Girls Day Photo Shoot

First off, I have a ton of pictures and stuff to post, but they will be coming later. We had a wonderful long vacation back with Dustin's family to celebrate Dana's (his sister's) wedding last week. We have a couple of other family weekends planned this month, so I hope to post all of July vacation photos at one time later this month.

Anyway, sometimes when the girls are playing nicely, I like to pull out my camera, play with some of the settings and take a bunch of pictures. Sometimes I get some good ones, other times it's kind of a bust. Lately, almost every time I take out my camera, Olivia will ask to take some pictures. She's getting pretty good at it too. The girls were little angels today, so we had some fun with my camera. There are kind of a lot of pictures here, but I couldn't decide which ones to post. Enjoy!

Here are a couple of the ones Olivia took. She would shout out orders to me like, "get down by Hadley!" or "Ok, now kiss her on the cheek!" I just did what I was told and here is what she caught on camera. Not bad, huh?

I should have more to come later this month of our family vacations and hopefully some after photos of our landscaping projects!

Hey Amanda, you haven't updated the blog in like 2 months! What's up with that? Well.... Here's why:

We started some landscaping projects. Just looking at our piles of rock, sand and mulch makes my arms and back hurt...

We are putting mulch around all of our trees. 

We are also putting in a garden bed with new rock around the house. Then we are putting in new patio block in front of the door. The plan is to continue this patio block as walkway around the house and possibly put in a patio at the base of the deck. We'll see. I was pretty ambitious when we started, but right now I can hardly lift my arms... 

Oh yeah, and we have a garden. 

If anyone wants to come visit this fall, we should have tons of squash, zucchini, pumpkin, peppers, tomatoes, peas, beans, and spinach to share! :)

Oh yeah, and these 2 little monkeys keep us pretty busy too! (Did you really think I would make a blog post without any pictures of the kids?!)

Hadley Jo: She is about 7 1/2 months old now. She has been able to sit now for a couple of months. She still shows very little interest in crawling or scooting. She adores her big sister. Every time Olivia enters the room, Hadley goes crazy. She kicks and swings her arms around, and giggles and squeals. She loves baths and playing outside in the grass. She is so happy and smiley most of the time. 

Olivia: Olivia is so full of spunk and energy, it's hard to keep up with her most days. She rarely sits still. She is very independent, and we often hear "I just want to do it my way!". (Her way is usually the opposite of what we want her to do) She is so smart and learning so much everyday. She knows the months of the year, days of the week, can spell her name, write most of her name, and is getting better at recognizing and writing other numbers and letters. She loves to wear dresses, play outside, and help me and Dustin with whatever we are working on. "Hey Mommy, can we do teamwork?!" She also started gymnastics last week. This has been a huge hit, and hopefully will help her burn off some energy!

Well, now that my arms are rested, I'm back to working in the yard... Hopefully next post I will have some after pictures of our project and more of the kiddos.

The last few months have just flown by! Both girls seem to change and grow a little every day. Olivia has quite a little mouth on her. She talks so much. It's funny to hear all the different things she comes up with now. Little Hadley is growing like a weed. She adores her big sister and laughs and squeals at everything Olivia does.
Here is what we've been up to lately--