I am sure that you are all dying to see the cute family pictures that we had taken of our family. Well, here you go. And all of the props in the photos are ours. The red chair we got for free on trash day. The lady had tried to sell it at her garage sale (I almost bought it), but never did and wanted to just get rid of it. I really like the chair. I am actually sitting on it right now while I type.
We didn't go to the Hatch Family Reunion this year, but we did get our shirts in the mail. We love them and will be there next year for sure!
When Elizabeth nurses she loves to rub the back of her head. It is super cute. It is like she is trying to find some hair to play with. Poor little baldy :(
I love Elizabeth's eyes! They are always so stunning.
Henry and Charlie often like to hang out with Elizabeth when she is lying down anywhere.
As of late, I started photographing other things besides my kids, like our herb "garden."
Photographing a bumblebee is SUPER hard since they are always on the go.
But it is really easy when they are dead....or you assume they are until they fly away after messing with it for five minutes taking photos and moving the oregano all around.
I really like this one of our cilantro gone to seed.
Elizabeth LOVES eating her little hands. Charles is bound and determined to break her of the habit. He broke the boys fairly young, but Elizabeth is a bit more determined.
I love Henry's cute little smile here.
Henry LOVES dryer sheets. My mother taught me to reuse dryer sheets until they are fully used, but Henry always steals them before I can take them back to the laundry room. His little eyes light up and he shouts, "SHEET!" whenever he finds them. He finally stopped eating and cuddling with my hair because of dryer sheets. It is wonderful to finally be able to do my hair and know that it will last a little bit longer.
Cute Charlie! The boys love doing stunts. Henry will stand up on my hands and totally let go of my feet and then bounce, but yet have amazing balance while my arms are fully extended. I really need to have Charles take a picture.
We went shooting with the Drakes to educate them about guns. It was SOOOOO FUN! I had such a fun time and they seemed to generally enjoy it. I haven't really gone shooting since high school (well I did go once with Charles when dating) and I was very pleasantly surprised how good I was. My very first five shots were all within a circumference of my palm, in the middle of the target. While we were gone our babysitter did an excellent job babysitting. Both of the boys were completely zonked out when we got home.
Oh, to keep you in suspense, we took professional family portraits and I am dying to see them! The boys did amazingly well and Charles was extremely cooperative. Elizabeth gave her usual batting of her piercing blue eyes.
Annette dislikes camping, but she has been wanting to go camping this year since springtime came. Charlie has also been begging to go camping as well. We finally went camping for an entire 15 hours, most of that time being awake unfortunately, but it was so much fun! We can't wait to go again and are already planning our next outing. Next time we go we won't tell the boys until right before since the anticipation almost killed them all week.
We camped at the Gifford Pinchot State Park which is about 15 minutes from our home. We knew we wouldn't have time to make dinner because Charles was working late on Friday so we grabbed a pizza on the way. Here we are setting up the tent.
Annette has been dying to see a sunset and she got her wish. The clouds were stunning in their zig zag across the sky. Annette was in artsy heaven.
Charles lit our fire the manly way with a blow torch.
Henry loved finding the big rocks and hauling them around in his dump truck.
Our eight man tent fit our family of five great. Charles and I were camping for the kids and not for the outdoorsy experience so we brought air mattresses. It was actually a really good idea since our tent was on gravel which was everywhere. That freed up the two sleeping pads for the boys.
The boys shared a sleeping bag, one on each end. They laid on the orange blanket which was on the sleeping pads. Henry was kind of weirded out about the whole sleeping in the tent and was unsure of it at night so he held Annette's hand most of the night. Elizabeth had her crib, but she was freezing in the middle of the night so next time she will just sleep with Annette.
Charles made an excellent pancake and bacon breakfast for us. It is fun every once in a while to indulge in a little (or a lot) of bacon.
Henry enjoyed breakfast so much he wanted to taste it again. He threw it up onto the orange blanket we were sitting on outside. He didn't want to get the grass dirty :) Charles threw up every time he went camping as a kid, so I guess Henry got whatever gene Charles has. Thankfully Charles grew out of it.
Elizabeth was very content to lay on the ground and watch things go on around her.
When I painted the kitchen the boys wanted to paint, too. They got to paint the bathtub with an old watercolor set.
I have to say that I love Elizabeth's clothes. I wish I dressed as cute as she does.
The boys wanted a little photo-op.
They love having their photo taken and cooperate very nicely.
They do eventually get bored. Henry is "driving" his hand on the clock and Charlie is "sleeping."
Here is my cute little assistant giving directions to the models.
Then she got attacked by the little models.
As you have probably noticed, the boys seem to always be less clothed than socially acceptable. It's summer, hot, and it cuts down on laundry so I am fairly relaxed about the whole thing. Charlie does go and put clothes on himself at times, especially if people come over. Here he is dressing himself. He put his right arm in the sleeve backwards and needed a little help, but he does pretty well. I like the twisted pants also.
Charlie totally looks hilarious in this photo, but that is not the point. The point is Charlie's green onion sword in his pocket. I have tons of green onions growing in our little herb garden and so I don't mind if the boys play with them.
So, a while back I made a list of some of the funny things the kids had done and then I lost the list. I finally found it. I may have included some of these already, but I can't remember.
- Henry ate rabbit poop at a baby shower.
- Henry bit my finger pretty hard while I was trying to swipe Charlie's vitamin out of his mouth.
- Charlie likes to squish ants with his finger and then runs to tell me about it.
- Charlie and Henry love all of the flies in the house and are very entertained by them.
- Charlie has an inaccurate perception of the word "dead."
- Charlie likes to add or take off the "y" at the end of words. Examples: foody, drinky, pot instead of potty.
- When our friends the Drakes moved into our basement Charlie started to call them Grandma and Grandpa.
- Henry and Charlie learned the phrase, "Uh-oh spaghetti-o." Henry says it, "Uh bee-oh Mom."
Here is a movie of Elizabeth laughing. Around 1:30 is when she really gets going.
