when she's willing...

as of late, aislyn has told me "mommy, i don't want my picture." and she runs. she is becoming anti camera unless i bribe her with m&m's of course (nyem-nyem's). however, yesterday, she put the cutest hat she has on her head, and came over to me and said "mommy, i want a picture" and stood by the window and posed. ok, i'd down with that. so baby on hip, i shot a few of her and i liked this one. of course, she thinks she has to have her hand on her face to make a true pose which i think is too funny.

sweet mali-boo

...i also got a few of my precious little niecey. she is a ham for the camera.

i can see clearly now, the eczema's gone...

well, not totally. but the dryness is gone! and the Lord has been answering our prayers this week with grayson. his little face has looked so good since this last weekend. i'm not convinced it will last, i don't really want to get my hopes up! anyway, i shot a few of him today and wanted to share!

its official, he's a boy.

i think i've learned this week that grayson is 100% BOY. its so funny how different he is than sweet little girls. not that he's not sweet, but he's EVERYWHERE. jumping out of my arms, banging anything he can get his hands on against anything else he can get his hands on. and bathtime? i end up SOAKED. and he thinks its hilarious. its just so bizarre how not gentle he is! case in point, this afternoon i was taking advantage of the overcast sky lighting and taking pics of grayson and his 6 month old cousin mali. mistake. as soon as we put them next to each other, grayson was trying to eat her. here are just a couple shots from our experience. sweet crazy boy. have you ever even seen an ear stretch that far? poor little mali.

de-staple-ization

so, our wonderful friends, the browns came over to take aislyn's staples out, and dr. steffen was AMAZING! i think it was his dr. purse. aislyn had no idea what was going on and just enjoyed holding his sharp scissors. (thanks steffen, ha). anyways, wanted to post that fabulous experience. thanks steffen and rachael!

er visit part two- daddy's diaper turban

our first visit to the ER

and mommy's first breakdown. ok, not FIRST breakdown. but first ER breakdown. so, last night sucked. thank goodness kenny was back from his trip. i was always worried about having a boy because i remember the number of stitches my brother had, and the random ways he hurt himself on a regular basis. i never dreamed that at two, my daughter would have already had her first ER trip because of our negligence actually. ironically enough she was pummeled by a plaque that says "sugar and spice, and everything nice, thats what little girls are made of". oh, and alot of BLOOD. it wasn't nailed to the wall above her door, and thats worked well for a year and a half. but she hasn't been in door slamming mode until recently. anyway, i wanted to post a couple pics from our mishap. some are from a camera phone, so they won't look that great. they're actually all disturbing, beware. thanks for your prayers last night. the nurse was very nice. he gave aislyn a bunny which she fittingly named "rabbit". she did SO so good getting cleaned (well, what they call clean) and getting her staples. yes, staples in my daugher's head. seriously? you can do that? she has to keep them in for 7 days. it pays to have a good friend a few houses away who is a doctor. he's going to remove them for us and check for infection. and we have a paramedic fire fighter next door. so i think we're covered. anyways, that's all for today. enjoy the pictures. or don't. oh and the chocolate one, i had to bribe her with chocolate for her to let daddy put the turban on this morning, which cleverly enough, he used a diaper and it worked SO much better than the hospital one! i have a couple more to post in the next one...

i know i know...

its bad. i know. i haven't posted many pics of my beautiful boy because i keep thinking "maybe tomorrow his eczema will be better, and i'll do a photo shoot of him then". and i say that every day. the bottom line is, i don't know when it will clear up. but he's beautiful. so, don't look at this post and think "poor boy, look how bad that must hurt". just look beyond the pain (ha) and look at how precious he is! i just love the kid. OH! and LOOK! he got his first tooth on christmas day. and his second the next day! aren't they too cute! and OUCH by the way. i think i'm ready to wean. ha.

aislyn's new favorite thing to do...

aislyn has decided that her little brother fits WAY better in her lego dump truck than her legos. grayson isn't sure what to think, and its hard to get good pictures because she moves so stinkin fast! this is just an accident waiting to happen. don't look mom...

the grandkids

i was just putting together a few pics of the four grandkids for my mom and thought i'd post them. little bugs... aislyn will totally pose for me now, like once every couple weeks if i beg her. braidyn likes to pose and mali and grayson like to smile, so it works out well. :)

how to torture infants

my sweet mother thought it would be a great idea to get a pic of all four grandkids, two under the age of six months, sitting on their sister's laps on a BRIDGE. aislyn does not grasp that she has to actually HOLD her arm in place for grayson to rest on it. and braidyn will hold mali as long as she wants and then she's kinda done. both babies slipped and slid all over the place, mali actually made it to the ground. anyway these are hilarious, i had to share. i'm actually laughing so hard i'm crying.

