Lemmon Life

Adam Jacob Lemmon

2011-12-06T19:06:00.001-08:00

It’s amazing how you can be instantly in love with someone you just met. Adam Jacob Lemmon joined our family on November 23rd 2011, weighing in at 7 lbs. 9 oz. He is nothing but cute.

Looking into his eyes we already see the connection, the potential, and the love as he stares at us with those beautiful brown eyes.

Adam has made our family so much better and brighter. Lily and Michael can’t get enough of him and neither can we.

This is the start of something big. Something wonderful. Something miraculous.

Welcome to the world baby boy. We love you.

Beautiful Fall and Beautiful Kids

2011-11-24T19:11:00.001-08:00

Quick apology for being so bad at blogging lately! I’ll try to get better. Hopefully with Adam on the way I can be inspired again to take the time to do it. In any case, I just wanted to post a few pictures I took recently of my cute little kiddos. I love this time of year for taking fun pictures. It’s so easy to get the kids to play in beautifully colored leaves and have a smile on their faces the whole time.

I just love my kids!

My Little Ballerina

2011-09-18T20:21:00.001-07:00

Last week Lily went to her first ballet class! It was pretty close as to who was more excited, me or Lily. But I think Lily wins. Every day for over a week before she started, she would ask, “Is my ballet class open yet, can I start today?” Such a sweetie.

Of course, the actual class experience wasn’t quite what she thought it would be. She seemed to be doing fine, and I wasn’t supposed to be in the room anyway, so I dropped her off and went to the park across the street with Michael. But when we came back, she was sitting by herself while everyone else was dancing. I tried to coax her to get back out there for the last five minutes, but she was done. Her teacher said she had participated off and on, but had sat out quite a bit. When we got in the car, she finally opened up about the reason why she was uncomfortable. Her reason: her teacher was a boy.

So then we had a talk about how boys can be ballerinas too, and that since she wasn’t going to get a different teacher, she needed to learn to like the teacher she had because he really was nice and was happy to have her in his class. She also confessed that she thought all the little girls in her class were going to stare at her. I don’t know when she decided that she was that shy, but apparently she is, so we’ll see how next week goes. I think it’ll just take her another week or so to get used to it.

Since the parents aren’t allowed in the room, I don’t have any of her with her class. But I took pictures of Lily before we left, so here are those. By the way, I didn’t pose her at all. She came up with these all on her own.

I love my sweet little ballerina!

Recent Adventures

2011-07-27T22:03:00.001-07:00

Since it’s been a couple of years from the last time I posted (ok, feels like it, anyway), I thought a few of you out there might be interested in what we’ve been up to lately. I’m going to attempt to add an update on our life every week or so. I’m hoping saying it here will motivate me to follow through. I miss blogging. And picture taking. As I’m sure you noticed, I fell off the bandwagon on the picture a day thing. But I (mostly) managed it for over three months, and I am really proud of myself for that. It’s something I still enjoy looking back on and seeing those snippets of my days. I hope I start doing it again, not necessarily for anyone else, mostly just for me. But right now I don’t need another daily responsibility so it’s low on my priority list.

A n y w a y… about a month and a half ago, Ben decided to go fly an airplane. For his birthday last year I bought him a starter package to learn how to pilot a plane, and he just got around to using it. He had a really great time. Too bad it’s so expensive to take regular lessons. Anyone want to give us a few thousand dollars so Ben can keep taking lessons? He’ll give you a free flight!

It was a really gorgeous day to go flying, and the kids and I enjoyed staying in the little grassy area there. Once Ben got in the plane and took off though, we quickly lost track of him. Then the kids found this little guy, and were completely entertained for the rest of the time.

Either he was fresh from the cocoon, or not used to all the wind (it was really windy there), but whatever it was, this beautiful little butterfly stayed low to the ground, basically just in the grass, and barely tried to get away from us. We were able to catch him multiple times and just hold him for awhile to look at him. The kids loved it. They were very careful, which I thought was pretty impressive for a three year old and (at the time) almost two year old.

They were hoping the flowers would tempt him.

It worked!

Happy kiddos! And happy Ben too! He really enjoyed the lesson. He got to be in control most of the time, including the take-off, all the in-air turns, and the second landing also. He told me he especially loved all the beautiful views. Mt. Rainer was totally visible and picturesque and he enjoyed flying over the Sound as well. It was a really neat experience, one that I could see him pursuing in the future.

There you go, one recent adventure down, many more to come!

Most of you already know this but…

2011-06-02T14:06:00.001-07:00

I’m pregnant!! I’m 16 weeks along, and my due date is Nov. 17. I have an ultrasound scheduled for July 1st to find out the gender.

In all honesty I meant to blog about this a few weeks ago but, well, you might have noticed… I’ve been completely horrible at blogging lately. Wonder why?

The first trimester actually wasn’t that bad. Some nausea, but nothing unbearable. I think the most annoying thing was feeling icky, but being starving at the same time. But since nothing sounded appetizing at all, it would take me two hours sometimes just to figure out what to eat. Of course, I’d much rather have that problem than the morning sickness/all day sickness that a lot of people get, so I’m counting myself lucky. Now I’m just tired and have a headache most days… ahh, the joys of pregnancy!

At least with this pregnancy my cravings have been so much tamer. With my first two, I basically craved sweets All. The. Time. Kit Kats and Milky Ways were a serious craving. Jamba Juice too, which at least can be healthy(ish). But this time, it’s been very very different. As in, a lot of days I don’t even want anything sweet at all. Which is soooo unlike me, pregnant or not. About two weeks ago, I made a 10” cheesecake for no particular reason other than Ben was wanting cheesecake, and other than a normal size piece that first night, I pretty much didn’t touch it. And I generally LOVE cheesecake. So weird!! For the first 8-10 weeks, I actually craved lettuce and tomatoes! For one week it was a ham sandwich with cheese and mayonnaise and nothing else. As Lily would say, “That’s odd.”

Anyway, I finally finally got myself to blog about being pregant. Go me!

Me at 12 weeks. I’ve started showing way earlier than with my other pregnancies. I’m ok with this, except for trying to fit into my clothes! Ugh, I really don’t like maternity clothes… only 5 1/2 more months, right?!

Kitchen Remodel Reveal

2011-05-13T14:16:00.001-07:00

We are 97% complete with our kitchen remodel (we need to put a few pieces of trim work in) and since I’ve had just about everybody I know asking me to put pictures up, I decided not to make you all wait for that point. Without further ado, the finished kitchen!

What do you think? By the way, the big space by the floor length cupboard is where the fridge goes, but for now it’s sitting in our living room so we can paint the trim there first.

Here are a few before pictures for some reference.

View from where the window above the sink is now – this is a picture from the realtor when we first bought it, very much photo-shopped. The wall color was much more yellow and the cupboards not nearly that white. And the picture makes it look more spacious than it really was.

After:

Same view, or as close as I could get to it (taken through the window). As you can see, the wall where the stove was is gone and an island is in it’s place. And the fridge (that you see in the living room) will soon be across from the island.

Before:

Stove, tiny counters next to it, and fridge.

After:

No more tiny counters! Front view of the island. Check out my new oven! And all my drawer space! I’m still trying to figure out what to put in that left drawer.

Another before picture:

What you see was pretty much the extent of my usable counter space. It was meager.

Another angle of the same counter and sink. Yeah, I worked real hard to clean up for these before pictures.

After:

Now look at all that counter space! Not to mention the island too!

Before:

Just to show you the doorway that used to lead into the kitchen. The pocket door was one of the first things that we demolished, so it’s not in most of the other before pictures.

After:

Now there’s no pocket door and no walls closing me off from the rest of the house. I love how open and bright it is now. I feel so much more connected to everything/everybody else when I’m cooking now, rather than banished to the dark kitchen to slave away.

Closer view of the sink. I love that it sits right under the window. I didn’t want it there at first, but Ben convinced me and I’m so glad he did. So much more cheery washing dishes looking out at my backyard and garden! Also, we already loved our faucet, but we got a new, deeper sink, and let me tell you, a deep sink is a serious luxury. It’s awesome!

Before of the dining room:

I would like to point out again that the walls were NOT that color. That color would have been ok, but in reality, they were a drab yellow. (Another realtor picture, in case you didn’t notice. Just like to point out the obvious here.) Also notice the popcorn ceiling and minimal lighting.

After:

Now completely open to the kitchen, no more popcorn ceilings, and an abundance of light from the recessed lighting! And White! No more drab yellow! We painted not only the kitchen and dining room, but the living room, entry way and hallway as well. It makes a huge difference in the feel of the whole house, we both love it. One more thing I love about the whole thing is all the extra outlets. There were very few outlets before and it really limited where I could work in the kitchen with my KitchenAid and other kitchen gadgets, blender, etc. Now there’s one on either end of the island plus tons along the walls in the kitchen. Freedom to work and cook where I want to! Love it!

And check out all of the pretty cupboards! My dad did them for us, and I’m so so happy with how they all look and feel. So much more space and better organized and they’re not dingy and don’t smell old! Check out my Dad’s website if you want awesome closets, he’s the owner of the company, has years of experience, and they are the absolute best around: www.thecustomclosetcompany.com. I love you Dad!

So, a quick list of all the changes we made (“we” being used loosely here!):

Remove pocket door and wall separating kitchen and dining room
Remove all the popcorn on the ceilings in dining room, living room, hallway, stairs and entryway, and one bedroom
Move the sliding glass door to the dining room and put a window in the kitchen
Take out linoleum in kitchen and carpet in dining room
Take out all the existing cabinets
Move plumbing to the back of the kitchen so we could put the sink and dishwasher under the window
Re-wire almost everything and add extra electrical circuits
Added an extra 240v outlet for the stove (used the one we already had for my new oven)
Take out all existing lighting and put in recessed lights (16 of them, to be exact)
Re-drywall the entire kitchen
Put in new hardwood floors
Put in new cabinetry (thank-you so much Dad!!)
Put in new granite countertops
Paint kitchen, dining room, living room, stairs and entryway, including all the ceilings
Finish with bead board under the island and additional trim work elsewhere

I *think* that about covers it. It took us about 5 weeks to do the majority of the work. And I feel like I need to clarify. When I said “we” and “us” before, what I really meant was I was in charge of keeping the kids out of trouble, and my Grandpa Harry and Ben did all the work. Without my Grandpa, this would have been a much more difficult and long undertaking. Thank-you thank-you thank-you Grandpa!! And Ben, a public thank-you to you also for taking vacation time from work to work in our kitchen and for being so patient with all the little decisions and making sure everything looks perfect. I love you!

(Oh wait, I did help with the painting. Go me!)

One more time, just cuz I really can’t get enough of it:

I love love love (love love love love!) LOVE my new kitchen!

Construction Pics!

