Precious Faces

Some days are just hard, but I honestly love being a mother.  Some times I wish it were easier, but I am learning to live in the moment.

I'm so blessed to be the mother to these precious faces!  I can hardly stand how adorable and priceless they are!

How ever did I get so luck to get the most wonderful and amazing children in the world?  They're growing up much too fast.  Can't they stay little?!

Loving this girl!

And more pictures by Stevie.  ♥♥♥

Here's my favorites...

And now I need to pick a favorite to print and hang on the wall!  Impossible...Impossible I tell you!!!'

Thanks so much, Stevie!!!!!  

{First Day of School} 2012

Tanner is so excited to start First Grade!!!  We laid out his new clothes last night, and woke up early to make sure his lunch was just right and everything was loaded in his bag.

Gotta get a picture of my crew....aren't they cute?!

"Thumbs Up!"

"wait...wasn't I already doing thumbs up mom?!"

Taylor is super excited to be in my Pre-K class this year!  Too bad I couldn't get him to hold still for a picture....this one's a bit blurry, but it'll have to do!

And there he goes!!!  Tanner was so happy he got to ride his bike...I just hope he stops to look for cars and doesn't run anybody over.

Tanner left so fast, that I didn't have time to review his bike lock code with him, or tell him to walk home with his friend....so I did end up walking down the street to the school, just to make sure he got there and we met a few kids in his class.

Rub-a-dub-dub

***Disclaimer:  I've scrubbed the grout in this shower so hard, that I've nearly ruined it....I claim that the nastiness does not reflect my house-cleaning abilities, rather the stupidity of someone that sealed in the nastiness, trying to prevent more nastiness.  After elbow grease, A bleach pen didn't work, and a grout brush didn't work.  Just shy of using the wire-bristled brush we use on our car battery, I think I'll try a grout drill next.  Or the landlord will...because it's. just. gross.  and black.  and nasty.***

Having fun with some silly pictures of the boys in the tub....oh.my.goodness.  They are so silly, and they need haircuts in the worst way.

Success

I have a bad habit.  I take too many pictures, and it might have to do with the fact that I can't stand the thought of possibly missing the perfect shot...so I have my settings on what Ryan and I call "Rapid Fire", which takes a gazillion pictures a second.

Just wanted to share my success with you, because it's unlikely I'll print any of these...though I'm really loving them.

The first picture is my new header.  *sigh*

The picture next in succession involves a temper tantrum
of a one year old and his five year old brother.
It.Was.Hilarious!!!  I've never seen Kortlen that protective of a toy!

I had big ideas with for this one, but they ate the popcorn
faster than I could find a chair to stand on.

Nothing helps restless children like fruit snacks.
And bribery to eat at Arctic Circle.  And other treats you cannot see. :)

The only thing that would make this picture better, besides cropping it right,
is a pitchfork in Tanner's hands.  Bwahahahahaha!  I did not pose them, this just happened. 

Melt my heart, little monsters!  Reading their favorite book, Tom Sawyer.

What a tease! 

and yes.  I just published this post at 1:26 this morning.  


G'Night.  

{12 Months}

Or {One Year}, depending on how you look at it.  I, personally, am not ready for my baby to be growing up so quickly.  Watching him grow and learn to toddle, play peek-a-boo and wrestle with his big brothers confirms that my baby is no longer a baby.  Although he is officially CRAWLING on all fours and knows how to work the mouse.

We love him to pieces.  I know that he belongs in our family, and that if he was anything like his older brothers (all the energy, rambunctiousness and boisterous voices) that we'd surely be done having children...for now, I'm enjoying his calm and precious personality.  For now=a few more years.  ;)  Just in case you were wondering.  :)

I'm pretty sure the light was reflecting off our awesome
orange wood paneling wall...my baby
does NOT Have orange or red hair.  LOL!
Nothing against it, he just has blonde hair. 

Enjoy these adorable pictures, and forgive my learning curve.  :)  It was between these 18 shots and a 12 month collage...and with my awesome sinus infection, I wasn't feeling up to a "watch me grow" collage...so yeah..enjoy!


