What did we get ourselves into?

Haylie's Birthday Wish

Haylie has been wishing and hoping for a puppy for well over a year now and Mommy finally cracked. We were set on not getting a puppy but last week when we were reading a bedtime story about 3 wishes, Haylie lamented that she only had one wish - to get a puppy! How could we resist? Mommy and Daddy raced out and found a puppy later that week and brought it home just before bedtime one evening. Haylie was SO excited and the look on her face was so precious. I adored everything about that moment and this little guy is pretty cute too:

Working Late

Up working late but it's not so bad when Micah whips me up one of these :)

Poor Baby

Whenever James gets sick he has trouble breathing. We have gone to the doctors several times with the same issue and this time they finally diagnosed him with asthma. It is very scary when he gets to a point where he is struggling to breathe and this time we went in they had to give him two breathing treatments just to get him to an acceptable state. Thankfully they are sending us home with our own breathing machine so I don't have to race in to the doctor's office in a frenzy anymore. Poor thing was exhausted after a long time working on his breathing at the doctors:

School carnival

Dancing with her teacher:

Airshow

Although I have never been to the airshow before, the rest of my family has. I think Micah usually takes the kids, along with Uncle Brian. This year Daddy had to work in the VIP tent and got us all in. We got to watch the planes from right in front where they were taking off, in addition to eating yummy food and drinking free drinks. It was very hot that day but the airshow was a pretty cool event. We ran into Haylie's friend Mackenzie and her family in the VIP area. That made it even more fun for the kids...

Hanging out with Haylie's friend from school:

James is a preschooler!

James's first day of preschool meant my sweet baby James is growing up. It's hard to watch your babies get older. I wish I could sit and rock him on my shoulder in the rocking chair for the rest of my life. But he keeps growing up and moving on to new adventures. He was so very excited to start preschool - it felt like he had been waiting forever! He chose Star Wars for his first big boy school back pack. Nanny and Cathy even came to see him off on his big first day of school. They love their baby James too! Can't believe I have two school-age kids. It was so hard to leave him there and say goodbye!

This is his favorite pose lately:

Vintage Couch

I borrowed this couch from a friend for some photo sessions, but when it worked out that we had the couch one more night than originally planned I decided to throw together a quick photo session of the kids and the couch.It was quite the last minute plan so it was amazing that I found clean, matching outfits. I wasn’t even planning on joining in the photos but threw a dress in my bag as I was running out the door (hence the wrinkles you will see in it!)

For being a photographer – I have a terrible time being in pictures. I have this weird lean-in, head-tilt thing I always do that makes me look pretty foolish but since I can’t seem to figure out how to stop doing it whenever a camera turns my way, I’m just getting used to my goofy looking photos – you can see the concentration in my smile…don’t be awkward, don’t be awkward!

Thankfully, the majority of the shots this time weren’t too awkward; but then again you’re only seeing the ones I approved:

Now look at that straight up head – no leaning, no tilting. Phew – maybe there’s hope yet. Thanks to Raider for taking the pics of Micah and I – it’s nice to finally have some with each other. Had I properly prepared for the session I would have brought my tripod and got a family shot!

Scooter home

What a good big brother. Fun walking to and from school. :) Haylie was so excited to have Raider pick her up.

Bumpy

Train ride along the river on a lovely day. I asked James what he thought of the train... His response: "bumpy."

Cabo - part 3 - the beach!

While in Cabo we also spent some days going to the beach. Haylie developed a little obsession with collecting seashells and by the end of the trip she had a whole bag full. Everyone was dragged in at some point to help Haylie find pretty shells. Raider even found some that he intended to bring back and turn into necklaces as gifts.

We found a really pretty beach on the way to San Jose with cute star beach huts to hang out under, so we all packed up lunch and lots of sunscreen and headed out for the day. Micah had to stand guard in front of the kids most of the time because the tide was rushing out pretty fast the day we were there. We were afraid the kids would get swept out to sea. They almost did a few times.

The funniest incident of the day was when a crazy crab came running into our area and sent all of us scattering. There were lots of crabs but most of them left us alone. Micah is holding the daring little guy: