We're Back!

where to begin? its been so long! so lets start with a few photos. Australia was great. it was wet, but fun. annabelle was able to play at the beach because she was starting to sit up on her own! this is really the first time she did it. we have a ton of photos!


this is us at bells beach watching the surfers.

we take this shot every time with the year


my favorite beach on great ocean road- possibly anywhere



the famous "12 apostles" alf's eyes are closed, but lets pretend they arent. (one day i will be so good at photoshop this wont be an issue, or my big arms)its the only picture we took because the rain clouds were once again moving in and we still had much to see.


the most gorgeous wine vineyard. yep it was raining-again. but at least the usual 5$fee to tour the gardens was waved. i'm sure they thought we were crazy. i tried to capture the beauty, but the whole time i kept thinking "if only amy where here" she would have been able to do it


i drank way too many of these, along with fresh croissants- if you know me, you know i have a problem with my love for those flaky pastries


annabelle was spoiled by family


played with friends


and dress up

(santa's helper) btw- this was going to be a "happy new years" card, since we didnt do christmas ones, but then jet lag happened. whoops!


and we even managed to see some friends


sorry i am looking weird

be back with more later!

4 months

weight: 15lb 12oz
length: 26 1/2 inches
translation: the weight of a six month old and the height of a seven month old. she is still laughing and smiling all the time. talking comes and goes, so i am guessing she is more like me. i have my days were i talk nonstop mixed in with quieter days. her dad is all the time, nonstop. this is just a guess though. she is still not rolling over. if she is on her side and i give her the smallest little push she can do it, but she almost immediately starts to cry when she realizes that she is now on her belly. she does like the bumbo. she now perfers to sit in her bumbo and play with toys in the morning versus her playmate. and really she doesnt need any toys because she has discovered the dogs. she very much likes to watch them and invite them over to lick her. that is probably her most favorite thing to do at the moment. she did great with her shots the second time around. much better then the first. she really is getting big fast!

Photoshop

i have had elements for a while but havent done anything with it really. so confusing, i didnt know where to start. so my very talented and awesome friend came to the rescue. it doesnt look like much, but let me tell you, i am uberproud of these edited photos. so here are some before and afters

amy warned me not to overuse the "burned edge" affect, but i think i could use this on almost every photo. i love it

the light, its blinding!

still not perfect, but getting there

mmmm, its not christmas without lefsa!!

notice the text on this one...

the rolling of the lefsa


the end to a perfect day after a lot of baking

i love a good black and white photo. notice the burned edge thing again :)

i hope to have some better edited ones from our trip. i am so excited to finally be able to do fun things with my photos!

laughing

my favorite thing annabelle does right now is laugh. its hard to get her squealing still, but i love it!

playgroup

this smile says it all! we love our playgroup!

ps- doesnt this stylish guy totally rock the ray bans?

baby toupe

which way to comb is the question! poor annabelle! if i dont get the comb over just right, she is going to have a hair day like this-

The problem is i hate combing over too much, i dont need a donald trump baby. but if i comb over too little then her little bald spot is quite obvious- glaring in the flash :) And no matter how hard i tried to get that hair to stay down it kept popping right back up!

we have grass!

This is huge! with two boxers and no sprinklers we had given up. But then annabelle came around, she's going to need an outdoor space of her own that is poop free-complete with a tree swing.

So we had Chris build a fence on one side of the house for the dogs. what is now lush green grass was all dirt not long ago.

Then Dimmi came and put in a french drain. You can see it to the left side of Boston.

The grass was looking so good i was inspired me to plant some fall flowers

I even planted some tulips (my favorite flower) in the pots, with the pansies. I totally copied Chesapeake, they have the most gorgeous tulip/Pansie combo in the spring. I couldnt pull out the geranium though- can you see it about to bloom?? i decided she could stay for that last flower's sake.

My new backyard wouldnt have been complete for the season without a pumpkin. I think my backyard now looks much better than my front yard.