snow!

Come join me over at my photography blog - there's snow everywhere!

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swamped

apparently when your husband works 7 days a week and you are trying to run a business, laundry and childcare are a bit lacking.

and i SWEAR i have folded laundry every day this week. perhaps i just haven't folded it faster than it gets dirty.

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faces

lillia at four months in october :O)

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two of a kind

For all that they are completely different, Lillia gives me moments of complete deja-vu.

When Lia arrived one of the first things that spat out of my mouth (after What? a girl? are you sure?) was, You don't look anything like Bella!

Well, as you can see, she has her moments. The chubby cheeks help. So yummy, I call her Peach Pudding.

The girls are the same age in this photo almost to the day, and it was totally by coincidence.

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she's a trooper!

Ah, picking blackberries in the sunset. What else is new? That's September in the PNW for you.
Everyone does it, see?

I didn't know it could get so entertaining, though. Bella was running and skipping and frolicked head long into a ditch full of blackberries. I kid you not. Call me a bad mom, but I'm laughing out loud just thinking about it.

Head first. Like, head on the ground, feet in the air kicking between muffled cries. Oh yes, it was terrible! My heart stopped as I tried to figure out how badly she was hurt and how to get her out of the thorns in one piece. In the end, I just had to grab hold of her legs and yank. I don't even know how she did it. Tripped on a root, I think. A professional diver could not have gone so swiftly into the briers.

She cried for maybe a minute. But she looks like she lost a boxing match with a cat. She's a trooper, that one.

(click on the photo if you want a story about how she now looks like she gets beaten regularly)

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what it's worth

i'm in a foul mood tonight. i have photos coming out my ears and i don't want to edit a single one. tomorrow i go back to my part time job, which went to crap in the 12 weeks i have been gone, including firing a friend (and very good employee).

to top it off, lillia has yet to take a bottle. i do not know how i am going to leave her, even for 6 hours, knowing that she will most likely be screaming the entire time i am away. the thought makes me want to cry. there's no money in this job, and my dreams are in my future business. it's all i can do to even show up tomorrow. i'll be thinking of this face the entire time. here's hoping we all survive.

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sweet nothing

i used to have quiet moments like these all the time with bella. this was one of the first since lillia's first week. i'm finding it so hard to bond with her without them, so once i got past the guilt of doing nothing, it was pure bliss. oh that fuzzy head.

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happy

i photographed a wedding reception this evening. the couple was young and genuinely happy. and absolutely beautiful. oh how i wish i could have spent all day making their portraits. this is how they made me feel. :O)

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moonrise

reason number 65 why we live here.

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pete and repeat

skyping engineer style. we were goofing off to see how many times we could put a screen in a screen. oh my brain hurts.

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party top

she craves people. she loves parties. it takes her the whole next day to come down from the high.

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hiding

nobody puts baby in the corner.


(i'll be getting to the girls' letters soon. i have a LOT of photos from july to go through. how did that happen?)

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fun and games

unless you're playing with my family!



and then competition ends in ... competition!

(there is no croquet game too small.)

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farewell (to an era)

Roxanne is headed to college and we won't see her again until Christmas. On the other side of my family, I am the youngest cousin. On this side I'm one of the oldest. Roxanne is the first I watched grow up from baby into adult, and it's surprisingly bittersweet.

Still, I am close enough in age that I remember going to college, the excitement and the thought that a semester was nothing and Christmas would come too soon. Now I have two littles and I'm sure that Christmas will be here before I know it. Now I wish the months would take a little more time in coming. The next time Roxanne sees Lillia she will be 6 months old, and Bella will be closer to three than two. Those thoughts stop me in my tracks.

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unexpected

Some days are just unexpected. I expected to write about my cousin heading off to college, but I'll save that for tomorrow. Today I broke out of my shell and into the 100 Strangers Project - and it felt great! I'm over here today, come visit. :O)

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because we can

today we blew bubbles inside. oh yes, we did. they were floating in through the window anyhow. delinquent little things sticking to the wall and taunting us on the sides of furniture. and then dave got out a fan and blew them all around. i have video to prove we're not sticks in the mud. it's great to be the grown up some times.

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family day

today was the last day of the heat. and family day, just because that's how it turned out. in the afternoon we made banana ice cream, watched the sword in the stone, ate sloppy joes, and bella stole the bottle that lillia refused to take (again). now it's 88 inside and that's 4 degrees better than yesterday. :O)

ps lia has been grumpy and hiding from the heat (usually entails hot snuggles but as you can see below sometimes she just forgets and falls asleep in the middle of playtime). today is her 2month bday and she's chubbed in just over 13lb. guess we'll keep her.

pps it was a very exciting naptime today when we thought the house exploded. alas, it was just a sonic boom from some fighter jets trying to save the president from a big bad clueless float plane.

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more bubbles!

I'm over here on my photography blog today. Soaking up the summer light, bubble style.

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cling

During our breakfast, Bella shouted Bubble! and I looked over incredulously to see this little bubble chilling out on the chair next to her.

The previous night we were blowing bubbles into the sunset, and a few snuck inside. This guy hid out all night, but no bubble is ever truly safe from a 2 year-old.

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floating

today was the first day of our heat wave. nothing like last year when we were in the 100s, but a good reason to hop in the pool and laze about all morning. this was bella's first experience in a pool this summer.

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