2011-04-06T21:59:00.001-07:00

Mid-demolition. For those not super familiar with our kitchen (lol, probably everyone) the wall originally extended a few feet to the right of that stud with the light switch on it. The fridge was nestled in the corner the two walls made, we had about a foot of counter space, then the stove, then another foot of counter space. On the far side, with all the open cabinets in this picture, the dishwasher was right up against the wall, then the sink, then another two feet of counter, then a funky triangular shaped floor to ceiling cabinet. And that was it. It was pretty small, limiting, and difficult to work in. And the area right in front of the sliding glass door you see in this pic was pretty much wasted space. Not big enough for a kitchen table, so it was just empty. Lame.

Nearing end of demolition. All the cabinets have been removed. So have the four(!!!) layers of some very outdated linoleum. This is the view towards the sliding glass door.

Tearing the carpet out of the dining room. Who wants carpet in a dining room?!?

Pretty much the end of demo. The carpet’s gone now and so are the studs.

Old light fixtures are gone, and now the door and window have switched places! Isn’t it lovely? The door in the dining room makes so much more sense for the way our space is set up. Everyone who’s ever came in has commented on how weird it was that it was in the kitchen. So I’m super glad it’s not anymore.

Lights! Whoo-hoo! Grandpa’s working in the plumbing in this pic. The sink is going to go under the window with the dishwasher to the left of the sink.

And this is what it looks like tonight! All the plumbing and electrical completed and signed off by inspectors, so the sub-flooring is back down, the drywall is up and in the process of being mudded. We (we being applied very loosely here) are still working on the casing for the door and window, but that’s not urgent. We need to finish mudding it all, then texture and paint by the end of the weekend. We have hardwoods going in on Monday, then cabinets and counters shortly after that.

It all feels like such a long process, but it’s actually coming together pretty nicely. I’m trying to reconcile myself to all the dust and dirt that inevitably makes it way everywhere, and even though there’s lots for me still to do at home (I still have to feed people, do laundry, etc), we’re trying to spend a fair amount of time outside the home too, so the kids don’t get into everything and I don’t go crazy trying to keep everything clean. Not that I’m even a neat freak or anything even close to that. Something about construction debris really gets me going though. But it’ll all be worth it when our kitchen is complete. Ben and I are really really excited about it. The kids are totally catching on to it too. I think Lily still thinks it’s going to be delivered one day. She keeps asking “Is our new kitchen here yet?” And Michael understands that Grandpa is working on the kitchen all day.

Speaking of Grandpa, both the kids love having him here. It’s so cute. They always want to go upstairs to say hi to him and watch him work. During meals both of them talk and laugh with him the whole time, and they are always trying to include him in all their conversations. Which is really cute to watch, because Grandpa is extremely hard of hearing, so he tries his best to respond appropriately to what they are excitedly telling him. But half the time I have to repeat very loudly for him what they just said. The best is when Lily remembers on her own to be extra loud and we all hear her loud and clear as she bellows up at him something totally silly like, “GRANDPA, I’M BEING A GOOSE!”

Lots of writing for just a few pics, all really to say that it’s going well, and I can’t wait till it’s finished. The end.

Playing with friends

2011-04-06T21:24:00.001-07:00

Like I mentioned in my last post, a few weeks ago we had an awesome playgroup where we were able to go outside and play for some of the time. I know the kids really enjoyed it, but I think I might have enjoyed it most of all. When we were living in our condo, I constantly wished we had a backyard to play in, and so just about every time we’re able to go out to our very own backyard now, it feels like heaven!

L-R, Oliver, Lily, Lucy. Before we got the garden boxes filled, the kids had such a fun time pretending they were trapped. Lily would insist on someone helping her out of them.

This cute kid is August. I love that he totally wanted to pose for me.

Engrossed with the tiny white flowers. I love that weeds are so awesome to little kids.

Lucy, Lily, Oliver. These kids have such a good time together.

Even though this is practically the same picture I had to include it because of Lily’s cute “Bubbly Face” – this is the exact same bubbly smile she used to flash at us all the time when she was an infant!

Almost the whole gang! We tried to get Michael in there too, but he fell over backward into the box and was too grumpy to try again. Poor little dude. But these kids sure are cute, right? I can’t wait for more and more playgroups to be spent outside!

Weeks 12 & 13 And a List

2011-04-04T19:23:00.001-07:00

1. You get double the fun this week because last week I was at my parents house with a camera but no way to get my pictures on the blog.

2. The reason I was at my parents house last week is that our kitchen remodel has officially started!! Yay!!!! We’d been doing what demolition we could bit by bit, but two Saturdays ago it finally all came out, cupboards, flooring, drywall and all. Then last Monday my Grandpa and Ben started working on all the lighting/plumbing/electrical/switching of doors and windows, etc. They’ve gotten a lot done in the last week, and this week will be putting drywall back up, texturing, painting… so much to do. So fun! I’ll get pictures from Ben’s phone soon and post some of the progress.

3. I’ve finally gotten organized! That is, I’ve figured out a little schedule for myself for taking all the pictures people have suggested. Next week will be alphabet week, with Lily picking the letter and helping me find things that start with the letter to photograph. I’ll do a self-portrait week after that, and as soon as the kitchen is done, a food week. (Even though you’re not pregnant anymore, Stephanie. Congrats!!)

4. No real number four. I guess it’s not a very long list. I hope you like this weeks pictures! Again, I missed a few days, but I’m not letting that stop me from continuing to post. I’m starting to enjoy it all again!

Mar 19 – I really really love this photo. To me, it encapsulates everything I was hoping for when we bought our house. The kids playing outside together, not needing me to be entertained, just enjoying the earth and dirt and the sun on their faces. I love our backyard, and I love that we’re beginning to have more outside play days!

Mar 22 – Skipped a few days, and only remembered to take this picture as I was running out the door for book club that evening. I love spring, there’s opportunities for pretty pictures everywhere.

Mar 23 – This sweet little girl is Lucy. She came over along with a few other kids for playgroup, and it was another outside play day. Not super warm, but just warm enough and sunny enough to not be able to resist going outside. I’ll post some more pictures of this day soon. We all had a lot of fun.

Mar 24 – I didn’t take this picture, obviously, but since I took other pictures that day I don’t feel bad using this one. I hardly ever have pictures of me lately, and it made me happy that Ben took this one.

Mar 25 – Filling the garden boxes with dirt. Did I tell you? Ben made me garden boxes!! I love them, and I can’t wait to plant seeds and start seeing growth. Lily is very excited too. She made me buy watermelon seeds.

Mar 26 – My awesome brother Jonathan playing the piano. He was totally laughing at me taking pictures of him, but I love that it’s a natural smile, so I didn’t mind being laughed at. He’s a natural at playing the piano, and I love capturing him at it. And no, he wasn’t dressed up for anything in particular, he’s just that snazzy.

Mar 27 – My momma’s birthday flowers. She loves carnations, and I love how bright and happy the colors are. And I love my momma. More than flowers, even. She’s pretty great.

Mar 28 – Pretty Mary dog. I was practicing all afternoon trying to get her in focus running with the ball. She’s quick, so it’s a matter of taking tons hoping at least one will turn out. And this one did!

Mar 29 – The only picture I took this day. I was planning on taking more, but was distracted after I realized Lily was coloring right on the counter and I had to stop taking pictures and have her help me clean it off.

Mar 30 – My sister Anna and Michael playing with the volleyball. All week Anna was trying out for the volleyball team at her middle school, so every evening after she came home she would head straight outside and practice into the dark. She had such a great attitude when she came home and told us she’d been put on the “everyone” team, she was still happy with how she’d done and excited to play. I was really proud of her.

Mar 31 – When they come from your kids, dandelions really are the prettiest flower ever.

Apr 1 – Getting outside when it’s raining involves a little more prep-work, but the kids still had so much fun. My mom used to wear this snoopy hat when she was a kid, and I remember seeing it on my brother all the time. It makes me happy to see it on Michael!

Spring is here!

2011-03-24T13:41:00.001-07:00

I love love love this time of year!

Week 11

2011-03-21T21:01:00.001-07:00

Wooh, almost 3 months now and still going! I’m so excited for Spring, I’m going to have so many more opportunities for fun outside pics. Lots of natural light is my favorite way to take pictures.

Mar 12 – My nephew Joseph at his 1 year birthday party. He certainly enjoyed his cake!

Mar 13 – I found out I have daffodils in my front yard! Aren’t they pretty? I had no idea they were there just waiting to pop out of the ground, and it was such a fun surprise.

Mar 14 – Lily on her way to drop off a Netflix for us. She really likes mail and almost everyday when Ben brings in the mail she hopes that there is a letter for her.

Mar 15 – I didn’t realize until after it was dark and the kids were in bed that I hadn’t taken a picture that day. Even Ben wasn’t home, so I thought of the next best thing to take a picture of, and really, the only thing I could think of were all the citrus fruits I had just bought. We’ve been on a huge orange kick lately. We just can’t get enough of them. I love how bright and cheery citrus fruits can be.

Mar 16 – Finally, a picture of Michael! It’s been almost three weeks since I’ve had a good frontal shot of Michael, and I’ve been missing those baby blues. He was showing me the stick he found at the park. Coolest thing ever, right? At least to a 1 year old, anyway.

Mar 17 – This is Lily’s reaction to the card she got from her Grandma and Grandpa Lemmon. It’s a little hard to see if you don’t know her well, but that look on her face? Sweet contentment. She was so happy to get that card!

Mar 18 – My abstract picture of the week. I had read about how you can get almost a macro effect with a normal lens by taking it off your camera body and holding it right in front of where it attaches. You can get closer and let in more light. I thought it was super difficult to do, but it results in this kind of ethereal, hazy picture with really soft light. At least, those were my results when I tried it. I’m definitely going to be trying it again.

Here It Is!

2011-03-16T23:12:00.001-07:00

The promised “how we’re doing” post. I know you’re all so excited! I am, anyway. I apologize in advance if I brag a little bit too much about my awesome family.

BEN:

Just got another award at work. He is a very hard worker who knows his stuff and I am super appreciative that his managers at work notice and appreciate him for it!
Has been gung-ho about our kitchen remodel for weeks now, and I know that not nearly enough would get decided and done if not for his persistence in getting us to figure out what we’re doing.
Was recently called to Ward Missionary after a long hiatus from having any calling. It’s taken some getting used to, but he’s already having good experiences working with the missionaries around here.
Is an awesome Dad. He takes care of the kids in the morning so that I can go run and then shower afterwards. As he leaves to go to work we all stand around the window waving and blowing kisses to him as he waves and kisses back until we can’t see him anymore. After that Lily will often say, “He’s a wonderful Daddy.”
Is amazingly perfect. I’m so lucky.

