Ella's Birthday

Several pictures from Ella's birthday party.






A little pre-party snack. He loves those Craisins (notice the bed-head from nap time).


Mom makes the most delicious stuffed pepper appetizers (with fresh jalapeno's from her garden) and I convinced Ella's older friends to give them a try.






Miss Rose was brave enough to try one, but you should have seen her dive for the water when her mouth started burning!




Mister loves being with the big kids (notice messy, long hair).







He didn't care that it wasn't his birthday, he just enjoyed the festivities.








After everyone left, it was time to give my dad a hair cut. Well, I decided (after a few drinks), that I was tired of combing Mister's hair in the morning, so he got a buzz as well!

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Seven?!

Someone, please help me with my math... she was born in 2002, so does that really mean that she's seven? It just can't be true.


Aren't you listening to me? She was JUST born.

Maybe we should stop feeding her.

Because a mother's heart just can't take this growing up business.

She said to me the other day, "obviously you don't know what little kids are thinking because you were born as an adult."


That's funny, cause I still feel like a kid. Which means I couldn't have been born as an adult.

And her favorite word lately is, "obviously." This pose in the tree was her idea because, "obviously she likes climbing trees."


Obviously I need some help, because I think I'm in denial about her being seven.

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Living Treasures Animal Park

We finally had a chance to take the kids (and the grandparents) to Living Treasures a few weeks ago. We really enjoy it there and try to make it a few times in the summer. New this year is a horse and wagon ride, which is how we happened upon this fella. Mister was pointing and laughing until he decided to charge the wagon. Then he started screaming, "UH NO UH NO UH NO!!"

He took some food from grandma....

then ran over to the ducks...


and tossed some food over the fence. It was so cute.


I love the way he stands on his tippy toes.


Ella loves feeding the animals as well.







"Wait, come back! I have more food for you!"

Doesn't Ma look pretty?

I think he was signing all done to the goat. Something made me think that this particular goat doesn't know sign language.



Notice the chubby baby arm in the lower right of the frame. He was asking daddy, "wuts dat?"

It took some convincing, but Ella finally decided that she could feed the llama with her bare hands.



Mister says, "ohhhhh, rrrrwwwrrrr."

For some reason the prairie dogs really made him chuckle.



Has to be just like his big sissy.




Living Treasures also added a small aviary this year, it was nice.


An albino kangaroo. I made the mistake of telling mister that a kangaroo goes hop hop. Because what he heard was, "pop pop," which is what he calls lollipops. So the rest of the afternoon he kept saying, "pop, pop."




It was a really nice day and it was fun watching him interact with all of the animals for the first time. We really need to go back again soon.

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Vacation (9)

This was our trip to Swallow Falls State Park, and he we are again with dad setting up the image. I know he will try to blame me, but have you ever seen me take a picture of this quality? Have mercy. Apparently, I need to re-visit my lesson plan.


Mister was a little frightened by the noise of the waterfall.


But he adjusted after a few minutes.


This had to be the most asinine thing I have ever seen. These teenagers were jumping and diving off the top of that waterfall into very rocky and dangerous water. It may look benign from the picture, but the current was strong. It was too loud to speak to them, but given the chance I may have asked what they would have done if one of their friends did not resurface after diving into the water. I think I mentioned that our friend Doug is the retired Park Ranger for Ohiopyle, he knows all too well about deaths in the Youghiogheny.


The sunset was really pretty through the trees, so I was attempting to get a nice silhouette of my parents. But do you notice the extra little person in the frame?


My girl and I.


Whew, I am finally caught up with vacation pictures! Still need to blog our trip to Living Treasures and Boy Boy's first hair cut. Need.more.time.

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