So Big . . .

Just this week Jake has started to hold up two fingers to show that he is two. Before he would hold up one finger on each hand to show two. It is amazing how they grow so quickly and how rapid their development is right now. He can even do two hands of two!

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I wasn't taking a photo everyday last year but I still took a lot! Here is one from around this same time last year (8/7/08) Look how small they were! We were all outside of Grandma and Grandpa's house watching the construction crew redo the road

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Here we are two years ago (8/05/07), trying to take a quick picture before we went to Jake's Dedication

As I am sure you can tell, photos are precious to me. I love taking them, looking at them, writing about them, but most of all preserving them for the future. I love looking at my pictures and the ones taken by the people I love. So when was the last time you got out you camera and shot the world around you? It it was today awesome, if it has been too long, go grab you camera and take some photos!!

Can you ever really say no to Dessert

It is hot and muggy today. Lots of rain in the morning combined with heat in the afternoon and more storms rolling in made for a uncomfortable day. So when K called us to invite us over for dessert, how could we say no. There was chocolate cake, ice cream and an air condition house (our air conditioner is still not functional), sounds good to me! They had out-of- town guest over and they were the best kind of guests -the kind that bring delicious dessert LOL! (Oh how I want out-of-town guests to visit. . . I am missing our CO friends today. . . any I digress. . .) The boys were thrilled to go to grandma's with or without cake! They don't pay attention to much else when there is yummy dessert involved! They each had two helpings, isn't that they best part of going to Grandma's , getting to do things you wouldn't get to do at home? They got do do puzzles and read books. Grandma even gave them each two flowers to bring home! They love bringing flowers home from Grandma's I grabbed this shot of the sky before we left. . . it looks like more storms are on the way, but they sky was really cool!

I'm not going to look at you

We were outside playing yesterday and I suggested to Will that we go in the back to take photos of him in the beautiful evening light play in the sand box. I grabbed my camera on the way and I started shooting him playing in the sand. I asked him to look up at me and he immediately hid his face saying he was not going to look at me (as I have said before he may be over photographed) I am always trying to find ways to make him think that taking photos is fun and not to dread my pulling out the camera, although sometime I know they do. So I started asking him where the moon way,thinking he might look at the sky and I could at least see his face. It worked briefly but not well because the moon wasn't out yet! So I started to make him laugh by saying there was a monkey on my head. He told me that there wasn't a monkey on my head and that he wasn't going to look! But he couldn't help himself and had to take a peek- Gotcha! It was a fun game that we played for a while, it is nice that he is getting to the age that we can joke around and laugh with him!

Making a List. . .

I really don't like going grocery shopping, I like to plan the menu and make the list of items we need, I just don't like to do the actual shopping. It is such a hassle to pile the boys in the car, drive to the store (usually Wal-mart) pile them out of the store and then shop for all of the items we need all the while explaining what this is and what that is and reminding that we don't take things off of the shelf and telling Jake, for the 25th time that no he cannot walk like Will because he is just not big enough yet, not to mention the fact that I am very overprotective in the store and don't want either of them more than two feet from me and the idea of having a 2 and a 3 year old running lose makes my anxiety level rise to tremendous amounts! By the time we get home and unpack all of the groceries it is lunch time and Jake is following me around crying and asking if we can have lunch and I feel like I need a nap! The weekly grocery shopping is very stressful for me, as I am writing about it I realize how silly it sounds and wonder why I let all of these things get to me I need to learn to relax more and just go with the flow. Well I guess I will have a chance to practice my patience tomorrow, as I decided this morning to plan out the menu for two weeks instead of my usual one. So I got out the recipe box and planned out 12 dishes (Saturday is usually left-over day for us) and made a list of all of the things that we will need for each dish. The plan is not to have to go the store next week! Good plan right? I know it will probably take a bit more time at the store but planning ahead is always worth it in the long run. So would you like to take a peak at what I will be picking up tomorrow on our trek to the store?

Bananas
Apples
Oranges
Grapes
Watermelon (We are loving the fresh fruits right now)
White Onions (3)
Yellow Onion
Cilantro
Parsley
Bell pepper
Sandwich rolls
Hamburger Buns
12 inch Pizza crust ( We are going to try out a Mexican pizza recipe~ we usually make our own crust for pizza but I like to follow a new recipe exactly the first time around)
Hamburger 2lb
Frozen Chicken Breast
1 lb beef top
OJ (4) (we go through so much orange juice, if we lived in a warmer climate it would be worth it to have a orange tree)
Chicken Broth (2)
Canned Corn
Green beans French style
1-14 oz can chopped tomatoes
1-14 oz can sliced carrots
Enchiladas sauce (3)
Refried beans (2)
Black Olives
Colby Jack Cheese
Mexican Cheese Blend (2) (I am trying a new enchiladas dish along with the Mexican pizza~ we love Mexican dishes)
Sour Cream
Milk
Tortilla chips
Baked Cheddar Chips
Prunes (Jake loves prunes I always joke that he eats them like candy)
Saran wrap
Aluminum foil heavy
Diapers size 4 (hopefully we will be upgrading to pull-ups soon I can't wait to have both boys out of diapers)

I have some yummy dishes planned and because I typed my list for you I was able to group things together for efficiency, thus saving me from running all the way back to the produce section when I have already made it to the milk cooler. Yea! So what about you do you love to shop or are you like me and dread it?

Willow River State Park

Yesterday Jonah and I spent the day at Willow River State park the boys were at a county fair with Grandma and Grandpa, so it was just the two of us. We had parked a ways from the falls and got to do some walking before we got there, it felt good to get out and enjoy the great outdoors. I told Jonah that I think my battery is solar powered, because it seems like being out in nature, not just the back yard, really energizes me. Jonah found this guy on the trail, he wasn't too thrilled about being picked up our how long it took me to get his picture.

We made it to the Falls and it was well worth the walk. I need to go back again to try and perfect my Waterfall shots, but you can still see a bit of their beauty- mom this is on our list of to-do's when you visit :) This is the view on the other side of the bridge, the calm side. We climbed all the stairs to get to the observation platform (see previous blog post) and after looking at the waterfall from above for a while we found even more stairs! They led to a path, I don't know where the path went, I think it may have gone down or maybe to a nearby parking lot. . . we didn't follow the path but went back down all the stairs ~with extremely shaky legs. The view was worth it though. We have lived here for over a year now and I am still amazed at how green the grass and trees get, I always think they look like someone adjusted the colors in Photoshop to make the green pop more (hmmm maybe I spend too much time working in Photoshop!) I was really wishing that I had brought my Macro lens along when I saw this guy, I love these technicolor bugs. After spending the morning hiking we were ready to have our picnic lunch. So went in search for a table by the swimming beach and watched the geese while we ate and I took a few more shots.

It was a lovely but tiring day, always nice to have some time to spend alone with Jonah.

Three photos. . .or four actually

Get it Scrapped is hosting blog challenges during the month of August, this seems like a fun way to add a bit of interest to my blogging ;) The first one, from the lovely Katrina (a wonderful photographer and teacher) is to take a photo of :

1. Something you love

I do love this guy my best friend and DH

2. Something yellow

a pretty yellow flower from our hike to Willow Falls today (I will post some photos of the falls later)

3. Something from above

The seemingly hundreds of stairs we had to climb to get to the above the falls lookout platformand the people that looked so small from that height.

7 Months down. . .

Here are snapshots of our life in July. Have I said before that I love this project? At first I found it difficult but now it has just become something that I do every day. It is photo journal of my life. I know I will cherish the photos I have taken one day, because I cherish them now :) I hope that you enjoy a glimpse into our lives as well!