Happy Friday!

I'm just going to jump in here and introduce (to this blog), the wonderful little guy God has added to our family. Ryder Isaac was born July 9th (I may go into that more later) and the past 8+mo with him have been truly a gift. We have so much to be thankful for. Right now he is just waking up and his two adoring big brothers ran right in to play with him. Our mornings aren't always idelic, but this has been a good one (the yummy Dutch Bros in my hand doesn't hurt either). Fridays are my favorite because Cade's home (he goes to a M-Th school)and we usually just stay in our jammies all morning (sometimes even longer) and have fun or go to the library or a coffee shop together. Kevin is coming home for a long lunch while I head to a newborn session (love those!!) and this weekend we have big plans to update our bathroom (yikes - for real - pray). I can hardly believe my two big boys are going to be turning 5 and 7 this month. It's going TOO fast.

Catching up a bit...

Oh where to begin...well, for starters, as I said in my last post: we are having a baby (let's not kid ourselves, I'M having him,  and other people involved are expecting him). :) So he's expected around July 14th but I'm not about to get attatched to that date. If womb activity is any indication, our newest little guy is extremely energetic & we're going to need to find some newborn gymnastics program for him to participate in immediately. There are about 7 weeks left of this pregnancy and it has been great. I really can't complain. Other than a little sciatic pain here and there, the typical emotions+, and some trouble getting/staying comfortable/asleep at night, it's been great!  The whole thing has gone by really fast (I think being busy with the boys and my photography) & very smoothly,  which I'm hoping is an indication of the upcoming labor experience). ;)

Kevin and I celebrate 8 years on May 25th!   I have no idea what we are going to do, but there is a rumor his parents are coming to town so we may get a date night (which we would NEVER turn down).  (Edited to add:  Today this is not true ~ I wrote this post in pieces last week, so now TODAY is our anniversary and I DO know what were doing and it's going to be so fun).
A good quote I heard about marriage this morning at Bible Study goes something like this: "A great marriage begins when you marry the one you love and it thrives when you love the one you married." (not sure where this came from originally,  but I'm pretty sure Kevin makes this easier than many)!

Parenting snip-it...{aka: giving it my best shot}
The other morning,  I was explaining to the boys that I don't like it when people (they) stick their tongues out at me, because to me it's not a nice thing to do. They disagree, trying to convince me they LOVE it when people stick tongues out at them. I tell them if lots of people think of it as mean, they should think about how other people will feel before they do things like that. Again, they tell me they just LOVE it when people stick out their tongues at them and they try to get me to stick out my tongue at them. I say 'no' because I don't like the way I feel when someone sticks out their tongue at me.
Cade: "Well, now YOU'RE not thinking about how others will feel." Touche.

Here is my favorite little smartay showing off an exciting event of the weekend before last: Cade lost his first tooth while we were visting Kevin's parents in WA!

All the bw photos are from last November at the park.

Since my wonderful sister-in-law Jen has recently updated her blog, I will link to a couple of posts that are partially about my kids (& even include a few of my pics)! Thank you Jen!

August 2009 ~ Family Reunion in Montana (pt.1)
                        Montana trip (pt.2)
September 2009 ~ Cade & Leah start Kindergarten

October 2009 ~ Our trip to the Sauvie Island Pumpkin Patch

Don't be shocked.

(Or do.  Obviously I don't really care THAT much or I'd blog more).  Sometimes I don't post anything for seven months...and sometimes I say I'm going to start posting more and then I don't.  And sometimes I wish I had a good excuse for not keeping up with this blog...but I don't.  SO,  if you're reading this I probably consider you one of my best friends. ;)  Or you're family.  Most likely though,  you're someone who added this blog in your google reader back when you thought I blogged and hasn't cleaned it out in a while.  Either way,  I do have things to say and blog about,  and I may or may not do that.  If I do,  you'll find it here.  Maybe soon.  Or I may not get around to blogging about anything here for the next year.  I don't know and I'm not making any promises.  Just know that we're all alive.  We're all fine.  We've all gotten a little older.  Some of us have gotten smarter,  developed athletic ability,  and become more coordinated,  while some of us have gotten fatter.  Some of us are even having a new baby boy in July (less than 10 weeks away)!  Some of us should probably start dinner.  And some of us are fighting in the next room and about to get a consequence.  Now this is getting boring.  I'm going to go.  Good first day (or last,  we'll see).

