{my nieces}

These two are my nieces! They are both just such beautiful girls on the inside and out. I see so much of my sister in each of them and in so many different ways. It makes me so happy to be able to see precious glimpses of my sister when I look at her children. Although my heart still aches for her (as I am sure it always will!), and I wish she could still be here as her children grow, I am sure she is looking down on these precious daughters and is pleased with the wonderful young women they are becoming. I hope they will always remember their mother, how much she loves them, and will try to be the daughters she and our Father in Heaven wants them to be! Here are a few of their photos. Please see all of them HERE.

Ten Months: going, going....

...And almost gone! Yep my baby has now officially passed even the ten-and-a-half month age. So here is a little look back at what he's been up to lately. And of course we will do it with a few pictures!

Here he is at almost exactly 10 months. He is getting a little easier to feed other "stuff".


And at 10 months, this little one STILL did not even scoot. He would pretty much stay in this position and "swim" on the floor, kicking his feet super fast and waving his hands.


Sporting a battle wound on his right cheek that he some how got at church that day.





And now here he is at 10 and a half months. (Bennett makes us faithfully keep track of exactly how old Coy is, right down to his half month marks.) He did finally start scooting! And now he is in to everything, making up for lost time.


He's pretty much spent his last month with sinus infections and ear infections. I know, I know. Join the crowd, huh. It just seems like what kids do best sometimes! He's had three rocephin shots in the past month, poor guy! And with Russ's crazy infection he had in his spine, we've used a lot of that drug in our household lately!


Aaaahh, here are the smiles again! Even with the gunky nose. Mostly took this picture to show him sporting the cute little teeth he's gotten. Those little top ones came through this past month.


And gotta love the cute little toes!





And one more smile! I am very blessed.

{more previews}

I have some new previews on my photo blog. CLICK HERE!

{the essence of childhood}

I took these pictures of Mylie a few weeks ago. I love how well they captured one of those fleeting moments that define what childhood is all about: boots, freedom, curiosity, innocence, nature, jammies, candid, sweetness, natural, uninhibited.

My cousin has such a darling family!

I'm sure you'll want to see more HERE!

{new preview}

CLICK HERE to see more photos from some recent sessions!

{all about bennett}

Wow, this kid...where do I start? How about some recent pictures? His blue eyes and thick lashes truly melt my heart every day. Where he got them? I haven't the slightest.

This kid is THE BEST big brother. He is so good to his siblings and loves them so intensely! I know Bennett was meant to come to our family as the first child.




This kid has such a thirst for knowledge. He wants to know everything and he wants to know it now. The poor kid is already bored of summer. For example, the other day he sat there as shown below, and read ALL FIVE of his Dr. Suess books out loud to himself. I think it took about two and a half hours, because, these books are long! Have you read Cat in the Hat lately?

Also lately he has been questioning order, and the subject of alphabetical order came up. So I had this great idea and made perfectly cut out word cards with at least two cards for every starting letter. I gave him five cards to start. He easily put them in order and asked for more. Well, to make a long story short, about 30 minutes or so later, he had all SIXTY plus cards in perfect alphabetical order on the floor...without my help! I came down from folding laundry, and voila, he was done. So much for my lesson that I thought might take up a few weeks of the summer...What do I teach him next?
This kid is too smart for his own good!


Thus, when he had Career Day at preschool, I kind of chuckled when he said a doctor. Oh, but not just ANY doctor. He wants to be "one of those doctors that checks on babies." Oh, like "Dr. so and so, your pediatrician?" I answered. "No, mom. Like the one that checks on the babies when they are in your tummy and then helps them to come out." Oh, one of those doctors.

So I found an XXL men's t-shirt at Target and sewed it into "scrubs." Because that is exactly what my doctor wore when he checked on my babies.

So here is Bennett the OBSTETRICIAN.


Okay, so funny thing is. I'm sure this kid will definitely have the BRAINS to pursue this kind of employment, but the problem is, he CANNOT stand the sight of blood or even me putting my contacts in my eyes! He turned white and almost passed out when he watched Coy get his immunizations. And he would never be in the room when I was administering Russ's antibiotic through his PICC line these last few weeks. (I think the poor kid gets it from me.)


And as if missing preschool isn't enough, soccer ended a few weeks ago, too! I felt SO BAD that we missed soccer pictures since it was in the midst of all of Russ's illness, so I was glad when one of the other mom's took this picture the last game and e-mailed it to me! Bennett did such a great job and improved so much throughout the year! I think he made 5 goals on this last game! Now he is working on running a race. He wants to run our local 5K this summer with me. Yesterday we got him some running shoes, and to practice today he ran across our yard and touched each side of the fence 100 times, counting each time loudly out loud. He didn't even take a break until he was done. That is Bennett for you. He always wants a challenge and something to work towards.

{last of the easter posts}

Here is my last installment of Easter. Yeah! I made it!

Easter is a fun excuse to get the kids some new dress clothes. I'm having so much fun buying matching clothes for my boys. I got their shirts at Children's Place and ties from Peanut Posh. Mylie got an Emily Harkness original. Thus, the crookedness in the seams, etc. Oh well, she only cared that it did pretty darn good twirls!

Love my blue-eyed boys!





Mylie did a lot of twirls and dancing on Easter. In fact, she even said she needed to use the bathroom during stake conference...but really I found out, she just needed some time in the hall to do some twirls.

I Love Traditions!

Something I have looked forward to for as long as I can remember is the Easter hunt my grandparents have every year! It is so fun seeing the joy through my children's eyes now! Sometimes it really hits me that I have three kids of my own! Crazy. At times I feel like I'm playing house or something, like I'm not really old enough or grown up enough to be the mom. Anyway, there are some sidetracked thoughts for you... It's just hard to believe my kids are experiencing the same things that I experienced what only seems like a short time ago! Life is good! And like I said, I love traditions! It's always fun to have things to look forward to that break up what might be the mundane parts of life...~like really, I'm scrubbing the floor again?~

My grandparents have the most beatiful yard! It is the perfect place run around and hunt egss!





Coy loved the little rubber ducks dressed up like sheep and bunnies. He was perfectly content to sit on the blanket and chew on them. That is all he needed!




Here's grandma giving some pre-hunt instruction!




Still chewing...




Aren't my boys cute in their matching outfits. I love the cute shirts I found at Target, but apparently so does everyone else that has a little boy. I've pretty much seen it everywhere: church, preschool, photo shoots...People know when they've found a darling shirt at an amazing price. Have I mentioned I really like Target?


Oh! And the Easter bunny didn't disappoint. She showed up for the day. Kind of a little mix of holidays. Anyone else thinking...Christmas Story?

(Actually this is really my cute niece, Olivia, in case you were wondering.)