DANCE RECITAL

Hannah and Emily were in a dance recital this past weekend, Oz, A Magical Journey. It was a GREAT show, kind of a combination of "The Wizard of Oz", and "Wicked". Here are just a few pictures of before we left for the dress rehearsal.

Emily getting make up put on for the very first time! Notice the little half-smile, just like her daddy.

Emily was a bunny and danced to "Little Bunny Foo-Foo".

Hannah was a red poppy in a field of red poppy flowers! Beautiful!

Pictures of the show to come soon!!

BABY BIRD - ARE YOU MY MOTHER?

Hannah had one of her dreams come true the other day. She is an avid bird lover. We are lucky to back up to a natural preservation area, so we have LOTS of wildlife in the area, with more birds than you can imagine! Hannah was out playing in the yard when she noticed a little baby bird just hopping all around the yard. She captured the poor little thing with her net and had lots of fun playing with it for a little while before she let him hop away to look for his mother. One of Emily's favorite books is by P.D. Eastman - Are You My Mother? She had lots of fun that evening going through the stoy of our little bird adventure and comparing it to her favorite story.

Hannah is SOOO happy. She has been working towards owning a pet bird by this Christmas. She has to work very hard on her homeschooling between now and then, and she just may earn herself a pet bird - now I think she may work even harder!! I have to admit, it was very fun to hold the little guy and pet it's little head!

This may be one of my ALL time favorite pictures of her. There are very few things that make Hannah as happy as being with God's little creatures. Just before I snapped this picture, she looked at me and said "Mommy, I don't ever want this moment to end!!!"

MY NEW CHIK-FIL-A THEME SONG

If you only knew how truly accurate this is of my life and my love affair with Chik-Fil-A. It's even one of the songs on my "Beatles CLOCK"!!!!

Too funny!!

BABY ALEXANDRA, NINE DAYS OLD

Doesn't she have the most precious chubby cheeks and little lips ever? I had fun with you guys yesterday - congratulations on another baby girl!!

WELCOME TO MARYLAND NANA!

We picked up Nana from the airport just a few hours ago, and the girls already have her day FULL of things to do!! So far, she has already gone on a bike ride, explored the garden, played hide-and-seek, and become completely addicted to the Wii. Stay tuned for lots more of Nana's Maryland Adventures!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO MY HUBBY!!

Happy Fathers Day Richard. You are an amazing daddy to our sweet girls! I'm so thankful we have you!

Daddy with Kirsten

Daddy with Hannah

Daddy with Emily.

A BEACH WEDDING

I bent my "no wedding" rules for this one exception - a beach wedding - how could I say no? All natural light. Plus, this is one of my favorite families to photograph, they crack me up. It was a beautiful small family wedding in Bethany Beach, Delaware. The sky was changing the entire time we were out there, which made for some interesting images. On a technical note, I am a "manual" camera girl - I always want the camera in manual so that I am in complete control (yep, I'm a control freak) of everything the camera is doing. Well, with the sun coming and going and the lighting changing so much, I second-guessed myself slightly. Of course, not wanting to miss a shot at such an important event, I flipped my camera over to "aperture priority". It's still pretty much in manual, the only thing is the camera chooses it's own shutter speed to match the aperture I select. I just found my NEW BEST FRIEND!! I always kinda felt like it would be cheating a little to use anything other than manual, but I'm so pleased with how all the images came out. I'm going through over 500 images, but here are some of my favorites.

THE BUTTERFLY

A man found a cocoon for a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly.

He took a pair of scissors and snipped the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. Something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen body and shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and deformed wings. It was never able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand, was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the small opening of the cocoon are God` s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.

If God allowed us to go through all of our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. Not only that, we could never fly.

PRINCE CHARMING?

We may never know, no one was quite brave enough....but almost..... Don't you love how their hair curls around their face in the humidity?