EMILY:

Is re-discovering a love for running. I started running last summer and got into a pretty good habit, but near the end of summer fell out of it. One of my new years resolutions was to get back into shape and so I started running again in January. Now I actually look forward to my runs in the morning, and got myself up to 5 miles about a week ago. Not bad, right? I’d like to do a half-marathon early summer, sometime.
Has realized that the health food craze isn’t all crazy. All of a sudden I find myself looking at labels much more closely than I ever have and putting things back on the shelf more and more. Not sure why it took me so long to come to this conclusion, but I am not a fan of feeding my kids (or myself or Ben for that matter) empty-calorie-crap, ie enriched white flour, high-fructose corn syrup, etc. I still haven’t completely purged our diet of some of those things, but I am starting to realize that I want to fill our bodies with real, healthy food. I’m sure it’s a process, and I’m pleased with the progress I’m making.
Also recently received a new calling. You’re looking at the new Choir Director. Guess what? Waving your arm around up there is a lot harder than it looks! But I have high hopes and a testimony that this is where I’m supposed to be, and I’m excited to get better at it.
Is really really really (insert way too many “really”s here) excited about our kitchen remodel! Really! It’s pretty major. Our current kitchen is just way too small, awkwardly designed with very little counter space, and too closed off from the rest of the house. So we’re extending counters, moving every single appliance and also the sink to a different spot, tearing out walls and moving a sliding glass door to a different wall to give us more room to work with. It’s crazy. It’s big. It’s actually really fun, in a stressful, how-do-we-make-all-these-decisions kind of a way. I’ll show you some progress pictures soon.
Didn’t realize she could write about herself for so long. I do realize I’m not very good at writing about myself in the third person.

LILY:

Has a seriously unique sense of fashion. And is very strong-willed about it. I’ve pretty much given up trying to influence what she wears aside from what she wears to church. Dresses with sweatpants and mis-matched socks as gloves are extremely common around here.
Is fascinated with writing and typing her name. She loves to come over to me when I’m on the computer and type her name in huge letters. She then goes on to type all her friends names as well, with me telling her what letter comes next and her finding it on the keyboard.
Is also getting more interested in reading. It’s very fun to see her recognize certain words, or tell me all the letters in a word and then ask me what it says.
Emulates her mother in that she can be extremely OCD about certain things. Sometimes, it just has to be PERFECT or she can’t handle it. Writing her name is one of those things. She hates making her L wiggly or when her Y doesn’t turn out right. But she also refuses help. So she sits there crying as I try to tell her that it looks really great and we can take a break and do it later. But then she insists on doing it again and again until it looks the way she wants it to. Oh boy, what can I do to help her with this??
Really really loves to help in the kitchen. Basically, if I go in there to do something, she’s grabbed the stool and is right next to me ready to help before I’ve even started. She likes to rinse fruit and veggies, likes to hold on to the knife with me (we’re very careful, promise!) while I cut them, wants to stir everything together, dumps all the ingredients herself – really, just about anything that I do, she’s trying to do too. She even helps me crack eggs, and as long as I get a big enough cup out that it doesn’t splash, she’ll scramble them up for me just fine too. Her favorite is still helping me make any kind of dough. She refuses to help with onions though because “the juices are too strong.”
Her current obsessions: Strawberry Shortcake, playing CandyLand and Memory, her black shoes with the pink stars on them, “Step Time” – taking all the pillows and cushions off the couches and jumping around them, and pretending to be a shark and eating us all up.

MICHAEL:

Breaks my heart every time I look in those baby blue eyes. He is such a charmer with an extremely ready smile.
Loves to talk. And is getting really good at it. It is so much fun to hear all the new words he picks up every day. Right now he really likes to describe everything. Little wet. Big jump. Really funny. So Darn Cute! Ok, that last one was mine. He is, though.
Thinks jumping is the coolest thing ever. He wants to jump all the time, from everything. The bathroom counter after brushing his teeth. The changing table after a diaper change. The stairs as he goes down them. The step stool, just for fun. Jumping games are quite common around here lately. Especially pretending to be a frog.
Wants to do everything that Lily does. He picks up her pretending games quite well and follows her around all the time.
Is starting to show interest in going potty. He’s always excited to sit on his little potty, though nothing ever really happens. He’s taken to announcing almost every time he goes in his diaper though. He was running around Sears the other day as Ben and I looked at appliances when he all of a sudden stopped, squatted a moment, and then ran over to me yelling very loudly, “Poo-poo! Poo-poo!” Funny… for everyone else in the store.
Has a love-hate relationship with dogs. He really wants to love them. He wants to get close to them and pet them and play with them. But half the time when we do, he clings to me, or freaks out at the slightest wag of a tail. But then all the same he fusses when we have to leave the dog behind. Silly boy.

And that’s our family. Hope you like us!

Week 10

2011-03-14T22:22:00.001-07:00

I can’t believe it’s been 10 weeks already! Ok wait, to be completely honest, I can’t believe I’m still going after 10 weeks. But I am! Thanks for your comments last week, I’m getting more and more excited about taking pictures now. The sun visiting once or twice in the last few days might have something to do with that too! Feel free to shout out anything else you would like to see – I know there’s no way I could have too many ideas.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I did miss two days during week ten. But I’m posting 7 pictures anyway. Because I can.

Mar 5 – As promised, a picture of the beautiful bride and her gorgeous dress! Love you Krystal!

Mar 5 pretending to be Mar 6 – Krystal’s centerpieces at her reception. She had gorgeous black and white damask table clothes with these vases holding real beta fish! It was really awesome. Michael and Lily (but especially Michael) couldn’t get enough of the fishies.

Mar 7 – Lily pushing her very own cart at Ikea. She thought it was pretty much the coolest thing ever. I thought it was pretty much the most annoying thing ever as she wouldn’t listen to me and kept getting in people’s way and wouldn’t let me help guide her. At least one of us had fun!

Mar 8 – Lily showing all of us why sloppy-joes are so named.

Mar 9 – A spontaneous hug amidst dancing and playing. I love those.

Mar 9 masquerading as Mar 10 – Movement can be so hard to capture, but I love this shot of Lily twirling with her pink teddy bear – which she named Pony. Random.

Mar 11 – Michael' playing on the new car rug I bought at Ikea. We all really like it.

Thank-you again everyone for reading and commenting and encouraging me to keep going. It really means a lot to me!!!!

PS – I promise that one of these days (hopefully within the next couple days) I’ll have a real Lemmon family how’re we doing kind of a post. I’ve been meaning to do it for awhile now and I need to stop forgetting. I seem to do better at getting things done when I tell everyone what I plan to do, so here I am letting you know what to expect and giving you permission to get on my case if I don’t follow through!

Week 8 & 9

2011-03-07T14:48:00.001-08:00

The last two weeks… oh man. Still dealing with sickness, trying to figure out our (huge) kitchen remodel project, tons of other responsibilities. Ugh. I barely have enough pictures from the last two weeks to make up one weeks worth! Photography has just not been my priority lately. Honestly, I could use a little encouragement. This is usually about the point where I would just give up. Obviously taking a picture daily isn’t working out for me right now. But, I really really want to keep going. So, I’m going to keep trying. Really! I’m gonna beg for ideas again – as specific as you can. For some reason I’m just not feeling inspired lately, and I think a nice list of things to photograph would help motivate me. Vanessa, I’m still trying to pick from all the great ideas you gave me. I really like the idea of having an alphabet series where I use a new letter every day in some way as my subject. Either something starting with that letter, or the letter itself… like I said, still working on it. I need to get more organized!

Well, for what it’s worth, enjoy the following pictures!

Feb 24 – My haul from the library. I love to read and go through spurts where I just can’t get enough of it. After getting these, I think I read a book every day for like, 6 days in a row. I would definitely recommend Bright Blue Miracle and The Juliet Club, if anyone’s wondering.

Feb 25 – Sweet Rachel and Lily having a sleepover. Rachel stayed the night and the girls had such a good time. They really enjoy each other.

Feb 26 – My good friend Krystal at her wedding shower. She’s so pretty, and just wait till next week – her wedding dress is gorgeous!

March 1 – The first phase of the afore-mentioned kitchen remodel. There used to be a wall and pocket-door here. Ben has fun tearing things apart. I mean really, who doesn’t?

Mar 2 – Lily and her friend Molly. Lily really adores Molly, and she just loves it when she comes over because she has a kindred spirit to play princess dress-ups with. I like the back lighting in this pic – it kind of makes it look like they were dipped in liquid gold.

Mar 4 – Making rolls for French Dip sandwiches. Very very yummy! I love making homemade bread! In this shot my KitchenAid is standing on a cutting board that’s placed over the sink. I can’t wait until I have more kitchen space to work in!

There you go! Sorry I skipped a week. I just realized Michael really got shafted the last two weeks. Oops. Next time. Scouts Honor I’ll have a better turn out next week. (Can I still say that if the closest I ever got to scouting was watching my brothers pinewood derby races?)

Week 7

2011-02-25T11:28:00.001-08:00

Late again! But still trudging on! There has been much sickness running through the Lemmon household lately, and just when I think we’re starting to feel better, someone else starts acting sick. So that’s most the reason this post is late. It didn’t help that I left my camera at my parents over the weekend and so I didn’t even have it until late Monday. Makes it hard to go through and edit pictures. Next week ought to be interesting, as a lot of the pictures had to be taken with my phone. I guess we’ll see how those turned out.

Feb 12 – My Valentine’s Day flowers! Ben ordered them for me and they came early, lucky me. Actually, they’re still sitting on my mantle looking beautiful and vibrant. Love them.

Feb 13 – Haha! Totally forgot to take any pictures until I was literally climbing in bed. So this is what you get. You’re welcome.

Feb 14 – Happy Valentine’s Day! This is my new Flowering Dogwood, my cute little tree that I got for Valentine’s Day from my sweet husband. I can’t wait till Spring!

Feb 15 – Michael hoping he can snatch some caramel brownie goodness.

Feb 16 – Homemade sugar cubes. Lily was sitting on my lap as I looked through some cute crafty blogs and saw these. Her response was immediate – she just HAD to make them. They were surprisingly fun and not too difficult. Maybe next year I can actually plan ahead to make them on time for Valentine’s Day.

Feb 17 – This one’s for you Clair. I thought this little red bird looked so sweet sitting on the tree right outside our window.

Feb 18 – Poor Lily was sooooo tired this day. She spent the night with her cousin Rachel the night before and stayed up past her normal bedtime. Lucky little girl! But then she couldn’t stay awake the following evening. Ben kept trying to wake her up so she would have a somewhat normal evening, but she just wanted to sleep. It was really sweet.

I’ve gotten a few suggestions about things to take pictures of, and I haven’t forgotten about them, I’m just not on the top of my game yet. But I’ll get there! I’m still open to more suggestions, so feel free to leave a comment telling me what to take pictures of next week. Hopefully you’ll see your comment in picture form soon!

She’s going to be (even more of) a handful when she’s a teenager!

2011-02-16T08:47:00.001-08:00

The other day Lily was stealing Michael’s sippy again, like she always does. I was starting to lose my patience and I snapped at her, “Lily, just ask for your own cup of milk! Stop taking Michael’s sippy!”

