enjoying the ordinary moments

at least that's what i'm trying to do. i began a new project this year called the 365 days project. without being too long winded i'll just say this: you take a picture every day. the picture should in some way define your day.

i love this project because it forces me to find new things to take pictures of everyday which in turn helps me to focus more on those ordinary moments i might have passed up. it also doesn't hurt that i love to take pictures and take way too many anyway. perfect for me.

january for the most part has been a great month, and i have all the pictures to prove it.

our cute little guy. i'm not sure how we deserve this mellow, chill kid, but we'll keep him. i love watching him. he pulls the best faces and is always ready with a huge grin. he is already getting anxious to get up and play with his sister. he watches her like a hawk. one day tanner, one day. notice the drool? his mouth is a factory of drool.



this little lady loves her baths. after bathtime katelyn always insists that she lay on the couch in her towel with the green blanket and her elephant. she always says, "i too cold! i too cold."



with january came tanner's four month appointment and with that comes the four month shots. you know the drink that they give the babies as a substitute for the shot? he cried the whole time the nurse was making him drink it. then she gives him his two shots, and he barely whimpers. i didn't get it.

tyler's friend told him that fun was to be had this winter with katelyn and sledding. tyler was so excited to take katelyn. he planned it all out. the gear, the time and day. i think katelyn went down twice then said, "i'm all done." totally not what tyler expected. but don't worry tyler, the other day she saw her sled in the car and said excitedly, "my sledding!" i think she'll go again.

we potty trained katelyn over thanksgiving. she's halfway there. she is great when she needs to pee, but won't do anymore than that. yeah, i'm cleaning out some pretty nasty panties. this is more than frustrating. at least she looks cute in the panties. hopefully she doesn't kill me for this picture some day.

and lastly, katelyn loves going to the library. we were perusing the non-fiction section, and i happened to find some books on dinosaurs. she loves dinosaurs. she started grabbing all of the dino books off the shelf. thank goodness she couldn't reach much higher than the bottom two shelves.

friends+kids+good food

today we had a great get-together with some friends. we hadn't all hung out for far, far too long. i'm not sure if it was because many of us have recently had another baby and the craziness doubled (and so did the errands, laundry, cleaning...you get the point) or maybe we were all trying to stay indoors to escape the cold weather. whatever the reason, i missed all of the ladies, and i know that katelyn missed her friends. slowly but surely she was turning into a home body.

while together i decided i wanted a picture of all of the kiddos. i guess tyler is right when he says that whereever we go we are tourists. i always have my camera with me and am always taking pictures. but oh, the memories.

after looking at all of the pictures i could not decide which one to post, so i just posted all of them. a bit redundant for those of you who don't have kids in the pictures. sorry.

have you ever tried getting a handful of kids to look at you at the same time? impossible but cute.

not pictured but were present: natalie, jude, tanner, rydge, charlotte and phebe

photoshoot

i had a grand idea this last weekend. i decided to take some more pictures of our little buddy boy. no scratch that, our big buddy boy. he's changed so much since i first took pictures of him. i hardly even recognize the little guy in his newborn pictures, so it was about time.

i had just stuck katelyn in the bath and wanted to wait until she was done. i really thought she would just love to watch me take pictures of tanner. but it didn't play out like that. it was more like this...


come help me katelyn. i'm taking pictures of tanner today. sit by me and try to make him smile.

katelyn listens and sits by me. she is smiling at tanner. i snap some photos. slowly, she gets up and sits down next to tanner and yells cheese!

no, no katelyn. i'm just taking pictures of tanner right now. come sit next to me.

cue pouting lip.

i promise i'll hurry. just get down and sit by me.

she doesn't so i pick her up and put her down on the ground. cue crying.

katelyn please. just give me two more minutes with tanner. then we can take some pictures of you okay?

katelyn tries to scramble on my lap. now she wants me to hold her. more intense crying. this is tearing at my heartstrings.

oh katelyn. i love you so much, but i just need a minute with tanner.

katelyn cries harder. she tries yet again to sit in my lap which really doesn't work when taking pictures. i know she isn't trying to be a stinker. she just wants some attention as well. i give in.

okay. why don't you sit up there with tanner and i'll snap some photos of both of you.



and you know what? as much as i love the pictures of tanner, i really love the pictures of katelyn and tanner together even more. i kid you not, you can see the delight and the love she feels for tanner in every picture. great idea katelyn.

is it okay to call a boy a blue eyed beauty? yes i did edit the picutre, but seriously, the light did some awesome things to his eyes.

those pictures don't do his chunkiness justice. tummy time makes him look deceptively skinny.

katelyn's hair is just a touch crazy. oh and she's not dressed. remember, she had just gotten out of her bath.

can you over-kiss a baby? sometimes i think so when i can't stop kissing those chunky cheeks.

what a holiday season

our christmas this year was definitely merry. and jolly. it's easy to feel that way though because we were able to spend time with many of my siblings and their spouses in texas. and i consider them to be some of my favorite people to be with.

to save a little money we decided to drive the 16 hour drive with two kids instead of flying. driving really wasn't too bad. we listened to books on cd, munched on snacks, made plenty of nursing and bathroom stops and watched movies on the portable dvd player. all of these things helped to pass the time away quickly. plus, as we drove further and further south the snow slowly began to disappear. in my book, that makes for a great drive.

the first half of the trip was perfect weather. blue skies, warm sun, small amount of wind and no heavy coats! we took full advantage and went to the park to run around, played in the leaves and went to the science museum where we explored outside for a bit.







we were jumping in the leaves back in september in wisconsin. i love texas. these are my cute nieces ginny and lily.

