In a nutshell: Fun Weekend

This weekend we had so much fun family time. We made two trips to the neighborhood pool, played outside with bubbles, and took the girls to Chuck-E-Cheese for lunch. We had even planned to make it back to church this morning for the first time since Hailey was born, but believe it or not, somewhere in the last six weeks I was able to forget what time church started. At 10:00 this morning I was leisurely finishing up some laundry assuming that I had plenty of time left, when Frank tells me that it starts at 10:00, not 10:30 as I had thought. Oh well, I guess we'll make that a goal for next week.

Anyway, I was inspired this week to finally break out my 'nice camera' to take some pictures. I spent some time talking to another mom in my neighborhood who religiously documents her girls and I realized that I needed to try harder to simply take more pictures and stop caring so much about perfect focus, composition, lighting, etc. This is the downside to knowing too much about photography. I'm trying to just appreciate a photo for what's in it.

All that to say, I brought my camera along to these fun things this weekend and captured a lot of great moments that I can share here. These are just my favorites, so check out my Facebook page soon for all the pictures. Sadly, I still don't have many photos of Hailey because, well, all she does is sleep and cry. Seriously. If she's awake and happy it's because I'm holding her, and Frank is not known to pick up a camera so I still only have one photo of me holding her. ONE! (hint, hint Frank!)

Let's start with a few photos from Friday. I finally got fed up with Allison's scraggly hair, so I gave her bangs again. I was trying to just let her hair grow out, but she won't keep a clip in her hair so it's always hanging in her eyes. Once I cut her bangs I also tried out pigtails, and they were so cute!

Before bangs...

After. What do you think?

I couldn't believe she sat still for the pictures!

Hailey thinking about crying. She pretty much hates that bouncer.

Allison watching a movie in her 'Allison chair'.

These next pictures from the pool are so fun! I was stuck on the side watching Hailey, but she was good enough to let me snap some photos when we first got there. Allison did so great swimming with her special swimsuit. I can't tell you how many times a day I hear 'Allison do it!' from my super independent child, so having the ability to swim around the big pool without help was a really big deal to her. She kept yelling 'Mama, look at me!'. We were so proud of her!

I absolutely LOVE the daddy-daughter pictures!

See how confident she looks?

We love to sit on our back porch from about 6:30 till dark in the evening. It's the only time of the day where it's bearable to be outside, since it's shaded and has two fans. We entertain Allison by letting her water the plants, eat a popsicle, or by blowing bubbles. Today was bubbles day!

Pure joy! I love that face.

She's not often successful at blowing them herself, but she tries. When it doesn't work she licks the wand and says 'mmm, tasty!'. I think she does it just to get a reaction out of me. :)

Finally, here a few from lunch today. Allison was so distracted by all the things to play with, I think she only ate about one bite of pizza.

Counting her coins.

She's having fun even if her face doesn't show it!

Serious fun. lol.

When it comes to buckles, Allison is turns into Rain Man.

Riding with Chuck E.

Hailey sleeping through it all. Frank and I laughed at the fact that we had our 6 week old in a Chuck E. Cheese today because we refused to leave the house with Allison until 8 weeks because we were paranoid about germs. Ah, the life of the second child.

Allison was bribed with Root Beer so we could take this photo.

After a good 5 minutes of pleading to 'play again!', we found her crashed in her car seat despite the fact that Hailey was screaming in hers!

The rest of these are just random photos from the month of July.