Growing Up...

It's hard for me to sum up my kids in a paragraph, because I think it would turn more into a chapter or book. :) But I will list off some of my favorite things that come to mind, that I will want to remember later from this fun stage.

Jude:
"Mom, Benjamin likes my jokes!"
His desire to be a great helper.
His love for learning facts.
His endless energy, even at bed time.
His love for being outdoors.
How excited he is when he accomplishes something he didn't think he could do.
His smile when he's teasing and asking to be tickled.
His first words after racing to the door when dad comes home, "Can I have a piggy back ride? Oh please, oh please, oh please?"
"Mom, will you hold my hand?", he often asks as he's closing his eyes to drift off to sleep.


Selah:
"That would be silly!"
The sparkle that's always in her eye.
Her love for life and joyfulness about everything.
Her desire to be right up there doing anything Jude can do.
Her amazing mind and vocabulary.
Her attentiveness to Benjamin - a great mommy in the making.
The start of many of her sentences when hanging out with Benjamin, "When I was a baby..."
Her generous heart.





I absolutely love this season of life with you two! Thank you for making Mommy and Daddy's lives richer. We love you so, so, so, so much!

Jude & Selah's Birthdays...

This weekend we celebrated Jude's 5th & Selah's 3rd birthday with friends and family and had so much fun! I'll share their friend party snapshots first. We are so blessed by our friends and their dear friendships.
So what did we do?
The kids did a little cake walk...

...and fished for treasure.

They pinned the princess crown on the princess paper... Jude was impressively accurate when "blindfolded". ;) Hee, hee.

The kids opened presents...

...and had cupcakes. Yum! (Here's the recipe I used: .Chocolate Cupcakes. ) Jude & Selah decorated their own individual cupcakes.





(We put a table cloth on the floor so we could just pick up all crumbs and plates in one full swoop. Easy kid clean up!)

Josh snapped a photo of all of us moms. I've known these amazing women for a long time and cherish their friendships! I've known Hayley since grade school, Mauria since Jude was a newborn, Val since early married days, and Sheri since high school. And Josh and I have known their husbands for nearly as long too!

We had fun with these silly (creepy?) glasses... :)

(Selah, Me, Ivan & Josh)

... and oogled over cute babies!...

...Oh, the cuteness! Liam, Lilly, & Everly. (Mr. Benjamin was napping then)



I loved these creative cards Sheri made for Jude and Selah.



And lastly, a picture with sweet friends!

Happy Birthday Jude & Selah. God made you so special and your mommy and daddy love you more than you could ever know!
Thank you friends and family for making their weekend so memorable!
(I'll share family pics in my next post)

Welcome to the world Nathaniel!

I was so excited to get to meet little Nathaniel! It's been really neat getting to know Drew & Marisa and their precious family over the years, and an honor to photograph this special season of their lives.

Nathaniel's just as darling as can be, and was such a great sleeper for his session! This first shot of him is a great peek into how he was curled up in his mama's tummy. :)









We pulled out the famous owl hat and he rocked it.

There's something about those little curled up legs that I just LOVE.



I love his little angelic face here on the right...





Congratulations Drew & Marisa! You make such cute kids! :)

Crafty...

I haven't done anything "crafty" in a long time and I had so much fun making hair clips for Selah last night! Once I got going I just couldn't stop. :) I have 8 more blank clips and will probably find myself making 8 more tonight. Here are some quick snapshots of the ones I've made so far...
(p.s. It's Jude's 5th birthday today and we've had such a special day! I'll blog about it soon. I can't believe my precious baby boy is already five!)