"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life;
to put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived." ~Henry David Thoreau

Monday, May 27, 2013

A Day Out With Thomas

 Devin and Garrett are completely obsessed with all things Thomas the Tank Engine.  Ethan has never been interested in trains, only annoyed with them when we get got at a train crossing when running late.  And that ALWAYS happens.  But Devin has loved trains since he was about eighteen months old, and we went to Heber City last May to do the Day Out With Thomas expo.  In the last year, Garrett has proven to walk in Devin's footsteps in more ways than one- and his love of trains has been no different.

It's super fun having two little boys close in age who are in love with choo choos.  Today we headed back out to Heber City, after paying a small fortune to ride on Thomas.  The four younger kids had a lot of fun, but sadly, Ethan is already getting into the age of being too cool for baby stuff like that.  He had a pretty bad attitude almost the whole time.  The only thing he liked was the juggler, which actually was hilarious.  But Ethan survived the day. 

Surprisingly, Garrett wasn't scared of the giant Sir Topham Hatt.  He went right up to him and touched his hand and thought it was super cool to meet him.  He wasn't scared of anything all day, until it came time to ride the motor car but that's only because it was really loud.









This guy was hilarious.  I mean, REALLY funny.  He was really talentd but kept making jokes about how he wasn't any good.  Yeah right!  But some guy in the back (a dad of some kid) was a total jerk and kept heckling him and calling him names.  Seriously?  Who does that at a kids' show?  The performer was a good sport about it, but you could tell he thought that parents was a real tool.
















Ethan had this look on face almost all day.  He was too cool for all the baby stuff.







Sunday, May 5, 2013

Spring Photo Shoot

I have been needing to do the kids' spring photo shoot for a few weeks, but I have been waiting for Ethan's hair to grow out after his WAY TOO SHORT hair cut he got a while back.  Today is Sunday and we headed out to Temple Square after Garrett woke up from his nap.  I hate doing pictures- I really do.  Even though I took photography in high school and college (that's all I did for art credits) and I am very qualified, I would never ever want to do this as a profession.  The only reason I take my own kids' pictures is because I hate having them done at a place like Target or JC Penney, and I really like my work better.  But in my experience, kids behave the worst for their own parents.  My kids are no exception.

The weather was beyond perfect and there was a very slight breeze.  The sun could have been a little more hidden behind the clouds, but I was able to find some great spots that weren't too shadowy or directly in the sun.  Garrett was absolutely horrible- that's why there are the fewest pictures of him.  He's two years old and he's VERY good at it.  Devin is getting better at sitting through photo shoots, but he still gets fidgety and bored and wants to behave badly sometimes.  Today's shoot was very fast because my patience was slim.  Could I have gotten better group shots?  Yeah, but I wanted my kids to like me at the end of the day and not be terrified of me.

Funny story-  Today as I was snapping pictures of the kids, I heard what sounded like the Paparazzi behind me. I turned to see a huge Asian tour group taking pictures of our kids. I guess our bunch must have been a novelty to them! Wish I could have understood what they were saying. They were giggling and smiling and seemed to get a huge kick out of my babies.

Temple Square was very crowded with tourists and a lot of people doing family photo shoots.  But I got the shots that I needed for the wall, so I'm calling it a success.  And it couldn't have been possible without my assistant extraordinaire, AKA my baby daddy and best friend.  Cody does a good job of chasing the little boys around while I tried to get everyone positioned.  The big kids were good about sitting and waiting- which they did a whole lot of.   So here is spring 2013-








































Ethan took this one.

And this one.

Ethan is getting a lot better at taking photographs.  But this one totally grossed him out!