Beautiful Shelby

You are so beautiful

 

to me

You are so beautiful

to me,

can't you see?

You're everything that I’d hoped for

You're everything I need

You are so beautiful

 

... to me

 

Baby girl, I know that you just can’t wait until your birthday.  You are so excited you can hardly stand it.  But guess what…I can. 
I will soak up every last second of these last 10 days.  Your sweetness, your love, your cuddles.  I know they won’t stop when you turn 5, but there is so much in store for you in this next year of your life.  You will start school.  You might meet your first bully- you might have your feelings hurt, REALLY hurt, for the first time.  You might learn some tough lessons…because you know, everything you need to know about life you learn in Kindergarten! :)  You will have your first real softball game.  You will have lived half a decade!  You will have your first report card and your first trip to the beach.  Only God knows what is in store for your life baby girl, but Mommy and Daddy will be here to guide you and love you and hug you through it all.  And we will never ever forget the amazing little sweetness that was 4 years old.

(pictures are from every 6 months from birth (April 2005) to now)

Things I heard in the car this morning

C: "Mama, why can't we smoke out?"  (he really likes to blow steam out when it's cold out...it was warm this morning!)

S: "Whoa!  Look how tiny my crack is!!!!"  (referring to her window)

S: "Awww, what a cute tiny little bus!  It looks like a little toy that giants play with!" (about a short bus.)

Editing for Comparison

Click on them for bigger images.

I Heart Faces Photo Challenge: Dramatic B&W

This is from our trip to the state park when we were on the lake, and I knew in trying to make a dramatic black and white photo, I needed to use Miss Dramatic herself.
This was SOOOoo much fun!  I am totally a beginner, but I love editing and learning.
(I can only put one photo for the entry blog, but I will do another post to show the original photo, just for fun comparison sake!)
Go on over here and see some more great photography! 

Spring Break part II

After we returned from camping on Wednesday, we had several more beautiful days of sunshine before heading back to school and work.

We were out by (and in) Nonnie & Poppy’s pool a couple of days.

 

On Thursday night Susan and I went to Jess’s house to get some clothes organized and tagged for the JBF (Just Between Friends) sale.  It was definitely more fun doing it with friends and wine! :)

Friday night we had a family cookout at Nonnie & Poppy’s house.  We always try to ALL get together when Tyler is home from Lubbock.  So, Millie and Luke came from Dallas. :)  Anna fixed Shelby up with make-up and I got some cute shots of her.

On Saturday day, we had the laziest day ever.  It was yucky, cold and rainy out.  I laid in bed dozing for most of the day while the kids crawled over me :) and Jeff sat next to me loading music onto his new Zune (MP3 player.)  However, we did have a reason to get up and dressed that evening for a dinner at our old neighbor’s house.  Eric and Christal have baby Aiyla who is about 6 months old and Shelby just adored her.

 

She has got to be one of the happiest smiliest babies I have ever seen!

Cole and Bryson are only about a month or 2 apart.  They played together.

I got this picture of Cole & Daddy

But it made a nice little headshot of cutie Cole.

Finally, more of Shelby and Aiyla.  Aiyla just loved sitting in the middle of all the kids playing around her.  She even participated in Shelby’s tea party :) haha!

Look how excited she is!

This was a celebration for Christal’s 30th birthday so happy birthday once again, you old lady!!! ;) 

Spring Break 2010!

This past week was spring break for the kids and me, and we headed out to Ray Roberts State Park on Saturday.  This was our longest camping trip yet…4 nights!  I really enjoyed it being longer because that means there was more relaxing in between packing everything and then unpacking everything!

The Isle du Bois unit of the state park is where we camped, and it is just about 10 minutes from Gram & Grandpa’s house!  Gram and Matthew came every day…it was so great to spend so much time with them!  Most of the pictures I have are of Matthew and Coleman riding bikes together. Grandpa went out to the camp spot Friday morning to reserve us our FAVORITE site.  This has to be the favorite of all the places we’ve been so far.  It’s HUGE, private, and has a big ol sidewalk around the whole site which is PERFECT for the kids riding bikes.  The boys sure took advantage of it!  These are all pictures from the first day:

This was the first time that Coleman and Matthew really PLAYED together really well.  Our baby boy is growing up!  This time, it wasn’t Matthew and Shelby leaving Cole out or pretending he’s the monster.  It was Matthew and Cole, buddies!

 

Sissy joined in too.  She likes to be in charge.  The boss:

I love how the rode around with Matthew’s arm around Shelby:

That night (and every night) there was a campfire and marshmallows!

On Sunday morning, the Kerrs joined us.  They got to stay TWO nights and we had a blast.

There was lots of playing on the playground, which is straight across the little drive from our site.  Another huge plus to this camp site.  (I think Susan was the one taking these pictures, which is why she’s not in any of them!)

 

There were also many walks to the lake.  And many rocks thrown in the lake.

 

This is the only picture I did any editing to.  I messed around with editing a RAW image with this Kerr fam pic.  I am just not sure I have an eye for it!  Can that be learned?!  I am not so sure…..

(this was the original:)

I am not sure what she has on her tongue!

The Pecks with Gram:

Uh oh!  Daddy found a BIG rock!

Sunday night the daddies stayed up until some ungodly hour playing horseshoes.  I heard them at 4 am deciding to skip their 7 am golf game!

Monday morning Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Becky drove over from Lake Texoma to see us.

Monday night Shelby slept in the tent with Daddy!  When I went to check on her in the morning, she was COMPLETELY inside the sleeping bag, head and all.  I wasn’t so sure about that so she had to sleep in the camper the next night.  She can do the tent again when it doesn’t get so cold at night.

We bring the little potties for the little girls when there’s not time to go over to the bathroom!  Well, maybe for the big girls sometimes too when it’s dark!  haha

Ryan is getting so big.  He wanted to sit on the potty (unfortunately AFTER he had filled his diaper!  haha- he is learning!) 

And he helped his Daddy carry wood to the fire.  

 

When the Kerrs left on Tuesday, Nonnie, Poppy, Anna & Tyler came out.  Of course and as always, I didn’t have the camera out on this last day.  Boooo at me! 

That day/night was quite chilly so there was a lot of sitting around the campfire.  Oh, the boys took the kiddos fishing.  The ladies sat around the fire all day and all night!

It was a great trip and thank you to everyone who came out to join us!