daddy and grayson

we did a family shoot yesterday with my entire family (haven't done one since september of 1993, taylor was about 5 days old and looked like a tiny growth coming out of someone's arm, weird). my dear friend elaine shot for us, and this is one of my favorites!

better late than never

here's a quick costume pic. courtney and i did this yesterday finally so we could put to rest this year's halloween costumes finally! grayson and mali did SO good for pics. we had to coax the older ones a bit! and of course, their prize was m&m's. :) here's to our flowers and baby caterpillar.

baby got style...

that's all. i was just diggin' her "running errands with daddy" outfit. :)

me & my boyfriend at the punkin patch

here's a quick shot from the pumpkin patch today. there will be more to come for sure, this was just one of my faves. we're going to use it on the tables at their wedding in 20 years.

debbie do crafting....

i think that if my grandmother was still alive, she would laugh at this title. she used to tell me that when my mom was little, around 2 (aislyn's age), she wanted to do everything by herself. if you did in fact TRY to help her, she would declare "DEBBIE DO! DEBBIE DO!" until she got her way. my mom is a crafter and was recently in a craft show where she sold her beautiful fall and christmas decor. there were a few things leftover so i went over today to take pictures of them to put on craigslist and see if she can't get the rest of them sold. this is one of her little fall pieces. my dad was trying to get me to take pictures of the 473829473829743 plants my mom has in her house, to see if those would sell on craigslist. :) anyway, back to the title, i told my mom i was going to set her up an email... debbiedocrafts@hotmail ... and i think there is nothing that my mom detests more than being called debbie.

lazy fall days

lyss and i were hanging, husbandless, in the backyard yesterday and i pulled out the camera as therapy. HA. i liked a few shots, so i thought i'd post 'em...

and now...half of her face..

someday i will learn how to make eyes pop! (not literally dad, you could give us all a lesson in that...) but until then, this will have to do. i have some gorgeous eyed kiddos. thanks kenny. :)

sentimentalness..or lack thereof

my sweet husband is not sentimental. i am. he is not into details really. i am. he doesn't sit there and think about feelings for too long. i do. so basically what i am saying is that he is a man and i am a woman. but i ache for the day that his feminine qualities come forth if even for a brief moment. that was a preface.

so, we're hanging out a couple months back, just talking, and i start thinking about my newborn son and i begin to voice my thoughts by saying "you know, its just crazy to me that our son is fully sustained by ME. i mean, all of his meals come straight from me!" (now, don't get me wrong, i understand that our God is responsible for this and ultimately He is our sustainer). but it really hit me hard that our son's life, his ability to thrive, is dependent on me. i just realized the beauty and the order in that and it just took my breath away. so kenny says " i know!" and i thought, oh my gosh, he's going to say something so beautiful right now, he's going to recognize the difficulty of breastfeeding and give me kudos for being faithful to it, or he's going to talk about how God created the mother to be able to feed her baby and the baby to be able to drink from the mom, or he's just going to be sentimental for once! i got so so excited, just anticipating the next words to fall off of his lips so i could remember them forever! and they did. and i will. and they were... "i mean, he's like a parasite!"

end of conversation.

my little blue eyed manchild

just a couple fairly new ones of my stinkerbug...

happy birthday sweet girl!

september 29th marked aislyn's 2nd birthday, we can't hardly believe it. in the morning we took the kids to dixon's apple farm (i will probably post more later) and in the afternoon we had a little windy park party. it was a long day, that's for sure. grayson could not understand why the apples didn't feel like his soft squishy blanket. that "session" lasted about 15 seconds. aislyn, you are our little pride and joy (most of the time) and we love you DEARLY! happy special day angel face cuddle head pumpkin boo...

the best dollhouse ever...

was made by alyssa. LYSS, aislyn wants you to know that she absolutely loves her new toy and she can't believe you MADE IT! its too precious. i caught kenny playing with her in the dollhouse, and when he realized that i was taking pictures (when am i not?) he gave me this sweet face. my sweet kenny, he's such a good daddy. and his baby girl sure does love him. and so do i.

just the two of us...

here's a new one. grayson really likes his tongue, not unlike a post a couple years back of aislyn entitled "licky licky". :)