sleepovers

It is Kade's very first time at a camp this week.  He was very excited to go but also a bit scared about being away from us for 6 days.  He's never been apart from both of us for that long, but I could tell he was trying hard to be brave about it.  Last year there was no question about going to camp, he would have none of it even though a friend of his was going there.  So he is definitely growing up and wants to be so independent in everything.

Back at home, it has been another story.  Anika and Kason are both missing Kade and especially Kason wants to go to camp right now. :) And I'm sure he would be fine for the most part, not missing us or anything.  Both Kason and Ani are very much into sleepovers lately and since Kade is gone they've been wanting to go to someone's house for a sleepover.  Anika loves going to her cousin Emily's house and she slept there a couple times but I told her we can't do it in the middle of the week when their parents have to get ready for work early int he morning.  So when it was getting closer to bed time tonight,  since they couldn't go to anyone's house Ani and Kason decided to have their own sleepover.  Anika wanted to sleep in Kason's room and she said that tomorrow they would sleep in her room. :)  They are so cute together most of the times, play so nice and when it's just the 2 of them at our house you will always find them together.  I hope they stay close as they get older, it makes this mom's heart smile. :)

   

A mini photo session

This year some farmers around our house are planting wheat.  I've always loved family pictures with wheat as a background and now we have it in our back yard.  Anyway, we don't have a fancy camera, actually very far from it but it takes ok pictures for us.  I did think one of these summers I'll get a friend photographer to take some pictures of us because it makes a difference but I didn't do it this year and she's pretty booked.  Plus, once you set a date and the weather doesn't work out it's hard to reschedule.  But the most important thing is when the wheat is just right for pictures and it is so hard to know ahead of time.  It's been getting golden in color lately so I thought we needed to take the pictures soon if we wanted that but then Ehren came home yesterday and he says to me that across the road from us they already started harvesting the fields.  In my mind I'm like we better do it right now before they start to harvest the field behind our house.  And it was a nice sunny day so it was perfect.  Usually if we schedule any kind of a family photo shoot I stress over the outfits so everyone matches and I never have anything flattering to wear that matches the rest of the family and so on. :)  But it took me only about 15 minutes to pick out clothes for everyone which must be a record for me.  I knew the easiest is to go with white for the kids although I don't have much for white tops or dresses but then the shirt I like on Ehren is similar in colors to my dress and it worked great with the kids.

my favorite of all of us

So we got out there before the sun started setting, set up a tripod with our little Lumix digital camera and took a few shots.  The hardest thing every time is to get all the kids smiling nice, not fake smiling or looking down or covering their faces or whatever they do.  But it seems to me that it doesn't matter if we look into a tripod or if a photographer is taking pictures of them, it is hard to get them all looking nice.  And then there are those couple shots when the kids look all cute and I have no idea what is the face I'm making. :)  So it's not easy to get all of us looking great, but I didn't even care last night.  I just wanted to see how the pictures would turn out with the wheat field and using our camera.  I took a few more pictures of just the kids when we were done and those are cute too even though you can guess that we had to make Kade hold Anika's hand. :)

If you saw the pictures as they came directly from our camera, they didn't look great at all.  The colors weren't vibrant, just very plain.  But with the help of my good buddy Picasa the pictures turned out beautifully, at least for the camera we were using.  I'm still not done playing around with them and there is so much I could change on each picture, but here are a few I quickly enhanced.  I'm glad I got Ehren in on the pictures too because we have so few pictures of all of us as a family.

Not sure what I'm doing here, I am saying something to the kids so they pay attention to the light on the camera

our 2 little buddies

Fun at the pool

I could not have asked for a better day during the week than today.  We were all a bit worn out after a whole day at the cabin yesterday but since Ehren had to work today we had to come back home last night.  I was supposed to watch only Laadyn today so that in itself was a treat for me but then right as Ehren was leaving for work he told me "don't even get up, Laadyn is not coming today."  That was the best "good morning" I've gotten in a long time because I was so tired and sleeping in felt so good. :)  Our kids were quietly playing in their rooms so I didn't have to get going right away and I felt so spoiled because that doesn't usually happen.

There was quite a bit of cleaning to do since we were gone so much the last week so we tried to get as much done as we could until lunch time and then it was time to hit the pool.  Yes, I could have stayed and finished my house chores but spending a fun afternoon in the pool with my kids was so much better.  And I get to be with just the 3 of them so seldom that when I do I always want to do something fun so I can enjoy them. :)  And did we enjoy it!  We had the perfect weather for swimming and we had a blast chasing each other in the water, practicing some swimming moves, jumping off the diving board and so on.  I was glad there weren't too many people there too so I really couldn't have asked for a better afternoon.  We got home just minutes before Ehren got home from work so that worked out perfectly.

we had a lot more that we already ate the first day

It is just nice having days like that when you have nothing planned and can enjoy it rather than being in a rush the whole time getting everything on the agenda done.  It was one of those lazy days for me even though I still got a lot done in the morning.  We picked some strawberries yesterday and at first I thought we didn't pick that much so it wouldn't take me long to wash and cut the stems out but we got a ton of them which took me a while to clean and now I am looking up recipes for fresh strawberries because I don't want to freeze them.  If we still have a lot left in a couple days I will freeze them or make some jam but for now we've been enjoying them with everything. :)  I might have had a bit too much yesterday because even though they're like my favorite fruit I now see that there is such thing as eating too much of them.  I didn't think it was possible for me before :)

I hope everyone is having a fun summer wherever you are.  We still have almost 2 months to go but it seems to be going a lot faster than I thought it would.  Before I know it September will be here and I'll be sending my 3 lovelies to school.  I am getting ready for that already because it will be very different with my big helpers gone all day.

Anika is very cautious in the water but loves it.  She loves wearing some kind of floating device :)

It is a nice little pool and there aren't too many days when it's too packed which is nice.