We’re flying out tomorrow to the meet the birth mom and her family.  Kasen is, of course, confused about the whole thing.  I think she thinks we’ll be bringing her baby brother home this time.  Well . . . not quite yet.  Hopefully we’ll be bringing him home in June!

I will be returning all phone calls and e-mails when I return next week.

Have a GREAT weekend everyone!!

This week’s photo contest for the Kids Category is “Reflection” ~ I had to dig a little to find this gem, but it totally cracks me up every time I look at it.  This was the second time that Kasen ever had her face painted, and as you can see, it was quite amusing to her as well.

We had to leave that face painting on until after Daddy came home from work so he could see the masterpiece, which meant she took her nap with all that face painting on.  Reminder to everyone, black face paint does NOT come out of sheets.  Lesson learned.

Don’t forget to check out all the other awesome entries here ~ I Heart Faces

Here’s my sweetie making faces at herself - you should see the entire series - funny stuff!!

This week’s photo contest for the Adult Category is “Reflection” ~ I took this while we were at the Museum of Nature and Science.  While Kasen was playing all the instruments, Mom & Dad were goofing around and I snapped this.  It looks like he is peering in at himself trapped in some sort of dollhouse.  I think I’m remembering an old “Twilight Zone” episode.  LOL

Don’t forget to check out all the other awesome entries here ~ I Heart Faces

See ya’ later!!

This is where we went yesterday.  You would think that on a Friday, it wouldn’t be that crowded.  Well, you would be WRONG.  There were OVER 1500 children there.  Ugh. It was insane!!!  I could hardly move in the play area with Kasen.  Brad and I were taking turns, making sure we didn’t lose her in the crowd.  I don’t like crowds anyway, but this was seriously miserable.  We decided to take in the IMAX movie while we were there in hopes that there wouldn’t be as many people there.  Of course, we were wrong again, it was almost filled to capacity.  I can’t remember the name of the movie we saw, but it was all about the ocean.  Kasen LOVED the movie for the first five minutes and then she hated it.  She took turns sitting on each of our laps because she was getting scared.  I guess bigger is not always better in Texas! LOL  She said she didn’t like all the little things that kept going “bleep, boop, beep” as she demonsrated by opening and closing her hands.  She was talking about the coral that looked like flowers opening and closing.  Oh well, Brad and I enjoyed it.

After the movie, we were going to head out for lunch.  However; we noticed that it wasn’t as busy, so we decided to give the museum one last try.  We are SO happy that we did because it wasn’t crowded at all.  Then, Kasen had an all-out great time.  She played with EVERYTHING.  We had to drag her out of there for a very late lunch.  But, oh so worth it.  We had the most fun when we had more free reign of the place.  She loved the bubbles, sitting in the fire engine, playing all the instruments, splashing around in the water table, watching herself in all the funny mirrors, making the hot air balloon rise, and milking the pretend cow.  There was so much more and she really did enjoy it all.  On the way home, I asked her what her favorite part was, and she said “Not the movie, just playing.” LOL

See ya’ later!!

Oh to be three years old and throw all caution to the wind! LOL  This is Kasen after an afternoon of swimming.  Yes, she had her swimsuit on while she was in the pool.  She had just taken everything off and was *supposed* to be on her way inside the house for a bath . . . and then took a detour. LOL  It has been quite warm here, but we still had to heat up the pool just a bit.  It’s almost time for weekends full of swimming, dinners made on the grill, and eating messy popsicles on the patio.  I can hardly wait.

See ya’ later!!

