Father's Day

Love this pic of my boys on Father's Day!

We had a great day with all the special dads in our life! Church that morning with my parents. It was VBS Sunday, and I loved watching the kids sing. Last summer I was in charge of crafts for VBS (Vacation Bible School). It was a BIG job and a stressful week. For the past few years, our church has done VBS with three other churches (maybe four). It's a fun collaboration with a great group of leaders. This year, our church was in charge of music...obviously not my forte!  Another church was in charge of crafts, so I got to be a "Mission Pilot." Meaning I led a group of 1st and 2nd graders around from activity to activity each evening of the week. This years VBS theme was Galactic Blast. I enjoyed being able to see all of the different activities they did, and since I was with the same seven kids each night, I really got to know them and their sweet personalities. It was a BLAST!

Big milestone for Barrett on Sunday morning...it was his first time staying in the nursery all by himself! Yes, he's two and a total Mama's boy. Usually when we go to church, he just sits with us for the service. He does really well, usually reading books and snacking. But last week, he got antsy really quickly. I ask him if he wanted to go the nursery, and he said "yes" right away. I walked him down, and he immediately started playing and let me leave. No tears. I did go back to peek at him a little while later and one of the young nursery workers was carrying him around :) He was happy to see us at the end of the service, but also excited to tell us about the things he played with in the nursery. Hopefully this is a step in a more independent direction for him. After church we grilled out at my parents, then went home for Barrett's nap.

Later that evening, we celebrated Father's Day with Justin's family. Barrett loved playing outside with his cousins, riding the vroom-vroom, and getting dirty.

{Mimi helped him pick some apples}

{Justin, Kylie & Emily played softball}

{Barrett played in the dirt}

{rode the vroom-vroom with Daddy}

{played ball with the girls}

Barrett had a great Father's Day with his daddy, grandpa and papa!

My own bed...

It was a whirlwind weekend. We were really only gone from home for like 30 hours...but it seemed like so much longer! We left Barrett with his Grandma and Grandpa around 7:30am on Saturday. Justin and I headed to Wichita. I was helping shoot a wedding at Tanganyika Wildlife Park, so Justin spent a few hours shopping at the places I never want to go (Golf Warehouse, Dick's, etc).  The wedding was so much fun! The couple was adorable and creative, making our job so easy! I loved all the little details they thought of. I'm anxious to edit the images. They had a penguin walk down the isle before the bride...need I say more :) It was HOT at the park on Saturday morning though, and we did a lot of walking around to get shots with the animals. 

After I wrapped up that wedding, Justin came to pick me up and we hit the road for Garnett, Kansas. I was already exhausted, my head was killing me, and we had NO idea where we were going! With no Garmin and no map, we were flying by the seat of our pants! Thank goodness for Google maps on our cell phones, that kept us from ending up completely lost.  We were pretty excited to find our hotel in Garnett. 

{We had lots of time in the car, and saw beautiful countryside...I have many random pictures}

We had about an hour to shower and change before we headed to Greeley, KS for a wedding reception. Jamie, one of my friends from college, was married a few weeks ago in New York, so this was just a celebration of their marriage. With her living in NY, we hadn't seen each other in several years. It was great to see her, and the reception was beautiful. {more pictures of that later}

We got up early Sunday morning to have breakfast at a downtown cafe, then headed home to see our boy! We were missing him terribly. Although the phone calls from him helped..."me play cars all day" he would tell us. I think he had fun with Grandma and Grandpa! 

It felt like we drove all weekend, but we had lots of quality time in the car together, I guess! All in all, it was a fun weekend, but we were glad to be home, and I am looking forward to my own bed!

In the last nine days, I've had somewhere near nine or ten sessions. Two of them being weddings. It has been a fun week, but I'm feeling overwhelmed with editing. I hope to catch up soon, before I pile on even more sessions this week! 

Love you, Daddy!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

 {May 2009}

* I love it when you turn on the music before bedtime, and you, me and Mommy all dance in the family room.  The "takin' me fishin'" song is my favorite.

* I love it when you build BIG block towers with me.

* I love it when you tickle me.

* I love it when you read my favorite books.

* I love it when you give me my baths, and let me splash.

* I love it when you give me night-night kisses before bed.

* I love it when you cover me up with "Biggie" and ask if I want "green side, or brown side."

* I love it when you make me chocolate milk.

* I love it when you take me for walks in my stroller.

* I love it that everyone tells me how much I look like YOU :)

I LOVE YOU, Daddy!
I can't wait to be just like you...you're the best!

Love, your Little Bear

Tip Junkie: Boy Birthday Themes

I am honored to have been featured on Tip Junkie again...

this time for Barrett's 2nd birthday party. It was a Cowboy theme.

The lovely Laurie Turk {genius behind Tip Junkie} but together a great post full of ides for Boy Birthday party themes!
You can find it HERE. Barrett's party is featured as #23. 

I just love her site!! It's full of great ideas.

