Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Ironing



I have the funniest kids (at least in my book). Tonight Kairi told me that she needed to iron her pajamas to wear them to bed. Who would have thought that it would be necessary to do this. I picked up this iron at DI for a dollar and she is now obsessed with ironing. It cracks me up. So I couldn't resist taking pictures, because it was quite humorous.

Happy Birthday Kairi!!!!


Happy 4th Birthday to my girl!!!! We had such a great time at her birthday party, and the girl got so many gifts that I won't have to have Christmas. No really!!! She had a blast. We invited 17 kids and 14 arrived. She enjoyed just playing at the park with all of her friends and being the center of attention, which is always her thing. Kairi talked about the party for days before and is still talking about it. Cameron and I really enjoyed watching her have so much fun. We got her the Princess computer and some clothes for her Cabbage Patch doll. She is yet to put that computer down. She loves it!!! Plus all her friends did too. They all huddled around her as she discovered it a little bit. They had a treasure hunt and got a ton of candy... I don't know that they all quite grasped the concept of a treasure hunt, but it worked. We also had a relay race with the boiled egg and a spoon. Unfortunately none of the kids understood how it worked and they all held the egg on the spoon with the other hand. It was really funny. Now that she has had her birthday party she can settle down for a while and enjoy all of her toys. As you can see, she is also sharing them with her little sister. Happy Birthday again, Bugga!!!!!

Cinderella Girl


Kairi is our most interesting girl. Her little mind is always thinking and any little thing can spark her imagination. For her birthday she got this cute little crown with Cinderella on the front of it. Now Kesslynn has this beautiful little blue dress that must have got the cog wheels turning and this is the result.... Kesslynn is now Cinderella. Kairi had her crawling around with the crown on her head and Kesslynn didn't mind. They really are my little princesses.....

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

BUTTERFLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


So our butterfly is really a butterfly... The weird thing in the middle of the wings is the cocoon. Can you believe that whole butterfly fit in that little cocoon?! I came home from shopping and there it was hanging from its cocoon fanning its wings. Evidently this is crucial to its survival, so we left it alone for a few hours and then took it outside.

We got ready to release the little guy and he got stuck in the jar and his wings were too large to get out of the jar. We kind of had to shake the jar a little and tip it over for him to get out.

He flew around for a few minutes and struggled a little to fly. There was a light breeze which complicated this process. He flitted about for probably 15 minutes when he finally took flight. We like to think that he will be migrating with the rest of the monarchs to Mexico when the time comes. Good luck little buddy!!!!

Monday, September 17, 2007

I Shot it!!

I was asked to do some candid shots for an Open House for the son of Cameron's boss. His wife, Pam, is a dear friend and a fellow shutterbug. Anyway, so I spent a few hours covering the Open House and these are my favorite shots. In the "Merrill" picture the people are l-r (Ethan & Brooke (I covered their reception last year), Sterling (groom) & Amy (Bride) Wayne (Cameron's boss) & Pam (the real boss). Best wishes to Sterling & Amy.

Green to Black


So yesterday this is what the coccoon looked like. We were able to see through it, but not completely. It was still green!!!! But now....

Now, we see BLACK, black, black, black, black, black. You can see the wings really well and that is the color they are. This has been so fun to watch and anticipate. Tomorrow it will have been exactly 2 weeks since it went into the crysallis and so we know that it is getting really close. Hopefully we will have a picture tomorrow of our own butterfly and then whatever we decide to do with it!!!!

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Party Time...


So our Kairi is going to be 4 years old next sunday and we are so excited for her. So I pulled out all the stops and decided to finally have a REAL birthday party for her. I designed the invitation (I love that kind of thing) had it printed and sent it to her aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas.....Mainly because I am so excited. So in a week or so I will have new pictures of her birthday party with her friends and family to post.

Big Girls!!



I'm not quite sure who is trying to be bigger. Kairi wanted so badly to feed Kesslynn so I let her and Kesslynn so badly wanted to eat like a normal human being that I think she tolerated the forcefulness of the feeding just to get a little food. They are such funny girls and love each other a ton. As you can see they each tolerate the other and give and take in ways that only sisters can do.

Speaking of Bugs.....



The tiniest bug in our family is now mobile!!! She is just barely 6 months old and has been crawling around for weeks now. It is so cute to watch, but with her already mobile we have had to go on the defense to keep her out of everything. She is also very proficient at getting herself in a sitting position. It has been fun to watch her grow and develop, I had just hoped that we would have had a little more time with her as a baby as opposed to her being in such a hurry to grow up. Needless to say we love watching her grow and she gives us quite a show.

Girlfriend clean

So Kairi has learned the chorus to this song and goes around singing it all the time. Her cousin Brooklynn started singing it to her one day and Kairi just loved it so she learned the chorus and is now a HUGE Avril Lavigne fan....


So over the next few hours I watched it considerably close and I soon noticed a kind of cap over the area that had been the bottom of the "j". Next thing I know the caterpillar starts moving and wiggling really fast and this green stuff starts taking over his body starting at the bottom and working its way to the top. I also notice that its antennae and legs are all coming together in one great big ball and he just keeps wiggling until the green stuff gets all the way to the top. Then the legs and black all fall off in one big lump and he just stops moving..... Tops it took 5 minutes, which is news to me. I thought it formed its crysallis over a few days- guess I was wrong.

After another day the crysallis solidified and turned the shade of dull green that you see. I think that it is pretty cool. It also picked up some very GOLD flecks on it at ridge points which I also find pretty cool. So from what I read we wait for two weeks. This happened about that long ago and so when I have more pictures of the crysallis clearing out I will post them....

Lots of Caterpillar updates......


So as you can see, the caterpillar finally did find the elusive "j" shape and Voila! that is all it took. He hung upside down like this for about 12 hours before I noticed that he was taking on a green hue. I've never seen this happen before so what occurred next really took me by surprise.....

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

The Change.....


So luckily I am too young at this point to go through "the change" naturally, however there has been a recent addition to our family who we have been anxiously awaiting to "change." That's right we have found a monarch caterpillar. So we put it in a jar, brought it home and have been feeding it the last few days. Today it started to act funny and sure enough it was preparing to hang upside down. I read somewhere that it takes 2 weeks for it to come out of its coccoon. So in two weeks I hope to have more of an update for you as to whether it lived or if our 3 year old caused enough stress (she has at times for me) to die......

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Flower Girl





Kairi has recently taken to watering things. Which is funny, because I have recently taken to NOT watering things. Anyway, one day she decided the plants on the back step needed to be watered and so off she went to water them. She carried on for about 15 minutes, when I told her that she needed to be done. Her reply- "But Mom, the plants aren't alive yet...." So after laughing my head off and explaining to her that no amount of watering would bring those poor plants back, we decided that we should buy her a plant to keep alive. So the beautiful purple (her favorite color) mums are her plant that she sometimes waters. The other times, it is me that waters them. Which is helping me remember to water all the other "dying" plants....