Family picture time

The girls are off track this month.  Which feels kind of funny, because big brother is in full school mode.  So we still have to get  him up every morning. We've been trying to take advantage and do some individual kiddo "dates" and family things.  The last two weekends, we've done a trade with Aunt Scooby.  We took their boys overnight on Friday a couple weeks ago, and then she took our kiddos last Friday.  We each got a nice break, which was very much needed.  The kids loved cousin time.  We did pizza, popcorn & a movie, then bed.  Nothing too crazy, just fun.  Last weekend while our kids were gone, we celebrated my birthday with some dinner, an evening at the temple and dessert afterward with some fantastic friends, and then we came home and watched the new Star Trek movie that somehow we'd missed going to in the theaters.  We stayed up late and then slept in until almost 10am.  Wow, that felt nice!  I am told that little brother and his cousin that's his same age loved sleeping in the same room and woke up shouting each other's names.  Cuties.  On my actual birthday, I had scheduled some family pictures.  We went to Fotofly and I loved it.  It's not in our budget to use anyone that's expensive, but I was getting fed up with JC Penny.  Last time they were training people, which I don't mind normally.  But it ended up taking an hour to pick out our pictures because the old lady they were training clearly didn't know how to use a computer.  So we decided to try Fotofly.  I love that they give you a disc of all your pictures.  Their prints are pretty inexpensive.  The kids had a blast and I think they turned out great!

 All of us

 We had a hard time getting little brother to cooperate.  He was giving his best sad face, which is enough to melt the Grinch's heart.  I finally just picked him up and put him in position and this is what we got.  A smile would've been nice, but since he's 2 I'll settle for not throwing a fit!

 Our photographer really captured their personalities.  The photographer kept saying that big sister looks like a model.  WHEN did she grow up?  WHEN?  No wonder she has so many boys chasing her at school.

 My beautiful girl.  So photogenic!

 Little sister.  Or little sass-a-frass.  She LOVED that they had a yellow door she could take a picture by.  The photographer kept busting up at the funny things this one says.  

 

I love this one.  It's so her.  She seriously keeps us in stitches.

 This big brother wants to be just like his sisters.  He went straight to the yellow door when little sister was finished.  We tried to convince him to try another background, but he refused.  So we took a few and then he was willing to move to a different spot.  And those brown eyes will get you every time.

 Seriously.  So handsome.  I call this one my lovey boy because he is just so lovey.  He loves to cuddle and hug.  I love that about him.

 Little brother.  We worked REALLY hard to get this smile!  Daddy had to sit on the other side of the bench or little brother wouldn't stay put.  It's not his real, full-on smile, but it's still pretty darn cute. 

 LOVE this.  Again with the brown eyes.  This little boy with the dark eyes, olive skin and sandy hair, and fun personality is going to have the girls after him.  Oy.

It made for a very nice birthday present, getting to update the family photos.  The kids had fun and it went pretty smoothly.  We went and got some Red Robin for me and husband, then went through McDonald's drive-thru for the kids and went home to eat.  Perfect.  

Yesterday we went to the zoo.  I took 1 picture.  One.  I  haven't even uploaded it yet.  We were pretty busy just taking our 4 kids around, and I just didn't pull out the camera.  Ah, well.  We got there fairly early, and the weather was cool so the animals were pretty active.  That was fun.  The kids loved pretty much every exhibit.  By the time it started getting pretty warm and crowded, we'd seen everything there was to see, so we headed home.  Perfect day at the zoo!  I am loving this whole off track thing.  With my fear of crowds, it's nice to be able to go do these fun things with our family when there are far less people.