At my mom’s on Sunday, it was a pretty day, not too hot and Emelyn had on a pretty purple dress.  She doesn’t have many outfits in purple and I thought it was pretty on her, so I decided to snap a few photos.  Her brother had to jump in, of course, so I got a couple of him as well.

These were taken at the beginning of June when Emelyn first started pulling up really well …

About a month ago, Hayden desperately needed a haircut.  There was only one girl that he wouldn’t throw a fit over when she cut his hair, but she was on maternity leave, so my mom brought him to a kid’s place in Kenner where he could sit in a car.  He did really well and his hair was SO cute!  Its growing out now, but it was pretty short when he first got it done!  This was the day he got it cut … he also got a new quilt for his bed.  Its a red car quilt, he loves it.

I took Ethan by  himself when we were in Chattanooga to see if I could get some cute shots of him and he let me take a few before he was done and ready to go inside!

You can’t be good all the time ;-)

This are some quick pics I grabbed of the kids this morning because they were looking cute … I had to use either (really dark) natural light or my pop-up flash b/c I didn’t have time to grab my other flash.  Cute pics anyway, enjoy!

Well, my baby is now 8 months old … that makes me really, really sad, but she’s so much fun right now!

At 8 months old, she has 3 teeth (2 bottom, 1 top) and 2 more will be popping out any day now.  I thought she was just cutting one on top but tonight I noticed she actually has 2, no wonder she’s been so fussy and restless lately!  She’s babbling more and more, making a few different sounds, but still not very vocal.  SHe mostly just screeches and coos a lot :-)  She loves to look at people upside down, especially Hayden.  She likes to lay on my lap and throw her head back to look at him.  She’s getting much better with eating her solid foods and we’ve moved up to 3 meals a day … cereal with fruit for breakfast, mixed veggies for lunch and whatever I happen to grab for dinner - fruit or veggies.  She’s learning to eat puffs on her own, though she still doesn’t quite have the pincher grasp down.  She’s quickly getting the hang of pulling up and getting herself down, though not really “cruising” yet.  She fights  naps, but on good days, she’ll take 2 good naps, sometimes 3.  She’s sleeping 12 hours at night, but wakes up a few times to nurse.  I’m sure if she was in her own bed, those nighttime nursing sessions would decrease … if you could sleep next to your favorite buffet, you’d eat all night too!  :-)

Here are some pictures I took of her last week in her pretty princess dress … Mandy and I had gone to Pottery Barn to look at their nursery bedding and I saw this dress.  It was a $130 dress marked down to $25, so I just had to get it.  Who knows if she’ll ever wear it anywhere, but who cares, we have pictures in it now LOL

The last few days have been so exhausting and busy!  Thursday night I had not 1 but 2 newborn sessions which lasted until 9pm!  Both babies were so precious!  Friday night I had a wedding to shoot in Morgan City so Wade and the kids headed to my parents house.  My wedding wasn’t over until around 12:30, then I had to run home, finish packing and head to New Orleans.  I didn’t get to moms until about 2:30 in the morning and had to wake up at 7 so we could head to Pensacola.  The drive over wasn’t too bad, but Emelyn didn’t sleep much and cried a few times.  We got to the hotel around noon and hurried to get dressed and head to the church for Dana and Jason’s wedding.  (Dana is my cousin on my mom’s side, we’re the same age and grew up together)  The ceremony was beautiful and short, thank goodness, b/c I wound up walking around outside with Emelyn and it was HOT!!!  She finally fell asleep on the way to the reception and to my amazement, she stayed asleep and even slept for a while in her stroller!  (She’s never done that before, she usually wakes up as soon as you take her out of the carseat)  The reception was nice and it was fun to see all of our family and for Hayden to be with his cousins.  Dana looked beautiful and I loved her dress, it was very different from anything I’ve seen.  I didn’t take all that many pictures b/c my camera battery was dying and also because I didn’t want to be in the photographer’s way.  This was my first time attending a wedding as a guest since I started shooting weddings myself, so I’m very concious of these things.  I’ve had a few “Uncle Bob’s” get in my way over the last few months!

I thought Hayden would enjoy it more than he did.  He loves to dance and entertain us at home, so I always figured he’d have a ball dancing with all of his cousins and entertaining a huge crowd, but he was being really shy and wouldn’t dance.  I did hold him and dance to a couple of songs, which he liked, and we also danced with Dana together.  He was so cute, he kept calling her “that princess” … I wonder what was goign through his little head the whole time.  He’s never seen anyone in a big fancy white dress before, at least not since our wedding!  At one point, dad said he was scooting closer and closer to Dana, but looked scared of her so he said “She’s not going to bite you!”  I did get him to take a picture with her.

