My Boy

Captain Adorable shows some interest in books.

I just love my little boy!  He is a funny little happy guy.  He loves to laugh.  If he knows I'm upset he catches my eye and smiles at me as if to cheer me up (and to make sure he's not in trouble).

 

He was laughing at me making funny noises at him.  

This boy has rhythm. When he hears music his little shoulders start bobbing to the beat.  He loves to dance and he's always wiggling his body.  When he walks tends to skip happily around.  Sometimes he purposely turns bends his body side to side to exaggerate his steps, just to be funny.  He loves making me laugh.

He jabbers so much.  He is very vocal and his streams of words are starting to make more and more sense.  Sometimes he'll mutter a stream of words softly under his breath as he is intently investigating something.  His favorite subject is always balls.  When Captain Adorable is excited about things he always exclaims "Ooooh!!!" and points excitedly and then rattles off some nonsensical babble peppered with some understandable words.

Captain Adorable is getting very good at giving kisses. And he loves to snuggle with me and his blanket.  He will randomly walk over and lay his head in my lap for a few seconds.  And he likes try to turn my legs so I will pick him up and he can see whatever interesting thing I am doing in the kitchen.  And I can hear him jabbering about it.  He is intensely interested in cooking. When things are hot he will say "Hot! Hot!" while signing it.  He has a low voice for a toddler and is very boyish with grunting noises thrown in every so often.

He puts up with me and the way I always want to give him a hug.  But there are definitely times when he squeals at me and pushes me away so he can run off and explore other things.

Love, love, love. Can I order another one just like him?

I LOVE how often I find Captain Adorable zonked out in random places.  It's so cute and I just can't get over it.  I always want to snap a picture of him sleeping. We recently moved him to a toddler bed instead of his crib.  Handsome Husband just felt like it was time.  Can I just say that he was the EASIEST baby to transition to a toddler bed??? He rolled out the first couple of nights, but other than that it is almost like there is no difference.  Captain Adorable has always been so good about sleeping.  He was my only child who slept through the night from 2 months on.  And he has always wanted to have his SPACE while sleeping.  He likes to STRETCH out and he will kick anything that is close to his legs.  When he is relaxing on the floor he will do that as well and squeal if whoever he is pushing doesn't move.  Anyway, I hope that potty training is as easy a transition for him... A girl can dream, right??

Swimming Lessons

I signed Ballerina up for swimming lessons and she was in love with it.

She and Ben were in the same class.

I have not seen her smile so much for an extended period of time for a long time.  Her cheeks probably hurt from smiling by the end of each lesson.

Here she is trying to float on her back, but then she chickened out and buckled.

 

Seriously, so smiley.

They also learned some safety skills, like reaching out to someone who is drowning.  Ballerina was SUPPOSED to pull the person out, not the other way around.

Ballerina is a total water baby.  She LOVES it.

Now she is trying to help someone who is drowning by sticking her legs out toward them.

At the end she got to jump in to the pool.

After the lesson the teacher asked me not to take pictures through the WHOLE lesson.  I told her not to worry that this would be the only time.  Ballerina can't wait for more swimming lessons.

Mother's Day

On Mother's Day morning Handsome Husband let me sleep in until 10am!  And he and the kids brought breakfast in bed.  It was so funny because all the kids wanted to eat everything off my plate.  I don't think Handsome Husband fed them before they brought me food.  My favorite part of the morning was when Captain Adorable ran in to my bedroom he shouted "Momma!"  He never says my name.  It was the perfect gift.  The girls brought me a card and they gave me a heart attack:

Handsome Husband got the kids all dressed.  I felt fancy in this dress that is a hand-me-down from my sister.

We invited some new friends over to share our pot roast for dinner.  Since I tend to share dinners with Jeana frequently, I have become much more comfortable with cooking for large groups.  

Also, we pulled this easel out and the girls were entertained for a solid half hour.  Ballerina used her Littlest Pet Shop cat as a model.  I thought she did an awesome job.

Sweetie made a cookie man on fire.  It's her favorite thing to draw.

Resident Models

I finally bought a backdrop stand.  I have been saving for my new camera and lens for so long that now I am ready to expand to other things.  This backdrop stand will be SO helpful on my newborn photo shoots.  I had to set it up to test it out.

I've been telling Babydoll's mom for a while that I would take pictures for her and I finally did.

Before I knew it there was a line of children waiting for the chance to try out the new backdrop.

And of course Jeana's kids wanted in on the action.

Ballerina has face paint all over her face because she went to the Portland Children's Museum that day for a school field trip.  She had been looking forward to that trip for weeks.

I LOVE these pictures of Sweetie.

I guess one positive thing to having so many kids around is that I will always have a subject to photograph!

Ballet Class

Ballerina was very excited when I stayed to watch her practice at her dance class.  I can normally stay to watch the first class of every month, but most of the time I have the smaller kids with me.  Jeana watched them for me so I could go.

The girl on the left ALWAYS wants to get in the shot...

Ballerina was in a great mood.

She was raising her hand to give a totally off topic comment.  In true kindergartener fashion.

She's pulling faces for me.

There's my beautiful little dancer.

This is one of her favorite songs.  It's the Tiki Room.

She gets to have a parrot as her prop.

Ballerina was being too cute with the bird.

Then there was the pirate number (it's a Disney themed recital).

"Aaaarrgh!"

And the last one I got to see was a Mulan number.

We are definitely looking forward to her recital!