Sign jokes

Pierce has a collection of pictures of funny signs. I need to find the rest of them and we can have a big tag fest of all the silly signs we've seen in airports, on hikes, and around town. One of my favorites is the "shock monster", but there are so many to choose from!


This sign was at the botanic gardens, by the horses pen. I guess people were feeding apples to the horses (there is also an apple orchard) and they were getting colic. The sign is so dramatic that it seems a single bite of apple will kill a horse dead, doesn't it? I don't think that is really the case.

Some things from August and September

Can you believe that Mattie turned 13 years old this August???? I really am having a hard time with this, but she is as sweet as ever so I guess it's working out okay SO FAR. She wanted a different sort of cake this year, so we made a 2 layer chocolate mousse cake, top layer white chocolate mousse and bottom layer chocolate and I think there is some kind of crust there on the bottom. YUM.








Also for her birthday, she got to take 2 friends with Matt and go see a murder mystery dinner theater, where they got to help solve the mystery. I think they had a really fun time. And she got some darling bedding and decorations for her room (she wanted a bit of a re-style) which I would LOVE to take a picture of if her room was ever clean enough to photograph. She also got a cool shade for her deck so she can sit out there in more comfort, some books that she loves, and a hobby lobby gift card which she will love spending as soon as I carve out a 4 hour time block for her to deliberate at the store. :)

I had this idea of taking a picture of Mattie looking into the future with this cool lantern that Matt made me. It's tricky to take pictures at twilight. I don't think I ever quite got what I wanted, but I do like this. I'm glad that Mattie will dress up silly and wander around outside at night with me and my camera. She is such a wonderfully special girl - we're so grateful to have her!



And now for something different. Here is Zoe, posing with my mini-session setup I had for September this year. I thought it was a cute setup and Zoe made it so much cuter! She really wanted to include "loves Hobby Lobby" but then she changed her mind at the last second.






And this picture is for Matt. He has been making these really cool solar lanterns that hang in the trees by the front gate. They're made out of bottles that he scrounges out of the city's recycle bins, which habit he picked up when he made the bottle wall in the back yard, I need a picture of that too! Anyway they're tricky to photograph because of course they're the prettiest at night, when photography is the hardest.

Our family portraits this year

I used to do family portraits with my family every year on Mother's Day. And it was kind of a big deal. It's not everyone's favorite way to spend time, but they humored me because they love me, and - Mother's Day. And then last year... we just never did it! This year I was determined to do our family portraits FOR SURE, but then Mattie and I came up with a complicated theme with vintage clothes. I loved the idea, but sewing sometimes takes a back seat when things get busy, and our usual portrait date of Mother's Day came and went. Several months later, Mattie told me that she wouldn't go in the river if it got too cold, and the river was an important part of what we wanted... so we sewed up a storm and managed to get our family portraits done in beautiful September weather.

As usual, it was kind of a big deal. We left too late one evening, then I forgot my remote trigger, and we ended up running out of light by the time we waded out to the sand bar that we liked. The only pictures that I got that I loved were the ones with the sunflowers, which were so gorgeous.


Awesome Matt said that we could try it AGAIN the next week, which ended up being perfect.

Even though he hates wearing suspenders. (Thank you!)

And thanks to the kids, they were awesome too.

On our second trip out to the river, we stopped along the way to take some pictures with these fun logs and the soft yellow grass.






Some people in my family can keep a serious face. Some others have kind of a hard time.


Everyone had lots of ideas about how to use the logs for a picture. Pierce has decided to be Tom Sawyer for Halloween, he loves this shot so much.




Mattie likes the serious pictures so much that her dad had to tell a bunch of silly cow jokes to get a smile.




Zoe loves to be in pictures and will cooperate at any time, any place. She did want to climb up as high as possible first.




As we finished up with the logs, it started to rain. Naturally. Because normally how many rainy days do we get in September? (Some years - zero.) We headed for the bridge to stay dry, and Matt pointed out that my camera could stay under cover under the bridge while we took the family shot that I really wanted. It was actually raining in all the family shots, but THIS WAS THE EVENING and we were not going to dress up and hike out to the river again.


I love how the mountain coordinated with our color scheme!


The sisters picture is really what I wanted the most. I love these so much. Well, these and the sunflower picture.






Zoe was probably the happiest to be in the water. As you can see, she got all the way in.






"Sorry Mom, I fell..."


Also having so much fun in the water, even though he, like his dad, hates wearing suspenders (so cute!).






Mattie is so sweet and fun-loving that I wasn't in the mood for lots of serious pictures. She is always so good to cooperate with my photography whims and ideas - I'm so grateful for her!






So happy to have these done - now I just need to get the kids to help choose a print for the wall!