This week’s photo contest for the Kids Category is “Self-Portrait” - the photo must be of you and a child (or children). Well, this proved a LOT tougher than I thought. Maybe it’s due to my seriously inferior arm strength to hold the camera SO far away from my body, or maybe because I have a three year old who doesn’t understand my vision or can’t be still for one.single.second, or it’s because I’m hardly ever in FRONT of the camera, or maybe it’s because I do have poor self image and hate looking at pictures of myself . . . . now, having said all that, I still did it and I’m happy I did - I conquered all my doubts and I’m quite pleased with the photo of Kasen and myself. I had been trying to get a picture of us kissing . . . and well, that was a no-go. Then she started giving me nose kisses, and then spit kisses (I won’t elaborate any further on that, except to say that they are NOT pleasant.) LOL It just took one spit kiss and then we were cracking up. I can’t even believe that I got this in focus, but here it is. At least when she’s all grown up, she WILL know that Mommy existed in her life because she’ll have this picture.

Don’t forget to check out all the other awesome entries here ~ I Heart Faces

This week’s photo contest for the Adult Category is “Self-Portrait” - show us your face…and your face ONLY!

I really wasn’t going to do this one, but I decided to at the last minute.  Like I said, I really don’t like pictures of myself and this is no exception.  But I’m always up for a challenge.  I took this in my office, holding the camera on my knees.  I can definitely see how long my hair is in this pic - thank goodness I’m getting it cut in out about 45 minutes!!  Now, I’m just going to hit the send button before I back out once again.

Don’t forget to check out all the other awesome entries here ~ I Heart Faces

I hope I didn’t scare anyone!!

See ya’ later!!

I was taking Kasen’s picture tonight while my Mom was pushing Kasen in the swing.  When I was downloading my pictures, I just started cracking up as soon as I saw this pic - look at those HUGE piggies. LOL

Sometimes what you get is better than what you were trying for in the first place.

See ya’ later!!

My favorite kind of day today - rainy, cloudy, thundering, and lightening.  Wonderful!!  And since it wasn’t a day for the outdoors, today was a pajama wearing-long nap taking-cartoon watching-scooter riding in the halls-laundry fighting-cookie making kind of day.  It was the best!  My Mom and Kasen set out on a huge cookie making adventure this afternoon and Kasen couldn’t have been more excited.  They made Rice Krispie Peanut Butter Cookies.  Yum!! At the very end, Kasen looked at my Mom and said, “We’re not finished.  Where are the chocolate chips?” LOL  She is definitely my husband’s daughter.

Notice the excitement!!

And yes, that’s peanut butter all over her nose in the pictures.

See ya’ later!!

More pics from our bluebonnet playdate yesterday.  Here are all the girls.  The first one was taken in the evening.  The next four were taken in the morning.  I love how different the lighting is in all of these, from the dusk setting, to the bright sunlight in the girls’ hair.

Notice that the only one NOT looking at the camera is Kasen!  And even though I do have a horrible time getting her to look at the camera, I LOVE this shot.

See ya’ later!!

A few of my friends and I talked about these bluebonnets, talked about the great location (thanks J!), and talked about taking pics of the girls there.  Well, I didn’t need my arm twisted to take pictures that’s for sure. ;)  So, Kasen and I headed out early this morning to meet the girls and we had a quick impromptu photo shoot/play date for an hour.  It was fun, we got super muddy, we ran a lot and most importantly, we laughed a lot.  I’m thinking that this should be a tradition.

The funniest/frustrating part is that after I got home, I started downloading my pictures off of my card and realized that I didn’t have any more free disk space left on my computer!!  Ugh!  I finally got rid of some things and then was able to download this morning’s bluebonnet pics.  I knew beforehand that I didn’t get lots of pics of Kasen, but that’s because she was having so much fun running, playing and being held by the other Mommies.  Well, I decided after I returned from my appointment this afternoon that I would take her back out for one.more.try before the sun set.  It was GREAT.  She still didn’t look at me, hardly ever does, but I did get some fun shots.  I’m quite pleased.  There were lots of other families there with the same idea, but we took our same spot and had fields of bluebonnets to ourselves.  Perfect.  I’ll have to show those later because I’m just too tired to edit any of them right now.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorites from this morning - the girls frolicking!  Pure sweetness.

See ya’ later!!