Down on the farm...

Here's Miss Emma from our photo shoot yesterday! These are straight out of the camera- not fixed up yet ;-) I will have Photoshop tomorrow & then you can see the "before" & "after!!" Uploading them to Blogger just doesn't do them justice!

If you like this last one, head over to my photography blog to see it blown up- it looks AWESOME!

Jenny's Joy

Some of you may remember that I was trying to get a photography business going last fall.... needless to say, that's sort of been put on the back burner for a while ;-)

These days, I'm just so busy with a new baby, kids home for summer vacation, and doctor's appts, that I'm not able to pursue my passion. And while I miss it, I know that some day, just like my blog ;-), I will get back to it! In the meantime, however, I do want to practice so that I don't forget everything that I learned. Lucky for me......
I have some great subjects!!!

Today, I'm headed out to do a senior photo shoot for one of Allie's friends! I'm really looking forward to the opportunity, even if it means stopping to nurse several times during the shoot ;-)

And, it gets better! On Friday I will have Photoshop!!! I've always worked with Lightroom in the past, but when we traded all of our computers in for Macs, I lost Lightroom (got it from my mom so no backup disk). So, this time around, I decided to go with Photoshop, and I can't wait to use it to edit today's shoot!!!

Stay tuned for the results......

Love/Hate

Caleb hates his bath...
But he loves the pictures on his wall...
And he loves his mama!
Emily loves to sleep in...
And so does Sophie... but she hates to have her picture taken!
And Zack loves his new lawnmower...
Happy Saturday everyone! We're headed to downtown KC to play in the fountains and take some pictures ;-)

Time flies...

...when you have a new baby ;-)
Well, he's actually not that "new" anymore! At 11-weeks old now, he has truly become one of the gang!
Just another wonderful addition to our family!
And it sure seems as though he's a pretty happy little guy....
Well, you can see how big he's gotten- I think he probably weighs around 14lbs now (not uncommon for one of our boys!). And while we've spent a good portion of our summer enjoying him, the Gang has come up with a fun summer project they can't wait to get started on......

a treehouse ;-)
We spent the afternoon yesterday measuring, drawing and planning out all the details for our fun project...

But after a quick trip to Home Depot to price out materials, we decided to put our little project on hold for a while.....

(it was going to cost $1500)!!!

who knew?

On my own!

Zack needed a time-out, so I sent him home to his parents'....

Well, not really, but he did leave to go spend a long weekend with his family on the east coast ;-)

I insisted! In fact, I even booked the flight!

The original plan was to travel to his parents' house this summer with all 8 kiddos.

But then..... I got pregnant ;-)

So, the original plan was scrapped!

And although Zack's mom was just here recently to meet our new addition, it's been 4 long years since Zack has seen his dad, and there was no question in my mind that he needed to go home. Soooooo, that meant I got the kids all to myself for the WHOLE weekend!

Wow!

We decided to try to stay busy with dad gone, so on Saturday we headed downtown to see a dinosaur exhibit. Caleb loved it....
He couldn't get enough!

Actually, the little kids liked it, but there wasn't much there to see and, $80 later, I found myself thinking about all the other ways I could have spent the money!
I mean, we were out of there in about 20 minutes and then left with nothing to do the rest of the afternoon. So, we headed home. After a quick photo op.
I did make one new discovery yesterday that I wanted to share- we have so many people in our family that the elevator door begins to shut on us before we can all get on or off!!!

Fast-forward to today...
Caleb was excited for fireworks!
He even had on his red, white & blue!
Too bad we weren't planning to go see the fireworks :-(

We had hoped to make home-made ice cream, but after some thought, we decided it would be best to wait until daddy comes home tomorrow ;-)

Instead, we decided to go see Toy Story 3.

There's nothing like taking 8 kids to see a movie.

By yourself.

With a potty-training 2yr-old.

While on a diet.

(Did I mention that I'm on DAY 3 of my new diet?! And what's better than sitting in a movie theater with the smell of popcorn all around you- not to mention the extra-large boxes of M&Ms?!!)

The kids did pretty well....

I only made 6 trips to the potty with the boys ;-)

REALLY- that's the truth.

And Allie did state that she would NEVER go to the movies with us again ;-)

Oh, and I did turn around and apologize to the poor people sitting behind us when the movie was over.

Well, not really, but I THOUGHT about it ;-)

But at least this adventure was worth the money- a real bargain at $69!

Time to go prune the money tree in the backyard again ;-)

We got home about 6:30, and the kids were trying to figure out how they could talk me into going to see some fireworks-

never gonna happen

But I was spared because it started to rain..... hard.

They did get to do a few pop-its right before the rain got heavy.

But then they had to come in.

Fortunately, some people aren't bothered by the rain, and we began to hear fireworks going off all around us....
So the kids got their wish after all! They were able to watch from our window!!
Needless to say, I am sooooo ready for bed tonight, and soooo ready for daddy to come home tomorrow ;-)

So big...

Josh is....
...soooo big!
HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY Josh!!!

Jacob is....
...sooo big!!!
He's a pro at potty-training and is swimming like a fish ;-)

Caleb is....
...sooo big!
He weighs in at 12lbs. 5oz. and is the big 2 months!