6 and 7 months

Here are a few pictures from our 6 and 7 month photo shoots. I recently downloaded the 30-day trial of Lightroom 3 and it was such a fun program to play around with. I'm crossing my fingers that I get that for Christmas since the price dropped to irresistibly low levels around Black Friday. Anyways, I took these in our backyard and I'm glad I caught the fall leaves when I did because winter hit before fall was over this year. I don't think we ever got a chance to rake our leaves before they were covered in snow. That will be fun to deal with in the spring.

I was contemplating a camera upgrade a couple months ago. I was considering switching from the Nikon family to the Canon family. I asked everyone I knew who was into photography what their opinions were on cameras. Everyone had something different to say. In fact two people even owned the same camera and one loved it and one hated it. I think choosing a camera is like a choosing a wand in Harry Potter. You hold it and you just know it's yours - the camera chooses you. Okay, maybe it's not that magical. Anyways, so I just ended up getting confused and I decided not to upgrade at all for now. I did decide to stick with the Nikon brand because it's what I know now. So Josh got me a new lens for our anniversary and I've been having a lot of fun with it. It's a great lens for portraits but has no zoom so that's been a bit of an adjustment. I'm constantly twisting it out of habit. So far I've really loved it. Here's our little baby cutie.

It's a winter wonderland!

Wow where does the time go? I have been completely ignoring my blog so hopefully someone out there is still checking up on it! I guess I mostly write on this for myself though. We had some pretty big snow storms a few weeks ago which made the world so lovely. It snowed just the way I like it to - a whole bunch all at once so you only have to shovel the driveway once or twice and you're done. Not that I ever shovel the driveway. Usually Josh does it and quite often our neighbor does it for us with his snow plow attached to his 4-wheeler. We have the best neighbors. Anyways I really like the snow as long as I don't have to go anywhere in it and it's not April when snow season should be DONE. It's just so pretty though.

It's nice that this year they can put their snow suits on mostly by themselves. It's still a lot of work but doesn't take nearly as long as last year! However, now that the twins are potty trained, inevitably somebody has to go potty 2 minutes after we've gone through the whole process of getting the suits on.

We're running on a tight schedule this December. Almost every day until Christmas has something. I love to go downtown and see the lights at temple square as a family. It just puts me in the Christmas mood. It's generally a bit of a pain to Josh but since it's important to me he does it and tries not to get stressed out. We picked the best night to go! It was hardly even cold and the kids were great and we got the best parking spot right on main street. We lasted almost twice as long as last year! We also got all the kids a new hat and pair of gloves since last year I was unprepared for the cold so that helped a lot.

We think maybe Tanner was yawning in this picture. He's pulling quite a face.

Camryn was wearing her warm, little duck suit so she pulled her duck face. She does this face all the time. It's so funny.

So fashionable

We had our first snow storm of the season the other day. Natalie and Tanner wanted to go out to play right away but Natalie was dressed like it was still 100 degrees outside so I told her to go change. This is what I got.

She's ready to go! Tank top, biking shorts, tights, snow boots and her snow coat. I was actually just impressed that she was wearing something other than a princess dress. She wears her princesses dresses every minute except for at preschool and church when I make her pretend NOT to be a princess.

Happy Halloween

We were so busy partying this Halloween that I didn't get very many pictures. Lame! Since we had a cute frog costume that fit Tanner and the girls always love being princesses, we went with The Princesses and the Frog theme. My mom got Natalie this awesome red and gold very regal, almost queenly looking costume that even had a hoop skirt. She was so excited about it and begged to wear it everywhere. But while we were getting in the car to go to our first Halloween party she had a potty accident. I was already stressed out about getting everyone ready in the first place so I didn't handle that well. Especially since I had no idea how to wash a dress with a hoop in it. I told her many times how unhappy I was about this while I made her change into one of her old princess dress-ups. She kept asking "Are you happy with me now mommy?" while we got her dressed and I kept saying no, but finally I told her "I'm not happy right now but I still love you." And she said "You still love me?!" like she was sure that was out of the question. So I felt a little bad about that and learned my lesson that I need to chill out about the potty accidents. I got her dress cleaned the next day but after that she was too worried to wear it so we don't have any pictures of her in it.

So we had six parties the week of Halloween. It was a fun crazy week. Here are a few pictures.

This is the best picture I got of my kids. The little guy on the left is my nephew Noah who definitely looks like he could be one of mine too. Tanner and Sydney look so bored in this picture. I vow to do better at getting more pictures next year!

Sydney loved getting all dolled up every day and I've gotten a lot faster at doing my girls' hair from all the up-dos lately.

