Dances?

Check out my niece dance to the YouTube video "Evolution of Dance."
She LOVES that video and watches it over and over and will say "more dances?" when the video comes to an end. Sure enough she memorized it... at least as good as a 2 year old could do! We all get a hoot out of watching her perform her little routines.

Ella's 6 Month Photos

I've been kinda MIA over the past 9 days. It's actually kind of nice to disconnect (for the most part) for a while. Avery and I went to Texas to make the rounds and visit family for the Easter holiday. We had a lot of fun! Avery sure loves her cousins and I think she gets bored when we come back home to reality without them :(. It was so cute watching Annie and Avery give each other hugs and kisses all week. I just love that they know each other so well and love each other.

Anyways, I had the pleasure of taking some 6 month pictures of my niece, Ella. She is just so adorable! She is always smiling and LOVES when you give her some attention. It's cute how bashful she'll get and bury her head in Emily's shoulder. She was a wonderful little model. I hope I can do some more for Emily in the future :). Here are my favorites, but I am putting the rest on my flickr account (you can click the link on the left side on my blog). Enjoy!

Strawberry Festival

I am a few weeks late on this one but I completly forgot to talk about it!

We didnt stay long this year because of her need to take a nap not long after we got there, but we did a little shopping and eating and let Avery play her first carnival game. That was a bit of a disaster. Even though she won a big stuffed cow, she thought she could keep the rubber duckies and got really upset when we had to take them away. oops! lesson learned... Jeff said next time he will just ask "how much for the duckies" lol.

Reader

Avery loves to play in her big girl room! (which will be a post of it's own once I get it finished, but its far from that, so you will only get a sneak peek here) This morning I found her laying on her bed "reading" a book. It was so cute! We have been working hard on learning not to eat her books.... when I say eat, I mean literally! She doesnt just chew on them a little here and there, she takes chuncks out and swallows them! gross! Anyways, I digress... Here is a quick pic I got of her before she ran away from the camera:Granted, the book is upside down, but she doesnt know. I think that makes it even more cute! lol

Oh ya!

I meant to mention in the last post that we got her that sand and water table for Easter. I think I'm a gluten (sp?) for punishment. She loves it, which is great and it keeps her occupied for a long time, but she also loves to pour sand on her head and everywhere else. So, now I have a sand problem inside and out! Lol Needless to say I have drained the water and now it's just a sand table!
I am so glad that she loves it, messes and all... sometimes you just have to let a kid be a kid!

The Easter Bunny Came!

We decided to have the Easter Bunny come a week early since Avery and I will be in Texas for the holiday, Jeff will not be able to come, and he has been working so much that Sunday was his best oppertunity to do it. Anyways, it was awesome! I love being on this side of all of the holiday fun; its different but fun in a different way. I think it's even more fun, than when you are the one getting the gifts, watching the magic on your child's face.

Have I mentioned that I LOVE being a mom??!! lol

Upside down

Look Who's Climbing!

well, she's been climbing for a while, but about a week ago she (and I) discovered she could get into the rocking chair by herself! This makes me a bit nervous since it's not stable, but she seems to do great getting in and out. Now, she is all over the sofas, ottoman, and recliner. The other day I found her on top of our king size bed! How she got up there, I have no idea.... a little crafty if you ask me ;). lol I've also found her sitting on the tv stand, right up against the tv! That really freaked me out!

I give up!

I am so tired of trying to find a lid that matches the bottom of the tupperware pieces! Alas, I have found a solution!

Wow! Containers!

I think I might give them a shot. Can't be worse than the situation I'm in right now!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to Stori's sweet little tax day baby, Miss Isla! She's 1 today and celebrating in Russia!! I hope she knows that we are thinking about her on her big day all the way across the world! :)

Oh The Possibilities!!

I had no idea they made such a thing! My mind is racing with ideas to use this!

Swamp Tour

The other adventure we decided to go on this weekend was a swamp tour. I have been living here for 4 years now and still have not done one.

This time of year is PERFECT! The water is warming up so the animals are moving around more, it wasn't hot but it was nice and sunny, and it wasn't humid at all and there were no bugs! I got some really great shots that I put on my flickr site.

My two favorite photos from the day:

The homes on the water are real residences! The people that live here are mostly commercial fisherman and can only access their home via boat. I can't imagine that kind of life, but then again, I bet they can't imagine living like I do, either! lol Have I mentioned that I LOVE nature and landscape photography?! I think I like it so much because it is unpredictable; you don't know what you are going to get when you go on shoots like this. Plus, I hardly do any editing. Most of the time I like to simply show the beauty of the world that God created without any changes. Don't get me wrong, editing is a lot of fun and I like to do it on select photos, but for the most part, a little cropping and light editing is all you need. How lucky were we to see that gator sun bathing on the log?! I get all giddy when great photo-ops happen like that! lol

The tour was awesome and I recommend anyone take one if they are in the area!

My mom and dad on the boat:

Turtle:

Our tour guide showing us a crawdad cage:

Alligator! Oop... actually, that's a log... It fooled even the guide! lol:

A real gator!:

Trying to feed the gator:

The boat:

Global Wildlife

This weekend, while my parents were in town, we decided to do some more "touristy" things around town. I've been to Global Wildlife about 3-4 times now, but it is so much fun every time! This time we decided to get a private jeep tour and it was so worth it!! Avery was only a few months old last time we went so she slept most of the time. This time, she wasn't too sure about it at first but warmed up and really enjoyed it. The driver took us to any animal we wanted to see and stayed as long as we wanted at each. It was a great chance for me to get some giraffe pictures since I didn't get any last time. Here are a few silly snapshots of the trip:

Side note: I have set up a Flickr account to put all of my photography on. You can see the link on the left side bar of my blog. This is much easier for me to upload to and Blogger does not always cooperate with they layout I want for them, so I will let you know when I upload some to Flickr.

I have uploaded a few shots from Global Wildlife under the "Animals" folder