Summer Pictures

Summer Pictures

Now I know why people spend hundreds of dollars on pictures of their kids.

Trying to do it yourself is enough to send you to the nut house.

Or just reach for the nearest glass of wine.

Don't get me wrong.  We love the outcome of our  photoshoot.

But getting there was not easy.
Scheduling it around Rogue's naps, Solis's moods, the weather, and those nasty mosquitoes did not leave us much time per day...so we took pictures all week long.

And using my baby voice to get Rogue to smile and my goofy "Did you just fart?" jokes to get Solis to smile was a tough game to play.

But we did it.  Shaun snapped away (we literally had hundreds of photos to sort through), he edited them, and now we have pictures to proudly give the grandparents.

Whew.

That definitely won't be happening again till next summer :)

Picture overload time.....

 A bird crapped on me at this location while trying to make the kids smile.
True story.

 But seriously.  Can we talk about that hair?

 Melt.my.heart.

Yup.  Sums up what we dealt with all week.

Good thing we love these kids to pieces!

Sources

Solis's pink dress

Solis's white flower bow

Solis's black dress

Solis's pink bow

boppy cover

Rogue's bow tie onesie

Rogue's polo onesies from Carter's (out of stock)

family birthdays

family birthdays

August has lots of birthdays in our family (my dad, brother, and niece) and that means lots of parties and cupcakes!  We are fortunate to have my parents live in the same town and my brother and his family in a neighboring town.  My brother has 2 girls and Solis just LOVES spending time her cousins.  Rogue is so outnumbered and is always smothered by lots of female attention.  I'm excited to see these 4 sweet kiddos grow up together.

My parents and their 4 grandkids.  Hannah is the oldest at 6.

Solis is 3 months older than Brooke.

Running barefoot in the backyard, catching bubbles, loving summer :)

Sweet cousins

 The girls shooting grandpa with water guns.  My dad is great with the kids and Solis thinks the world of him.

 How many times have you stood in the card aisle at Target and can't find the perfect card and also refuse to pay $4.99 for it?  That's my problem like every time.  My solution?  Take a picture of my kids, create a card online at Walmart and get it printed for less than 2 bucks.  Cheap and personalized.  That's a win!

 

Solis swims

Solis swims

Solis took a two week swim class this summer.
It was much needed.
Because this girl is as prissy as they get (sigh).
She hates to be cold.  She hates to get dirty.  She hates it when her bib gets dirty.
Yea, we got one of those.
Shaun and I were both athletes and we still make working out a big priority in our lives so naturally, we would like our kids to be athletes.  Wellll it's not looking too good for Solis....

This was her favorite part.  Sitting on the sidelines in the warm sun.
But I can't blame her, that water was cold!!

Miss Corinne was so patient and so sweet with all the kids...even the scaredy cat ones ;)

At least she liked the blowing bubbles part.

"The sun's in my eyes!  I can't seeeee!" 

Shaun and I would just cringe on the sidelines.

 

Surprisingly she had no fear of jumping in.

 It's safe to say we don't have the next olympic swimmer in the house.

Of course we want Solis to be an athlete but if she's not, that's ok.

B/c the most important thing is that she grows up to love the Lord and has a heart to want to serve Him....and maybe while running around the cross country course too?? ;)

Hersheypark Happy

Hersheypark Happy

Ever have one of those days when everything goes perfect?  Your toddler doesn't throw any fits.  Your baby doesn't cry.  You get to eat dessert for dinner.
Yup, we had one of those days.  We took our first big outing as a family of four to Hersheypark.  I was shocked how easy the day was.  Being such a strict babywise mom (yes, I admit, I'm a little OCD about my baby's schedule!), I was nervous to be off schedule.  Solis gave us zero flexibility when she was a baby.  She pretty much cried all the time.  But Rogue stepped up to the plate big time.

Look how much our little Solis has grown from last summer!

Let me tell you about chocolate bar.  When we went to Hershey last year, I bought her a stuffed one.  And she's obsessed with him.  He makes the stuffed animal bedtime lineup and that's hard to do.  So imagine her excitement when she saw him in real life!

And hugging every other candy character made her summer.

Solis happy screamed on every ride she went on.  People probably thought it was her first time out of the house all summer.  But she just loves life!

Rogue was a champion at Hershey.  He took little cat naps in his car seat and when he wasn't sleeping, he just sat there without one cry.  Again, we're not used to an easy going baby so we are still in shock that he's so good!  Feeding him was a whole different ballgame.  Can't just burp him while watching Solis on a ride.  I had to step aside and burp him away from the crowd b/c this would happen.
Pretty gross, sorry :)

Love my little fam...even if Solis doesn't look Hersheypark happy.

Notice my shirt change.  Victim of one of Rogue's burps.

At the end of the night as we were packing up the car, I heard Solis tell Rogue all about her day at Hersheypark.  It was the cutest thing.

 

And I'll end on this.  Dessert for dinner.  The chocolate chip cookie smore.

This alone was worth the price of admission. 

(This is last year's pic.  With an extra human this year, no time for food selfies.)

 Such a fun day with so many memories!