Summer is here!!!

This weekend has been gorgeous and HOT! The temperatures have been in the upper 80s all weekend, so we've spent a lot of time outside. Today I promised the kids they could play in the sprinkler. They invited the neighbor girls over and played in the water forever. It's one of their favorite things to do when it's hot. Afterwards another neighbor came over and invited us to swim in his pool for an hour or so. YAHOO! He has a heated pool.....and the water was perfect. Unfortunately, Chris' luck wasn't quite as good as ours...he was sitting outside at the VWHS graduation ceremony wearing a long sleeve shirt and tie in the heat and sun. We thought of him while we were lounging in the pool though. We really need to win the lottery so we can get one of our own. In the meantime, our neighbor gave us permission to use his pool during the weekdays while he's at work again this summer. Gotta love good neighbors...especially those with nice pools.

And...here's my favorite photo of the day. Do you think she's tired of having her picture taken???

Every morning.....

Jenna is our early bird. She is able to stay up late and is always the first one up....just like Chris. Jacob is like me and loves to sleep ( we call ourselves "Team Sleep"!) The good thing is that Jenna's always in a good mood when she wakes up (unlike her brother)! Every morning when Chris leaves for school, she runs to the bay window in our living room, sits on the windowsill and waves to Chris until she can't see him anymore. Some mornings she even waves to Bret, our neighbor across the street, as he leaves for high school. She will knock on the window until he looks over and then wave. The first picture shows what I see every morning....a view of Jenna through the sheer curtains.

Fun day at school

Every year our PTO has a fun day with inflatables at school as a reward. This year the weather was gorgeous. I managed to sneak outside while Jacob's class was playing to take a few pictures. The first picture is Jacob in the money machine. He sold enough items during the fall fundraiser to be eligible for 30 seconds in the money machine. He was able to grab $11 during 30 seconds - not bad! They even brought a snow cone machine and everyone got a snow cone...perfect considering it was 80 degrees and very humid! Notice the snow cone juice all over Jacob's shirt - he's such a BOY!

The Graduate

Jenna had her preschool spring program and graduation last night. She was so excited for her program. She really loves to sing and has been singing the songs for us for several weeks. She did a great job during her program and sang every word and did every motion. The boy next to her was quite animated and got "in her space" several times with his motions...but she handled it quite well. We celebrated afterwards with ice cream at Rocky Top (one of our favorite summer hangouts). Here are a few photos from her program and graduation.

Jacob and Jenna

We actually had a lot of free time this weekend, so Jacob, Jenna and I headed to a wooded park in VW and took some photos. They were both super cooperative, which was nice. I took a ton of pictures in a really short time. I saw some really neat photos in Pottery Barn store in Columbus - they were closeups from shoulders up, black and white, and blown up to 11x13 - and wanted to try to get something similar. I have a wall space that I'd love to put a few bigger pictures like that, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm not sure if I'll use these are keep trying. I think I'd like to try some with a backdrop instead of outdoor ones. But I was happy with how these turned out. Look how much Jacob and Jenna look alike in the black and white individual photos of each of them - same expression and same eyes! The lighting was really tricky since we were in a wooded area. There were lots of shadows and as a result their eyes don't "sparkle" like they usually do in pictures. (I'm sure no one else even notices those things...I'm my own worst critic!). OH - and don't forget that you can leave comments! Just click on the word "comment" under each entry and leave a message. :)

Look what I did!!!

As most of you know, I am taking wedding photos for the first time in June. Deena (the bride-to-be) asked me if I could take some photos of her this week to use as a wedding gift for her fiance, Ryan. My first thought was to do outdoor photos. I love to take outdoor photos and was excited to take some of an adult for a change. Deena wanted more formal photos using a backdrop though (plus the weather was completely uncooperative). Luckily my friend Nicole was kind enough to let us use her studio set up with backdrops and lights. It was so much fun. The bad part is that now I really would love backdrops and studio lights to play with. Maybe I should start playing the lottery! I haven't given Deena the photos yet...we're meeting tomorrow at the church she's getting married out to test out lighting for photos. I'm hoping she likes them and am really nervous about what she'll think. Here's a few of my favorites.

Extra Special Day

Today is Mother's Day.....AND...today is my birthday! Every several years they happen on the same day...so I get to celebrate two things! We went to church this morning, where I got two potted flowers. After church we came home and got Subway for lunch (I told Chris I didn't care what we had, but I wasn't cooking!). Before lunch Jacob gave me a Mother's Day card he had made at school and Chris gave me a combined Mother's Day/Birthday gift.....a new iPod Nano! It's so tiny! I spent several hours today downloading songs, importing songs from CDs, and finally listening to my new iPod while I scrapbooked. It's such a fun toy. Jacob and Jenna are enjoying it too!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

Rain, Rain Go Away!!!