We go to my parents' ward party every year. Our ward doesn't do a Halloween party so we have to crash theirs. :)

We went to "trunk or treat" for Josh's work. There were no trunks involved and it was all indoors so that was nice.

Camryn was a fairy princess. We lost her little tiara in the parking lot at our first party so she's mostly just a fairy, but still super cute.

We carved pumpkins too. The kids took out a few seeds and then put their orders in for how they would like me to carve their pumpkin. I don't really mind because I really like carving pumpkins. Someday it will be fun to have them participate a bit more.

Like I said, the kids picked what the pumpkins would look like. We had the scariest pumpkins on the block. :)

Well that was fast...

My baby is 5 months old! Crazy how fast that went. I don't remember the other kids growing up this fast. I've been doing our own little photo shoot with Camryn every month. This is something I didn't really do with the other kids, but I didn't have as much of an interest in photography back then either. I think it's good though. At least she won't be the last child who never has any pictures taken of her!

One day old...

I didn't take her first pictures. This one was done by Baby Bella at the hospital.

Ten days...

This picture was taken by my awesome photographer sister-in-law Wende.

One month...

I love naked baby pictures. We had a hard time getting one at her newborn photoshoot so this was the best I could do at her one month!

Two months...

Three months...

Four months...

Five months...

Oh how we love fall

Have I mentioned how much I love taking pictures of my kids? I think they are quite photogenic! But, for some reason when I tell them to smile they can't seem to make eye contact with the camera. Oh well, it's still cute. We went to Gardner Village last night to see the witches. If you haven't been you really should go. It seems to be especially well decorated this year. And Sunday evening are great for taking pictures because the shops are closed so there are a few less people wandering around. And Natalie dressed up so we had our very own witch with us!

I made the best little discovery last night! This adorable little pink bench. So cute for pictures! And luckily Camryn was dressed to match so we just did her 5-month photo shoot right there! She not quite sitting up on her own yet so Josh sat right next to her to keep her upright until right before I was going to take the picture. This ended up being one of my favorites.

Bear Lake

Over Labor Day weekend we decided to go to Bear Lake. This was our only vacation all summer. That's what happens when you have a baby right before summer starts! We had considered going down to Lake Powell with the Muir family that weekend but Bear Lake is much easier with a baby and we really love it up there. It's the perfect kind of trip for our kids right now. Short drive, beach, plenty of things to do. We stayed at Ideal Beach which was great because we could walk right down on the beach and it had a pool and plenty of lawn area. It also has a mini golf course and kids craft area which we didn't even get around to visiting.

Here's the view from our condo. We were right by the pool and the playground which was very convenient for us.

When we got there I was bummed to realize we'd forgotten the frisbee and bocce ball set I was planning to bring. But then in the closet of our condo... ta da! Bocce ball set and frisbee and also a croquette set. We made the kids play a game of bocce ball but they seemed a little confused as to how this is fun. I guess it is kind of a weird game that somehow becomes fun when you get older.
These condo units are all individually owned. I would love to meet the people who owned ours. I imagine they are a little elderly couple who just love collecting things and have a lot of grandkids. That would explain the plethera of stuffed animals and beanie babies all over the condo. They also had birdhouses and fish hanging off the ceilings and light fixtures and a whole wall of Bear Lake Monster wood artwork. But the best surprise was when Josh and pulled down the murphy bed we were going to sleep on and found this.

The picture does not do it justice. The wood art in the middle says "sleep in the forest." It was like sleeping in one of those themed rooms at Anniversary Inn! So romantic...
We decided to start the weekend off right and get our raspberry shakes on Friday night. Last year we got them when we were leaving and had to deal with meltdowns. The kids were much happier this time around.

We also spent plenty of time at the beach. It was nice and warm on Saturday but a little cooler and very windy on Sunday so we played at the pool on that day.

My parents also joined us on this trip which was so fun. It's always great to have a little extra company, especially company that loves to hold our baby!

Camryn really bonded with her grandpa on this trip. He held her quite a lot and bounce her on his knee to her little heart's content. My parents decided to join us on this trip because that way my brother Nate could come along as well. He just got home from his mission and started school up at Utah State so he's basically just around the corner from Bear Lake. He earned lots of "favorite uncle" points over the weekend with our kids.

I've always thought these bike/cart things looked fun. 4 people can pedal on these things with 2 kids sitting in the front. Our little family did not all sit in this one. I couldn't pedal since I was holding Camryn so Nate and Josh pedaled ours and my parents took Sydney riding in theirs. They were really fun and once again I'm glad we had my parents along because we couldn't have done that on our own!