A very excited boy turned into a very timid and polite boy when we finally set him down with his birthday cake.

I had to take his hand and shove it in the cake so he felt like he could do the same on his own.  LOL!

Once it was on his feet, he wouldn't set them down.  He loved eating the frosting off his toes!

The black cloth was much cleaner than I had expected it to be...he's such a ham!

yippie!

Thank you, Stevie, Ryan and ZAR.  :)  You rock.  Like totally made my day!!!

I'm only missing the pictures of me on horseback with my nekkid baby and other boys, along with another 50 or so, but I'll live.

Loving this beauty right about now.  Miss it!

Even {more} pictures

Happy Birthday to my wonderful Father!!!

This morning was breathtaking.  You couldn't see anything more than
fifty yards out.  The morning fog was so thick and gave light to
some beautiful pictures.  

He spent the morning moving cattle with his sweetheart and two sons up on the summer range.  I woke up early enough to slip outside in my pajamas, with camera in hand, to capture a few fun shots.  Again, just working on learning this camera and having fun with it!  I'm not perfect, but have these wild ideas that I want to make happen.  :)  Enjoy!

Roxy, ready to go.  
Just watching from the doorway.

loved this.  If only the previous owner of the ranch hadn't have used
mainline water pipe to build the corral and something more beautiful like..
wood...
these pictures would have been even better.  :)
We got a good laugh out of the 'elephant' fence those first few years...

Bringing in the loyal steeds. 

This is my baby brother.
He looks like my grandpa Crandall in this picture...
about 70 years younger.
The pants.  Nuthin' to hold em' up but a belt or
suspenders.  Love it!

Sadly, I neglected to fully download the rest of the morning's STUNNING pictures before deleting them.  I'm crushed.  I had some cute ones of the horsemen (and my mom) on their horses riding off into the sunrise to move the cattle to the summer range up on the mountain.  Totally sick about deleting them.  Anybody know how to recover deleted pictures from the camera???  Stevie???


A few more I thought I had taken, but, derrrrr, my mom took them with her camera...I obviously had my hands full...hardy har har!

Just for fun:

I switched my mom horse for car, about 3 miles from home.  Totally got sunburned on this 20 minute leisure ride.  LOL!  Got back to the barn, and my mom was standing there with a camera and my baby...to which I discovered had had a blow-out, but because my mom wanted to 'get a picture of us', just put a diaper on and wrapped him in a blanket.  Good thing it was warm this day, despite the wind.

remind me to never do my hair like that.
and to make sure I lose about 25 lbs, pronto.

__________

Tanner and Taylor have been quite the outdoorsmen this week.  They've killed two baby water snakes and a bird, and befriended a third snake.

I caught Tanner running into my mom's kitchen from the garage with a baby snake by the tail (about 8 inches long) and hollered after him, "Get out of here with that dead snake!!!"

To which my mom chased him down in the yard and made him throw it over the fence into a swampy area behind the house...because it WAS NOT DEAD!

"Why did you bring a snake into my house!"  my mom chastised.

"Because it needed a warm place to live,"  Tanner innocently replied.

I'm so glad I am going home today...my kids have officially had too much fun and killed too many innocent animals.  And traumatized my dad's chickens by "being chicken farmers" and looking for new eggs no less than a dozen times a day!

Oh, the joys of the wonderful outdoors!!!  I don't know what we're going to do the rest of the summer in a teeny-tiny apartment.  We might just have to plan monthly mini-vacations to my parents' home in the wind-blown open country in the middle-of-nowhere.

I wonder if Tanner's swim coach will count swimming in grandma's pool as practice, or if the garden will plant and weed itself, or if Ryan would miss us if we stayed.  Cause we've been gone a week and the car is packed, yet nobody want's to go home.  :)

I can't wait to get to the hundreds of moments I've captured this past week....there's some good ones!  Stay tuned for some more excitement.