After the wedding, mom and dad took him over to the hotel everyone else was staying at so he could swim with all the kids.  We booked at the last minute because we didn’t know when Mandy was going to have Adalyn and the hotel we wanted was filled.  I was so exhausted and Emelyn needed to go to bed, so we stayed at our room .. we were both sound asleep for the night by 8:30!  Hayden had a lot of fun swimming with the kids and Uncle Gable … I’m sure Aunt Debbie got pics (I hope!)

We headed home this morning and got back around 1pm.  Wade was at mom and dads waiting for us.  Father’s day was laid back, nothing too exciting, but relaxing which is what we all needed!  Dad and Wade boiled some crabs and dad grilled burgers and hot dogs for us.  We’ll be headed back to MC in the morning!  Here’s some pictures from the wedding:

Last weekend, Emelyn and I spent a day / night at the camp with Wade.  He just got a new (big) motor on his boat, so he was excited to launch it and take it out.  I got to go on the first ride and it really is pretty fun.  Its so quite and when you start to go fast, with the way the boat is designed, you are skimming the top of the water … I think Wade said the boat is only in the water about an inch or two.

Emelyn enjoyed hanging out in the swing for a very short time!

After our camp day, we spent the rest of the weekend at mom and dad’s just hanging out, not really doing anything special.  Emelyn got a new bathing suit and a new toy … she loves chewing on my real keys, so I bought her some toy ones that are really close to the real thing … they are even metal so I guess they have a good taste! LOL

Pretty girl :-)  It seriously amazes me how much people stop me to comment on her.  Every single time I go somewhere, I hear how cute she is, its crazy!  I mean, I think she’s gorgeous, pretty and cute, but she’s mine, so I’m supposed to think that!  LOL

Of course, she gets lots of comments on this too LOL

When Wade got home from the camp, he helped Hayden with his “geyser” that mom and dad bought him from Yellowstone.  Its this plastic tube that you put on a 2 liter bottle and drop Mentos into … the Mentos have some kind of reaction with the soda and it creates a “geyser” …

There is a string you pull which drops the Mentos in.  When Hayden pulled the string, we didn’t expect it to go off so quickly or to squirt out of the sides like it did … this is Wade yanking Hayden away from it as it started shooting everywhere LOL

Covered in soda … thank goodness we used diet so it wasn’t sticky! LOL

“Little Wade” - every time someone sees him they say that he looks just like Wade

Emelyn just cut one of her top teeth and the other one will probably cut through in the next day or two.  Hopefully that is the reason she’s been more restless at night, mommy needs sleep!  She’s getting faster at crawling and better at pulling up.  She’s soooooo sensitive, its funny.  If she’s standing up by something and can’t figure out how to move or get down, she cries… if she plops on her butt, even if she isn’t hurt, she cries like she is.  If I set her on the floor when she doesn’t want to be there, the waterworks begin.  She squeezes huge fat tears out of her little eyes!  She’s also gotten super-attached to me lately, even more than usual.  If I’m anywhere in site, she won’t let anyone else hold her.  She’ll struggle and cry, reaching for me, until I take her.  She continues to catnap all day, never sleeping more than 45 minutes.  She’s eating solids a little better.  She loves sweet potatoes and will sometimes eat bananas, pears or squash.  I can’t get her to eat the cereal, but I’ve got to keep trying because she needs the iron.  She’s been eating fruit puffs for a couple of weeks now and has started trying to pick them up with her thumb and forefinger.  She can’t quite get them in her mouth, yet.  That’s about all for now, we’ve been really busy and I know I’ve been slacking on the blog.  I’ve got a backlog of pictures to upload.  I’m working on a wedding from almost 2 months ago and once I have this one edited, I can spend more time doing personal stuff.

Yesterday, we took a trip to the library to get some new books.  I’ve signed Hayden up for the Summer Reading Program, which is where you keep track of the time spent reading and at the end of the summer, awards are given out.  They also have lots of activities going on like magic shows, storytime, etc.  We skipped storytime on Wednesday because the kids have been sick and I didn’t want to bring them around other kids.  When we went on Thursday to get books, Ms Carol, who does the storytime, saw Hayden and gave him the stuff to do the activity that they did on Wednesday.  It was a big cut-out that he was supposed to decorate like himself, along with a crown and a “jewel” for the crown.  He was so excited about it and colored the paper man as soon as we got home, then I glued the crown and jewel to it and he carried that thing around all day.  Some time during the day, the jewel fell off and who knew where it went?

I had to get the kids up really early this morning so I could get them dressed and head to New Orleans.  I laid him down and yanked off the pull-up, then noticed something strange.  I looked closer and there it was, the big blue “jewel” was stuck right to Hayden’s … um, well, his “family jewels.”  LOL  It apparently had been there all night b/c there was an indention when I plucked it off.  He’s been in a habit of sticking things in his pockets lately and if he isn’t wearing pants, he sticks them in his underwear, so I guess that’s what happened.  I called over to Wade and said “Hey, I found our family jewels!”  Heehee