Summer Pictures

 Through our neighbors we found this wonderful photographer to take some pictures of our little family this summer. I always tend to get fall pictures so I thought some summer ones would be nice for a change. I had seen another shoot she had done with a family who owned a VW bus and I kind of knew we had to do some too :) Connor loves playing with/in the bus and I thought it might be kind of fun to get a few pictures of us and some of C in the bus. I knew I would get some good smiles from him. It was SO hot this night I am so thankful we don't all have huge sweat stains all over the place. The bus doesn't have air conditioning so we flew straight to the nearest snow cone place on the way home to cool ourselves down :) We loved Katharine Roberds and I know I will use her again!!

This is so Connor with the "point" it cracked me up and it one of my favorites :)

These two family shots are my favorite, I think they just capture my little family perfectly and I love them :) I love that cheesy little grin on Connor's face, too funny!

My boys.

I love this one. I just love everythig about it, it made me so happy that we did something a little different and brought the bus with us!

haha!

My sweet, sweet boy.

He kept hoking the horn and scaring Katie the photographer, it was pretty funny! She is due with a little boy soon and I told her we were giving her an accurate example of what is to come :) haha! She was so wonderful though and I can't thank her enough for capturing such beautiful pictures of my little boy. If you need a photograher in St. Louis, she was awesome!

First Day of Preschool -- Multi-Age Class!

I can't believe it, but it's time for another first day of school already! Connor and I have been talking about when school starts since he did summer camp, he has been SO excited! We just love his little school, I can't say enough good things about it. I kind of wish he could stay there for good! We went to his little "orientation" day on Tuesday and he kept going "you and Daddy really aren't leaving?!" Ha! He wanted us to leave so he could stay - he did end up having a great time showing us around and familiarizing himself with his new friends, classroom and teachers. When we were talking about the best part of our day at dinner that night he told us that he "loves his new teachers and will talk to them so much all year!" :) Sweet, sweet little thing.



I couldn't pull the trigger on three days yet, it made me feel like he was going to leave me for kindergarten too soon so we are doing Tuesday/Thursday again and I am so happy! I think Connor may secretly wish he was doing three days, but I promised him next year he could - and I will try not to back out of it :)

Look at that face - he was so excited. He picked out his shirt that he wanted me to make and I picked out the shorts :) I thought for a minute (hahaha!) that it was going to be chilly on the first day and I thought I would have to figure something out but alas, it was humid as could be! I couldn't find my paperbag for the sign this year so I compromised with the construction paper and I liked how it turned out! I think I may make that the new tradition, we shall see though!

Okay, ignore the fact that he is scratching himself - I just wanted a picture for memory sake of how cute his little outfit looked together :) Mom, do I need to take this picture off? I can't decide.

Connor and Reese are in the same class this year and they are so excited! They each have a few friends from their old classes that are coming with them so I think it's going to be a great year. Great friends, AMAZING teachers and a pretty awesome school, you can't ask for much else!

Ah, this picture had to go in so I can pull it out in 10 years and show Connor how he acted when Momma wanted just one more picture - little snarky thing. I have a feeling we are going to get a good chuckle or two out of this one in years to come! Love you Connor! He is showing off his flying ship in this picture. We have been watching Treasure Planet and he LOVES it! So he made a flying ship and it has been his new favorite toy. Have I mentioned how much I love this boys imagination!?

Overall the first day was a HUGE success! He had a great day and while it was sad to leave him -- I got the best greeting when I picked him up! He came running up and gave me a huge hug and kiss and said "I missed you so much Mommy, but I had a great day!" Ah, that kiddo has no idea just how much I love him.

      

Michigan, Take 2

 I kind of love taking pictures and since I love this blog for my memories, I pretty much post every single on that I like :) This is my silly, silly boy these days. The faces that he makes usually crack me up, somedays I don't know what to do with him!

 This "point" is a classic right now, it kind of cracks me up. I am not sure where he gets it from!

I love that smile, that pure joy, happiness and innocence on there face, I just could bottle it up!

One of my favorite things about Michigan besides sitting on the beach is going blueberry picking! We go to this little family owned place and it is really fun. You tie the bucket around your waist and go to town! We went the day after a huge thunderstorm that work all of us up except for Connor and the power was out everywhere. They even had a down line in the blueberry fields but thankfully they steered us to another field :)

Connor loved it! At first he didn't realize that he could eat them while we were picking them and then he really enjoyed blueberry picking! He worked so hard to fill up his bucket, it was really cute.

 

Poor guy, I seriously take a million pictures of him, I think he loves it though. Haha! He was actually posing for the camera when we were blueberry picking, he kept going "take my picture momma!".

This is another one of those faces we get :) Ha! I have to include them in as it sums him up some days at the tender age of 3.5 :)

I loved watching him run up and down the beach, it was seriously so nice to get outside and actually want to be outside!

 

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This is the sandcastle he built with Nonny. He loved building - we made several sand castles, a turtle and mainly we loved destroying them when we were finished :)

I need to make a collage of all the places his cars have been, the boy still loves his cars. Oh Michigan, we already can't wait for next year! It was such a great year with great memories - can't wait to see what 2013 has in store!

Michigan, 2012

 After taking a year off we were so excited that Nonny decided to take us to Michigan this year! We love it and this year didn't disappoint! We left the 105* St. Louis and relished in the 80* days and 70* nights in Michigan, it was heavenly! I told Bj (who had to work and wasn't able to make it this year) that we may not come home until the St. Louis weather matched the Michigan weather. He told me we could be here for awhile, hahah!

Nonny gave C this cute little cars back pack full of sand toys and he loved throwing it over his shoulder and carrying it to the beach. He was so funny, he loved the beach. I think we were just all thrilled to be outside and comfortable! July was so hot here in St. Louis we honestly didn't go outside. But, in Michigan we took a walk everyday and spent so many hours outside, it was lovely and wonderful.

 



See all those plastic bottles? They make me happy that I don't spend much money at all on toys because the boy seriously played with them the whole time. He would confiscate them from everyone who was drinking them and fill them with sand, water and just play around it was pretty funny. By the end of the week he had a trashbag full of them! He looked like a little hoarder on the beach :)

 



He was a total beach bum we seriously would go to the beach at 11 and stay until 7 or 7:30 and he was perfectly happy and content playing and running around. We packed lunch, snacks, drinks and toys and we were good to go. It was just so pleasant playing, walking on the sand and hanging out with great friends and family.

 



He liked being in the water but he didn't really like touching the sand bar (until the end) or the seashells when you first walked out, silly goose.

 

He had so much fun playing with the Diehr kiddos, they played on the beach and back at the house, it was really nice for him to have some fun friends to play with. They were cracking us up playing with the water bottles.



I love this picture we had all of these umbrellas set up so we spent the majority of the time in the shade with the lovely breeze on us listening to the water. We seriously camped out from about lunchtime to dinnertime. We would have snacks in the afternoon and appetizers before dinner. That is one of my favorite things about vacation, time is out the window and so are schedules, I love it!

 



I couldn't help myself, I seriously took a million pictures of my sweet boy on the beach. We just had the best time lounging around and enjoying our time. I already can't wait for next year and I am trying to scheme a way to get two weeks instead of one :) hahah! Don't worry though, I have a whole other picture post from Michigan coming up, I had to many pictures to fit into one! ha!