Easter Egg Hunt

The city of Roseburg does an annual Easter Egg Hunt at the park. We decided to give it a try this year. We were amazed at how many people were there. There were over 10,000 eggs with candy and prizes inside--and they were all GONE within 30 seconds. I've never seen anything like it! Here is our crew at the starting line for the egg hunt. They put the eggs inside a huge circular area that has been marked off and then they release all the kids at one time. It was a little bit like a war zone. Next year I'm putting my kids in Football pads! :)

Ready...Set...GO!!!




We were a little slow off the line. By the time the girls got to where the eggs were...





...everybody else was on their way back out!




Kate was telling Adam all about what happened. I guess it was so crazy that she didn't realize that he was with her the whole time!




Gotta check out the loot!

Out of 10,000 eggs we managed to grab 4 of them. :)

They were so proud of their eggs!

Good teamwork!!!

Afterwards we ran into some of our good friends, the Frasiers (who were MUCH more skilled at egg gathering than us), and all the girls ran around in the park for almost an hour together. They were very nice and shared their candy with our girls.

We got to meet the Easter Bunny while we were there. The girls were totally freaked out!

I had to keep my arm around Kate's back the whole time so that she didn't run away! She was pushing backwards the whole time.

As were were leaving the park we found a family that was blowing bubbles for their kids. They were very generous and let our girls jump right in on the bubble fun. This turned into another hour at the park!

Once the bubbles were done we hit the playground. We couldn't leave without going down the slide!!!! That would be torture!

After that we went to breakfast at Elmer's.
It was 2:00 pm.

Dancing Queen

Future Dancer? I see performing potential.....You be the judge.... ;)

Notice that while Kate sticks to a furious routine of mostly Riverdance/Tap, Haylee's moves include a combination of the robot, some tap, a little jazzercize and some funk! Work it OUT!!!!

Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam--REMIX dance party version (coming soon to Itunes)!

I'd say at least three nights a week the girls get dressed up in something "pretty" and perform for us. I use "us" loosely, because, as you can see, Kate is happy to perform for herself in the window reflection, TV reflection, mirror...any reflection at all really! Usually the performance has already begun by the time we find her. I have video after video with the girls (mostly Kate--Haylee comes and goes during the show) dancing and singing. These are a couple of my very favorites, I wish that I knew how to edit video so that I could make a highlights video.

I'll work on that!

I think she's ready to try dance classes again next year!

Easter Pictures

A few weeks ago I was driving around town looking for train track access and instead I found this beautiful field of poppies. It was in a private yard, so I went to the door and left my business card with a note asking if I could come back and use their amazing yard for a session...no particular session in mind....wink wink. The owner called me that night. Turns out she's a friend of a friend who has seen my work before. She is such a nice lady and was very excited to let me use her yard! Yay!!!! I took the girls out that next weekend. At first they didn't know what to think. They carefully stepped around all of the flowers--freaked out about the bees once or twice and were absolute angels the entire time. I can't wait to go back next year with clients! This year I kept it exclusive to my girls! :)

"Go get ready for bed, girls......."

.....and this is what we got! Busy nightlife I guess!

Build-A-Bear

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures from Spring Break. We stayed home for most of the break--which was sooooo nice! The last weekend of the break we went to Eugene to go to Build-A-Bear with Liss, Cade, Ava and Gram. Gram has started a B-A-B tradition with all of the grandkids. The Utah grandkids have been loving their special friends from Gram, and now it was the Oregon grandkids' turn to share the fun! The kids all stood outside of the store for several minutes looking at all the options. When Gram announced it was time to choose their "bear" they all gave her a big hug of excitement!

Haylee chose a frog and named it "Froggy"

Kate chose a dog and named it "Puppy" but has since changed it's name to "Doggy" now that she has a puppy to go with it.

Here they are with their loot. They had such a great time! Thank you Gram for starting such a neat tradition! Haylee wouldn't go to bed tonight until I found Froggy....and his shirt....and his shorts...........which are girl clothes, but froggy has become a boy all of a sudden. ;)

Big News!!!!

I never thought the day would come! We'd like to announce the arrival of our newest family members......

3 new baby tigers.

Kate delivered them just a few minutes ago. It was quite impressive, and she did really well through the whole ordeal. I am always amazed at the resiliency of my children.