She responds back (with perfect sincerity, honest!), “Wow, I love you too, Mommy.”

Week 6

2011-02-14T11:42:00.001-08:00

Right on time, yay for me! I’m still looking for suggestions about what to photograph this week, so please comment and let me know what you would like to see. Thanks!

Feb 5 – Obviously very different from what I normally post. This is a picture I took that came out with way too much light, so I just stared playing around with it to see if I could get the image to come out somehow. This is what I ended up with. I actually really like it. Different, but fun.

Feb 6 (Kind of) – Ok, really this was taken on Feb. 5, but I completely forgot on the 6th. I took my camera out once, took two pictures, and deleted both of them cuz I didn’t like them. Then promptly forgot to take any other pictures. Not even anything on my phone, lol. So this is what you get instead. I like the abstractness of it.

Feb 7 – I’m allowed to be amused when my kids cry, cuz I’m their mom, right? He’s just so adorable when he’s grumpy! (He gets his scrunchy eyebrows from me – does that mean I’m adorable too?)

Feb 8 – Pretty moss in the sunlight. The sun flare was a total accident. I’ve got to figure out how to get that flare on purpose, I think it’s just so pretty and romantic. Anyone know how and want to tell me?

Feb 9 – Mom, don’t let Dad see this one till I can get his picture to him, ok? Thanks! It was my Daddy’s birthday last week, and he’s so hard to shop for, so he gets a cute picture of his grandkids.

Feb 10 – I loved that Michael sat right in the spot of sunlight to play with his toys. I’ve mentioned before, but his train set is a favorite around here and gets played with every single day.

Feb 11 – Little people from Michael’s train set. Michael would meticulously set up three little people right next to each other, clap and “yay!” for himself, and then one by one knock them down. More clapping and yay-ing. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Simple joys.

Oh, and by the way, Happy Valentines Day! I hope everyone feels lots of love today!

Week 5

2011-02-10T23:09:00.001-08:00

I feel like I’m obligated to admit this – it’s getting harder. To take a picture every day, I mean. In fact, I completely missed a day during week 6. Oops! But I’m very determined to stick with it. I think the fact that I’m stuck inside without a car this week is making it harder. I feel like I have very little variety, and where’s the fun in taking a picture of the same thing everyday? I think it’s good to be a little frustrated though; hopefully it’ll help me push my boundaries of what I generally take pictures of, and force me to look at things in a new light in order to make it more interesting for myself. Here’s hoping, anyway!

Sorry this is 4 days late. I might be without a car, but for some reason this week has been BUSY! I’ll try to get my Week 6 post up on time.

Jan 29 – Yummy homemade wheat bread. Ben’s Aunt Chris’ recipe – she’s a great baker, and I love her bread. Hers is better than mine, but since she’s in Utah, I’m stuck with mine.

Jan 30 – Michael’s introduction to the potty! Lol, he loved it! Hasn’t done anything in it yet, but he thinks he is the coolest kid ever when he sits down on it. We’ll be waiting quite a while yet before we do any real potty training, but we figured introducing him to the concept couldn’t hurt.

Jan 31 – Lily had been begging to go outside and use her chalk she got for her birthday for awhile. We finally had a good sunny day with dry sidewalks/driveway, so we took her chalks outside while Michael napped. She thought it was great for about two minutes, then just kept telling me what I should draw.

Feb 1 – Sweet little Michael, reaching for the birds up in the sky. Or as he calls them, “Tweet-tweets.”

Feb 2 – Lily showing off her awesome outfit! The mittens and glasses really make the look, don’t you think? She actually let me do her hair that day, too, so please admire while you can, cuz I can hardly every get her to keep her hair up for long enough to take a picture.

Funny fact – I made Lily go outside just for this picture. The light in my house makes for wonky pictures sometimes, so I really wanted to use the little sun we had that day. She was actually really cold, and didn’t want to smile, but I promised her a cookie or something ridiculous like that if she would help me get a good picture! Motivation, bribery, call it what you want, but it works!

Feb 3 – This was taken while we were at my parents house. My mom made an apple cake with streusel topping, and Lily took a spoon to the extra streusel. She was nice enough to share with Michael. He doesn’t usually let people feed him anymore, but this time he was perfectly content to let Lily feed him spoonfuls of sugar.

Feb 4 – Yummm. We love grapes, but it seems like we’d always forget about them in the fruit drawer in the fridge. We started taking them all off the stems at once and placing a huge bowl of rinsed grapes in the fridge. Problem solved. We eat them up so quick now! They are a perfect snack.

Ooooo, I just had a fun idea! Since I’m getting tired of trying to think up new pictures, you guys should tell me what to take pictures of! Week 6 is basically over, but if you comment and tell me what to take a picture of, I will make sure to get a picture of it for Week 7. Deal? Please comment, I would love some new ideas!

Have a great weekend!

Week 4

2011-01-31T14:51:00.001-08:00

I’m so proud of myself, I’m still keeping up! This week I’ve been practicing in full manual mode, and I really feel like it’s good for me. It makes me slower, because there’s so many more things I need to check before I can click, so I’m still using aperture priority sometimes. But more and more I’m in manual, and I like it. I don’t know if my pictures are improving yet, but I’d like to think that at least they’re not getting worse. Let me know what you think.

Jan 22 – Lily discovered the joy of washing dishes! Now she asks to help wash all the time.

Jan 23 – Playing with my settings and trying to find the best light in my house. I think I could have had her facing the light more and less of her face would have been in shadow. Next time.

Jan 24 – I LOVE it when my kids read books together. Even when they do it sitting on top of the table.

Jan 25 – Michael laughing at Lily. I don’t remember what she was doing really, but Michael thought it was hilarious.

Jan 26 – Pretty kitty. The kids crowded around the car she/he was sitting on and just would not leave. They love animals, and especially dogs and cats.

Jan 27 – I think this is my favorite picture so far this year. I could not believe how unbelievably pink the sky was that night. It was glorious. I wish sunsets lasted longer and I wish I had a more clear view of them from our house!

Jan 28 – This little girl is completely adorable, and Michael is pretty taken with her too. Every time he sees her he starts yelling and pointing, “Baby, baby, baby!” I love it.

Beach fun

2011-01-29T00:02:00.001-08:00

Ok, trying to find a good beach in Washington in January is an exercise in futility. But I was craving sand and sun and lapping waves and seagulls, so I did the best I could. The sun was actually out and we had no other plans, so I loaded the kids in the car and drove to the nearest beach I could find – which happened to be in Kirkland on Lake Washington. It was such a nice little outing, something completely different from our normal routine. The kids both loved it, and I had tons of fun just taking lots of pictures and watching them play in the sand. We’re going to have to do this more often. Here’s hoping the sun will come out to play again!

There’s more grass than sand, don’t you love it? Ha! Oh, for summer and real beaches!

Cute tired Michael. He fell asleep on the way over, and surprisingly stayed asleep as we unloaded the car. So I wrapped him up and let him sleep on the bench while I took pictures. He only slept for about 15 minutes, so he still had plenty of time to play in the sand and get dirty.

I found my seagulls!

Dear Summer, please get here quickly!

A funny conversation

2011-01-25T21:44:00.001-08:00

The other night Lily woke up in the middle of the night coughing and couldn’t stop. We spent about 45 minutes trying to get her to calm down and then fell asleep together in the recliner. It was one of those “mom moments” where you’re tired but you just do what you gotta do because you love your kids and you hate to see them sick.

I’m in the middle of feeding her some yogurt when she looks up at me and says “Someday I’m going to be a mom like you.”

My heart melts a little. She’s so cute, right? She goes on.

“And I’ll have kids, too.”

I respond, “Oh, like me”

“Yeah, I’ll have kids like you. Actually, I already have one kid. He’s sleeping right now. His name is Michael.”

“Hey, that’s my kid!” I laughed, and she laughed with me.

“Yeah, but we can share.”

My silly girl.

Week 3

2011-01-24T15:51:00.001-08:00

As promised!

Jan 15 – My beautiful sister! She just turned 13, and this was right after her first performance onstage. She did great! Love you Anna!

Jan 16 – The booty from my brother and sister’s combined birthday party. They always have a combined party - they were born on the same day, but are five years apart.

Jan 17 – Lily playing in the chef’s outfit she got for her birthday from her cousin Rachel. She loves it – Thank-you Rachel and Andy!

Jan 18 – Another time where we were about to go to bed and I realized I hadn’t taken a picture all day, so I snapped my husband right before he went to change. And I’m so glad I did, I love this picture of him. He’s so handsome.

Jan 19 – A very typical early morning at our house. Ben gets up with the kids so I can exercise, and they always crowd around him when he tries to eat.

Jan 20 – Not my favorite photo of myself, but I’m trying to get better at self portraits. Plus I thought maybe you’d want to see my new blond (or as Lily calls it, yellow) hair.

Jan 21 – There have been a lot of these all over the house lately. Our new train sets that Michael got for Christmas are played with every single day, the kids love them so much.

I’m already looking forward to going through the pictures for week 4 because guess what? I’m starting to shoot in full manual mode! I’m really excited about it. I’ve been reading lots of different blogs with tons of amazing advice, and I’ve gotten out my camera’s manual so I can become more familiar with the way my camera works. It’s helping so much. I’m already noticing an improvement in my photos, and even though it’s definitely harder, I feel like it’s worth it. I’m really enjoying learning all I can about my camera and how to take better pictures.

So now that I’ve hyped myself all up, my pics next week better be good, huh? Wish me luck!

Week Two

2011-01-21T14:37:00.001-08:00

As promised!

Jan 8 – Daddy comforting Lily after a tumble on her new tricycle (which she loves!).

Jan 9 – My new boots! I just love them! I’ve been looking for a pair of cute boots forever now and was so stoked when I found these on clearance for how much? $17.50, thank-you very much!

Jan 10 – Playing in Mommy’s bed. I think they’re pretty cute.

Jan 11 – The only picture I took all day. It was one of those times I walked by and saw this and thought “What a cute picture this could make. I want to remember this.” Michael was helping “Spot” clean the kitchen. He loves our Roomba and is always excited to turn him on and let him vacuum.

Jan 12 – I couldn’t pick just one picture for this day, so I cheated. Michael woke up too early this day, so he got to watch me exercise. I love his sweet curly, just-woke-up hair. We got some seriously slushy snow overnight and the kids were so excited to play in it. I helped Lily make her first snowman. She thought it was pretty awesome. We used olives for the eyes/mouth/buttons, and both the kids couldn’t stop eating the olives.

Jan 13 – My sweet little Lily, excited about the cupcakes she was helping me make.

Jan 14 – The day of Lily’s birthday party with friends. She got an art set from Tommy, and as soon as Michael was asleep that was the first thing she wanted to play with.

