Learning

So Aaron conceded to my great desire to buy a fancy schmancy camera to take even better pictures of my little brood. I'm having so much fun with it, but boy do I need lessons on how to use it and how to capture images in just the perfect light. So, we went for a picture walk tonight so I could practice. Fun stuff! Got a few I really like and about 150 that are no good. Blah!

 Love this one, but it's too orange and too dark on the faces. Bummer! Have no idea how to edit this kinda stuff, but I know it's possible.

 My fav since these two really LOVE each other. If Joe had an order of who he loves most it would go, Aaron, Hannah, and then me.

 Another one that's too dark on the faces. But isn't this so cute? I don't even mind the hair in the face, because let's be honest, this is exactly how my kids look all the time!

Well, and this one too is really more like it.

Not too bad though for not editing these one little bit!

Summer Rain Storm...

...we welcome you!

Firsts

This 4th of July we had a lot of Firsts. It was the first time we went camping as a family.

First time we weren't with any extended family for this fun holiday. First time we went camping with our friends, the Tanners.

First time to have cake in an orange, cooked in the fire coals.

First time we didn't have fireworks, but had a great lesson/activity on the founding fathers, the constitution, and this great nation! (poor pictures)

First time we wore Joe completely out that he fell asleep in his chair.

First time we were in a tornado and survived! A tornado made contact in the town of 600 people that we were camping in. We found quick shelter in the stinky men's bathroom (the womens was just as stinky). Hannah was in tears, the rest of us thought it was a pretty cool adventure. The only damage our camp sustained was a large tree branch that fell on our picnic table. So grateful that no one was hurt and that our tents didn't fly away.

The rest of our time was full of good fun, lots of swimming, and LOTS of delicious food.

We've got some good little swimmers.

Me and Jen - I want to be just like her when I'm all grown up!

It pretty much goes without saying that whenever we are with this family we laugh a lot! They never disappoint. This 4th of July will go down in the books! Happy Birthday America! Oh how I love you!

Camping

We are going camping this weekend for the first time with all of us. So last week we did a trial run in the backyard to see how Joe would do. All things considered, he did pretty good. I think Aaron brought him in around 4am, but other than that he did sleep through the night. Now, we are off to Idaho to test him out in the real outdoors. PRAY it's a success! There's not much worse than a screaming baby in a campground in the middle of the night!