London is looking more and more like his mom every day. See:

And the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree….

Its my addiction - Thanks go out to Sarah for getting knocked up just for me (didn’t photograph that) and allowing me to photograph the birth (I had to beg and plead and another photographer and I got into a knock-down drag out, but I’m scrappier than I look and was victorious).

Ok, in all seriousness, this is the third birth I photographed, and I am truly addicted. Here’s one of my favorite pictures:

And one more:

Thank you Sarah. And congratulations!

Scared Lydia, originally uploaded by deannajo.

Whenever we are at a group function, Lydia follows me VERY closely and wants to hold my hand (which gets in the way of taking pictures mind you) - here she is earlier today at the little house on the prairie bookclub meeting, looking up at me with fear in her eyes, wanting me to hold her hand. She’s kinda cute in a big fraidy-cat way, huh? She did eventually warm up and go play with the other kids, which for her is a HUGE step - normally she doesn’t…growing up perhaps?

Wendy pointed out that not everyone knows when my birthday is - its Dec 7th - put it on your calendar - I will be accepting gifts and a surprise party would be nifty - you have time to plan.

HER EYES!, originally uploaded by deannajo.

I got a new camera for my birthday - shut up, I know when my birthday is…its an early gift, ok? Eric knew I had a bunch of things to photograph within the next 4-5 weeks and he knew how much I wanted this bigger, more professional level camera, so he generously offered to get it for me.

Anyway, it just arrived today, and I still haven’t figured out all the buttons, but gotta say, straight from the box, I’m digging it!

Here’s a picture of Meredith, and I’ve finally captured her beautiful eyes! Most of the time when I take her picture, her eyes are pitch black - this is how they look in real life!

I love my new camera. LOVE it…

In the book I’m indexing right now, the authors say that “Webkinz” actually helps a child develop executive functioning skills.

Take that Allison K!

Allison loves the computer game the Sims - the two of us just shared this conversation as she was looking for cheats to get more money - she is setting up a new game now as we just reformatted the harddrive for the kids’ laptop and she had to reinstall everything….

Allison - if I couldn’t find the cheats, my (sims) family would have NO money.
Me - well maybe your family should get a job
Allison - I don’t like when they work, then its boring - I have nothing to do all day.
Me - well sure you do, you go to work.
Allison - but they don’t actually show them going to work, they just go away all day and by the time they come back its bedtime, so they don’t have time to do anything. See? Boring.
Me (more to myself) - yeah, um, like real life.

Today is my 14th wedding anniversary - and you all said it wouldn’t last. No plans today, but we are going to go stay at a casino/spa on Saturday night while Jess has a sleepover with her sisters.

This summer has been much crazier than I anticipated so far - Allison and Meredith played softball, so we spent a lot of time at the ball parks:

And I mean a LOT of time at the ball parks - often one of us was at one girl’s game while another was at her sister’s game - it was crazy. But we survived - Meredith’s team will play again in the fall, but its a short season. Allison’s team is done.

Meredith and Lydia are still in dance - Meredith is trying out hip hop this time around and has really enjoyed it along with her ballet/jazz class - watch week is next week. Both girls plan to continue dance through the school year.

We’ve taken several “classes” through that co-op that I mentioned in the other post - we did a stream exploration one, where the kids waded around a stream finding all sorts of water creatures to explore - it was a lot of fun, and I have some great pictures, but haven’t put them up on Flickr yet. The girls also joined a bookclub where they are reading and discussing the first two books in the little house series - they are LOVING this. We are going to a living history museum in a few weeks, to really see what life was like back then. What fun! We also toured a farm - chased some chickens, saw a really big horse…

The girls did a yoga class that they LOVED:

Also this summer, so far, we’ve gone to OK to see grandparents renew their wedding vows and hang out in my mom’s hottub, we’ve celebrated two birthdays - Allison turned nine (really that was in the spring, but hey) and Lydia turned 4, we’ve done a LOT of swimming and playing with friends, and I’ve done a lot of work. I’ve been watching two boys here every so often this summer, and that’s been fun. We finished off Lydia’s room, and she moved out of Meredith’s room - Lydia has the sweetest room now, I just love it.

Oh, I should mention how active Eric has been this summer. He is again on a kickball team and really enjoying it, but he also did Corporate Challenge this year and competed in football, pool, bowling, volleyball - hmm, I feel like there’s more, but I can’t think of anything at the moment…His competitions have had some ups and downs, but he’s had a good time! He also took a weekend and went fishing with his friend and his sons, and enjoyed that a lot too.

Me? Nice of you to ask. I’m feeling like a servant to the masses I know I need to find time for me and my interests, but so far that has proven to be very difficult…sigh. So I’ve spent the summer working, chauffeuring and supporting others…..

Now what will the second half of the summer hold for us? Hopefully a bit of peace before our fall schedule starts up in Sept - We have a break from sports - not many co-op classes. Does this mean a month of peace is on our horizon? We are planning to go to CO in early Sept, and we’re really excited about that. As Allison said, “why do we have to wait so long before we can go? Why can’t we go now?” I’m also thinking about taking a few days later in Sept, and going to my mom’s so the girls and I can explore the lake - up until now, any visits to her new house at the lake have been rather rushed, and we’ve just sort of hung out on the deck - I was thinking we’d go in July or Aug, whenever I get a break in work, but I am so not loving this heat, so I am going to push that back a bit I think.

Hmm, anything I’m forgetting? This sure is a hodge-podge, huh?

My local parenting group starting an educational co-op of sorts this summer - I won’t call it a homeschooling co-op because may of the participants are babies, toddlers, and preschoolers and some of the families have kids in public school - anyway, yesterday the class we were in was a nature hike. We came back from the nature hike literally covered in ticks - I pulled probably 10 off of Allison, 5 or more off of Meredith, 3 from Lydia and 3 from me - and not only that, but Allison’s and Meredith’s ankles and feet were covered in literally hundreds of tiny seed ticks! I’ve never seen anything like that before - it was horrible, lol. We got as much off as we could while we were there, then came home, immediately got naked (all four of us) tossing all of our clothing in the washing machine, and then we did full body inspections, removing additional ticks, and then jumped in the pool followed by another body inspection and hot showers for everyone. Yikes. The kids may never go into the woods again - so much for nature-based education Other than that, it was kinda fun and nice. Allison was lamenting on and on about how it was the worst day ever - but later in the pool a butterfly fell into the water, and she rescued it, holding it in the sun until its wings were dried off enough to fly away, so then it became the best day ever. Kids….

Anyway, here’s a picture of Allison and Lydia on the nature hike - I know it seems like I take more pictures of them, but when we are with a group of other kids, I hardly ever see Meredith! She is off with the pack, so its much harder to get her in pictures. Lydia won’t leave my side, and Allison will go hang with friends and check back with me every 15 minutes or so - so I see her pretty frequently.

Allison:

Lydia: