me, i think of our family so far away snuggled in their winter coats….missing them lots and wishing they weren't so far.

August 7, 2009 7

stop

every now and then she needs to remind me to stop. this day as i was working on the computer, she asked me to take some pictures of her with her friends. how could i resist? i dropped everything for some pics and cuddles!

i like to think that i'm pretty good with my time management. i feel pretty good when i cross off a few things off my lists. and i completely don't mind stopping what i'm doing to climb in bed for some snuggles. 🙂

have a great weekend!

July 31, 2009 16