a campfire recipe

our saturday night last weekend revolved around this...

and now, here is a recipe for a quintessential (thanks for the word, kellie) summer evening:

first, start with great friends and their new house in the country on over 2 acres of land...

add a healthy dose of water balloons...

toss in some beer, scotch and whisky for the adults and lemonade for the kids...

toss in hot dogs and brats roasted over the fire, homemade cole slaw and pasta salad and fruit...

this picture courtesy of harper.

add 2 cameras with clickin' mamas and littles-in-training...

throw in a pinch of baseball and lots of field to run the bases...

stir in post-dinner sticky, gooey, chocolate-y s'mores...

a dash of kite flying...

don't add any noise but the sound of peace, quiet, chatter and laughter...

and finally, toss in 2 mason jars, a dark sky and eager moms and girls chasing after the evening fireflies.

do you see those little lightbulbs in the fields?

and there you have a perfectly magical night. can't wait to do it again.

thank you, blake, kellie and anna.

fourth of july

still playing catch up. here are pictures from our fourth of july holiday weekend spent with our neighbors and friends on the beach in west michigan.

this year, we opted to rent a cottage rather than a hotel so the kids could play together more and we could make dinners at "our new house," as harper came to call it. we cozied up in the 3 bedroom cottage nestled in the woods a mere mile or so from the state park where we spent our days. we spent our mornings having coffee and breakfast on the sunporch, and left the beach for afternoon naps, bbq dinners and relaxing.

while on the beach, we snacked on beachy vacation foods under the shade of the tent, splashed in lake michigan, played in the sand.

and the little ones napped.

we once again went back to the private beach for the fireworks display on the fourth. we arrived early enough to play in the sand dunes before settling down for the show. this year, three of the four kiddos stayed awake the whole time. crosby slept through it all.

we'll definitely continue this annual tradition with chad, jacque, hunter and kaelyn, even when they're no longer our neighbors. sadly, our friends are moving off of our street. my mind won't wrap itself around the fact that they won't be 3 houses away in a matter of a few weeks. ok, yes, they will only be a mile away when their house is finally built, but it's just not the same! we're planning a dinner in their empty house on the last night they're there, so more photos and stories to come.

3 years and 3 months, and a little story

when harper was born, we didn't budget for photography sittings and photos. didn't know we had to. wish we would have. with her being our first, we wanted to capture it all. we got the maternity shots and the newborn shots at 9 days old, then came the 3 month, 6 month, 9 month and 1 year sessions, all with amazing photographers and all with a hefty price because how could you say no to buying a precious photo of your first child? they get you. they set the slideshows to music that tugs at your heart strings. they make you order within a certain time frame before your password expires. you have to have every single shot they took of your baby.

and now where are all those photos, you ask? framed and hanging on every free inch of space in our tiny abode? nope. most are in the envelope that the photographer sent them in, waiting to be put into a scrapbook.

enter my birthday gift in 2009. a dslr camera. i set it on auto and shot away. i loved how fast it took photos. i felt like i could stop time and really capture those precious little moments. but my photos weren't looking anything like what the true photogs captured, so i got a little frustrated.

enter my friend, christina, who put word out there that she was taking an 8-week photography class at a local college. i decided to sign up, and i got hooked. i loved being able to understand what aperture and shutter speed and iso meant, and shooting my subjects obtaining the depth of field everyone falls in love with when they see a great photo. not that my photos were great by any means, but they were light years better than when i started with the camera in auto.

i've made improvements along the way, doing lots of self-study, and constantly asking questions of christina (who will be going into business for herself this fall). and my main reason for doing so is so that i can take photos of my girls and our life and not feel pressured to have to buy them before the time clock expires. i can keep them forever because they're mine.

recently, i attended the funeral for a 5-year-old little boy of a longtime family friend of mine. he passed away all too suddenly of a brain tumor that they discovered just after thanksgiving. i sat at the funeral home, and watched the slide show presentation of his short life. and they didn't present all the professional shots- not even one. they pulled together photos from their daily lives. the ones with messes in the background, food on faces, hair caught in the way. the exposures weren't all perfect. the lighting was sometimes dark. the red eyes occasionally existed. but it didn't matter. these were the pictures of his life, of his typical days, and what the parents and family wanted to remember. and it hit me that i don't have to have the perfect shots all the time. i just have to have the pictures. i just have to capture the moments.

and so, here we are. harper at 3 years, and crosby at 3 months. my own mini portrait session while we were vacationing at the beach for fourth of july. it's not professional, but it is my own.