Our Sawyer

Nate's mom had kept this awesome outfit from when he was a toddler, so we had to take some pictures of Sawyer in it while it fit him. He's such a little character. :)

I love my sweet Sawyer!

We have raspberries in our backyard and the boys love to pick and eat them. I told him he couldn't have one until he let me take a couple more shots. Here's his mad face. :) Perfect if you ask me! Oh, Sawyer you make life so interesting!

House Number Planter

I discovered that the clay pots I used seep water and caused the paint to bubble and discolor. So, in the future, they would need to be sealed or use plastic pots instead. But for now, it gives them character. :)

Done

Found this at DI:
Painted it:
Finally finished my newspaper topiary and put it in my 'new' pot.
Found some pots and flowers for suuuper cheap at Shopko and made my house number planter. I only did two pots instead of three. Maybe I should get a bigger pot for the top one...we'll see.

Catch up

I realized that I forgot to post about Sawyer's birthday party and Landon's last day of school and so I'm playing catch up in this post. :)

Sawyer's Birthday:
I did post about my sweet stinker turning two, I just forgot to post about his party. He made a great haul and loved most of all his new bike. He rode it around the house all night; we had a hard time getting him off of it for bed.

He was loving dogs (and still is) and especially dalmatians at the time, so I made him a dog cake. It was an interesting endeavor. It turned out ok. He loved it. Gertie gave him a copy of a picture they took of it and he carried it around for days.
Landon's Last Day of School:

Landon was both excited and a little sad that school was ending.

He really enjoyed his teacher, and I'm so grateful to her for helping him continue to love school.

We also got the pleasure of working with Mrs. Anderson, aka Sister Anderson.

It was fun to know her on both the school and the church front.
(Left : Mrs. Anderson Right: Mrs. Jensen)

Here's a picture of two of Landon's best friends from his class, Ben and Ethan.

The 4th of July and Nate's Birthday
Saturday night we did fireworks at Amber's house and planned to watch the stadium fireworks from there. About three spinning eyeballs into the event, Sawyer was petrified. I tried to take him inside and watch from the window. Still terrified. We went in to the kitchen where we couldn't see or hear and he was still a little skittish. So, Sawyer and I went home. Yeah for fireworks. :)
Sunday we celebrated Nate's birthday. I made him a sweet fish cake (if I do say so myself). It was actually kinda fun to do. I had a fish pan, so even though it was a bugger to get out of the pan, I at least had the general fish shape. Then I frosted it back together and painted it with watered down food coloring and accented it with some olive green frosting. Oh, just a little tip for all those who like to color frosting. You can add cocoa powder to your frosting to help darken the colors up. That's how I got the olive green color on the fins, tail and eye, and also how I got a decent black for Sawyer's dalmatian.
Monday we swam and BBQed at the Harris'. Over all it was a pretty fun weekend.

Aspirations

Sadly, I'm still so far off from my aspirations of taking great photo's like this one:
I still have much to learn and acquire in the way of photography skills and equipment. I tried to do some photos of my friend's new baby and ended up sadly lacking. By some miracle, I ended up with a couple good ones, but man, oh man, photographing babies is hard work.
I don't know how they do it. But I can understand why my favorite baby photographer can get away with charging a small fortune for her classes. After this struggle of a session, I was about ready to give up on photographing babies, but then my muse posted these pictures and I was instantly re-inspired.
Pressing onward, ever onward. I'd love some models (any age!), if anyone feels the need for some pictures, let me know and I'm sure we can work something out to benefit us both!

Thanks Brielle for letting me use your sweet baby!

Zoo Trip

We made a Harris family trip to the zoo a couple of weekends ago. It was funtimes for all! Since this was essentially our family 'vacation' for the summer, we made sure we did it all. (Awesome pictures taken by Nate)

Our Monkey ChildrenOur Monkey Cousins

I think the baby elephant was the kids' favorite

Sawyer was a tad frightened of the tall moving animals, so we settled for a bench. :)