Just pictures, for the sake that they can say 1000 words

Riley starts reading

Bear with him...it's really a great story, once you get into it!

Proud mommy here!!

Family portraits

We haven't done an "official" family portrait at a studio since I was pregnant with Liam. And that was a Wal-Mart package!!
Our church is doing directory photos, and hired a professional (who also attends our church) to do our photos for us. He also is selling them as a package if we care to order any for ourselves.
It was a little bit of shmoz as picture-taking can be...baby was fussy and barfed all over my sweater right before our shoot (he's cutting his first teeth!). Liam and Riley were all over the place, and Greg and I started sweating before it was over. But hey, it's done, and I wouldn't mind ordering just one big one as the photos I take don't always have the best lighting and resolution for enlargements. So....I have my choice of 3...at this site...

Care to tell me which one is your favorite??
Thanks.

Chop Chop

I finally got my hair chopped again so I don't have to use the blasted mini side barrette in my hair like a 2 yr old. So here I am.
We had family photos today, so that forced me to get the chop chop done. It's always so easy to postpone it.

The kidlets

One Engel baby a year for the past eight years. Look at us being all fruitful and multiplying!! I think we're done now.

Almost 4 months!!

I couldn't get him to smile for anything, so I'll have to try another time, cuz his smile is adorable.

Playgroup for mommies

Yes, for mommies. We all know that playgroups are mainly for the moms. Sure, there are toys there, and snacks and nursery rhymes, but really it's just to keep the kids entertained so the mommies can "chat" it up. Adult conversation. You don't realize how much you miss that until you finally meet up with someone older than 3 and talk about things other than superheroes and such.
I went for the second time to a playgroup that meets downtown in an old school. It is almost clausterphobic with 20 moms and 20 or more kids in a tiny little room. But it is set up like a preschool, with centers, story/rhyme time/snack and gym time, so we move around and enjoy the structure. I wish I had gone during the summer, but watching 3 kids at once was a little daunting to me. Two is enough, and Liam and I will try to go at least once a week to get ourselves out of the house and socializing more. I met up with an old highschool friend for lunch afterwards, which was cool. Now the boys are all at Awana, and Shea and I are headed out to "Meet the teacher night" at Rileys school. Busy times. I can't imagine when all 3 of them are in school and I'm trying to keep up with their sports, homework, and clubs. The paperwork that comes home from school with Riley, and from Awana....AAKK! I need a personal secretary. I already missed library day this week. Oopps.

Comfort

I've got the wood stove burning, a huge mug of hot chocolate with a big ol' marshmallow in it, baby asleep beside me, Greg out for a quick run to the store with Liam, Riley still at school...ahh...life is peaceful for a few quick minutes.
Thought I would share this little poem with you, especially for those of you who may be having a tough week so far.

I will not have a temper tantrum nor stomp across the floor...

I will not pout, scream or shout or kick against the door...

I will not throw my food around nor pick upon another...

I'll always try to be real good BECAUSE.........








I am the MOTHER!

(poem was sent to us from my great auntie Janny)

Now for the cuter stuff

Sorry to those who were weirded out by Photo Booth! It obviously doesn't bother me to make a fool of myself on the world wide web.
My sister asked me to take some shots of her family today right before they had their professional photos done for the church directory (so they were all dolled up). It wasn't a great success as no one (esp. the boys) were at all excited. So the main good ones are of the girlies...see more on flickr.

Photo booth 101

For those of you who don't have a Mac computer, you may not have seen the crazy Photo booth program. The Mac has a camera right built in to the top of the monitor...just above the screen. So it has all these different camera settings it can do to distort your face, and make you laugh hysterically, cuz it shows it all live.
So here's normal...


