Frequently, I find myself in the evening having not shot a photo for my 365 project so I'll whip out my camera and shoot whatever's occurring right then. These have become some of my favorite photographs. I love these ones of Charlie and Taylor hamming it up for me at dinner time.
I shot my first series of soccer photos last week. It was so much work, but so rewarding. Here's a test shot in my living room to see if I really needed to steam my backdrop. Yes, I did.
Another quick shot to fulfill my project, but I so love the light in this one. It was late in the evening so there wasn't much light coming in the window and the fall off was quick.
Just some of my girls dressed up as is often the case around here.
Taylor really wanted me to take some more silhouette photos of her, but our yard is not a good place for that. Still, she provided some gorgeous lines for me.
Taylor's been sleeping on the couch a lot lately because a)her room is as hot as a burnt marshmallow b)her bed is totally uncomfortable, like a board and c)morgan is a chatterbox.
The kids went to Vacation Bible School last week. They loved it. This year they were not in the same group, but both were blessed with crew leaders that adored them. I volunteered each night and so enjoyed watching them from afar and admiring their independence and confidence.
All week at vacation bible school, they collected money to buy mosquito nets for children in Africa. I took this as a good time to sort the children's money in their banks. I let them divide them into 'spend', 'save' and 'donate' categories. Charlie asked what was worth the most and initially put mostly quarters in his spend bag and 8 pennies in his donate bag. However, I explained the importance of buying these nets for the children and we both agreed he should put three more handfuls of coins into his donation.
My favorite part was taking them to the store to let them spend some of their money. At first, I felt like I was indulging them too much (each child ended up with $20 to spend), but then I saw what an education they were receiving. They were forced to decide how best to spend their money, on one big item or several smaller items. Taylor learned the value of finding items on sale. Charlie opted for the larger item (an angry birds game) but reserved one dollar to buy his little sister a book. Both children learned that toys cost money and when people give them toys it's because they decided to spend some of their own money on something they thought would make them happy. In the end, it was a very nice experience.
(I've been enjoying taking photos of the kids sleeping lately!)
The girls painted Morgan's nails for the first time this week.
My step-father's family visited with us, too. We had such a nice and relaxed time visiting at my mom's house.
Also, Addison celebrated her first birthday this week.
We took advantage of everyone being together to snap some family photos.
(just a bad hair day)
I found myself here for the second time in two months.
My poor, sweet, thumb-sucking girl managed to infect her beloved thumb.
Since her pediatrician's office was closed, and her thumb was almost twice its normal size, we headed to the ER where they drained it and dressed it. She was not happy with us.
But managed to get sympathy from everyone at the store as we awaited her antibiotics.
She has since been managing with 9 fingers. She still gets the bandage off almost every nap and night which is why we are heading back to the doctor tomorrow.
Well, that's it. That was my choppy rendition of our last ten days. The next week will be completely out of our norm, but you'll have to wait to read about that soon!