Week One and An Announcement

2011-01-20T13:45:00.001-08:00

I might be a little late to the whole craze, but I’m jumping on the Project 365 bandwagon. A picture a day starting the first of the year. I’m excited. I thought it would be really hard for me to remember, but I’ve been doing it for three weeks now and there’s only been a small handful of days where I’ve been about to go to bed and remember “Oh, I’m supposed to have a picture from today!” What’s more common is for me to see something, and to think, “Oh, this would make a great picture of the day!” I love that this is helping me see more photo opportunities and causing me to get my camera out more. Cuz that was really the point. I want to take more pictures because that’s the best way to improve – to just keep practicing.

I’m planning on doing one post a week with a weeks worth of pictures. I’ll be playing catch-up to get the first two weeks up here, but then hopefully I can get in the groove of editing my pictures over the weekend and posting them on Monday. We’ll see how it goes. If anyone is curious, I’ll still be blogging our regular life stuff I usually blog about too. Just so you know. I know my mom-in-law would not be content with just one picture a day (although the rate I’ve been blogging lately that might be more than she’s been getting! I’ll get better!).

Lastly, here’s my announcement. I’ve been fiddling around with the idea of starting up my own photography business. It seems like such the “in” thing to do right now, and I’m not so sure I would really enjoy it or if I’m just seeing everybody else’s success and think that’s the next step for me too. Whatever my motives, I definitely love taking pictures. I love capturing a beautiful image and seeing the joy on peoples faces when they see the photo. I think I’d like to do it professionally. But I’m still nervous. So, I’m just going to start by offering to anybody around here who reads my blog the chance to have a photo session with me. If you’re reading this, I’m assuming you’ve seen my photography. If you like what you see and would like some free pictures, let me know. I would love to take your picture! Email me at emilymarie4@msn.com for more info and to set something up.

Ok, enough talk, here’s the pictures from the first week in January.

I love these quiet moments. Too rare.

The nativity scene that Ben made for his Mom. He made one for my mom too, and he’s working on one for me. I think it’s so beautiful.

Poor Michael head a really bad diaper rash, so as he was screaming Lily came over and started patting his head telling him it would be ok. He calmed right down and it was just the sweetest thing.

Sunrise on our way to the airport. About the only good thing about waking up at 5:30.

This is the most exciting picture this week – not. Totally forgot this day until we were about to go to bed, so since I was proud of myself for getting my kitchen relatively clean right after dinner that night, that’s what I took a picture of.

Lily on her last day of being two, returning home from her birthday dinner at Red Robin.

Birthday ice cream!

Week two coming soon!

Happy Birthday Lily

2011-01-07T21:19:00.001-08:00

I can’t believe my little Lily is already 3 years old. She’s so old! Lily has been looking forward to her birthday for months, it’s been really cute to hear her say, “I’ll be 3 on January 7th!” And now she is!

Ben woke her up this morning about 7:00 (a blessing on our heads, she usually wakes us around 6:00 or 6:30) so he could take her to breakfast. A tradition his father started, it was just Ben and Lily this morning. As soon as Lily woke up, the very first thing she said was “Am I 3 yet?” How cute is she? They went to Ruby’s Diner and got pancakes, Lily’s very favorite breakfast/lunch/dinner. The rest of the day, besides a quick stop to the chiropractor, was spent basically doing whatever Lily came up with. It was actually really fun. Lots of dress-up, pretending to be birds, pretending there was a storm in the house, basically just lots and lots of pretending. She’s very much into interactive imagination games. I really like this stage.

The best part of the day was probably around 10:30, when I dressed both the kids in coats and boots in preparation to take a walk to the library. But as soon as the garage door was open they were outside and finding all the puddles they could find. It was so cute to watch both of them, Michael with his very obvious glee and Lily with her quieter self-satisfaction. We all had so much fun, the kiddos getting soaked and me taking as many pictures as I could. We are definitely going to be doing that again.

Tonight I made pizza (almost burnt the house down, oops!) and breadsticks, and Lily got ice cream with a candle on top. She was so funny, she took forever to blow her candle out. I don’t know why, she knows how, but she just kind of sat there with a little smile on her face while we kept encouraging her to blow out the candle. It was cute, especially her reaction after she finally did blow out the candle – she immediately covered her face with both hands and then peeked out with another little smile! Sometimes she’s just too cute.

Favorite food: chicken nuggets.
Favorite color: Probably pink, but is pretty equally loving of all of them.
Favorite game: Princess dress-up and pretending to lose her slipper.
Only way I can get her to clean: Telling her she better hurry up and clean up all her toys so “Spot” (our robot vacuum) doesn’t eat them.
Favorite time of day: Definitely a morning person. Don’t know where she got that!!
Best phrase: (Said to Ben and I as we were cuddling) “Married time is over, guys!”
Favorite way to help: Helping Mommy cook in the kitchen, especially kneading bread dough.
Favorite book: How Does A Dinosaur Say Goodnight?
Favorite movie: The Land Before Time
Sweetest moment: Came up to me when she saw me crying, put her hands on my cheeks and said, “It’s ok Mommy, we can all be happy!”

Lily is very very talkative, but not to strangers. Then she tells me “I’m being shy".”
She loves Michael, and lately is very into being Mommy and cleaning up his hands and face after he eats. She is also a big help when I’m changing his diaper by singing to him and telling him “You have cute cheeks!” over and over to make him laugh.
She is completely potty trained, through the night also, although for some reason she thinks I still need to be in there to watch her wipe.
She thinks everything is magical. The first time she saw Christmas lights early December, she exclaimed, “Look at the magical lights!”
She went through a phrase (only just starting to get out of it, really) where she really thought she was Cinderella. I couldn’t call her Lily and she introduced herself as Cinderella to everybody. This lasted for months.

Basically, she is just the sweetest, cutest, funniest, smartest, most interesting little girl I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. (I’m sure I’m not biased at all!) She is such a blessing in our family, and makes us smile every day in so many different ways. I absolutely adore her, and I am so glad I’m her Mom.

Thank-you Lily, for being you, and for being our daughter!

Right after she blew out the candles. Funny girl.

Happy Birthday Lily!

Michael Turned 1!

2010-12-21T23:00:00.001-08:00

You know, 6 months ago, anyway. Somehow I never blogged about it, and I’m feeling a blogging block right now, so I’m just going to post the pictures from his 1st birthday party that I always wanted to post but for some reason never did. Better late then never!!

The first present Michael opened. Lily was very willing to help, but we managed to hold her back.

Cars! This kid got lots of cars for his birthday, and he loved them all. Still does!

We had a party the Saturday after his birthday. I really wanted it outside and since we were still in the condo at that point, Stephanie let my crash her place! We had it in her backyard and it was awesome. Actually, I only went to the last half of it because I had been feeling pretty under the weather that day, but fortunately I started to feel better just in time to watch my little guy blow out his candle on his first cake.

At the party we played Guess how old Michael is in Each Picture. I was pretty proud of myself for my picture choices, almost everybody was really stumped. Ashlyn won by a pretty fair margin.

My parents brought their ball pit, and it was easily the kids’ favorite part of the party. All the kids were in and out of it all morning.

The cake! Polka dot was the theme of the party – I had a lot of fun making the cake to match.

Ready and waiting…

Tentative at first, Michael went straight for the candy circles.

It didn’t take him too long to dig in though! Obviously, he loved it!

Little kids sure know how to enjoy themselves, don’t they?

Mmmmm. Washing it all down with a cold sippy of milk. He wasn’t so happy a minute later though when we were trying to clean him up!

While Michael chowed down on his piece, we had cupcakes and the rest of the cake for everyone else. I love watching little kids eat cupcakes. It always makes them so happy.

After that it was present time and then nap time. I’m pretty sure Michael fell asleep on the car ride home. Everything was lots of fun, and we all had such a good time celebrating our little guy turn one. And now he’s almost a year and a half!! I love watching my kids grow, but sometimes it happens too fast.

He’s too cute.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2010-12-19T22:56:00.001-08:00

My birthday might have been almost 3 weeks ago now, but I still wanted to write about it, because I had such an awesome 25th birthday. Birthweek, really. On my birthday, Ben took the day off from work and we spent all day doing Christmas-y stuff. I love Christmas, so this was pretty much perfect. We went and got our Christmas tree that day too, which is always one of my very favorite traditions. We have to go cut one ourselves, and it always takes much longer than it really needs to, because we’re not leaving until we find the absolute perfect tree.

(I made him wear the cowboy hat. Doesn’t he look HOT?!)

Can’t skip the Candy Cane for the drive home!

Unfortunately for Michael, he was a little too tired.

After we got the tree home, I enjoyed my favorite salad for lunch while Michael napped and Lily “helped” us with lights. She also tried to put the star on the tree, but couldn’t quite reach. Maybe next year?

Blue cheese, candied pecans, cranberries and sliced apples with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Oh yeah, and lettuce. Yummmmmm!

Another salad shot, cuz I know you all care so much.

Eeeee! I love this picture. Sorry to everyone else’s kids out there, but I seriously have the cutest kids ever. Look at those little buns! (K, I’m done gushing.)

Wanna hear a funny story? I decided I didn’t want cake for my birthday, but an apple pie instead. I was super excited about it because Ben makes really yummy apple pie, and I wouldn’t even have to share cuz the kids were already in bed. We take it out of the oven and try to let it cool, but it’s getting late and I didn’t want to wait any longer, so we stuck some candles in while it was still warm. I’m sure you all can guess what happened a lot quicker than we figured it out.

I noticed that even though Ben had put them in straight, the candles were looking kinda wobbly. But I just decided that it was cuz the apple filling is not as firm as cake and doesn’t hold them as well. I didn’t even figure it out when I pulled one out to adjust and there’s an inch of wick hanging from the bottom of the candle. It took until after I’d blown out the candles and started to pull them out and they all had an inch or more of wick hanging from the bottom to put two and two together and realize that I’d totally melted my candles inside my obviously-still-too-warm pie. I know, I’m a total genius. We were able to eat around (most) of the wax. Good thing we only put in 6 instead of 25!

Bethany’s Baptism and Rachel’s Birthday

2010-11-29T14:05:00.001-08:00

Mostly a picture post, I wanted to get the pictures from these events up because I know there are family wanting to see them. Bethany turned 8 recently and had her baptism on November 13th, the same day Rachel turned 3! Both events were lots of fun, and it was really nice to see Ben’s parents again. We hadn’t seen them since May when Matthew got home from his mission. Ben’s brother Dave lives in Portland, so that’s where we stayed the weekend of Bethany’s baptism. We had a really good time taking some time away from home just to hang with family and of course be there for Bethany’s special time.

Pretty Bethany!

The whole family – from left to right there’s Savannah (3), Nathan (6), Dave, Debbie, Charity (1.5) and Bethany.

Everyone who was able to come. It was great to be all together for the weekend.

The birthday girl!

Rachel opening presents. Lily enjoyed being the one to hand them to her.

Cute cake Andy made. It was yummy too.

