Our Persisting Memories

Monday we'll be celebrating Heather's birthday and Catey's graduation from High School. 68710|400 Since memorial day will be full of Barbecue and cake we decided to use Saturday to memorialize our first combat veteran in the family that has moved on. 68530|640 We toasted him with Wendy's frosties, which he claimed held medicinal properties, and visited his gravesite. 68542|640 We still love you and think about you Grandpa. 68560|640

I love photography. I love all aspects of it except for being in it. I do need to do a self portrait but I'll save that for another day (new tripod gets here Friday). I recently sold my old camera body and most of the lenses I had been using. I also sold some old gear donated to me by a family member. Now I have a nice new body with some new lenses to take pictures of my girls and anything else that strikes my fancy. For example: the horrified expression of a 2 year who thinks she's about to crash into her sister. 68460|640 The pollen on the petals of some flowers my wife has just planted in our front yard. 68400|640 Beautiful blue eyes. 68442|640 Exif data should all be intact if you want to know settings, lenses, etc.

We have been wanting to get Sophia a bike. While she is doing well on her tricycle, she is clearly outgrowing it. They were having a great sale at Toys R' Us so we couldn't resist. 68352|450 She was very pleasantly surprised and got right up onto it. We got the 16 inch instead of the 12 inch wheels because she is big for her age and she has good growing room. BJ and I have been so shocked at her fast progress in one afternoon with this bike. She can get going pretty fast, steer, and brake. Braking was the last thing she learned but one of the most important! Our original plan had been to get her one at Christmas, but with it being Summer it seemed too perfect to go ahead and get one now. I see many more evenings spent outside riding bikes. Not a bad thing indeed! 68340|450

BJ and I plan to have another baby. No, I am not pregnant yet, but we will hopefully be preggers by the Fall. We have been open in our communication with the girls about our desire to have another baby. To our surprise, the girls appear to be excited and supportive, if not a bit impatient. Sophia and I have discussed what a uterus is, what it does and where it is. (She is REALLY into anatomy) Every once in awhile she will ask me about babies, my uterus, if I am pregnant and other various related questions. I went to my OB/GYN this morning to get my IUD out and have been explaining to Sophia where I was going. But I simply explained that the doctor will make sure I am healthy and my uterus is healthy so I can have another baby one day. As soon as I walked back in the door she says "Where is your baby? Where is the baby?" After I was done giggling I explained again what I had gone to the doctor for and that I was NOT pregnant yet. I showed her where they took my blo...

This morning I was shaving and Sophia pulled up a stool to watch. "I like to watch you shave your face daddy." "Do you think you'll have to shave when you grow up?" I ask. "Yes" "But girls don't shave their face." "But they shave their legs when their hair is long," she replies. "So how old will you have to be to shave your legs?" I ask her. "About 6 and a half."

We decided this Saturday to just go out and have some fun as a family. We meant to go to Adventure Landing for Sophia's birthday, but never made it. So we went today, at an earlier time than we had planned for our initial trip. It was good timing because it wasn't too crowded and the weather was gorgeous! We first did miniature golf. 68019|400 Notice Sophia and I are dressed as 'twins'?! Sophia never held her putter correctly after being shown multiple times by her daddy on how to do it. But it never stopped her from whacking the ball or having a blast while doing it. 68067|410 They had a "baby putter" for Phoebe. She was a whole other story! She didn't care how she was supposed to hold it, she was going to do it her own way no matter what, did not want help, and would not give me a turn (we were sharing balls). 68091|360 She spent most of the time hitting it the first time, then picking up the ball and taking it close to the hole and either taking ...

Sophia is very independent with my iphone. Daddy has added an application called "Weet Woo" where she can access kid friendly YouTube videos. One of which is a montage of crazy cats. She has found one in particular that she can sit and watch over and over and over again! She laughs her head off. We have let her watch it on the big computer too and found some other funny videos about cats, dogs, and hamsters. We have all been enjoying ourselves as a family watching them. This inspired BJ to get some AFV episodes, and we have been enjoying ourselves even more by watching them with the girls. Thank goodness for accident prone, careless people, funny babies, crazy animals, and so on! This is a shot of Sophia enjoying above mentioned funny videos. 67917|380 67941|380

179|400 "Do you love Mommy?" I ask Sophia. "I Love her all of it," she replies. "All of what?" "All of her," she clarifies. "Why do you love her?" I ask. "Because she carried me in her belly." "And nanny carried you in her belly," she adds. "I will have a baby in my belly!" she exclaims. "That'll be a while," I say. "Tell me more about why you love mommy," "Mommy's pretty, and she makes me pancakes. Mommy plays with me and likes to scare me." 21099|400 "Phoebe, why do you love mommy?" "Mommy a girl, like me!!" At this point Phoebe just stared at me with a big grin. Obviously thinking something but not able to get it out. "Why do you give mommy hugs?" "Mommy like to cuddle, she helps me." Phoebe then begins to talk about mommy not being angry and about Phoebe not having accidents and that Daddy loves mommy too. "Yes Phoebe, ...

I did my sister a favor and took some picture/portraits for the Allen Prom. Here's my sister and her date. Since I was just shooting a couple group shots and 7 couples I didn't have any time to do anything more interesting than wallet style shots. Here's some samples. 67800|640 67728|640

Sophia turned 4 years old on the 26th of April. As such we have implemented a new set of rules for her. No more sippy cups Be modest at all times Blanky has to stay at home More chores 67408|640 We just had a little get together to celebrate her Birthday. We're still waiting for a time to take her to Adventureland for some Go-Karting, mini golf, and some videogames. In the meantime I've been putting together the summer gift to the girls. Thanks to Granny, Grandad, Nana, and Poppi we were able to get the larger framing work out of the way. However quite a bit of the final assembly was left to me. 67510|640 Yes, you're seeing that right. It includes monkey bars, swings, picnic table, toybox, slide, raised fort, rock wall, etc...