Braces

Catherine's wire on her braces broke. And since I got to stare at her teeth a lot today I was surprised to find that I could hardly remember her sweet gap toothed smile -- So I had to post it here so I could remember.

Braces fixed. Her smile is just as beautiful as ever. I think I just feel like my kids are growing up so fast. I miss their baby faces and their crazy crooked teeth smiles.

The Backpack

Owen loves me.

His eyes light up when I walk in the room. He tracks me at ALL times and knows where I am. He smiles at me with so much sweet devotion. In a perfect world I would just hold him all day long.

Oh . . . wait. I do hold him all day long. He insists. Thankfully I have "the backpack".

Julianne doing the dreaded "Math Homework"

Owen waiting at the dentist

"Sitting up asking "is Madelyn done at the dentist yet?""

Looking down

My friend Keri took some beautiful pictures of a little boy looking down so that his eyelashes were the focus of the picture. So here are my little boys and their eyelashes that I love so much.

Saturday Lego's

Usually the lego's are a family affair only on Sunday. But this week the kids all played them together on Saturday. I love when they all play together. I seriously wonder how long this will last. When will my 10 year old no longer want to do this with the rest? I keep taking pictures of it so that I will be able to go back and remember this -- one of my favorite things with my children.

Knitting and Crocheting

The kids love learning to knit and crochet. I really enjoy teaching them and helping them along. The problem is that these kind of projects take a long time and in today's world of instant gratification, knitting and crocheting are antiquated simply because they are slow.

But the girls have perservered. Often shortening projects so they will be over faster, but they continually come back to them.

Here is Madelyn's little "lovey" blankie she (finally) finished.


Here is Catherine's scarf that may never end!


And the closet full of projects in various states of completion.

Why I love photoshop

I have never been one to delete or discard old photos. I always knew that someday I would have the skill and equipment to make them what I had envisioned in the first place. Here is the perfect example. I really wanted a picture of our family with the 3 little girls in these dresses from Jeff and Amber's wedding. However, the lighting in my house was all wrong and so I hung this black fabric outside even though I knew it was not wide enough. I got a few pictures and then called it a day.

Well, it has only been 6 years, but today I edited that picture the way I always wanted it!

Here is the before and after. My little girls were so sweet and tiny back then.

Another kitchen gadget

I didn't know I needed but now that I have it I love it. Owen loves the baby food coming from it.

Adam reads. Owen eats.

Our engagement photo

15 years ago, right around this time of year Trent and I got engaged. (we "unofficially" got engaged around March 21 and "officiallly" got engaged April 5th).

I have been preparing all of my old negatives to send off and be scanned when I came across this image on a Kodak photo cd (in a .pcd file format -- which is not supported at all in today's programs like cs5). So I found a program to convert it to .jpg and discovered it was the original (we had had some edits on it made) so I have re-made the edits and here it is. Memory Lane -- it is so fun. I can hardly wait to get all the rest of my negatives scanned in -- and redo this one (since the conversion from .pcd to .jpg doesn't keep the resolution very high) Technology keeps changing. I wonder how many years will pass before even .jpg is obsolete and I wonder what file format will replace it!

Comparison of old photos to new

So at my sister's suggestion I am comparing old photos today.

The first is Adam on the left and Trent as a baby on the right.

The second is Owen on the left and me as a baby on the right.

What do you think? I think Adam and trent look alike and me and Owen look alike.

Legos, Lucky, Lunar

Saturdays are my favorite day of the week. Yes, there are chores to do. Yes, there is grocery shopping to be done. Yes, they are busy. BUT, they are also filled with so much fun -- especially because we can all just be together!

I have loved having 3 girls in a row. They always had someone to play with and be "girly" with. So I had hoped for 2 boys for so long. I wondered if Adam would ever have a brother. And then when Owen finally arrived, I wondered if they were going to be able to play together or if being 4 years apart was going to be too big a distance.

Today, that distance was non-existant. Adam and Owen played duplo legos together for over an hour. Owen sat in the bumbo and Adam built right next to him and made sure he had a large lego or two to drool on.





Then Trent and I were lucky enough to have our first night out since Owen was born. We were lucky to find not one, but two babysitters -- so that I felt comfortable enough to leave Owen at home. We were lucky to get to go to some new friends house for a traditional St. Patricks day irish meal. It was delicious. We were lucky to discover upon arriving that we would also be watching the BYU game (we didn't know them that well, so Trent was DVR'ing the game just in case). We were lucky to get to see such a great game and be with such fun friends to watch it!

And then today is the closest the moon has been to the earth in 18 years so I headed out with my camera and this is just one of the many photos I got.