The end. I didn’t take my camera out much, mostly because I was too busy doing other things with everybody!

Behind

2010-11-23T22:15:00.001-08:00

Obviously I’m a little slow getting pictures of our corn maze/pumpkin picking adventure up, but it was such a fun day I wanted to share. So excuse my tardiness, and enjoy some pictures!

My cute sister came with us. She’s fun to hang out with, and she’s really good with my kids. Score.

Michael took awhile to decide that he liked walking around the corn maze. It might have had something to do with his needing a nap – it was kind of a spur of the moment decision to go to a Pumpkin Farm and not just Safeway to get our pumpkins, so we didn’t plan around naptime. We tried to carry Michael at first, but had to settle for chasing him around, herding him in the right direction, and playing lots of games of “jump out of the cornstalks roaring like a monster.”

After the corn maze, we were off to pick our pumpkins. I wish we had planned ahead a little more and done some of the other activities, like the petting zoo and some of the other kids’ activities, but there was no time. Next time!

It was a really big pumpkin farm. I think we explored all of 1 1/2 rows of pumpkins before grabbing ours. So many to choose from!

My mom’s cute boots on my sister. I really wish I had some cute rain boots! You know, my birthday is coming up…

Picking the perfect pumpkin. It’s apparently a complicated process including how they smell.

Our multicolored finds!

Driving home! Ok, not really. I was surprised that Lily was excited about the tractor and wanted to sit in it. She really liked it though.

I can’t seem to finish this post, so that must mean it’s getting too long. Part two to follow!

I hate coming up with titles for my posts

2010-11-17T19:02:00.001-08:00

I finally was able to go through all my pictures from when we were at my parents house. And I know I’ve said this before, but I love Autumn! I love the falling leaves and the warm oranges and reds and golds – makes for fun photography. It helps that I have two of the cutest little models ever. I never get tired of taking pictures of my kids. Actually, I just really enjoy taking pictures of people in general. It’s exciting to me to try to capture their personalities and make them look their best.

My kids crack me up. The end.

We’re back!

2010-11-08T21:15:00.001-08:00

Hi! You remember me, right? I mean, it’s only been a month and a half, that’s not that long…

Wait, that actually is a really long time – I guess I understand if you’re forgotten all about us. But I have a really good excuse for not blogging lately.

WE MOVED!!

We finally, finally, after almost two years of trying, sold our condo and were able to buy a house! We love it – it’s pretty much exactly what we’ve always been wanting, including a fantasticly large back yard. We sold our condo in the beginning of September, and it took about a month and a half to close - long story short, the closing date kept getting pushed back for one reason or another. We made an offer on our new house shortly after we got the offer on our condo and closed on the house just four days after we closed on the condo. But because the condo was supposed to close two weeks earlier than it did, we lived with my parents for 2 1/2 weeks. A long commute for Ben, but it was like a vacation for me. So nice to hang out with my family for that long and have minimal responsibilities (you know, not counting watching the kiddos ). Plus I got to see and spend some time with some of my high school friends that I hadn’t seen in a long time. Really nice.

Of course now we’re hip-deep in boxes as I try to unpack and organize and figure out where I want everything. I unpacked the kitchen first, cuz otherwise I would have gone crazy. So at least we’re having real meals. I’d put some pictures up, except it’s still way too messy, so you’re just going to have to wait until I finish up (you might be waiting awhile!).

However, I do have hundreds (yes, HUNDREDS!!) of pictures that I took while we were staying with my parents. We played outside almost every day, on the tramp, in leaves, and made it to a pumpkin patch too, which the kids just loved. The weather was, for the most part, super nice. Not too cold or rainy. Fall is really my favorite time of year – I love all the falling leaves and autumn colors, I love Halloween and Thanksgiving, and the cooler weather, perfect for boots and sweaters. I had lots of fun trying to capture “Fall” through my lens. :)

Since I do have so many pictures I want to share, and I’m not even done going through them all yet, I’ll just pick a couple of my favorites. Here goes!

Well, there you go – very random collection of pictures, but some of my very favorites from the last month or two. Hope you like.

An update on my Goal

2010-09-19T22:25:00.001-07:00

I figure since I put my goal (getting my camera out and taking more interesting and different pictures every single day) on here for everyone to see and judge, I should probably put my progress on here as well. And, well, it could be better. I definitely haven’t gotten my camera out every single day, and half of the time I’m still taking the pictures that I’m used to taking. But the good news is that I haven’t given up! The first time I missed a day I was pretty upset – you know, the whole “well, I missed a day and so it’s not every single day anymore” feeling – but then I decided that the reason I made my goal was to help myself improve as a photographer. And I can’t really improve if I give up after only a week, now can I? So I’m starting to realize that it really isn’t the “every single day” part that matters, it’s the effort I put into it. And so even though I’ve definitely missed days, and sometimes a few in a row, I’m trying. And since taking my camera out with me and not being afraid to take the unusual shot has become more of a habit, then I’m succeeding too!

In conclusion, yay me! :)

Ok, actually, really in conclusion, here are some of my favorite shots from the last month or so. Oh, and I really will update with more pictures of San Diego. There are some fun ones, but my life has been reeeeeeeally crazy the last couple months, and my blog has kind of taken a back seat. I’m really hoping things will calm down soon, and then maybe I can post more regularly again.

Lily making pretzels with me:

Playing with cousins at the park:

Cute Savannah in the foreground and Bethany and Nathan in the background.

I love how it looks like Michael is comforting Charity. So sweet. :)

Trying to catch a picture of Nathan smiling – he kept running away from me and it turned into a game for us.

Got him!

I’m starting to get a better feel for the best place/side/angle (whatever you want to call it) to take pictures from to take advantage of the light.

First attempt of Bethany:

Cute picture, but half of her face is in shadow (and this is post-processing). I realized that and so had her change which way she was facing and Voila:

Much better! At least I think so. Also, doesn’t she rock the head tilt? :)

An Octopus:

Look at his eye!!

Practicing with flash (which I figure I better get to know since natural light during Washington winters is practically non-existant!):

I really don’t generally like flash, but I’m trying to go out of my comfort zone. I thought this one wasn’t half bad. Plus I love her expression.

My favorite flower picture (that I’ve taken) EVER:

Before I show you my actual favorite picture, let me explain. This picture was another time where I realized I really needed to take the picture from another angle. This was my first shot:

Pretty blah. So I got down on my knees and angled the camera far up so I didn’t have any background except for the clear blue sky. This is what I got:

I like this shot, oh, about a million times better. I’ll own up to some post processing, but for reals, the sky really was that blue that day. It was gorgeous! Thanks to Liz for growing such beautiful sunflowers. Also, I just love the little bumblebee at the top. :)

The time I was most proud of myself for being brave enough to take my camera with me everywhere, even to the grocery store:

The sun was too high in the sky to avoid shadows at that time, but I still like it. Mostly cuz it captures something so ordinary and every-day, nothing super special, but when I look back in 10, 15 years, it’ll make me smile to remember how much she loved to ride on the back of the shopping cart.

So, there you go. Definitely not all the pictures I’ve been taking lately, cuz I do have tons, but the ones that I feel are either my best or show my improvement as a photographer. I’ve been learning a lot just by taking more pictures, and I’m still going to continue challenging myself. I can’t get worse, right? ;)

Happy Birthday Ben

2010-08-29T15:51:00.001-07:00

26 years ago, this handsome little guy was born:

Then Ben had a birthday:

And another one:

And a third:

And a few more:

He became a teenager:

And went on a mission the day after he turned 19:

Ben went to collage:

And met the love of his life:

(Only he dated my roommate first – I still love you Tessa!!):

But soon he only had eyes for me:

Then this happened:

And before he knew it, he was a dad:

(He was really good at being a Dad, too):

After a (very short) time, his mini-me arrived:

And he had to learn to juggle two at a time:

He’s pretty good at it too:

In fact, he’s pretty good at everything he tries:

So, three days ago, Ben had his 26th birthday, and now my handsome guy looks like this:

And we couldn’t be happier together! Happy Birthday Ben! Thanks for being the one who can always make me smile. I love you!!

Getting out of the rut

2010-08-21T20:24:00.001-07:00

I’ve been in a picture taking rut lately. Also, a blogging rut. And I think they’re related. See, I’ve found so many wonderful blogs lately – blogs with really funny writers or inspirational people or amazing photos or all three plus more – that I’ve started to question why I was taking pictures or blogging about my life when I wasn’t nearly as good as these other people. I’m not really a writer and I still have tons to learn about taking good photographs, and so since I felt like I couldn’t compete (or something) I kind of gave up for awhile. I figured I’d just let everyone else do it.

But that’s stupid, right? Cuz the reason I started blogging in the first place was to let my friends and family see a little bit of our life, tell everybody who cares what’s new with the Lemmons and show off my cute kids. And who can do that better then me? I finally realized that I’m not trying to create a blog that has a thousand followers or hundreds of comments daily – that really doesn’t matter. And honestly, since all I’m really doing is sharing stories and pictures of my kids and Ben and I, it’d be pretty weird if I had tons of people I don’t know reading my blog. I’m not that interesting. :)

I feel so much better after realizing this! And I can’t believe I let it get to me so much. Silly, I know. So I’m really happy to be blogging again, without all these useless feelings of competing with people I don’t even know, especially when it’s not even a competition (I have too much of my Dad in me – everything is a competition!). And I’ve challenged myself (see, there I go competing again!) to get my camera out every single day and try to take at least one picture that’s different than the ones I generally take. Or if it’s not happening that day, to at least get my camera out every day and get in the habit of taking it with me everywhere. Cuz if I want to improve the quality of my pictures, the only way to do that is to practice more. So I am! And it’s so much fun! I’m really enjoying myself more, and I’m enjoying challenging myself to get lower than I normally do to take a picture, or higher, or closer or farther away, or use more light or less light. It’s only been a couple days since I started, but I’m really glad I did.

Without further ado or soul-bearing, my favorite pictures from the last few days.

San Diego Part 1

2010-08-16T19:01:00.001-07:00

Ben and I went to San Diego for our fourth anniversary… for a week, sans kids. THANK-YOU MOM and ANNA (and the rest of my family)!! It was fantastic to have so much time without any responsibilities, to just focus on each other and have fun. And we did have a great time (except when Ben got tonsillitis… that wasn’t so much fun). We crammed so many activities into our 7 days there – the Zoo, SeaWorld, the Wild Animal Park, a couple’s massage, Disneyland, snorkeling at La Jolla, visiting Little Italy, Moonlight Beach, a sunset horse ride, visiting Ben’s grandparents – we were basically non-stop the entire time we were there. We had a really really wonderful time, and I would love to go back sometime. Maybe with the kids next time!