I am happy to know that all my hard work might help someone else with a few ideas :)
It amazes me to see {on my Google analytics} that I am STILL getting many visitors every.single.day, just from Tip Junkie...coming to check out my monkey birthday party post.  That's been well over a year ago that it was featured. I'm not braggin' on ME, I'm braggin' on Laurie for having such an awesome site, that tons of people are obviously taking advantage of. Yay!

Some other recent party idea posts from TIP JUNKIE that you might be interested in:

{1st Birthday Party Themes}

{Tween & Teen Party Ideas}

{Outdoor Themed Birthdays}

I LOVE #1: the Fair Day birthday! Check out her tablecloths! Everything looks so fun. I guess I need a summer baby :)

{Girl Themed Birthday Parties}

Maybe one day...I'll get to plan one of these!!

Happy party planning :) Go get inspired and plan an awesome party!

THANK YOU, Tip Junkie!!

I ♥ Faces: Babies

It’s all about babies this week at I ♥ Faces!




I haven't participated in one of their weekly challenges for quite a while...

but when I saw the theme was "babies" I knew I wanted to play!

I have a TON of favorite baby shots!!

So, to narrow it down, I just decided to do one of my most recent. 

One of my beautiful little clients, Ansley Jane...

celebrating her six-month milestone.

 {Ansley is the daughter of Zach & Melissa}

Go over to I ♥ Faces and enter your favorite baby shot!

Baby W: Take 2

We recieved a party invite a few weeks ago.
One that I had been anxiously awaiting!

One of my best friends is Due in October with baby #2.
ALL of my closest friends (the bfe's) have GIRLS!
Poor Barrett is in desperate need of another little boy to play with.

So, we made some pink & blue treats...

{iced lemon cookies with strawberry cream cheese and blueberries}

Then we dressed in our BLUE, and headed to the party!

::Baby W Preview::

Finally....time for the "preview"

Brent did a great job putting together a little video to reveal the news.

BUT, he's definitely a master at the dramatic stall technique!

We waited.....AND waited...

...

....

.....

.......

to hear this news:

Brent, Megan and Norah Kate will welcome a...
BABY BOY in October!

We are so excited for them, and happy that Barrett will have a little boy to play with.

But mostly, we're grateful that the baby was healthy and everything looked great on the ultrasound.
Congrats {W} family! We can't wait to meet your new little guy in October!

mommy mush

Lately, I've been really bad about keeping up with this blog...our family scrapbook.

Every night (around 2am), as I get into bed and try to fall asleep, I am disappointed with myself for letting another day go by without writing one of my "letters to Little Bear." I haven't written one since his 2nd birthday, and it makes me so sad. Sure I post pictures and little stories about our events here-and-there, but I have really been slacking when it comes to writing down his milestones and stats... His current favorite foods, his funny little expressions, the way he says "all the time" at the end of almost everything; "me eat apples...all the time."

So, I'm really going to try and get better at that! For now, some recent pictures pictures from April of my sleeping boy. These got lost my humongous photo files, and I'm glad I found them. They absolutely turn me into a giant pile of mommy mush when I look at them! I don't remember what we'd done that day, but he was so exhausted, he fell asleep right in the middle of the couch. He doesn't do that often, at all. So, instead of carrying him right into his bed...I took his picture. I'm so glad I did. And then I snuggled him, and kissed his sweet little neck and baby soft bare feet.

I'd love to frame a few of these. It won't be long before his sweet feet, hands, and lips aren't so little anymore. That thought makes me mush.

Yep...

It's popsicle season!!

So tonight, after Barrett and I completed our nightly flower watering (he has his own little watering can, and loves to help me)

I gave him his first popsicle of the summer. He wanted ORANGE!

Used to be his favorite color was green.

EVERYTHING he ask for and/or saw was GREEN.

But hey, this one matched his shirt!!

You know I loved that!

After the first lick...

He let out a great big "mmmmm"

I think there will be many more messy popsicles faces in our near future!

kickin' it with friends

A couple weeks ago, we had some friends over to grill out.

It was before the weather suddenly turned HOT.

Great friends. Justin's steaks. Cold Beverages.
Eric Church blarin' on the ipod. Adorable kiddos. One toad. Lots of laughs.

It was right where I wanted to be.

We picked up every stick we could find, between our yard and our neighbor's yard.
I think the firepit was definitely worth the money.

Barrett likes to give things rides on the trike. The juice box is always a happy traveler.

After that, he did a little fishing.
He's probably the only one that thinks Mommy's sidewalk chalk fish ponds are awesome.
Well, besides Mommy, of course.

Hanging outside with cold beverages isn't complete without some of this...

Finally time to eat. Addison and Barrett had their own table :)

Looks like they're on a date!

YaYa trying some of Barrett's cheese puffs.
I don't think he was happy about it.

This was our after dinner excitement...

Then, time for dessert around the fire.
Right as Justin was adding some more logs sticks to the fire.
Smoke=ambiance...right?

Alright, everybody... GO HOME!

Note: Laura, Heidi and Mitch were present at this BBQ

Sorry to have no photographic proof of it ;(