Okay, now that should put us back at the top of Hannah's blog list for about the next minute. :)

A Day in the Life of a Princess

Don't let her attire fool you, when she's not "training" or feeding her puppy (Callum), she spends most of her time in the backyard "cooking" with lots of wet, (very dirty) sand and holding her own against her rowdy cousins! (I actually photoshopped some sand clumps off of Jo Jo's forehead in the above pic). Please excuse the overexposure and browning grass...real life is like that sometimes.

She never let go...
And with a mouth full of bubble gum too...

If you're still with me, you can see more of what these kids were up too this morning, right here.

Oregon State Fair 2009

At the end of August, Kevin (that's right, I'm just launching right into the blog and not even commenting about not posting since May. Everyone's fine). :) as I was saying Kevin had to take a short business trip to Ohio and Katie stayed with me for a couple of the nights (which is always fun). We decided to venture down to Salem for the State Fair one morning and the kids loved it!

What's the fair without some sugary fair food?

Our 7th Anniversary! And some random stuff.

*So my pics are huger than ever and I'm too sleepy to fix them...I thought I'd sized them correctly, but whatever! These are just my simple shots (or parts of them, since some are apparently too large to view on this blog), unedited. Don't judge. I'm sharing these with friends & family, not critics, people! ;) If you're just here for eye candy, leave hungry. Haha! Okay, just kidding, that was a little melodramatic even for me. I'm so embarrassed for myself right now. Going to bed...

Today I am lucky enough to be celebrating 7 years of marital bliss (most of the time!) ;) with the most amazing husband I ever could've asked for. I'm so blessed to get to spend each day with truly my best friend, someone who knows me better than anyone and loves me anyway. Someone who encourages me and lets me chase my dreams however crazy they may seem! It is just an amazing gift to be in a marriage with someone who puts his relationship with God first and lets that determine the rest of his priorities. I'm so glad we have two little boys who are getting to learn how to live out a life of faith and integrity and compassion by watching their daddy. I love you, Hon and I'm SO thankful for you and our marriage. You are the best.


This weekend, Kev's parents came to town and let us have a night away while they stayed with the boys (thank you so much)! Here are a few photos from our brief (but truly wonderful) overnighter in McMinnville. (Sarri, it was hard to not stop by, but we were literally in town from dinner to breakfast ~ we had a great dinner at La Rambla, I think I remember you've eaten there? So yummy - Oh my gosh, the churros with chocolate sauce are amazing)!
Today we spent nearly the whole day cleaning out the garage! Yay! (The kombucha is not in our garage, just at a market in McMinnville we went to for wine & snacks for the hotel after dinner. But I do love kombucha). Back to the garage...it seriously looks so much better and we are now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel...anyone who has been in our garage lately (aka 'the room of doom') will be pleased to know they can find many things we used to own at a nearby Goodwill. The boys had a great time "helping," playing with the neighbors black lab, and riding their scooters all over.

Another great thing about today was that I finally got to meet Lucy, one of my closest friends' (& college roommates) 6 month old baby girl. She is a little doll with so much personality and I'm excited to get to know her more since Jilly and Nick just moved back last week from Spokane! We have not lived in the same place since college (so 8 years!) I'll be posting some from her 6 month photo session here soon, but in case you haven't checked in over there in a while, go see some pictures of Johanna, my sister Katie's adorable little girl. And in other exciting news...my sister-in-law (and good friend, I might add), Jen has been busy updating her blog (after a long dryspell, I also might add, not that I'm one to talk)! ;) Since I will never return to blog about our great trip to Canada last August to meet up with many fun and adventurous Schilperoorts or our trips to the pumpkin patch in October, I thought I would pass along her updates, since they involve Cade and Callum and include some my snapshots anyway (at least the Canada recounts ~ which, btw, you need to scroll down quite a bit for - it is actually a 4-part series)! Jen, I'm so impressed, btw! And thank you, now I don't feel like it's hanging over my head...vicarious blogging, I guess.