I really can’t pick one activity out as my favorite, but one that stands out a lot was when we went snorkeling. Both times, really, but especially the first day because we were swimming with sharks! Leopard sharks, and they’re really harmless, but it was quite an experience to swim with these big guys just a few feet or less below us. The second day we went snorkeling we saw more fish and no sharks, and we also got to see sea lions and seals. I wanted to stay out longer both days, but because it was so cold even with wetsuits, we only lasted about an hour the first time and 40 minutes the second time. I know, it’s California, it’s supposed to be hot, but seriously, it wasn’t hot, and the water was COLD!

I had a lot of fun taking pictures of all the animals and plant life we saw, but next time I’m gonna make sure I bring my camera to the beach with me! :( I don’t think I took a single picture of the ocean!! And there’s really only a handful of Ben and I. Too bad. I’ll do better next time. There’s way too many pictures for one post, so these pictures are all from SeaWorld. I’ll post again with more. :)

I love walruses! They make me think of my Grandma Sheila. Not for any mean reason, she just loved walruses. :)

Isn’t this whale so graceful?

These empire penguins were so much fun to watch! The lighting was really funny in there so it was hard to get a decent picture, but I loved these guys. There was a little baby penguin that was still learning to walk and we both looked at each other and said it reminded us of how Michael walks. So cute!

Manta Ray! They would come up to the surface and let us touch them. They felt so cool, not at all what I expected – it was a neat experience.

We sat in the splash zone for the Shamu show, but never got splashed. It was a great show, we were really glad we went.

She’s got style

2010-08-15T22:02:00.001-07:00

Some of my favorite Lily moments over the last couple of months:

Tight, swimsuit, legwarmers (on her arms) gloves, and a sunhat. Oh yeah.

Please notice the huge jeweled ring on her right hand, and the thing in her left hand is a fairy wand.

Who needs clothes when you have the right jewelry?

My tank top, and my sports bra. She told me she needed to exercise.

The Trampoline and the Tire Swing

2010-06-27T00:15:00.001-07:00

When we were at my parent’s house the other week, the kiddos had so much fun on their trampoline and playset. I had so much fun watching them and trying to get pictures of Lily in the air. Now you get to have so much fun seeing the pictures!

Oh my goodness, isn’t she looking OLD?

I love watching my kids play outside – I can’t wait until we have a backyard of our own and we can go out whenever the weather permits. For now we’ll just go to the park and my parents and friends houses.

A boy and his dog

2010-06-14T10:45:00.001-07:00

Ok, well technically it’s a boy and his grandma’s dog, but you wouldn’t know it by how happy Michael was to play with Mary, my parent’s dog. It was so cute!

Up until last week, every time Michael saw Mary, he would really freak out, start crying and trying to climb up me like a ladder, desperate to get away from the big scary dog. It made me sad, because Lily loved Mary as a baby and still does, and I really wanted Michael to like dogs too. So when I was up visiting my parents while Ben was in New Orleans I decided that by the time I left Michael was at least going to be comfortable with Mary being around him. I took him outside after his nap when I know he was in a good mood and let Mary come a little closer bit by bit. Michael was nervous, but started getting more and more comfortable.

I was still holding Michael, so soon I put him down in the grass and sat next to him while I played catch with Mary – that dog is obsessed with playing catch! Mary would come up to us and drop the ball and then back up a bit to wait for me to throw it. She’s very intensely focused on the ball and it gave Michael a chance to see that Mary wasn’t going to jump all over him. It didn’t take long for him to want to throw the ball himself (and try to eat it a few times – YUCK!) and soon he was even ok with Mary coming to drop the ball in his lap. Now he’s completely fearless and happy whenever he sees Mary and it makes me so happy!! I took sooooo many pictures of them playing together, I’ll show you some of my (many) favorites. :)

I got it!

His throws aren’t super impressive yet. They mostly just go behind his head. I could just see Mary thinking “How am I supposed to run after that?”

Isn’t she a pretty doggy?

Oops! Little close for comfort there.

Mary’s intense stare – she never takes her eyes off the ball once she drops it at your feet.

I love this kid. I can’t believe he’s almost one.

I love you more than ...

2010-05-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

So I have a unique way of expressing my love to my wife. Rather than be boring like the rest of the husbands out there and just say "I love you", I'll tell her all the things I love her more than. For example, I'll tell her "I love you more than pixie dust", or "I love you more than programming". For some odd reason she actually finds this cute and endearing. Each time it's something different, and often-times odd. Once I told my wife (in front of my mother-in-law) "I love you more than stool samples". Emily, who was quite used to this by then, said lovingling "Aw, thank you". Emily's mother, on the other hand, has yet to let me live it down. To get to the point, Emily told me today said I should start a greeting card company with all my random "I love you more than ..." sayings in them. I told her that she's the only one who really appreciates them, and it wouldn't be a sucessful business venture. She contests that they're "sweet and creative" or at the very least, others will like them because they're funny. We're letting you, the readers of our blog, settle this for us. Please use the voting buttons at the top of the page to let us know what you think.

My Family

2010-05-22T19:53:00.001-07:00

Hey it’s Ben here. We went to Colorado last week to visit my family. My youngest brother Matthew just got back from his mission in South Africa, and it was the first time in a long time that we were able to get all my siblings together. And my nephew Joseph was blessed there as well. Natalie has all the pictures of the whole family, and I’ll post them or link to them once they’re available. We went to the zoo, played raquetball, wii, croquet, card games, and lots of fun family time. We didn’t have our camera out very often, but here’s a selection of some of the good ones.

Sunny Days

2010-04-17T09:21:00.001-07:00

We’re finally having some sunny days around here and it’s making me so happy! I haven’t been taking nearly as many pictures as I want to because the light in my house is pretty horrible if it’s not a sunny day. It gets really monotonous to constantly be changing the brightness and the coloring on almost every single picture I take to get them to look nice, so I just haven’t been getting the camera out much lately. But this week has finally been bright and warm and happy and it was so nice to take my camera out and get some fun pictures of the kids playing just cuz I could.

We also went to the park yesterday, and it was really cute to let Michael crawl around on the grass and try to figure out what it was. And I couldn’t really get a good picture, but he LOVES swinging. It’s so cute to watch him smile so huge and giggle every time I look at him. I think Lily’s favorite was feeding the ducks. She carried the bread from the house to the car and from the car to the river, never letting it out of her grip until we got to the ducks. She was very careful to stay away from the edge and had lots of fun tearing the bread into pieces and throwing it into the water all by herself. The only less-than-fun part of the day was the rooster incident. She was very excited when she saw a rooster and started walking up to it. The rooster wasn’t frightened at all and walked right toward her, and Lily freaked out. Started screaming so loudly and crying. I felt so bad for her! She wasn’t hurt at all, just scared, but she wouldn’t walk near the rooster anymore, I had to carry her. Hopefully she won’t have a pathological fear of roosters for the rest of her life.

Anyway, these are all my favorite pictures from the last couple of days. You might noticed Lily’s busted lip. She fell off a bar stool and cut it up pretty bad. I was actually worried it might need stitches – fortunately (for all of us!) it didn’t!

Enjoy this great weather! We sure are!

I love this picture!

He’s waving now! It’s so cute. He also said Mama for the first time the other day. :)

The beginning of the unfortunate rooster incident. I stopped taking pictures once I realized Lily thought she was about to lose her life.

He probably didn’t need the hoodie on. It was pretty warm. I just thought he looked so adorable in it I didn’t want to take it off him.

Lily was really good at sharing… of course, she was sharing the bag of food I’d originally packed for Michael anyway. It was still cute.

Now for the spring photos!! I love taking pictures of all the flowers and trees blooming now. They’re so colorful and pretty, plus they don’t run away right when I’m about to take their picture. ;)

(Only 31 pictures… that’s not too many right?)

Lily’s (Un-prompted) Prayer

2010-04-11T19:32:00.001-07:00

Dear Heavenly Father:

Thank-you for church.
Thank-you for potty time.
Thank-you for banana time.
Thank-you for lunch time.
Thank-you for nursery.
Thank-you for my family.

Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Immediately afterwards she asks, “Can we say another prayer?”

Belated Easter Post

2010-04-10T19:07:00.001-07:00

Our Easter celebrations were lots of fun this year. Lily really got into dying the eggs this year and lucky her, she got to do it twice - once at her friend Jocelyn’s house and once at home. Of course I forgot to get the camera out when we were at our friends house – juggling two kids and cups of dye makes me forgetful, I guess. At least I remembered when she was hunting for eggs. She was all about the candy inside the plastic eggs. Once she realized there was candy inside she didn’t need any more encouragement. She wanted to find every single one. She participated in two eggs hunts, one at the church’s playgroup and one at home. I thought it was hilarious when she found a hard-boiled egg. Every time she picked one up she’d get this funny look on her face and say “It’s cold!” and hand it to one of us.

Ben and I both enjoyed conference; what we were able to hear of it, anyway. I think it’s great how they never plan a theme, but there’s almost always a recurring topic among the talks. I loved Sis. Beck’s talk, and I can’t wait for the Ensign to come out so I can read it again. We also had a fun dinner and evening with my family who came over for the second session. I got to cook a big ham dinner, which of course I loved doing, and it was really nice to have my family over here and hanging out with us. We missed you Jonathan!

Another random pic post

2010-04-02T19:34:00.001-07:00

I’m good at the random pic posts! These were all taken in Tacoma when I was there watching my brother compete at the State Wrestling tournament.

I Love my Wife

2010-04-02T16:57:00.001-07:00

I just need to say that I absolutely, completely, 100% love my wife. I don’t know how she puts up with me on a daily basis, but she does! She is so caring and patient and sweet and perfect. Even when I run out of reasons to smile, she’s right there making me smile. The rest of ya’ll are missing out!

Great Give-Away

2010-04-02T09:11:00.001-07:00

One of my best friends Stephanie and another good friend Karen have a book reviews blog called Fabulous Reads, and right now they are having a fabulous give-away. They are giving away one of my favorite books, Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull. The entire series only gets better, so I suggest you go enter their give-away so you have a chance to read this great book! They give you lots of way to enter too, so you can get lots of chances to win. Thanks Stephanie and Karen! I always look forward to your reviews.

Baby Joseph

2010-03-23T07:08:00.001-07:00

My sister-in-law Andy had her baby! A little boy named Joseph Kyle Lemmon, and he really is adorable. I think he looks just like Andy and Rachel. We went over to their house a little over a week ago to celebrate Andy’s birthday, and meet Joseph too – it was nice to see them again. It’s been so long since I’ve held such a new-born baby. He was such a sweet sleepy little bundle. Can’t wait to see you guys again and hold Joseph again!

Joseph Kyle Lemmon, born March 11, 2010.

I love this picture of Andy and Joseph together!

Going Green

2010-03-23T06:47:00.001-07:00

Last week I didn’t realize it was St Patrick’s Day until I woke up, so I didn’t plan anything super fancy, but Lily and I had fun turning everything green. She liked the idea of wearing all green, and she LOVED her green milk. I think the pretzels were my favorite, just because they are kind of a random thing to turn green, but I was really craving them and thought they’d be fun to make. Here are the pictures!