Jacob was scheduled to play baseball at 5:30 Wednesday night. All day it looked like rain, but of course the first drops didn't fall until about 5:20...perfect timing for his game. We stood in the rain while they played one full inning and then they finally called the game. When we got home, Jenna decided to play in the rain since she was already wet from the game. And... of course I used the opportunity for a photo op. Here's some of my favorites. The last photo shows what happens to Jenna's naturally curly hair in the rain!





































On a sad note, we started our morning off today with a life lesson. Jacob has gotten into the habit of waking up and checking on the bird nest on his windowsill first thing each morning. This morning he came running into our room crying because the nest was gone. Since it had rained and stormed all night and was pretty windy, I had a terrible feeling about the fate of the nest and the babies. Chris and I went out in the rain to check out the situation, but made Jacob stay inside. We found the nest lying on the rocks below Jacob's window. I made Chris lift it up ....scared to see what was under it. But, we didn't find any baby birds. The only thing we did find were a few stray feathers and a little blood on his window sill. I am really hoping that the nest got blown over in the storm and that mama robin and the three babies are safe somewhere. I have a terrible feeling that perhaps something else like a cat got to the birds instead. Jacob was really upset and cried for a while before finally calming down. Jenna kept telling him that the babies were just somewhere practicing how to fly. The one comforting thing for Jacob is that we discovered another nest last night. This one is on our patio - way up high. Below is a picture of it...as close as I could get. Chris peeked in and saw 4 blue eggs, so we wouldn't let him move the nest. Unfortunately, it's too high to observe like the other one, but Jacob still felt better knowing he had another nest to watch.

Update on our baby robins...

This afternoon I checked the nest and noticed that there were only 3 birds in the nest. Jacob and I went outside to check and discovered that one of the birds had fallen out of the nest and died. Jacob and Jenna were both sad. I'm just hoping the other three are okay and we don't lose anymore. I honestly think that the bird probably got pushed out of the nest because they are so crowded. I read on the internet that they typically don't leave the nest for 13-14 days, which would be this weekend. Their nest is crowded and they are continually getting bigger and a little less ugly! We also have been seeing less of the mama robin. As soon as she comes around though, they perk up and open their beaks wide to be fed. Below are two pictures from tonite of the remaining three birds. The one in the middle seemed to be looking right at Jacob and I as we peeked in the nest.

Daddy and Jenna

I took this photo Saturday before Jacob's game. Chris is an assitant coach for Jacob's team and he came over to the fence to chat with Jenna while the team was warming up. I just thought it was a cute Daddy/Jenna photo (even though I caught Chris in talking action, so he has a funny expression on his face). I just love how she's looking up at him.



















Jacob has game #2 tomorrow....I'll keep you posted on how it goes! You can also check www.vanwertyouthbaseball.com to see their record. Eventually that website is also supposed to have pictures of games on it. His team is the Van Wert Federal Astros...you can click on his team name to see their record and stats.

Play ball!!

Today was Jacob's first baseball game. He has been really excited about baseball this year since he moved up to the "on-deck" league. This year kids pitch rather than using the pitching machine he had in the previous league. He was up bright and early this morning because he was so anxious. Below is a picture of what I saw when I walked into his room....his uniform all layed out and ready to put on!



















Jacob was the lead-off batter. He walked his first time at bat and stole 2nd base (complete with a slide!) and then stole third . He ended up scoring the first run of the game! He struck out his next two times at bat (once against the league's best pitcher and once on a bad call by the umpire...the pitch was so high Jacob never could have hit it.). For now, his position is outfield. He'll move to infield as he gets stronger and can throw a little farther. His team ended up winning the game 2-1! Here's just a few photos from opening day.

Just playin' around...

Those of you who know Chris know how much he LOVES having his picture taken - HA HA! Actually, he is getting better...thanks to my picture taking obsession...but he still doesn't like having his picture taken very often. I took this picture on Saturday when he was sitting outside. I thought it turned out pretty good.













On Sunday I purchased some "actions" on line to use in Photoshop. Basically actions take a lot of the guess work out of Photoshop and convert my photos using some really neat techniques. I decided to play around with Chris' photo using some of the actions. And so...I present....the many styles of Chris.














Here is one more of the actions with a photo of Jenna. It was a little too soft to try with Chris' photo. The fist picture is the original...the other is the after. It's called "colorwash" and basically washes out almost all of the color from the photo. I think it looks really neat, especially with this photo.

...And then there were four...

This morning before school we checked on our nest again and discovered that two more eggs had hatched. There were now three babies in the nest and one more egg to go! This photo was taken through Jacob's window, so it's not the best quality. Don't you love their bulging eyes and naked bodies. Ewwwwww!














Tonite after baseball practice Jacob peeked at the nest again and found that the final egg had hatched...all four baby robins are here. The mama robin flew away from the nest long enough for me to take a picture outside. I risked being pecked to death by a mama robin to capture these photos. I'll do anything for a photo! I love the photo with the open beak. Right before I snapped this one they all had their beaks open, but I wasn't fast enough.