Last Day to Give!

Tomorrow's the walk for the March of Dimes... shirt is washed and clean, camera gear all set... we're ready to go!

There's still time to give - donate on my March of Dimes page:
http://www.marchforbabies.org/h1908700

Marching for Babies

I'm walking with the March of Dimes this Sunday, (which, did you know they're not the March of Dimes anymore, but actually March for Babies? I never did understand that Dimes part anyway.) This is the second year I've walked... last year I raised around $125, which I was thrilled about. This year, I've dropped the ball on letting people know early, but I'll gladly take any donations here:

(nice it didn't show... sorry about that)
http://www.marchforbabies.org/h1908700


The March for Babies is something close to our family. My nephew was born a micro-preemie. Here is an image (that I did not take) of my nephew Niko, holding onto his fathers finger. It was insane how little he was.

Niko's turning 6 this year! At the zoo this past weekend, I tried to take some photographs of him, just for this blog post. Of course, he never cooperates with me :P





Oh well, I tried.

I'll be taking pictures at the walk again, so watch for those. The girls might also come along with me. Should be a great day! Thanks for your support!

goodbye dear Violets

Our backyard is a field


weeds - bugs - crab grass... anything bad, it's happening in our "yard." We finally decided to do something about it, and called Scotts to come out and fix it.

But I'll miss the violets


If I could convince them to destroy everything else, but leave the violets, I would


They've had a good run, but they are slowly taking over the whole yard.

She has... a mullet

Olivia does not like to have her hair touched. She will agree to pony-tails, but only after giant crocodile tears have fallen. So when she got out of the bath, curled up in my lap, and let me pull on her hair - I was stunned. Obviously Olivia's hair is curly, but it's just baby curls. Her hair has never really been cut, and we know once we do, her hair will be straight. So I'm putting it off.

But while I was pulling on her hair (seeing if I could get it to dry straighter then the springy curls she gets straight out of the bath) I had the notion to try to use a straightener on it. Got the straightener hooked up in the study (where we were watching tv), got Olivia back up on my lap, and started straightening. After two swipes, Olivia was trying to get down, but once I told her it was making her hair nice and shiny, she stayed put. Child of my own heart... we love some shiny hair.

If her hair were all one length, I'd love it. But it's not. So it's a mullet. I cut Claires hair in the first place to avoid mullets. Thankfully, a little misting of water in the morning, and the curls will be right back.

Lets all go to the Zoo!

My family is definitely getting our bang for our buck when it comes to our zoo pass this year. This week alone we've gone 2 times... the month of March we went four times. I'm pretty excited about this (I love a bargain - and going to the zoo tons of times with a pass is most definitely a bargain!)

This was the longest time my girls have ever spent at the zoo. We went with Grandma Karen, Haley and Jessica was in town for Easter. We ended up meeting up with the neighbors, so all in all we were a big group. And we were there for over five hours. That's right. Five hours. I knew ahead of time it would be a long trip, and I worried that the girls wouldn't make it - but they did really surprisingly well!! I'm a little proud of them!

Before we left, Jessica braided Claires hair. I (selfishly) with Jessica lived here and could braid Claires hair every day, because it was incredibly cute, and kept her hair out of her eyes all day long!


This trip was definitely the most exciting for the girls in a while, and mostly because the animals were so active! I don't know if it was the heat, or the fact that all of Columbus was at the zoo that day, but the animals were out and moving around like crazy!

The first big animal show... the tiger. Normally the tigers aren't close to the glass. They're far away, lounging below rocks. Today the tiger was pacing the line of the glass, like he was mad about something. He'd periodically dunk himself into the water, and then go back to pacing. He was so big, and so close, that Olivia got completely freaked out, and stood behind me bawling until we left. Claire, however, thought the big kitty was cool.

Thats the tigers head, next to Claires head

The next big exciting place... the flamingoes! Even they were super active - fighting amoungst each other, and coming really close to the fencing.




Jessica and Karen were practically hanging over the fence to get pictures of the flamingoes (Jessica got the best picture ever - I'm very jealous) until a docent came up and warned us that that flamingoes would, in fact, take your phone from you.




Look how close Karen was!! This was when the docent came up to us.


Of course the aquarium was awesome as always. I got a cool shot of seahorses


I have way too many photos to share, but if you fan me on facebook, you can see them all. At this point we all took pictures with Hannas green glasses... they're some funny pictures :)

We ended with the gorilla's. Now I'll be honest... the girls have only seen the gorilla's one other time. The gorilla's are in the back of the zoo, and I hate walking back that far, especially given that the girls never ask to see them. Though that'll probably change now... Claire LOVES the gorilla's. I had bought her a stuffed manatee back in the aquarium, and she showed it to all the gorillas. She and Donna went around to all the windows, just looking at them all.


And when I came up to take a picture of Claire with a gorilla, I couldn't help but laugh at how pleased as punch she was so be in a picture with him


Before we left, we got some Dippin Dots. This is, by far, my favorite picture from the day. The girls had been so good, and here's Claire, obviously incredibly hot, just chillin with her ice cream.




And of course, this was the scene when we pulled up in our driveway. Claire with her manatee, Olivia with her new platypus




Everyone should get out and enjoy the zoo!! Polar Bears are coming in less than a month!!

nothing says Easter...

...like candy corn called Jesus Seeds!



Hope everyone had a glorious Easter! :)

the first wedding of the year: Kelli and Kyles sneak peek

So Kelli and Kyle were the first wedding I attending and photographed this year! I had a great time! Both the bride and groom were great to work with, and were willing to do everything I asked. It was so much fun! I'll do a separate post to show some of the reception (which was so cool) but this one I'll focus on the stuff we did outside.

Kelli with her father

Congratulations Kelli and Kyle! Thanks for including me on your day