Details: At approximately 11:20 am I heard Kate gagging and choking from the other room. I ran in to see what was wrong (prepared to do the Heimlich maneuver) and she was writhing around on the ground--clearly in a lot of discomfort. After stopping to let me make sure that she wasn't dying, she got right back to work. She coughed out one kitten, then another, then a third!!!!

When I asked her where they were coming from she pointed to her tummy and said, "They in my tummy, then my throat, then my mae-outh." With a look that clearly said, "DUH!"

I'm pleased to report that all three of the imaginary tigers are healthy and quite cute--aside from being surprisingly noisy for imaginary kittens. We rushed them to the studio shortly after their arrival for an emergency photo session--at Kate's request.

What a good momma!

Haylee's Traumatic Event

Poor little Haylee Bug. It was a tough day....for both of us....

How many wash cycles you may ask??? Three. With bleach. Adam wondered why I didn't just throw the rug away. So did I after wash 2, but I was a mom on a mission by then.

Through the whole discovery/clean-up she wanted to cry but I wouldn't let her. We (I) needed to laugh about this one so I kept convincing her that it was funny. Her nervous laugh on the verge of crying cracks me up!

Cheetah Encounter

We LOVE living close to Wildlife Safari! We have had so many amazing experiences there. We go once a week (on average, depending on the season--sometimes it's twice a week) and we always see something cool there. This is a video of the girls and I on a Cheetah encounter. The Safari offers different "encounters" with the animals in the park. For this one, we got to walk through the park to the Cheetah and Tiger area and see the animals close up. The Cheetahs were all VERY interested in the two little girls in pink in the front row. Mmmmm..... Tasty. I took several videos of the cats hissing, spitting and chirping at the girls and then handed the camera off to the woman behind me so that I could be in one with them, too. Haylee kept trying to pet the Cheetahs and Kate kept calling "Here Kitty", chirping at them and kept telling them to "Sit, Cheetah. Sit!" They have no fear. We're in trouble!!!!

Haylee Bug and Mommy

Haylee was on me like glue after I cam home from my trip to Utah! One week is like an Eternity for Buggy! She was so cute! She requested "pictures with Mommy" after I came home. So, as I was setting up for a session, she and I snapped a few together. Her own little photo shoot with Mommy...I felt honored!

Haylee's favorite thing to do for photos right now is to make scary faces at the camera.

So we made some scary faces!

I love that Bug! ;)

The "frow ups"

Well, it hit our family. We tried to avoid it but a few weeks ago Kate woke up with the "frow ups." She was such a good sport about it, but was one sick little kid. She had it for 7 days straight with a fever of 104 (101 with Tylenol) for a good portion of it. I had been on the phone with her doctor for advice, but she couldn't keep anything down and was burning up so I finally decided that it was time to get her seen. It was late at night so we went to the ER since the urgent care was closed. I haven't posted anything for a while and I thought it was the perfect time to post these pictures since we just got out ER bill.....3 1/2 hours sitting in the ER (alone in a little room)--waiting for the Doctor who was with us for about 6 minutes--and the grand total is $707.35! Seriously??!!! Our portion, after insurance is $374.54. I'm so upset about it....actually, I'm angry about it. The frustrating thing to me about our medical system is that anywhere else you go, prices are available--up front so you can make an educated decision about what services you choose to purchase. Not in the medical world, though. They can charge us whatever they want and if you do happen to ask how much it will cost you get the look of, "How can you ask that? How much do you love your child? Wouldn't you do anything for her?" ARGHHH!!!!! Don't even get me started on the insurance company! How convenient for them that several of the services were excluded! And I ask, which services? We checked in, we waited, they gave her a Zofran pill and we went home--3 1/2 hours later. Silly me, I should have known that magazine that I read wouldn't be covered!

OK, enough complaining. Here is a picture of Kate during the "frow up" portion of the sickness. She was so exhausted from vomiting 23 times in a 14 hour period. She fell asleep on the bathroom floor after an episode.

At one point I asked her if she was going to throw up again and she said, "No, I think da frow ups are all gone back down in my legs now." I guess that's where it felt like it was coming from, all the way down in her legs.

Here she is finally feeling better. Her hair was all fuzzy and crazy but she was smiling again!!! Yay!!! Crazy girl!!!

;)

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