New Names

2010-03-08T21:17:00.001-08:00

Lily’s imagination is amazing – and hilarious. We love to listen to all the funny random things she comes up with and getting a glimpse of what goes on in her head. In the last week she’s started calling us and herself by different names. Her favorite thing to call us: Ben is Peter, I’m Ashlyn, and she is Piper (hey Adams, she loves you, if you can’t tell). She’s very insistent that any time we talk to her, we have to call her Piper. Ben took her to the store a couple of nights ago, and every time he called her Lily, she’d correct him: “No, say come here Piper!”

Besides Ashlyn, here are the other names I’ve been called in the last week or so:
Peter Pan
Natalie
Liz
Mommy Pink Lizard
Merryweather

Ben gets called Daddy Pink Lizard, and most often Michael gets called Hyrum, though he’s also been called George. My favorite though is what she called Michael today: Michaelhyrumski. Or sometimes it’s just Michaelski. In fact, she’s started adding –ski on the ends of lots of words. I think it comes from Monsters Inc, which we watched a few days ago. The little round monster in it is called Mike Wazowski.

Seriously guys. I couldn’t make this up.

Really? Only March 5th?

2010-03-05T14:14:00.001-08:00

I swear this week is going sooooo sloooooow. I keep thinking it ought to be St. Patrick’s Day or something already. Part of it is because January and February just whizzed by. It felt like one day we were celebrating New Years Eve in a tiny motel room as we waited for the blizzard to stop so we could continue home from Colorado, and the next it’s Valentine’s Day. And now it’s already March!! However, now I feel like the days are just completely dragging and this week is just taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r. (Hmm, my spell check is telling me everyone of those single letters is wrong, which makes sense, except apparently it’s ok with –v- …weird.)

You know what I think most of it is? I decided to take a couple months and stop eating processed sugar. I’ve been doing it for two weeks now, but it feels like years! I’m really hoping that it’ll help me lose weight and train myself to eat healthier again. I’ve been having a major problem with that. I think it’s because when I’m pregnant I just let myself eat anything, and then when I’m nursing I’m constantly hungry too. I’m still nursing, but it’s been 8 months since I was pregnant and I’m still having a hard time eating just for myself again. Too big of portions and too many snacks, along with a serious craving for sugar all. the. time. So I decided to just go cold-turkey and quit all the desserts and sugary snacks for good for awhile and hopefully re-train my body. Please wish me luck!

Lily is still potty training. We keep having days where she does fantastic, no accidents for 3 or 4 days in a row, and then it’ll be a week of poopy underwear multiple times a day. Ugh. Right now we’re trying to get her to drink LOTS so that she’ll have to go more often and hopefully really start to recognize her body’s signals, but any other advice would certainly be appreciated. I’m getting really grossed out by all the accidents I’m cleaning up!

One other thing I wanted to mention: I LOVE THIS SUNNY WEATHER!!! For the last couple weeks I’ve totally been pretending it’s summer. I’ve been wearing my capri’s, going to the park with the kids, picnics outside, all the curtains thrown open – it’s been so nice! Nevermind that it’s actually only 55 degrees outside, the sun just makes me happy. :) I’m sure I’m not the only one!

Sorry, no new pictures. I just felt like rambling.

Picnic With Lily

2010-03-02T16:32:00.001-08:00

Actually, Michael was there too, but since he slept almost the whole time, it was almost like I was just out with my little girl. It was lots of fun! It’s been so sunny the last few weeks and the other day I just decided that we were going on a picnic. Of course, once we got to the park I realized it was still definitely chilly – so we ate kind of fast. But we had such a good time. Lily thought it was awesome to sit on the blanket and eat together and enjoyed looking out at the river afterwards. I hope the sunny weather continues and gets warmer, it’s so nice to spend some time outside again!

I love my kiddos. :)

He’s Moving!

2010-03-02T16:25:00.001-08:00

Michael is taking off! Over the weekend he learned how to crawl, and it’s so crazy to suddenly see him ten feet away from where I put him. It’s still a kind of shambling crawl, one leg kind of dragging, but he does pretty good with it and loves that he can go wherever he wants and get into more things!

Also, yesterday he took his first steps!! Not even 8 months old yet, just like Lily - though Lily beat him by a few days. :) He’s been determined for weeks now to get moving, somehow, anyhow he can, that I’m really not surprised. It’s so cute to see the very determined look in his eyes as he steadies himself and then takes a couple of steps before loosing his balance. Today he took 4 pretty steady steps before he leaned too far back and sat down. It’s so much fun to watch him learn. Lily enjoys watching him too, and every time he manages a couple of steps she cheers and claps for him.

I’ll try to get some walking pictures, but for now here are some pictures of him crawling. He wasn’t in the best of moods when I had the camera out, so no smiles this time.

“Just put the camera away, Mom!”

Happy Birthday!

2010-02-09T23:06:00.001-08:00

My Daddy and Michael, back in August.

Today is my Dad’s birthday!! Hey Daddy, I hope you had a wonderful day, and I hope you know how very much I love and admire you. Thank-you for always setting such a wonderful example to me, and thanks for instilling in me a love of the gospel. I love you!

And they love you too!

Fun Pictures

2010-02-09T11:49:00.001-08:00

I realize this is the 3rd or 4th picture post in a row, but looking through pictures today I found a whole bunch of pictures I’d completely forgotten about. It was really fun to be reminded of lots of things I’d forgotten about. I thought you’d enjoy them too. So, in no particular order, here they are!

A couple months ago – Lily had woken up way too early, and we both fell asleep again while I was trying to get her back to bed.

They were all taking naps.

My parents’ house all lit up for Christmas!

Both of these Nativity sets were at the Crèche in Maple Valley. There were so many beautiful Nativity sets there!

Yes, her hat flew off just a moment later!

Same scene, about an hour later.

Me on my birthday.

Up until she actually saw him, Lily was so excited to see Santa. Once we got there, not so much!

I think most of you who read our blog have already seen this picture in our Christmas letter this year, but for anyone who didn’t, this was the kids’ picture that we took for Christmas.

The first time Michael sat up all by himself (back on Thanksgiving!) Doesn’t he look so proud? :)

Some recent Pictures

2010-02-02T21:53:00.001-08:00

For some reason I just haven’t felt like blogging lately. Not sure why. So since I’m not feeling particularly talkative right now, I’ll just let some recent pictures (mostly) speak for themselves.

The wind blowing the snow over the roads on our way to CO.

Isn’t he handsome?

I know it’s really blue – I still like it.

He’s starting to hold himself steady for a few seconds at a time now!

Me (Through Lily’s Eyes)

2010-01-22T15:12:00.001-08:00

I didn’t take any of these pictures. I kept trying to get her to point the camera straight, but it didn’t work very often. We had fun though!

Hmm, I’ll just get down to where you’re actually pointing the camera!

Family Pictures

2010-01-16T20:53:00.001-08:00

Right before we left Colorado, Ben’s sister Natalie took family pictures of us. I’ve been anxiously awaiting them to see what they look like, and now she’s posted them on her blog! Yay! You should go check them out - http://natalielundberg.blogspot.com/2010/01/lemmons-littleton-co-family.html. She does absolutely beautiful work, and I’m really glad we had the chance to get the photos taken! Thank-you Natalie!!

A wonderful Give-away

2010-01-14T09:52:00.001-08:00

One of my absolute favorite bloggers, Ree Drummond from thepioneerwoman.com is hosting a wonderful give-away today on her confessions blog. Instead of giving something to her readers, she’s giving away 2 $500 donations to charities geared toward helping Haiti right now. I saw this, and though I don’t normally do this on my blog, thought I should let everyone who reads my blog know about it. I think it’s so great. Also, for every person that enters the give-away, she’ll donate 10 cents to the charity as well. So tell everybody you know and lets make this Ree’s biggest give-away yet. It’s for a fantastic cause.

She’s also doing the ten cents for every entry on this give-away, and on this give-away as well. That last give-away ends soon though, so hurry!

First Tooth

2010-01-09T17:03:00.001-08:00

Michael cut his first tooth a couple of days ago, on the 5th, I believe. He’s got another one just about to pop through too. He’s getting so big! You can’t really see the tooth in these pictures, but isn’t he cute? He’s also starting on solid foods and just yesterday started saying “dadada.” It’s pretty adorable.

Happy Birthday Lily!!

2010-01-08T19:53:00.001-08:00

A day late, but we were just too busy yesterday for me to get on and blog (I wrote the Christmas vacation post a couple of days ago). Anyway, my sweet little girl is 2 years old! I can’t believe how fast it’s gone since she came into our lives. She is absolutely so much fun to be with and I love watching her grow up. Happy Birthday sweetie!

2 years ago

1 year ago

Now - We love you!

Christmas Vacation

2010-01-07T19:43:00.001-08:00

I’ve been informed that I need to update my blog, so this is for you, Katie! Actually, I know there are so many of you just sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to know how our trip went and see pics. ;) So here it is, the epic tale of our ah-MAZ-ing trip to Colorado.

First, let me just say that the 5 days of travel went surprisingly well, with only a couple of bumps along the way. On the way there, Lily was so excited to get to Grandma and Papa’s house that she never wanted to stop! It was pretty adorable. On the way there and on the way back both of the kids were very nice and patient with the drive, it was a great blessing. We had to stop in Utah to sleep, so we got to see Aunt Chris and Uncle Steve and their kids. That was nice to catch up with them, it’s been long enough since we’ve seen them that they had never met our kids! The drive home was a little stressful because we got stuck in a blizzard in Oregon. We actually spun off the road at one point, hitting a reflector pole thingy and cracking our bumper. But no one was hurt, and we didn’t even need a tow truck or anything, Ben just drove out of the snow back on the road. We ended up staying the night in a motel in Oregon instead of continuing home, which made it five days of driving instead of 4.

There were 28 people at Ben’s parents house for Christmas morning. It was crazy! But so much fun. It was fantastic to see (almost) all of Ben’s brothers and sisters and their spouses and kids. Only Matthew was missing (he’s on a mission in South Africa, so I guess he had an excuse), but we all got to chat with him Christmas morning at least. There were 12 grandchildren there, and 9 of them were aged 2 and younger. Thus the craziness. :) And I finally got to meet Nick, who is Julie’s husband and whom I’ve never met before, even though I’ve been in the family for 3.5 years. Hi Nick!

We left WA Sunday evening the 13th, spent a short week with just Ben’s parents before other people started showing up, enjoyed lots of yummy food, hours of Wii Frisbee Golf and catching up with family, opened a multitude of presents Christmas morning, played some more Wii Frisbee Golf and ate lots more yummy food, and didn’t get home until Jan. 1st. It was definitely the longest, craziest, and most family-filled vacation we’ve ever had. It was wonderful. It was really fantastic to see everybody again, and I already miss them. Love you guys!