This Makes Me Nervous...

Lauren is always asking to take pictures with my camera. She's very careful, but it still makes me nervous when she's holding that big camera!


Her set-up. See her models? ;)

Here's her picture. They're little FurReal Frenzy pets she got for Christmas. Very cute.

And another picture of her artwork. She made all these, except the Baby Jesus at the top, Caroline made at Sunday School.

Later I took the little girls outside because they were wearing their matching clothes. Had to get pictures of that (of course). Caroline likes having the big kids home to play with.

They both wanted to wear boots. Lauren wanted to bring her stick horse out to play, but I told her no. It was very wet out there from all the rain we've had! Their little car had a puddle of water in the seat, and a bigger puddle in the trunk.

She was too cute traipsing around the yard.

She had to watch the bug in the bowl, again, full of rainwater. And then she had to watch Lauren hit the baseball from her tee. The tee being our apple tree!! Good thing it's just a wiffle ball. Austin set this up first--easier than pitching to himself... Though I have to say it also makes me a little nervous. No more apple tree tees after another couple months!

And then we went in, as it was cold and time for naps.

Portraits, Julia and Lauren

A couple days before school started I took Julia and Lauren's "birthday" portraits. Birthday in quotes, b/c they happened back in February and May, respectively. At least they're within the first half of their birthday years, right? ;)

Lauren was first, as she had to go take a nap right after.


She's such a little poser and was more than willing to do all sorts of poses--her own ideas!! She also broke into song many times and did hand motions and her own dance moves while singing. It was quite the entertaining photo shoot. :D

Here she's showing me "L" for Lauren: two of them! No matter that one is backwards. This was her idea, too. Love, love that she wears that butterfly ring everywhere, every day! I've warned her it might get lost at school, but she insists on wearing it and says she doesn't take it off. She says it feels funny when she takes it off!

Our 10-year-old, growing up so fast. She chose the cupcake earrings herself--thought they went nicely with her outfit. She also bought them herself, with her own money, at Claire's. :)

Awww... Sweet Julia. She was very cooperative, and we got a lot of good pictures in just a few minutes.

Austin's 7-Year Portraits, Caroline's 18-month Portraits

I took Austin's and Caroline's pictures, way back--Jan. 23 and Feb. 1. I debated sharing them, since it's so long afterwards, but thought I should, since Julia and Lauren's were shared. It's hard doing indoor pictures, inside, in the winter, simply because there is less natural light at good times in our schedule. And often the weather is cloudier or rainier than usual. I can't complain though; I know we get more daylight in the winter than other parts of the country. And no snow, and probably less clouds and rain. Anyway. Here are some of Austin's pictures:


He's such a goofball, and even though stopping playing wasn't his idea, he cooperated nicely. Actually was very silly the whole time!! He got one of the suckers afterwards for doing such a good job. :)

This little lady was another story. Oh. My. Word.!!! What a little stinker! And busybody!

Does it look like she wanted to sit still? Well, she didn't! Thank goodness I had Assistant Lauren making music with the stick horse and See & Say toy to get Caroline to look. The biggest problem was getting Caroline to stay put! She did have a ball dancing on the fleece, so Lauren would start the music, and we'd say, "Dance, Caroline! Can you dance on the pink?" Ha!

She was having a good time. Dancing and prancing, anyway. Lauren brought out the beads. Caroline brought them to us, giving us a strand, back to the bead pile, back to us with another stand. I kept tossing them back to get her in the right spot again, so on and on this little game went. Dance, prance, share the beads.

Caroline spent plenty of time rolling on the pink, too. At least she was happy, rolling, and would check to see if we were looking. More fun and games with Mommy and Lauren. I like this one.

But this is my most favorite. :)

Lauren's 4-Year Portraits, All Four Together

While I had the backgrounds out for Caroline's pictures, I thought I better get on with it and take Lauren's 4-year pictures. I've actually planned to for awhile now (well, since May, when she turned 4...ahem...) but just didn't get to it. She was easier than Caroline, but my goodness, that girl is a wiggle-worm! In the second picture, she's wearing her pillowcase dress I made.

I crocheted this cap for her, back in May/June. I still need to make Caroline's and Austin's hats.

Also I thought I should take some 'nice' pictures of all four kids together, again, while I had the backgrounds out, and before the big kids go back to school and life gets super busy!

