Finally! A working computer!

I've spent the last couple of weeks struggling with the computer being super slow. I edited nothing but what I had to because I couldn't stand fighting with the computer. It was extremely frustrating to edit anything, so I didn't get any family photos done at all. Last week we finally came to the conclusion that our {only one year old!} hard drive was dying, so Shawn installed a new one. The result? A computer that actually works! So I am now back to editing and hope to get up some new shots of the girls in the next couple of days. Until then, I have a few of Mar's latest belly shots. Here is Mar, and her baby belly, at 22 weeks.

My New Niece or Nephew!

As some of you may know, I am going to be getting TWO new nieces/nephews by the end of the year. Yay! Both my sister, Marley, and Shawn's sister, Ashley, are pregnant and I could not be more excited! I LOVE babies and I am going to have so much fun taking their photos. Sadly, that will have to wait until August for Marley's baby and November for Ashley's baby, but I did manage to get Marley's very first belly pic on the weekend. This is her 17 week shot. And yes, there is only one little baby in there :)

Finally!

Today I accomplished something that I thought might not happen for years - I got both of my girls to sit down together and look at my camera at the SAME TIME and without any major fighting between Ella and I. WOO HOO! And all it took was bribing her with candy and a secret weapon: the brand new "Princess and the Frog" dvd that she has been wanting so badly. I have had grandparents harrassing me with the fact that I haven't given them any photos of the girls together and I hated the fact that I didn't have a photo of them to put on my wall, but now I finally do! I failed to get both girls to smile at the same time, but I am just so excited that I got them to sit and look at the camera and not cry. I feel like it is a miracle and I just hope that I might be able to do it again sometime in the future. Until then, I am pretty happy with these shots. Here are my pretty little girlies. Oh, and I'm having a hard time deciding which one to get for my wall, so I'd appreciate some input on what people's favorites are! And just for fun, here is a shot of Lily in my brand new, cute as can be tea cup photo prop. I've been wanting one for a long time and couldn't find one until now. I was hoping for a girlie one or a polka dotted one, but this was the only one I could find. I didn't know if it would be girlie enough, but I think it works with the pink background, and of course with Lily in it . She makes me love it!

Random Shots

Since I last posted, my house has been full of sickness. The day after Lily's photoshoot, she came down with the worst, terrible, horrible, awful cold that you could imagine. It made her so stuffy and irritable that I literally held her for about 22 hours a day. It was not fun and she is just now starting to get over it. Then I got another cold. So in the past month I have had the flu, Lily had the flu, Ella had a terrible cold, I had a cold that made me lose my voice, Lily got her terrible cold, and then I got cold number two. Between all of that and everything else that goes on in our everyday lives, I really haven't been taking that many photos or posting here. I have said it before and I will say it again - I CANNOT wait for summer to get here! I want everyone to be healthy again and I want to be able to get outside and take some photos. I am tired of coming to this blog and having yet another excuse of why I haven't been posting. I will be SO happy when summer gets here! Until then, here are a few random shots of what we have been doing when we're not sick.
Ella loves helping feed Lily. I love how unsure Lily looks in this one, like she's asking me what the heck I'm thinking letting Ella shove that spoon in her mouth.
But she looks a lot more comfortable here.Ella has also decided that she needs to eat apples like "a big dirl". Never mind the fact that she doesn't even like apples. She saw a couple of the big girls eating apples like this, so now she thinks she has to. She takes about two bites and throws it away. It kind of drives me crazy, but it is really cute at the same time.

Just a random shot of Lily enjoying her carrots.

Ella out for a walk on a nice day.

And Miss Lily sitting in the stroller, enjoying the nice weather.

And, finally, a random shot of Lily sitting with Sophie. It is amazing how far along her sitting abilities have come in just one short week.

Lily is 6 Months Old!

Wow, I can't believe how fast the weeks and months are flying by lately. Lily had her half birthday last weekend. Crazy! How can my little baby be 6 months old already? It makes me a little sad that she isn't a tiny little newborn anymore, but I do love the stage that she is at now. She is so curious and funny and you can see her making new discoveries all the time. She is even sitting up by herself now.

Today I did her 6-month photoshoot and it was actually a lot of fun. I guess I am just so used to fighting with Ella to let me take her photos that I forgot what it was like to do a little shoot with a baby who can't run away from the camera. It was lovely! I wanted to try a fun, different kind of shoot, so I sat down last night and made her a tutu and I am SO glad that I did. I can't even stand how cute she looked in it. I also got a couple of headbands for her, which I don't love for everyday wear, but I do love for photo props. Anyway, I will stop rambling now and let you see for yourselves. Here is my sweet 6 month old baby!

I really wish that I had have used a different background for these next couple of shots. I really love the expressions that I got, but the grey came out darker than I wanted and I am not very happy with the texture of it. Oh well, I guess that just gives me an excuse for a reshoot :)

Is It Summer Yet?