Owen movin'

It has seemed like an overnight transition. Owen can now sit unaided. He can roll both directions. He can lay on his tummy and pivot around in a circle. He is so close to army crawling. His primary motivation is to reach phones, ipod touches, and remote controls. It makes me wonder what motivated babies to crawl before all these electronics existed. Here are my favorite pictures from today.








Adam was busy building quite the train tracks while Owen was going after the telephone!



and I just can't help myself -- yet another few bath time photos. Owen is just so cute when he is taking a bath. I can't resist!

"old school"

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Green shirts, green milk, green eggs & ham, cucumbers.

And we were lucky enough to have a leprauchaun stop by and bring us treats. Yummy clover shaped sugar cookies and girl scout thin mint truffles. Thanks Shelly!!!

Simon Says

Trent and I enjoy watching American Idol. But I gotta say, I MISS SIMON. Some of these contestents still need a healthy dose of reality. The contestants this year are not that great, and the good ones are really boring and watching one of them dance makes me seasick!

And just where does Steven Tyler get his one liners????

It's Bluebonnet season in Texas

I posted just the other day about the signs of spring in my yard. The forsythia, the tulips and the daffodils.

Well, the deer ate my tulips this morning. They were barely an inch out of the ground. I went out and sprayed the rhododendron so hopefully some of those flowers will survive.

It makes me long for the bluebonnets in TX.

this is taken in April 2004 of Julianne.

Owen in his new digs

We borrowed a bumbo chair for Owen. He seems to really like it.

So who does Owen look like?

Everyone always tells me that they think Owen looks like Adam. I don't see it. So here are 3 baby pictures. Owen, Adam and Madelyn all at the same age. Let me know who you think looks alike?

Owen

Adam

Madelyn

Busy Photo Shoot

Today, Saturday was filled with a fun event for my photography business. Lillian and I took the online catalog pictures for www.lizzieizziejames.com . My kids were some of the models. It was busy and so much fun! Plus, I LOVE the hair accessories and so do my kids! They wear them all the time.

New tub for a boy who sits on his own

Rain, rest, recovery, Humorous video of my parents

It is raining today, and I didn't really even mind it. Since our trip to Houston and then with company I was kind of glad to have a day to rest at home. Not that any day with 5 kids is really restful -- after all it was my turn for joy school, but the kids were so good it actually felt restful because they were entertaining each other. Then after Joy school Adam went to a friend's for a playdate and I took a nap.

The kids afterschool were a little crazy and not exactly on their best behavior. We had dinner right at 5 and by 5:30 two of my sweet children had landed themselves in time out for the rest of the evening. It was not shocking to me when one of the aforementioned children was sound asleep at 6:30 and the other just minutes ago turned out her light. I think they are all needing a little rest and recovery.

In the meantime, my good friend called and asked how my mom was doing. I figured I would just post a video so you could all see how she is doing. She has completed 6 rounds of chemotherapy, recovered from major surgery, and still has a bit of a road ahead, but she manages everything with such grace that you would have to know what was going on to even notice it.

This video was taken while we were in Houston. We were all laughing and then my mom and dad started whispering about some skit they had done. Before we knew it, they had disappeared into the other room. After a little preparation, they called us all in to watch.

Be prepared to laugh!

Autos, Museums, Train stations and such

Today was the last day of fun with Nana and Melissa. We got the kids on their way to school and then drove into the city. We parked right on central park west and were able to walk along the park (which Melissa hadn't seen before).


Then we arrived at

On the drive up, Adam watched Night at the Museum so he was pretty excited to see all the dinosaurs!

especially "Rexy"

It didn't take long for him to be tired though!

But we made it until we found "dumb, dumb"

Owen enjoyed "hanging out" too!


Then we drove them down to Penn Station and they were on their way to the airport. We drove home and had the very plain and normal after school routine.

The Beach

We live close to the beach. 6 miles or so. Much closer than we did in TX. And yet during winter, I almost forget that it is there. Snow and beach are pretty much mutually exclusive things for me. But, since Melissa had not been to the beach, we decided to go there (and prove that it was close!)


It was pretty brisk out there. I put Owen in a front pack carrier and wrapped him up well to keep the wind out.

Here are Nana and Melissa.




Eventually I turned Owen so he was facing out -- (and I wrapped my scarf around my head)

And the rest of us. . .




We ended the trip by stopping at Trader Joe's and getting some treats. Here is Owen in the cart!


Then the girls had activity days. It was a tour of the volunteer ambulance corp. The tour guide was not very in tune with 8-11 year old girls. His information was either way over their head or WAY bad advice -- like if you call 911 for a cut on your finger for a staple they will drive there at a priority 3 -- meaning no lights and no sirens. Why didn't he say that you DON'T call 911 for small first aid issues like that???