Beachy love - Uhm still showing ya'll August... lol

These were all taken in Virginia Beach back in August. I love destination weddings. LOVE them! How much fun is it to head off to an exciting place different from home for your wedding? We went to San Diego from Phoenix for ours. Totally loved the nice intimate experience with just our parents as companions & witnesses.





Here's the shot of why she needed the love. Totally not diggin the seat above the water in the bottom.


I'll say it again. Come anywhere with us and be prepared to have your hand gripped by Madison most of the time! That is unless you want to hold her. She'll let you do that as the other option. She is our little lumpa love. For sure.

Videos of the kids playing in the drizzly rain

I'm not sure if these are in order, but it's after 1 am & the kids are finally both asleep! Both videos are of the kids playing in the drizzly rain for the first time. They loved it. They are both 90 seconds long. I'm pretty sure only family will love watching these and anyone else would be bored silly! You've been warned. :-)

So the cutest thing tonight. Both babies (toddlers) are a touch sick. Blake had a fever this evening & woke up crying. The waking up crying is pretty normal at least 2 days a week. This woke Madison up too who was sooo not happy to be up, but will not be left in her crib should he be taken out of his to sooth him... Well, as long as they were up I decided to change their diapers to which they cried loudly. Guy got up to cuddle them as I went to get the fever reducer. As soon as Blake transferred over to my arms so did Madison and Guy hightailed it to bed (I'm sure he turned on the fan to drown out any future noise - Smart man!). In my arms both kids had to have an arm around the other baby! Love it. I started singing to them & wound down after a few minutes. Blake started to sing to tell me he wanted me to keep going. At least someone likes my singing.

After a couple more minutes he popped up all serious and had to get down. He starts to pat his diaper and looks very concerned. I ask if he wants to go potty to which he repeated it over and over as he sprinted to the bathroom. We followed. He sat down as I tried to maneuver Maddy and I down to the floor. He shivered a little and I asked if he needed his diaper off. He definitely wanted it off & peed right as I was getting it off. Poor fellow having such a slow mom. Well, the shivers started in earnest and he turns towards the tub and mutters something. I think he was combining diaper and bath. Still not sure. I asked if he wanted to take a bath. He DEFINITELY wanted a bath and immediately got more excited.... And finished peeing on the side of tub.

Clothes off. Put him in while filling the tub. Cleaned up the pee. He had a ball in the tub which alleviated his shivers and brought down his fever! Wooo Hoooo. It was still there, but definitely not so high. Listening to you kids telling you what they want really pays off sometimes. Both kids enjoyed their cuddle together, Blake is closer still to potty training, and he knew what to do to feel better. Love it!






Do you think playing in the warm drizzle brought on the sick? I don't, but maybe you disagree.

Sorry again - new posts coming soon

Love ya! Thanks for checkin in!

Kiddo small update

I LOVE how Madison and Blake share. Just now Blake was busy playing with a toy. I had some pretzels on offer for him which he definitely wanted. Madison was between us closer to me & noticed our exchange. She grabbed the three pretzels from me and took them to Blake without needing to be asked. Then she came back for her own. Love it!



The kids are eaters! EATERS! They will be eating us out of house and home soon enough. Maybe they don't eat more then other kids, but it sure feels like they do.



A word on shoes & clothes.


I don't know if you remember, but I had size 18mo, 24mo and 2T for the kids to get them through to long sleeves. I had also purchased and gotten some 24mo to 3T stuff for winter. Madison outgrew her 18 month old stuff by June. She is now pretty much out of all 24mo and 2T clothes in shirts, shorts and dresses. Pants still fit her well in the 2T size. Luckily there were some 3T stuff for Maddy next summer she is wearing now like the tee shirts & dresses. She is solid like a tree trunk. Blake always seems like the small one to us. However, we just realized he is now in size 7 shoes and can't fit into the smaller clothes. Blake is now wearing all of his 2T clothes. They definitely have enough stuff that fits to get us to the winter clothes. I'm just shocked, because EVERYONE told us the kids would stay in 18 month and 24mo/2T for a long time (like 6 months or more). Nope, our kids are still topping out at around 4 months per size. Though I really hope they aren't wearing 4T this time next year at age 2 and 3 months!



Oh, I forgot my lament about shoes. Size 7 is usually a size kids over 2 wear. This is when their feet naturally lose the baby/toddler fat lump on the top of their feet. Our kids still very much have the little fat lump making it hard to find shoes that fit. This is especially true when mama won't pay more then $5, preferring to receive them between free and $2 per pair.



These cute little faces are definitely worth any hassle or expense they bring us!



The really funny thing to me is the pictures that were next in line to share perfectly matched the words I had already written. Cool!