Here's BULGE


Here's DENT


Here's TWIRL


Here's SQUEEZE


Here's MIRROR


And here's STRETCH

Somedays my life feels like a movie

Like, is this for real?? There are 3 boys crying at the same time... can I fast-forward 10 minutes? Shea is laughing now...can I push the pause button? Greg has 5 more hours of work today, can I push fast-forward again? I'm getting a head-ache...can I just play the subtitles and forget the noise? Where's that chapter of the movie where I am looking back at this moment and laughing?

Last year at this time

Last September, we found out we were having our third baby!! Funny how long it seemed when I was pregnant, but how quick the year went, and here we are now in Salmon Arm, with a 3 month old sweetheart baby boy Seamus.




sigh

Sad times for the woodland creatures

As most of you know, this year is a bad one for the trees. There is some sort of pine bug that is attacking most of them. Our yard had at least 3 large trees that were dead or close to it. We had a friend die this summer from a tree landing on his truck, so we knew we had to deal with ours before something happened. In a strong wind the other day, I heard a large branch at the top crack off and it was just hanging there. Scary stuff. So today a neighbor who is in the business of chopping down trees (a booming business at the moment) came and took down ours. It was kinda exciting and also rather sad as you imagine how long those trees must have been standing there. Also remember, we just came from a new suburb in the city of Calgary where the tallest trees were about 12 ft. tall!


*Update: I forgot to tell you that we have a wood burning stove in our family room, and all the wood is going to be used to keep us cozy during the winter! We had our first fire last night and it was great! Amazing how four logs can really heat up the whole house all evening!!

Playing with Lightroom

I started out using Picasa for all my editing needs as a beginner photographer. It is free to install and very good, but very basic, so I've been trying to find a program that would bring things up a notch. I can't say I've found it. Mainly because I really don't know much about editing in the first place. I just stumble along and hope something works out. Greg just installed this Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for me today. I really have no clue what I'm doing, but I really liked the way it did the black and white conversion especially. What do you think? And please, let me know what kind of photo editing programs you use and love.

First day of school, first day of school!!!

This is the first time I have ever had to wake up Riley!!

His school starts at 8:39am, so we're walking by 8:15am.


He was almost too excited to eat!


Dressed and ready to go!

Liam doesn't look happy here, but there were no sad goodbyes...I think they were ready for a break from eachother.

So it was our first day at the new school. Riley had met two boys from grade one before today, so that was nice to see their familiar faces. There will be two grade one classes, and I'm hoping that at least one of those guys will be in his class (which isn't designated til the end of the week.) Riley was brave and independent as usual and walked right in with no concerns. He loved having his new shoes and lunch kit along...so it was all a big thrill for him. I think he'll have a good year. It was only half a day today but tomorrow will be the first time he'll have lunch at school and he is so thrilled. I said to him at the breakfast table this morning,

ME: "What are Liam and I going to do all day without you?"
RILEY: "Well, I don't want to miss anything, so you could just stay home."

We had a quiet morning, and I actually got most of the laundry and the dishes done for a change. It was very very calm around here. Riley came out of school smiling. Yeah, it's going to be a good year.

Here's some comparison shots...preschool, kindergarden, grade one!! (click on it to enlarge)


*Update: Riley was put into a class with both of the kids that he knows here...a neighbor and a friend. I am really excited about that. His classroom has its own bathroom, outside door and bootroom, and tiny little desks (rather than tables). His teacher is Mrs. Porter and she seems super sweet. *sigh* I wish I could go back to grade one somedays!

Their favorite duds

You'd think we had bought the boys the latest greatest toy today...but no. In fact, we were school shopping for Riley today and I let the boys pick out some new undies!! Liam chose Curious George ones and Riley chose Nascar ones. Well. Those boys held on to their packs of briefs for the rest of the day. They both kept making cute comments about how nice it was that we got them new fancy undies to wear.
For Liam's birthday back in March, my mom had sent Liam some new Cars undies and Riley snuck off upstairs with them. After the party was over, I went up to his room and there were the 3 new pairs, all inside out and partially stuffed back into the package. He had tried them all on!! Funny kids!
So now you know what to send them for Christmas!!