Happy Memorial Day!! We are so blessed to be in a country where we are free to make many choices for ourselves based on our own personal beliefs, convictions, and preferences.

Summer is here (at least for the next 5-7 days)!

Yay! Have I mentioned how I love the low 80's? This morning I had an early photo session and Kevin had a flag football game he didn't really want to miss, so we thought it might be a fun for the boys to have a playdate with Leah and Kaya. Uncle Keith agreed to have all the kids over there, even though Auntie Jen would be gone, and it sounds like they all had a blast outside most of the morning! They always love getting to play with their cousins and since Kevin would be picking the boys up after his game, I even had a chance to get to a yoga class at the Y (which was awesome)! When the boys got home they played in the sprinkler for quite a while, alternating between warming up in the sun and getting soaking wet in the sprinkler.

Callum's "cold" face.
Warming up...

Back to the sprinkler to cool off..

Followed by more warming in the sun!

Sporting their new Toy Story birthday swim trunks from Bumpa & Daubin. They look so big. I can't believe I have a 3 and 5 year old now!!

Something to pray about

Hi Friends, I just had to share this because I am so outraged by this article. This is clearly a sad and scary time we're living in if a family is losing the choice to not put their child through brutal chemo treatments if they would like to use other methods of healing. This poor family is faced with potentially losing their beloved child to protective services if they don't comply with the doctors orders for chemo. Unreal, people!! I personally believe (and I'm not alone) that in many cases, chemotherapy does far more harm than good and there are MANY MANY cases where people with various cancers have been cured by dietary, herbal remedies, etc. I could find some and sight them. But I've read them and they are out there. Besides, I'm not as much concerned with which would be more beneficial (though through my experience I believe natural treatments would be), but more the fact that the parents have not been proven crazy, nor have they had a history of "crazy" yet are not able to make the choice they feel in their hearts is right for their son and their situation. Please pray for this family and for the boy's healing!

Mother's Day Weekend

We had a great weekend - lots of shooting for me with a relaxing Sunday (with a photo session with friends in the evening). Saturday morning I had a session and then I was home for a few minutes to grab a little green smoothie lunch before heading over to our church for a Mother's Day Tea & Fashion Show that was so fun! All the participants had to find their outift for under $10 at a second-hand store and judges picked the winners who each received a gift certificate for a pedicure. Since there were lots of little girls there (it was for girls 4-104 yrs old, so lots of daughter/mom/grandma groups), they had a craft of decorating wooden 4x6 picture frames and I set up a little place to take each person/groups to be printed and mailed to them. We all had a great time!

When I got home that evening, we went to pick up dinner from Pastini's (& Whole Foods) and went to have a picnic and play at Jurgens Park. It was a perfect day in the 70s & the evening was beautiful. There are farms on either side of the park so the whole time you're there you hear the cows and sheep and we all walked over to check them out.

Sunday morning the boys all gave me the sweetest cards and gift cards for some clothes shopping (great idea guys!) and we went down to Coffee Cottage for their yummy breakfast. We were taching in Cade's class at the 11am service and then we came home had a little lunch and took naps. My session was at 5pm that evening at Washington Park so Kevin and the boys came with me and played at the playground for an hour during my session. On another note, I'm trying to recommit to just throwing pics up on this blog without feeling like I have to edit them at all. So that's what I'm doing. None of these were opened in an editing program, or have been cropped! (Proud of me? Yeah, it took real restraint). I just have to keep telling myself it's for a good cause. And hopefully it will help me post more regularly.

It was a great weekend and I felt so loved & thankful.