the girl and the dog

I'm not sure why I thought this was a good idea.... but here they are. Clara absolutely insisted on Friday being in these...

My boy is SIX and random pics from MO

Yes... my boy is officially six today. I'm not quite sure where the time goes.... on one hand it seems like just yesterday we were living in Chicago as a brand new family of three and in other ways it seems like it was forever ago. Anyway... I took the official birthday photo of Alex and here it is...



We just got back yesterday from Easter in Missouri. We were supposed to come back earlier in the week but we decided to stay so we could go to Silver Dollar City with my cousin and his family. The kids had a GREAT time and so did I! We rode so many rides and the weather was absolutely beautiful.

Here are a few pics from the trip... the first two were taken just off the square of my itty bitty home town. The third one is Clara's "shy look" (her words, not mine) and was taken in my parents' backyard with Clara sitting on my grandfather's old chair.

been taking lots of pics lately...

... between breaking out of my comfort zone with taking pics in Clara's bedroom and our monthly photography playdate! I can't believe how many I've taken lately. I've been using my 50mm 1.8 lens alot again lately. It gave me fits yesterday with focusing, I'm not sure if its dying or if I'm just out of practice. I'm not quite sure which one I'm hoping for... I would like for it to be the lens so its not me... but that means buying a new lens. If its me and not the lens... I won't need to buy a new one but it means I have a lot of work to do. Ugh! So here's a few from Clara's room and our "urban" playdate yesterday....

Impulse shopping at Target

It's been a long time since I last posted... again. I don't know what happens. The past couple of weeks have been crazy. I'm having a hard time adjusting to Jeff's new work schedule. He used to either be traveling or working from home. Now he goes on a trip, tells me he'll be home one day and on that day he'll call to say "oops - looks like I'm going to be here all week". AND now when he's home, he's got to go into the office at least part of the time. I've just been spoiled by having him home based for so long.

So today Alex and I impulse shopped our way through Target. I got lots of fun clothes for the kids. However, none of it seems to be on their website, so you'll just have to wait until I take some pictures. Here's one from today in one of Clara's new Target shirts...

Yikes... Alex just ran in here and announced that he could do something really cool and dangerous on the trapeze on the playset and ran out before I could ask anything... so I'm out of here to see what it is!

Ikea and a contest

I love Ikea! Jeff starts a new job on Monday so Friday was kind of like a freebie day for him since he had turned in his laptop the day before. So we took a trip out to Ikea. I loved Ikea when we lived in Chicago since their stuff made small spaces like our townhome in the city so functional. But it was out in the 'burbs so we didn't go very often. Now, it's only about 15 minutes from our house! So dangerous... the kids love going there too since they get to play in the play area while we shop. My friend and I actually make this an outing about once a month. We drop the kids off to play while we shop, when our hour is up we get the kids and have lunch. Anyway... yesterday we impulse shopped our way through.

We got this for Alex's room (in grey)...

Plus a low wide one to go under his window in his room. They look so cool!

Then we bought two of these for the playroom...

We put them together this afternoon and they make such a huge difference in there. I'll have to take some pics once we get everything cleaned up.

Finally, the contest part... the Sweet Shoppe is having a contest to pick a new Sugar Babe to add to the creative team. I love being a Sugar Babe - great assignments, great people to work with and great kits to use. So here are the details....