watchin' tv

(from Sept. 27)

I'm on a roll with blog posts today!

This is how Caroline likes to watch TV... about 1 inch from the screen! This is one of the girls' favorite shows - a Disney princess sing-a-long DVD.

And she's still obsessed with the remotes. She is so proud when she gets her hands on these!

playtime

(from Sept. 10)

I took these one afternoon just after nap time. The girls were playing "together" in the playroom, and I was playing with my new camera and testing a lens (the 50). I ended up getting a few cute shots of Caroline -  complete with funny facial expressions and awesome bed head.

birthday trip to napa

(from sept. 1-3)

My big birthday (#30!) fell on Labor Day weekend this year, so Nick's mom and dad kindly offered to watch the girls for the weekend if we wanted to go on a little getaway. And since Nick had plenty of airline and hotel points, we jumped at the chance!

Nick got a free car rental upgrade... a red Jeep! It ended up being one of the most fun parts of the trip. We did a lot of driving up and down the main highway, and it was fun to pull the top down and enjoy the cooler temps.

It was a wonderful, relaxing weekend!

- - - -

Stopping in at Oakville Grocery for picnic lunch supplies

The Jeep

At the Castello di Amorosa Winery

Walking around Calistoga (I think)



At the Franciscan Winery (our fave)

At the Nickel & Nickel Winery

A scenic spot as we drove off the main highway

pumpkin farm

A couple of weeks ago the girls and I joined up with some of our LifeGroup friends for a trip to the Big Orange Pumpkin Farm in Celina. It's quite a chore to chase these two and try to take pictures!

Passed the camera over to Rita to get me in a shot, too. Thanks, friend!

And a few snappies...

hugs

lens baby @ the tunnel at adriatica

The girls and I met up with our Lens Baby playgroup this afternoon over at a neat tunnel near the Kastel building at Adriatica. The lighting was great; at the edge of the tunnel you could get great light coming into the eyes and on the face, but you could also get more shadows and interesting light the further into the tunnel you went. Kate had a blast, too. After everyone else left, Kate and I played that the tunnel was a pirate ship. She's getting so good at pretending; she kept yelling, "There's a storm coming!" She had fun falling overboard and swimming back to the ship. We will definitely come back here to play again!

Be warned... you are going to go cross eyed looking at these!

checking the mail

from august 17

so long, macro lens

Tomorrow I will deliver my macro lens to a Craigslist buyer. It's a fun lens, but I really don't use it that often, and I needed to sell it to fund my new lens purchases.

So today I said goodbye...

wispy

(august 4)

minnesota

from July 22-29

This summer Nick's parents took the four of us up to Minnesota to visit the fam. All of Nick's grandparents live there as well as aunts, uncles, and cousins galore! Our last trip was 2 summers ago when Kate was 6 months old. We missed out on the trip last summer since Caroline was a newborn, so everyone was thrilled to meet her this year! 

This is major picture overload, so just scroll fast. ;) And after all that scrolling, there are some more miscellaneous pics in a Flickr slideshow. (I got tired of putting them all into storyboards!)


At the Carlson farm... playing with "new" toys, exploring, picking raspberries.

At Uncle Joe & Aunt Sandra's... making friends with Monarch & Extreme.

Kate looking through pictures of Daddy...

Shucking corn and playing out front...

And playing in the corn fields...

More Monarch & Extreme. (Every horse is now compared to these two.)

These were taken at Aunt Lai & Uncle Chris's house (other side of the family) later in the week... Kate playing croquet and Caroline just being super cute.

And here are the rest...