The early signs of stubborn (continued)

Do I see a pattern here? (See below)

Stubborn

For any of you with daughters, I am sure you understand. This was over the fact that she could not change her clothes. She refused to come in the house for at least 5 minutes after taking Caleb to the bus this morning.

Kite Flying

In keeping with my new plan of posting pictures each day, I am getting a little off. I posted Easter yesterday but I was late so today I am posting my pictures from flying kites. Heath's mom each gave them a kite for Easter so, seeing it was a little windy outside, we opened them up and tried them out. They each had a great time and did well keeping it in the air. Ever since they want to take them out and fly them again, but it hasn't been windy enough or we don't have time because of Caleb's gymnastics schedule.

Elizabeth really had fun with it!

Elizabeth's kite

Caleb got his way up there and kept it there for awhile.

I couldn't get a great picture of Caleb's kite because it was so high and dusk was setting in.

Easter

Happy Resurrection Day to everyone! We had a great day celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We had church in the morning and then Heath's mom and our friends Kody and Corby from church joined us for a late lunch. I cooked a ham and then we had potatoes and green beans and lots of goodies for dessert. As you can see above we caught a few pictures of them after church and before they stripped down to some play clothes. Elizabeth was so excited to get dressed up for Easter, she put on her dress everyday for the three days prior to Easter Sunday!

While lunch finished cooking, Heath and Kody hid the Easter eggs all over the front yard. Caleb likes us to hide challenging ones so there were a few of those.

Elizabeth ended up being the one to find the eggs up on the outside lights!

Heath is trying to lift her up and video at the same time! Not easy!

A great shot of Kody and Corby! We love having them over and we always have a good time!

This was one of the harder eggs for the kids to find. We played hot and cold and they kept trying to look under the car and in the tire area. Elizabeth finally reached up and opened the gas tank!

After the egg hunt and a great lunch we all watched Alvin and the Chipmunks - The Squeakquel which the kids had gotten in their Easter baskets. I thought it was pretty cute! We spent the evening flying kites and enjoying the gorgeous weather!

Family time fun!

Saturday rolled around sunny and warm and straight outside we went. Daddy decided the kids would help him wash the car and I decided it was time to have fun with my camera. I was able to get some fun shots.

This shot was one of the first ones I took and I had forgotten to switch the white balance from fluorescent lighting to sunshine so the coloring is off, but I love their faces. They were on the roof of the car and Heath was squirting them with the hose.

Again the color is off but I love the water droplets!

Here I have finally corrected the color and it looks so much better. I caught them just as Heath squirts them!

I just love how much fun they are having!

Of course Kaley was out enjoying the weather with us. She retreats to the shade pretty quickly though because her black hair holds in all the heat from the sun.

Elizabeth wanted to take a picture with Kaley but Kaley decided to give her a kiss first!

So sweet!

The day ended up being a great one! Our neighbor was having a birthday party and they rented a big moonwalk and invited the kids down early. We joined them for the party and ended up staying out there until 7:30. The weather was great and the kids had a blast! Elizabeth was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow!

Experimenting!

Ok so I said I would take a picture and post it as part of my picture a day project. Last night I took Caleb to gymnastics and hung out for the evening as I do on most Thursdays. We got a Canon EOS D60 from a friend awhile back and I have never learned to use it to its full capabilities. At Caleb's competitions we are not allowed to use flash so I always use the Canon as opposed to my point and shoot digital camera. Sometimes I get ok photos and sometimes I don't. A friend of mine who is a photographer helped me with a few settings and then suggested I take it up to gymnastics one night and adjust the setting until I get the kind of shots I want. So that is what I did last night. I finally got the white balance to give me the lighting I wanted and the shutter speed and aperture to catch some of his action shots. I use those big words but I myself am still trying to fully understand them. It is a work in progress!

This is Caleb working on rings. He has a foam square between his legs to practice keeping his legs together.

This is him working on his in-locate (I have no idea if this is how you spell it but it is pronounced this way!) He finally mastered it a few weeks ago. He swings forward and back a few times on the rings and then swings back and all the way over. In this picture he is going up and about to come over.

Finally this is Caleb on parallel bars or p-bars in gymnastics lingo! He is working on coming up to a handstand.
Well as you can see from the pictures I am getting more acquainted with my camera and hopefully will be ready to get some good action shots at the State meet at the end of the month.

Pictures

My friend Stacy has started this new this called Project 365 where you take a picture each day and post it to the website. It is a way to get you to take a picture each day. I thought it was a cool idea and thought maybe I would try it. Well it has been a few days and I think I have taken one picture. So I thought I would put my own spin on it. If I don't take a picture I can post, I am going to choose a picture from the thousands I have already taken and share it with you. I love pictures and I love scrapbooking (unfortunately I haven't done that in awhile!) so it will be fun sharing pictures with you that I haven't seen in awhile and that you probably haven't seen. Today I will share the picture I took Tuesday playing with Elizabeth in an effort to stay true to the original project, but then I will share a picture in honor of today that I chose from depths of all our pictures.

Unfortunately there is a shadow across her face but I thought her hair was hysterical! We had been enjoying the gorgeous spring weather outside and she asked me to come on the trampoline. We were having a blast chasing each other and then we had fallen down and laid there laughing and tickling each other. I rolled over and looked at her and her hair was standing on end! I told her to stay still and I ran in to get my camera.

As a side note to this picture, that was one of those moments that I stepped out of it and realized how blessed I was. It was the middle of the day, the weather was gorgeous and I was chasing my daughter on the trampoline. Sure there were things that needed to be done but nothing more important than making my daughter laugh. It was moments like these that I chose to stay home with my kids. It was why we sacrificed our big house and our extra income. So that I could be with my kids and share moments like these. There are days that I think about how little room we have and how that house would be perfect for our family right now and how a little extra money would help. But God called me home as a mom and raising them in a happy, healthy home is worth more than the big house and more money. We were obedient to what God wanted for us and He has blessed us. He continually provides for us our daily needs and that is what is most important.

Ok so this is a fun one. I decided since it was April 1 I would pick a year and go to the month of April. I picked 2006 and this is what I found. Elizabeth was 13 months old and finally getting the hang of walking. There were several pictures over the span of a few days of her walking outside and exploring but I finally settled on this one. Isn't she the cutest thing you have ever seen?
So today I will do my best to try and take a picture and post it tomorrow! We'll see how long I keep up with this but I am hoping it will keep me blogging more.