1 year documentary photo

Every month this past year I have been taking a picture of Tripp on his month birthday. I wanted to give you a little behind the scenes this month.

This is typically the end result:

Or something like this where he is smiling but not looking:

But we always have a little of this in the out takes:

And in true boy fashion, a little of this:


So it isn't always easy but it is attainable! Have a great week everyone!

Tripp is ONE!!!

Tripp's party was a huge success! We didn't even have any meltdowns! Here he is in his gift from us.


My sister and Micah were there celebrating with us!

Me and the kids. I love my sweet babies!

Tripp cracked me up with this gift because the box was bigger than him and he kept leaning over the box to look inside. So sweet!

Here he is "reading" his card that Jonah Carlisle made him. This was at the beginning of opening gifts... he didn't last the whole time but we had great help and they enjoyed opening everything! I still remember having to open all of K's gifts on her first birthday all by myself. Not nearly as fun as having lots of helpers!

He completely devoured the cake. He dug right in. Squeezed the cake with his hand. It was everywhere. We had to strip him down and change his clothes outside. So much fun!

This is before he lost the hat. He was so much fun to watch. Great memories!

Here he is with Kate Turnbull. They are really close to the same age. So fun to see them side by side. She is walking up a storm and has been for a while. Tripp is close. Any day now!

Here he is at the beginning of the party. So cute!

The kids played at fishing for duckies game. It ended up being a wading pool. They had a good time and that is what it was there for! Check out Will's foot.

Another sweet picture of Rylie and Kaylen. They are such good friends!

My outdoor decor. I made the banner and found the lanterns on sale at HBLB! It ended up so cute and easy to do! Love summer birthdays!

Close up of my duckie cupcakes. These were fun to make.

The snacks table!

A great book!

A friend of mine gave me a book to read that I had been wanting to read for a while. I opened it up and haven't been able to put it down! It's called Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. It is soooo good! I can't tell you how deeply it has gripped me. My students are working on finishing up a project today so I opened it up during school. Totally cried in class! Couldn't help it. It is so heart moving. I highly recommend it.

Without giving anything away, it is about a homeless guy and an international art dealer and how their lives become forged together and the impact they had on each other. It is a great read.

sample video from new camera

Amazing Mother's Day Weekend!

I had a really fun weekend with my kids. My Mother's Day present came in on Saturday so I played with it all weekend. I got a new point and shoot camera! I love it! Kaylen and I went to a classmate's birthday party on Saturday and then Amber came over for a while. We hung out and played with my camera for a bit and then she left around 4:30 to take a nap and my kids wanted to do the same. So I put K and T down for a nap. Only K woke up that night. Tripp slept until 8 the next morning. He missed dinner and everything! This kid is absolutely ridiculous with his excessive sleeping. So I used the free time to get my house in order and work on a banner I am making for Tripp's birthday. Allen spent 5 hours working in the yard. He did an amazing job and suffered two horrendous blisters to boot.

Sunday started off so nice with breakfast in bed and some really sweet cards. We had Aunt Liz, Uncle Bob, Aunt Christy, Uncle Wayne, Mamaw, Papaw, Amber, Allen, the kids and me at the house. We had a nice lunch and homemade ice cream for dessert. We played corn hole (Amber beat me badly), basketball and went for a walk. It was so nice outside. I enjoyed every bit of the day and my kids were so adorable and both behaved wonderfully. It was good to be me yesterday. I am blessed.

Amber took these beginning ones of Tripp that turned out so great. In this first one he was dancing from side to side. Such a sweetie!

This one is obviously so funny but if you click on it and view it larger, you can totally see my sister using my new orange camera in his eyes! Too cool!



These last three were from Saturday. We enjoyed the mild yet beautiful weather all weekend.

Camp Out in the Backyard!

Kaylen has been asking us if we could go on a real camp out for quite some time now. She goes on pretend ones in the play room when she spends the night with her grandparents. So we finally had a really free weekend and decided to give it a try. We went and got a tent (we are such avid campers that we didn't even own one!) and I quickly learned that my husband didn't have that much practice with putting one of these up. Thankfully my dad always made me help out when we put tents up growing up as a kid. So between the two of us, we made it happen. Notice the big smile on Allen's face. This was a pretty funny endeavor.

Here it is all up and it was worth it because we had one excited little girl.

She is just like her daddy and she wants things to be a certain way. She had snacks that she went and got from the pantry. She had a baby for each of us. She had an agenda. We were to tell stories, have a pillow fight, wrestle and roast marshmallows. It was really fun. She even said that she prayed and asked God to keep it from raining on them. Her prayers were heard. The rain held off! She did forget to ask Him to keep the wind at bay but that made it an adventure!

This is a picture of our ominous sky. I was worried.


We had fun in the tent playing steam roller and telling stories. (not ghost stories just stories)

Tripp was inside asleep and that is why I let Kaylen and Daddy spend the night without me. I stayed out there until about 11:30. We did have a tee-tee accident but most nights she gets up in the middle of the night and goes to the bathroom. A combination of staying up until midnight and being outside threw her off. Oh well.

Here is a sample of our play dough people.


Here is my new camera!!! Happy Mother's Day to me!!!!! I am so excited about it. My current point and shoot is on its last leg, as you can tell from the blurry images above. We also got it in orange. I can't wait for it to come in!