30 days of summer - Last day!

A few weeks ago I rented a camera to test out. When returning the camera I saw a great bag that was calling my name. It is a small camera bag that makes taking just the minimum equipment or for quick lens changes during shoots. Last week I had the bag on the kitchen counter. Are you with me on where this is going?



Yeah, Blake somehow (musta grown a bit) managed to reach the bag from the middle of the counter. I had not zipped it so he was able to get my all around lens out. He threw it down twice on the floor before I made it to him. It looked fine and seemed fine on my camera. It wasn't! All the photos taken with it are blurry on both ends. So not cool.



If you are wondering why photography is an expensive purchase. Our new lens set us back $1356.40 and will be here tomorrow. Ouch! We weren't planning on any new lens purchases for a year. Kids. Gotta love em.



Somehow this series of photos fits this story of the broken lens very well! What's the most expensive thing your kids have completely ruined?

Madison is getting wise. Whenever she gets told no or gets caught doing something wrong she comes up to one of us for a kiss. Kisses make the whole world better in her book. She is the funniest walker. I love watching her lurching ungainly steps with both arms often held back. I'm sure she'll start to get better in the next month or so. Until then it makes me giggle.

30 days of summer - Day 29 - Contest time!

If you are feeling crabby I have the pick me up for you. A chance to win!

Would you like to earn a free sitting or a fine art gift certificate? You can by entering our contest at the Multiples and More Blog Party. I'll be featured sometime today as one of the big contests. They will be posting new contests every 1-2 hours all day. Already I entered to win some nice handmade silver jewelry. All of the official contests will be open until Sunday after dinner. There is also an area where many more will be linking to their own contest. Check it all out here!

Don't forget about Fine Art Friday starting on the S & G Photography blog tomorrow. It will be your chance to own a great fine art print at a discounted price. Each Friday I will feature a different fine art print for a week.

30 days of summer - Day 28 - Have you ever had to bowl your water?

Once again Madison proved she is just too tall for her own good.

She was a little fussy while I was doing the dishes this evening. Behavior very normal around here while trying to do dishes so I ignored it. All of a sudden I hear a small splat! Yuk. She just puked on the floor behind me. After cleaning it up I tried to figure out what made her sick by mentally reviewing her recent intake. Nothing came to mind and she toddled off to play with Blake obviously feeling a lot better. As I turned back to the dishes I notice there was a milk cup missing from last nights milk. Ah ha! Sure enough I tracked it down out on the screened porch with the kids, still 1/2 full of gross milk. I am still wondering how she got it off the counter. It was not close to the edge at all.

They look sad in these pictures, but they really love being out there and someone on the other side of the glass to play with.


Guy reminded me to blog about something that happened to me a few weeks ago. We received a recorded call letting us know there would be some routine maintenance done to our water main in a couple of days between the hours of 8am to 5pm. She mentioned we would have to bowl water for at least 24 hours. She didn't have much of an accent so I wondered if I heard her correctly. My thoughts started imagining bowls of water around our house for flushing, tooth brushing, drinking, food prep, dish washing and whatever else. It was going to be a lot of bowls and how do I keep the kids out of them. My thoughts turned to planning to be away from home as much of the day as possible. Then it occurred to me I couldn't possibly have heard her right even though she repeated it a few times and I chose the option of listening to the message again.

Rewind a couple of years. I used to work with a very NC southern girl named Angela. What a nice person! One day I heard her say oil when talking to someone. It pretty much sounded like bowl with no B. Oh, it finally dawned on me what she was telling me. Instead of telling me to 'bowl' my water she was saying I really needed to 'boil' my water! Can I just roll on the floor laughing? Guy also got a good kick out of it. Really, I should have made a video of this story so you could hear what I heard! Hope you got a kick out of it too. Not many people have a strong accent here in North Carolina, but a few words have a definite twist to them.

For a few more giggles check out this updated version of the many faces of Blake storyboard.


Madison isn't quite as crazy as Blake. While Blake may be the class clown, Madison will be working it. She is a watcher then a doer.

30 days of summer - Day 27 - Creativity rocks!

Here are some of the things I've worked on recently. The kids look so cute in their matching shirts. Madison is usually called a boy, but it doesn't bother me at all! It's so fun to make new things and see the kids wear them. I still need to sew the last dress together then I have some cool winter jammies to make.


Starting on Friday I'm going to be doing Fine Art Friday where I have a fine art photo each week on special. Please make sure to check it out each week. Let me know if there is a style of photo you would like to see for sale. If I don't have it, I can check my archives and look out for the opportunity to fulfill your art dreams! Let me know if there is a particular print you would like to see me offer in an upcoming Fine Art Friday. Check out some of my stuff here.