Caroline's Twelve-Month Portraits

I took Caroline's 12-month pictures last week. What a challenge that was! She constantly kept scooting off the background, trying to get away. When she was on the box, she'd be so excited and kicking that I was scared she'd fall off. I had Julia stand right there, just out of the shot, in case Caroline started to tip.



I like how these turned out. She had so much fun being in the bucket. Plus, she was contained, so no scooting out of the set. Ha!

All right. I've had about enough of this. Can we get on with the show now?

But... See? I told you she had fun in there. ;)

I tried again Sunday early evening, and this was one of my favorites.

Such a serious little face!

Sunday Pictures

These are from Sunday, July 12, when Chris, Joy, and Brian's mom came to spend the weekend with us for Caroline's birthday. I usually try to have someone take our family picture when they're here; easier than setting the self timer. ;) Then we got a few of Grandma with the kids.


They were in somewhat of a hurry to leave, but Joy had asked me last month if I'd take some maternity pictures of her when we were together for the 4th of July. Well, it never happened. So we tried to quickly get some before they left. These are a couple of my favorites:

I think Joy was 28 weeks in the pictures. She's due September 23. That baby will be here before we know it!

Avila Beach and a Birthday Party with Cousins (Plus What the Aunties Were Up To)

Last Saturday we took our company to the Avila Valley Barn. We told them there was a tractor ride to the berry patch and we'd go pick berries. I told them I only needed a few; one cup for my Father's Day kuchen. We told them there were tons of samples. We told them it was never cold there. Even if it's foggy at home or by the beach, it's not at the barn. Well....

We got there, and it really wasn't cold, but definitely chilly enough to need a sweater. First we got bags of food to let the kids feed animals. They always enjoy that. The peacock was strutting his stuff, showing his pretty feathers. Fun!

The babies loved watching the goats.

Caroline got so excited, waving her arms and kicking her legs.

Lauren told me she wanted to wear her sunglasses so the sun wouldn't be too bright in her eyes. Hee hee. She rarely wears her sunglasses out of the van, and I had to laugh she wore them the whole time on this foggy, foggy day. Here's the movie star, and the babies. The babies were much more interested in picking in the hay and trying to eat it than look at the camera.

After the kids fed the animals, we went in the little store to try some samples. There were only about three. Big disappointment! We always like trying the candies and chips and salsas and jams and caramel corn puffs and dried fruit. We couldn't figure out why they had so few on a weekend. Maybe someone took too many samples. We also soon realized there was no tractor giving hayrides. In fact, the Ollallieberries weren't even ready to be picked! I ended up using frozen berries in my Father's Day kuchen. We had fun anyway, and both our families bought giant cookies to share before we left.

Here's our company: Annette and Doug, Annaliese, Annika, and Alyssa.

We headed up to San Luis Obispo to eat lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. When we were there celebrating Lauren's birthday last month, they gave us a mystery coupon to open in June. We could win a free trip, % off our meals, free dinner for two, cash, etc. You had to let them open the coupon though. Ours had 20% off the check, so that was good! We had a yummy lunch, but I thought it took much longer than necessary, like two hours! Brian and Annaliese did both get free birthday sundaes, since his birthday was the 14th, and hers was that day.

Back at home I took some birthday pictures of Annaliese, Annette had asked me to do, with my blue paper. It wasn't the best time to be taking natural-light pictures, after 6 at night, and very gray and foggy outside. But there were several that turned out well. We got out the pink background too. Here are a few of my favorites:

And my very favorite of the session:

After a late dinner (Actually all our dinners were late when our guests were here. That's just what happens when you're gone out playing all day. ;), we had a little celebration for Annaliese's first birthday. I'd made the cake when I made Brian's, plus extra frosting, and froze the cake until the 20th. It still tasted just fine. Alyssa and Julia helped put the little flower decorations on. They happened to be left over from Lauren's ladybug cake, and I saved them to decorate cookies or ??? I think Annaliese's flower cake ended up looking pretty cute. She got her own personal cupcake to dig into. She knew what to do with it.

And thoroughly enjoyed it! She went straight to the kitchen sink for a bath when she was through!

Annette and I stayed up late a couple nights sewing dresses for our babies. I'd seen the idea here, and thought they were so cute and seemed easy enough to make. They were pretty easy, but the figuring out of the length, and how big to make the flower, took some time. We didn't want to cut into our cute fabrics and make a mistake! Aren't they cute on the babies?