May Play

Rob does a good job getting “playing” pictures. These make me smile because it’s how the kids really are: laughing, goofing off, exploring, and unkempt. In other words, kids. When I’m old and ripe, these are the kind of pictures I’ll treasure most.

 

Snow Baby 3 Ultrasound

Here is the video from the ultrasound Julie had last week. How exciting! The tech was very careful not to get any views of the sex of the baby on the video; however, if you are particularly knowledgeable in the interpretation of ultrasound images, please don’t comment about the sex.  Thanks and enjoy!

Feelin’ the Love

It’s apparent that I’ve been a big bag of Complain-a-Lot. It’s been stressful around here with not only the pregnancy but trying to sell our house, familial concerns, and sickness. But I’m so blessed.

My blogosphere tirade resulted in so much support, sympathy, suggestions, and even…CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES delivered to my door. I’m feelin’ the love, people. Feelin’ the love.

And I’m humbled. I have no reason to complain about petty, petty issues. They’re non-issues, really.

I love my Heavenly Father. I love my family. I love all of you. I’m so blessed and will try much harder to bless others any way I can and not be so selfish.

So It Begins…

At just over 5 months along, it has begun. The comments. “Boy! You’re sure filling out, aren’t you?”

AAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I could stop there and every woman who has been pregnant understands. But I’m in a poor enough mood today to rant. Do people not think I own or ever walk by a mirror? Do they think I haven’t forked out good money for ugly clothes that I’d never wear otherwise? Do they seriously think I don’t feel every muscular fiber in my midsection shredding? My joints popping out of place? My skin stretching so thin you can see right through it?

“It’s a girl. It’s a girl.”

I know I’m going to get this ALL the time since I’m not finding out the sex of our baby beforehand. But why do old ladies think they know so much? Just because you have grandkids doesn’t make you able to see right through my uterus and determine if my baby is a boy or a girl. It doesn’t matter if I’m carrying high, low, to the left side, or backwards. There’s a 50% chance either way, ladies!

And why do people think that my pregnancy is the ONLY thing I ever want to talk about? Political preferences? Personal finances? Deep, dark family secrets? Bring it on. This is my third time around and my expectancy isn’t nearly as exciting for me to talk about as you might think (although I guess I’m talking about it right now…).

I know I’m small. I know I carry straight out. I know I’m going to be humungous beyond belief. I can’t even walk halfway down the mall without cramping up and getting so sore I can’t go on. I’m stinkin’ hot all the time and what makes it worse is that there are no maternity clothes that fit me. Apparently, no one who is XS has EVER been pregnant in the history of mankind. I have to wear a camisole underneath everything just to keep covered up. So that’s 4, count them, FOUR layers I have to wear throughout this wicked summer.

And just think, it’s going to get soooooooo much worse before it’s over. Good luck to you all.

2010 Portraits

Being photographers, we take A LOT of pictures of our children. One thing we don’t take too often are portraits. It was time to get them done and I had been musing “the look” in my mind for months. I knew what I wanted them to wear and where we would take them. Of course, we were running late so I had to do Madeleine’s hair in the car and I couldn’t find her dress shoe that morning. Flip flops worked fine, though.

  They are such perfect kids!!! Although, Madeleine is currently uninterested in looking at the camera and smiling. Every time we try, she puts her head down and frowns. Oh, well. We got some really cute ones anyway.      

Nate is just a stud!! He loves posing for us and loves it even more if we let him goof off so he gets funny pictures of himself. He is just so handsome.

 

Together, they make the perfect brother/sister pair. We love you both!!! And thanks for putting up with us always snapping away at you. We just love capturing your personalities and you’ll thank us when you’re older :)

   

 

Now for some fun, playful, unplanned shots.

If these bazillion pictures aren’t enough, family can see even more here.

Valley of Fire – the Landscapes

Way back in March our family went on a camping trip to the Valley of Fire in Nevada (you can read about the trip here).

We stopped at Cove Fort on the way to Valley of Fire. It was nice and sunny and snow had fallen only the day prior to our visit. The result was quite breathtaking.

In this post we’ll share some of the stunning landscape of the park.  The image below was made just before dusk.  The mountains were completely shaded and the sky was still full of light in comparison.  The wind was very, very strong at the time which probably gave the clouds a stretchy quality.  :)

The next image shows the expansive and sweeping space so akin to our western national parks. 

The rocks of the Valley of Fire sometimes seem to climb out of that expanse as shown by the panoramic image below made near sunrise.  See it large here or full size here.

It is really fun to try and find shapes in the various rock forms. The rocks in the image below look like E.T.

This last image is one of my favorites because of the visible “mixing” of the rock layers.  Amazing!

If you’d like to see the rest of the images and several videos we made check out the gallery.