I am starting to get seriously tired of winter. Just when I thought that the sickness had left our house and everyone was over the flu, Ella got the worst cold I could imagine. She has been coughing like crazy since Wednesday and hasn't had much of a voice since Thursday. The coughing has kept her up at night (along with Shawn and I) and it has also caused her to scream and cry a lot and be very cranky. Thankfully, she is finally getting over it.

The other reason that I am hating winter is that I am oh so tired of not being able to get outside and take some photos. I much prefer to shoot outside. The light is better and there is just so much more that I can take photos of - Ella can't hide nearly as well.

Since I have been busy taking care of my sick Ella (and Lily and the three other kids that I have been watching part-time), I'm only posting one photo for today. Ella is going to her grammy's for a few nigths this week, so I do hope to have time to edit some more photos and get them posted then. Until then, here is a shot of Ella feeding Lily. This was the first time she has ever wanted to hold Lily and feed her by herself, so I was pretty happy about it.

What My Girlies Have Been Up To

I spent all of last week sick with the flu, so needless to say I didn't feel much like taking photos or posting anything here. And now that I am feeling better, I've been spending all my spare time getting photos ready for my scrapbooking crop coming up this weekend (yay!). I've been going through lots of old photos, and new ones too, and I love seeing how the girls are changing not only in their looks, but also in what they are doing. So I thought I would a minute tonight to put up a few photos from the past couple of days of things my girls have been into lately.

Ella has been obsessed with these little pop beads that she got for Christmas. She always begs me to sit with her and make necklaces, rings, and watches. She even likes to string them ALL together and wrap them around herself, saying she is a Christmas tree. She cracks me up. You can also tell from this photo that she is still in the stage of making crazy faces at the camera. I can never get a natural expression from her. I keep hoping that will change some day...Lily is starting to sit on her own for a few seconds, but I'm too scared to let go of her long enough to take a photo for fear that she will fall down. She is loving laying on the floor, but only if I lay with her and sing her songs. She is truly the only person who can enjoy my singing voice. Her very favorite song is ABCs. I don't know why, but she laughs at it every time. I keep encouraging her to roll over, but she is showing absolutely zero interest. Ella used to use rolling to her advantage and go wherever she wanted in the room so I guess I just expected Lily to roll too. But no, she has no interest at all. I guess that's good for me so I don't have to chase her around yet. I'm also convinced that she is going to be a crawler because every time she has tummy time she tries to scoot herself along the floor to get her toys. She isn't quite able to move much yet, but she really tries. Little Miss Ella has been in love with anything creative. She is especially loving painting and gluing. The only thing is that she HATES getting glue on her fingers. She starts crying and tells me to "get the yuckies off".This is Lily's elephant that she is now in love with. She smiles and coos at it and tries so hard to get it in her mouth, but inevitably ends up dropping it and getting angry until someone will give it back to her again. And this is Ella's bed. Her teeny, tiny toddler bed. She is convinced that she needs to take five hundred animals to bed with her. Then she complains that she has nowhere to lay, but she will not let me take anyone out of her bed. She even has some of Lily's stuffies in there that she "takes care of" for Lily. Every night I try to sneak a couple out and hide them to make more room for her, but she takes inventory and always demands to have them back. It's starting to get out of control. I think maybe we should have went straight to a double bed and skipped the toddler bed altogether. And I couldn't resist putting this photo in because it just absolutely cracks me up. This is Ella and Lily in the ball pit. I love that Ella looks crazy and Lily looks terrified and confused. The poor little thing has no idea what's going on. Isn't it funny, though?

Ella's First Time Skating

On Saturday we took Ella to the rink in Alma to try out the skates that Santa got her for Christmas. I didn't know if she would jump right in or be a little timid, but she did really well for her first time. She definitely didn't want Shawn to let go of her and I think she had the most fun when daddy was skating around with her in his arms, but she did love it. She's been telling everyone that she skated all by herself. I think she's going to be a great little skater when she gets a bit more practice in.

Easy Bakin'

On Sunday we got out the Easy Bake Oven that Ella got for Christmas and was she ever excited to use it! She immediately went to her kitchen and put on her chef's hat and apron and got all geared up to bake. She was happy that she got to do pretty well everything all by herself and it was fun for me too, since I got to relive what it was like when I had my own easy bake oven. Nothing about it has changed in the last 20 years, either, other than the color (mine was a lovely shade of orange with black trim). Here's a little step-by-step instruction about how to use an easy bake oven, featuring the lovely Miss Ella.

Step 1:Pour out cake mix.


Step 2: Add water. Step 3: Mix well.

Step 4: Pour batter into pan.

Step 5. Put cake into Easy Bake oven.
Step 6. Wait for cake to bake (who knew a light bulb could bake a cake in 12 minutes?).

Step 7. Smile for the camera as you wait for your cake.
Step 8. Give mommy a thumb's up to tell me how the cake's doing.
Step 9. Remove cake from oven when baked.
Step 10. Pour frosting mix into bowl while cake is cooling. Step 11: Add water and mix frosting well.
Step 12: Spread frosting on cake.
Step 13: Add sprinkles to cake.
Step 14: Admire finished product.

Step 15: Show off your hard work. Step 16. Enjoy!
Yummy!