A focus on Meredith

I came to the realization recently that I am not being very good about taking pictures of Meredith.  Most of the pics I find myself taking are of Anna and Wallace and whatever activity they might be having (school, swim, etc).  So, I've been making a point to get more shots of Meredith lately.  This has actually been quite frustrating because I've struggled to find her "good angle".  "/  She's really quite beautiful, but I wasn't capturing that.  I think I've figured out the problem though.  Her eyes must be a little inset or something..or maybe her brow sticks out a little farther than Anna's and Wallace's.  I was never getting catch lights in her eyes.  So they were always dark and beady in nearly every picture.  :(  I think I've finally gotten the hang of photographing her though!  I've just got to be extra careful about the lighting with this one.  So, here are some of my recent favs of Little Miss Meredith!

She's always playing with her two teeth.  Grinding them together and stuff...

Hanging with her buddy.  

I accidentally blew this one out with the flash, but it's so cute I'll keep it...even if it does look like I took it with an 80's point and shoot.  ;)

Well...that's about it for now.  I started this push for pics of Meredith about 2 months ago.  I think it's paying off!  :)

James's Birthday!

Today Josh and I took the kids over to Rachael and Justin's for James's birthday party!  Can you believe I managed to get Josh to go along??  I'm still a little surprised myself.  I'm glad he went along, it was a lot of work wrangling the kids!

What an awesome cake!  HEB rules!

Rachael and Justin set up a little mini water park in their back yard! 

All the kids LOVED it!

...Except for James.  Ha!  Go figure.  He wanted nothing to do with it.  ;)

Poor James.  The one bad thing about having a birthday party is having to share all of your toys!  :(  

They have a truck just like ours!  This is James's buddy Pierce.  Poor guy had taken a pretty bad tumble this morning and hit his head.  Looks like it might scar.  And even though that's really sad, it made me feel a little bit better about Wallace's scar.  At least he's not the only one...

James pulled it all together just in time for cake!  

And Meredith photobombed nearly all of his candle blowing.  "/

She thought this was pretty funny.  :)  You can see where Josh is hanging onto her onesie trying to keep her back. 

Yay!  One without Meredith's head!  :)

Party hats all around!

Wallace was so excited about the cake!  

Baby Lauren was there too!  :)

Anna begged and begged and begged to hold her...from like the minute we got there!

And she finally got to...  :)

Happy birthday dude!  Sorry homegirl's such a photobomer!  ;)

Wallace's First Day of School

I'm a day late on this, but Wallace's first day of school was yesterday!  I'm happy to announce that he doesn't appear to be crying through the first week of school this year!  Yay!  I tried to get some similar shots to what I got of Anna on her first day last week.

I'm not sure why, but he kept his hand on his face like that the whole time I was taking his pic.  He does this a lot though.

Wallace is the king of receiving hand-me-downs!  It's so awesome!  And everything he gets is in such good shape, I can't believe we're getting this stuff from boys!

I got in a pic!  :)  We may have asphalt as a backdrop, but Josh is fairly tall...what do you expect?  ;)

He had a death grip on my hand when we walked into the classroom, and I just knew we were in for a major tragedy when we left, but I got him to use the restroom, and when he came out, it was like he was a different kid.  I snapped a couple of pics and we snuck out without so much as a tear from Wallace (or me)!

I'm pretty excited that he got the same teachers Anna had when she was 3!  I think they'll be really good for him.

Bikes and haircuts :)

Today I decided I was going to master outdoor photography on a sunny day at high noon with no shade.  Ha!  I failed.  I see all of these blog posts about how people get amazing images, but it didn't happen for me.  Wallace wanted to ride his bike outside around the circle, so I gave it my all!   Oh, and if you notice yellow on Wallace's face in all the pics...it's leftover macaroni.  I probably should have cleaned it off before I pulled out the camera...

Even with lots of doctoring in Lightroom, I still can't stand the shadows across his face...I got some closeups too, but they're hideous.  

I pulled him into the shade with me, and did a little better.

After that it was time for Wallace's back-to-school haircut!  Tomorrow is his first day.  :)  

After a couple of failed attempts at cutting his hair, I wised up.  I never realized how annoying little pieces of hair sticking to your clothes could be.  Especially Wallace's hair.  It's very coarse!  One time he got so mad at me while I was cutting his hair he actually threw up!  So, now I tie a towel around him.  I also play whatever his favorite movie at the time seems to be (today it was Cars), and I give him candy!  Preferably non-sticky candy.  With all of that, I tend to get about 15 minutes of patience out of him.

He looks a little pink from his bike ride in 100 degree heat...he turns into a lobster when he gets hot...he gets that from me.  "/

Anna wanted in on the before pics.  :)

and voila!  He'd just eaten some of his Nerds here.  

Yep, he feels spiffy!  And I think I'm getting pretty good with his hair cuts.  I probably won't do them forever, but for now no one seems to be making fun of him.  :)

I was so sure Meredith would be trying to climb up on Wallace the whole time I was doing this, but she apparently likes Cars too!  :)

Anna's First Day of Kinder!

What a bittersweet day.  Although I teared up a little, Anna's first day of Kinder was super exciting for her.  She's got a fabulous teacher that's very huggy and affectionate with all of the kids.  Anna responds so well to that.  Her very first teacher in pre-school was the same way, and she really flourished, so I'm very excited to see what this year holds for her.  

I was only able to get a handful of pictures.  We had our hands full with all 3 kids that morning.

Now that I look at this...I should have had her wear her backpack...  "/

It's a pretty exciting pack!  Rainbow Dash has ears that stick up off of it at the top!

I've asked her all week if she's made any friends, and she says "yes!" and counts them for me, but she can't remember their names yet.  :)  

Anna's pretty bad about telling me about her day, but I've figured out that if I ask her as we are laying down to go to sleep, she'll open up and start talking...probably because she's trying to avoid going to sleep.  ;)