grandma with the grandkids at the museum.

katelyn loves to hold hands with anyone who is willing. luckily her cousin sam was always willing.

katelyn is trying to decide if she wants to listen or not. the dirty water is tempting, i know.

tyler being his fun, goofy self. he was a good man and took charge of our buddy boy while at the museum.

the group at the science museum.

we also found a bounce house place to let the play at. this place wore every single one of them out. they had tons of fun. plus, we practically had the whole place to ourselves. and tyler, being the good sport that he is, followed the kids everywhere and into all of the bounce houses. seriously, an awesome guy.

katelyn taking a quick peek from her bounce house.

lily and sam.

grandma and audrey.

little lily after sliding down.

then much to our surprise and probably to every person in texas, it snowed on christmas eve! those who were longing for a white christmas (probably all of our non-texan spouses) received a christmas miracle.

christmas was wonderful. we had a great time together as a whole big family. some of the families planned on heading home on christmas eve, but ended up spending the night with all of us because of the snow. texas really isn't prepared for that kind of weather, so the roads are not safe to drive on.

katelyn on christmas morning. she was good about waiting her turn to open presents.

we let all of the kids decorate their own gingerbread houses on christmas morning. katelyn was very proud of her house.

one of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to see all of the nieces and nephews again. they are all very kind, well behaved children. katelyn loved spending time with them. i hope they can see each other a lot in the years to come.

ginny, katelyn, abigail, lily, sam and audrey.

sam, abigail and katelyn.

and two of the newer babies in the family. tanner and jacob. they are only ten days apart.

we had such a great time. thanks mom and dad for hosting and running around trying to make sure everyone was comfortable and happy.

he's growing too fast

taking pictures of a baby is fun. why? they're great subjects. they're cute and they hold still. so much easier to get a shot with a baby as opposed to a running toddler that purposefully hides her face when you so desperately want her to look at you.



tanner has now discovered that there is an easier way to deal with tummy time. that's my boy. finding the easy way out. really though, his neck muscles are getting strong, so i'll let him slack off every once and a while.

two things i love about these pics.
1. the dino outfit. boy clothes are pretty darn cute.
2. katelyn's foot in the corner of my photos. she would not move her foot no matter how hard i tried. and for some reason her foot looks hobbit-ish.



katelyn still continues to love (read smother) her brother with love. but i'll take smothering. as long as she's not trying to hurt him.

by the way, he's two months now. it's speeding by faster the second time around and i don't want it to.

thanks for comin'

lucky us. tyler and i had more visits from family. tyler's parents flew out to wisconsin at the end of october. they had a pretty good excuse to come and visit too now that they've got two grandkids here. i know they miss those kiddos like crazy, so it's always fun when they can get some time off to see katelyn and now tanner.

it was a laid back kind of visit, and it was perfect. while they were here we ran errands with and without the kids (tyler and i had a hot date to the grocery store thanks to lori), we went trick-or-treating, went out to eat to celebrate darren's birthday, blessed tanner and hung out and talked. i should add too that i got to take some awesome naps and sleep in because they were always happy to take the kids. it was wonderful.




katelyn is in love with her grandpa and has him wrapped around her little finger. grandpa is the one who will spend hours upstairs playing in her room with her when everyone else is busy, and she loves it. i know i have a picture of katelyn with her grandma and grandpa, but i couldn't find it anywhere, so this will have to do.



it was nice to have some family here when we blessed tanner. the blessing was wonderful.



tyler's mom made this gorgeous quilt for tanner! we love it and wanted to show it off. it fits perfectly in his room. she also made his bumpers and crib skirt. what a talented mother-in-law.

halloween fun

does anyone else feel like october flew by? i had all of these great plans for the month, but the medical college had plans of their own. most of october for tyler was spent studying, so we had to cram in most of our halloween activities the last week and half of october.

last year we missed out on the tradition of carving a pumpkin, but this year i couldn't do it again. now that katelyn is a little older and can "help" out with this kind of thing, i wanted her to experience it for herself.



katelyn had her head in the pumpkin pretty much the whole time watching tyler work.



the finished product. when we were done we put some candles inside and put the newly carved pumpkin on our front porch. apparenty a 2 year old doesn't understand that part of carving pumpkins because she insisted that the pumpkin did not belong on the porch and that we needed to bring it back inside.

we were able to participate in the annual trick-or-treating at the medical college again this year. i must admit, we are being completely spoiled getting to trick-or-treat this way. we get to trick-or-treat inside away from the cold weather, the stops for candy are close together, all of our friends are there as well, and the kids get tons of candy.



our little pumpkin



katelyn the witchy witch.

katelyn was a huge fan of trick-or treating. she kept telling us, "i probably need some more candy," and "i think i forgot some more candy." lucky for us she has already forgotten about her stash that we hid away.

growing up, my mom started a fun tradition on halloween. she always prepared a halloween dinner for us. the first year she just made up some bean with bacon soup and put plastic spiders in our bowls. then she started putting the soup in pumpkin bowls. but since then, it has become so much more. i'm pretty sure now that we are all adults we get more excited about our halloween dinner than we did when we were kids. probably because we love to find and make new creepy cuisine every year.

the whole meal. we had a ton of food, but it was all delicious. and yes, we are still eating out of pumpkin bowls. yum.



brainy watermelon. tyler and i found that it is actually more difficult to carve a brain than we thought.



bloody mummy fingers



cobweb seven layer dip



putrid punch



donut hole eyeballs



enjoying the meal. tyler's parents were here to enjoy it with us. promise i'll do a whole separate post on that later!

happy halloween