Spring of last year

I took these when I first got my camera last spring.  I'm in love with them.  They were taken at Calico Basin.  There really is beauty in the desert.

Spring Has Sprung

Take a hop, skip, or click over to my photography blog :)

http://brageffectphotography.blogspot.com/

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These are from my front yard.  Who ever said you had to go somewhere to find something to photograph.  This is fun with Macro...Enjoy!!

From Jared

Now its official because an engineer said so. Guess my Grandpa was onto something!

Layla 5 - 6 Months

17 lbs 14 oz and 27 in long at 6 months  

 

Little Miss Layla

Six months already.  I can't believe that it's been half of a year already.  It has gone by entirely too fast.  You've pretty much mastered the walker.  You love the johnny jumper.  And your hands are the fastest around.  They are into EVERYTHING!  You are a decent eater.  We still pretty much give you fruits and veggies for now.  Slowly I'm introducing other goodies.  Chicken broth was one mixed in your rice cereal and veggies.  That was a hit, and so was the frozen yogurt.

  You can finally roll both ways as long as your arms don't get in the way.  When they do, look out because they really make you mad.  You are doing a lot of leaning in the walker and can pretty much get to what you want on the tile.  

  You are a quick little one as well.  Already you are trying to mimic facial expressions.  You and Daddy had a blinking contest and you try to clack your tongue with me.  

  You are surprising us everyday!

XXXOOO

We love you little Layla!

Family In Action

Well mostly the kiddos.  There is a link to our videos off to the right.  They are all uploaded to youtube.  For some reason they go from oldest to newest even thought I've tried countless times to get them in the other order.  So for today, it's smarter than me.

Please respond if they don't work.  It took me a while to try and get them going.

Sleep Much

After a crappy night sleep for all. You're the one who gets the 3 hour nap. Lucky duck!!!!!

Greatest Weekends

  Ever have one of those weekends that you never want to end. This was one if those weekends. Ethan got to stay at his friends house Friday night and go ziplining for the first time Saturday. The rest of us had In n Out for dinner... Yumm, which reminds me we still have milkshakes in the freezer.
  Saturday was lazy, I was exhausted from Layla deciding she didn't want to sleep  and Ethan thinking I wanted to get up early on Thursday and Friday. Friday I set myself up for when I let him walk his friends brother to school so he wouldn't get picked on. He's such a little do-gooder.
  Sunday Jared and I had a no kids allowed lunch at Famous Daves and coffee after. Lani got to spend time with the kiddos and we got a mini date.  Then the kids and I took her to get frozen yogurt.
  What a way to spend a weekend. Too bad we can't have one like that every weekend. Minus the stupid time change of course, I really hate this one.

Love those faces

Aren't those the cutest darn faces!
I sure do love them!







This is Gabrielle's new 'I know I'm doing something I shouldn't, but aren't I cute' face.

Freezer List

  Is anyone else a nerd like me? I write down what I've got in my freezer and cross it off as we use it.  Well that's the theory anyway.  When I'm on the ball it's awesome.
  And you know I've got it divided up and titled by Meats, Fish, Breads, Veggies / Fruits, & Misc....neat huh?  I thought so!!
  I've had it on notebook paper but its getting messy and now its time to upgrade into Excel.  This is one of the things I started last year and by doing this I learned that I don't keep buying the same thing over again because it's buried in my deep freezer.
  Poor Ethan finds it annoying.  It's one of the many things I've started doing that I get the eye roll for.  It didn't help things when I made him clean out the mess I made when starting my list. That consisted of taking every.single.thing.out.of.each.freezer. and writing it down.  I got the deep freezer and he got the house freezer and to get rid of all the stuff we had in there for too long.
AhHa..one of the many joys of having older kids!  They get to be the dreaded helpers.

Awesome Sunset

 One thing about the desert is they pretty much have the rest of the country beat with sunrises and sunsets.  By all means I love me some country landscapes and the trees and hills but this is just one of those things.  I don't think you could compare this to anywhere else. 

This was right outside my front door....well kind of.  We walked to the corner which is all of maybe 20 steps.  So close enough to my front door.

These are right around the corner.  I had to hurry and put all of the kids back in the car and super speed out of our neighborhood to catch these beauties.  These are without any editing.  I couldn't think of any way to make them better so I just left them alone.  Aren't they amazing!

Playing is Hard Work

Sweet baby girl. She played her heart out and didn't quite make it to lunch.

#11. Leftover French toast

I don't know what I didn't think of this before but now we've got the yummiest way to eat leftovers.
Cinnamon Style French Toast
Add butter, cinnamon, & sugar just like you would to regular cinnamon toast and pop them in a hot toaster oven until everything is melted and toasty!
Ethan really liked it this morning.

Time for a picnic

Well almost! I really didn't think there would be snow on the ground. But its only March so I should have known better. We took pb & j, chips, apples (which I forgot about till now;so I better find them)and water.
The kids got to play and goof off in the snow while I sat and snuggled with Layla. We collected rocks for a summer craft project and then decided it was time to go. Or I did anyway, it started to get windy and I was not gonna use the port of potty they had.
Off to Starbucks and then home!