enJOYing the little things . . .

For Joann

First of all, thanks so much for helping me out on the tree mystery. Everyone who commented/emailed said that it's a hydrangea tree. Who knew you could graft a hydrangea bush and make it into a tree! I certainly didn't which is why I was stumped as to what kind of tree it was. I am definitely planting one in our yard.
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One of my long-time friends is pregnant with her second. Another girl. Oh how I'd love to have another girl! I had visions of dressing my daughters in matching girly-girl outfits the way my mom used to dress my sister and me when we were little. I might have to borrow this baby when she is born. (Just a warning, Joann!)

This is the big-sister-to-be. Is she not the cutest thing ever? No doubt that her baby sister will be as stylish as she is.

And here she is practicing how to be a good "Ate" (translation - big sis in Tagalog/Filipino) on her baby doll. Notice the eye poking and placement of elbows on the baby doll's head? <giggle>

 

A few family pics.

And finally, my favorite of the session. I think the pink polish on Big Sister's toesies is the best part!

Happy Friday!

Does anyone know

     

what kind of tree this is? I saw it last week at one of the local outdoors malls that we frequent. I'm thinking ahead and would love to plant this tree in our front yard in the middle of the flowerbed that I'm hoping Ronald will dig out for me in the spring. (Hint hint, honey!) Honestly, I'm not much of a gardener. No green thumbs at our house, at least not yet. But I am trying.

And here's a pic for two of our good friends who are expecting their very first baby next month.

Random stuff:

I'm enjoying reruns of "Party of Five" thanks to Comcast Digital Cable's On Demand. I had forgotten how incredibly good this show is, no wonder why it was one of my all-time favorites back in the day.

Rocket says "uh oh!" now which brings his vocabulary to a grand total of three. Dada and peek-a-boo are his two other words.

I let the kids watch a little bit of Superman the other day since he is Clark's favorite superhero. I told Clark that Superman's name is also Clark. He looked at me with wide eyes and said, "Nuh-uh!" He totally refused to believe me until he heard one of the characters call Superman Clark while he was in disguise, of course. The look on Clarkie's face when he heard that - oh, was it ever priceless!

Miss Cadence has been reading and spelling words for awhile now - all on her own. She's wants to go to school, but her birthday falls two months after the cutoff so she will have to wait to attend Kindergarten until next year.

Benefits of country living

In the summer we get to enjoy this type of sunset almost every night. I drove home to these incredible colors on my way home from our new Super Target. I immediately called Ronald and asked him to set up my camera and tripod so that I could start shooting in our backyard as soon as I got home. After several mosquito bites and many takes with a very low shutter speed, success. Okay, so we're not THAT far out in the country but since we are surrounded by cornfields and just a handful of houses in our subdivision, nothing blocks blocks our view. And in case any of you photo peeps are wondering, minimal tweaking of colors was involved in the post-processing of this image. ;o)

Happy Monday!

City pics

We were in the city two weekend ago for my aunt's 71st birthday. She has a condo just a short walk away from Michigan Avenue so a bunch of us decided to walk down by the Water Tower (it was a long party) since Cadence and I wanted to go to American Girl and my sister wanted to go to Ghiradelli. I brought along the camera for fun. This is one of my favorites images from the day. My niece and her boyfriend in front the Wrigley Building's revolving doors. I've been having fun experimenting with the photos I took in the city, can you tell? I think the funky colors of the one with the buildings came out pretty cool.

Here's Clarkie in front of his namesake. And for those of you who don't know the story - no, we are not Superman fans. We chose to name our son after one of the streets that Wrigley Field is located on because my husband is a huge Cubs fan. He's been grooming our kids to be Cubs fans since day one. In fact, the older two can sing both the Cubs and Bears anthems. People always get a kick out of that.

Pcitures of the other two because they're cute too! Rocket with Cousin Maeve's "hot tomato" - he loved that thing! Miss Cadence surrounded by one of her favorite colors. She even broke out her modeling pose for that shot, haha. 

 

Happy week!