The same shot, cute every time

Picture Catch-up - part 1 of ?

Imagine that the mp3 player is a Walkman and just outside the frame she has knee high socks and sneakers on...you know you dressed like this in the not too distant past...probably while you watched Labryinth...

Self timed family photo - always a winner.

Not about the vacation

I know you are waiting to hear about my 23 day, 22 night all expenses paid vacation to sunny Eastern Idaho, and it'll happen - only it'll happen in U** time = s l o w l y.

You see, I operate on deadlines and the end of the month is a deadline on the blog I contribute to.

READING FOR SANITY.

I recently reviewed two books that were so helpful to me that I wanted to recommend them here as well.

One is called "The Shyness Breakthrough"

and the other is "Into the Minds of Babes".

The exciting thing is that the author of "Babes" found my review, liked it (duh, I gave her five stars) and partnered with RFS to offer a copy of the book as a giveaway. The deadline for entering is the end of the month (augh - panic attack - is it really almost the end of AUGUST!?) so head over there and sign up.

Poaching

If I were to blog right now (which I'm not, so don't get your hopes up) I would do so by uploading photos taken by my sister...

AND ---

Since she already posted them on her blog, I'm just going to send you right on over to Laura's Blog.

Summer picture update

Emily & the girls are out visiting both sets of grandparents for a couple of weeks, while I get left in my 'swanky' bachelor pad (pad with a nursery, of course). Emily left me specific instructions to 'finish the bathroom'. She paid almost all the bills before she left, so I only have to worry about feeding myself and finding a place to shower. I'll admit I am having a good time and am staying busy working hard on her last bidding;-P, but it is pretty lonely here.

I would post pictures of the progress in the bathroom, but Emily took the camera with her, so I guess we'll just wait to see the final product. This first picture is the window boxes I rebuilt and painted while Emily was in the hospital with Meg. Tessa helped me plant the flowers and spices. Yes I know they should be below the window sill, I did it this way because of the roof was not far below this sill, & the brackets didn't work quite the way one would expect, plus I'm not sure our window sills will carry the load, they're a little old & tired. Try to avert your eyes from the neighbors house that needs paint, they just fixed their leaky roof, I'm sure they'll paint some day soon. This picture is the escape artist before he made a leap for it and climbed onto the roof, he discovered, as I have, that the roof is actually a lot steeper than it looks.

Meg is growing fast, and as one grandmother told me over the phone today, she's a little cherub with all of her own expressions and happy little noises. I'm so very blessed to have two beautiful girls that are healthy and a mother who loves them so much.

Some friends invited us to go camping with them in Stowe, Vermont in July. It was a fun weekend, Meg is a 'happy camper' just like her sister. The weather was perfect, the company was great, and the campsite had this great stream right behind us that we could wade in the next morning that reminded me so much of Coffee pot springs in Island Park, Idaho growing up. Stowe was the spot to be that weekend, with a hot air balloon festival. We also saw a glassworks studio, & had the best tasting apple cider I've ever had from http://www.coldhollow.com/ . Sorry for the shameless plug, but the free samples coming out of the 500 gallon tank were so refreshing. We had to buy a gallon and share with our friends that shared their cider donuts.

Here's Emily holding Tessa at the 6am launch the next morning. What's really cute is to ask Tessa about balloons. Every time we come across a picture in one of her favorite books, 'Personal Penquin', she tells me how big the bawoons are, and they're hot, and they're yewow, & back, & purple, & rwed. It's very adorable. She sure liked them a lot better than the 'farkles' on the 4th.

I think we saw more than 40 balloons in the air at once, this is definitely a contender for being an annual family tradition for summer.

This picture of Von Trappe Family Lodge is on here purely for my mother-in-law to see. It looks like a nice place to stay, and is apparently still run by the Von Trappe Family, well at least Von Trappe grandkids. If only we could have found the barn & hotel where they filmed 'White Christmas', then I would have really scored points with the in-laws.

Here's something every family should do on Sunday afternoon, sit around and tell yourselves you have the cutest kids on the planet. Kids this age are so much fun!

Can you believe this kid is three months old already? Babies aren't supposed to grow this fast are they? They're supposed to stay little for 6 months at least.

Tessa sure loves to hold her baby sister, Hopefully that lasts a long time.

Sorry for the long-winded post, I've realized I enjoy seeing other people's blog when they have a lot of photos, so thought you might like it. I'm sure Emily will post again soon to catch you up on her trip to Idaho. Wish me luck on not loosing a finger while I continue to go 'gangbustas' on the bathroom. (my annoyed neighbor's term, not mine). :-)