Fall Pics {Sunday Snapshot}

This Sunday was just about the only day we have had this fall to get some nice fall pictures of the kids.  We just have too many other things going on.  I took the kids out to the usual places on the farm to take a few pictures.  The big one of all three of them that hangs on the wall in our bedroom is two years old!  I think I'm going to change it out for this one:

 

I just love this one of Cara!

This one turned out good of Bryan.  His eyes look cool!

I didn't get any good ones of Alison alone; she just looked irritated in every shot.  It's a good thing I already have a lot of her from taking senior pictures.

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Cara's Surprise



Last weekend we told Cara we were taking her out for a surprise on Sunday.  We told her she could pick where we had lunch and she chose Olive Garden so she could have their mac 'n cheese.

 

We took her to Toyota Center for Disney on Ice.  She really didn't "get it" until we go situated in our seats and she could see the set and the ice rink.  She was in awe of the whole thing.



The show featured three princess stories.  The Princess and the Frog:

Cinderella:

The third story was Tangled, but my pictures from that part turned out blurry.  At the end, all of the Disney princesses and princes came out in beautiful white and gold costumes.  Cara loved Mulan, of course!

We all had a really good time.  I think Cara is looking forward to the next Disney on Ice show.  I think she thought it was a good surprise.

Cara's Baptism {Sunday Snapshot}

We finally got Cara baptized.  We bought the dress in Guangzhou two years ago so she could wear it for her baptism.  It's pretty short now; short enough that she needed to wear white leggings under it.  We tried to find the next size up online, but didn't have any luck, so we made the original dress work.  She was pretty nervous for the whole thing, even though we explained the whole process to her multiple times.  She would say, "Now I have 3 special days:  my birthday, God day (baptism), and the one where we eat Chinese food (gotcha day)."

 

All my kids outside before we left:

Cara was pretty nervous for the whole thing.  She almost cried twice. 

We asked her in the car, "Do you really think we would let something bad happen to you?"  She said no, but it was just scary.

We went back to the house and had dinner, cake and ice cream.  It was her cousin Jake's baptism, too, so we had a houseful of people, two cakes, and a great, big celebration.

 

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Cara's Second Gotchaversary

How fun that Cara's second "gotcha"versary is on 10/11/12!  She just radiated excitement today.  They are learning about the letter "P" in Kindergarten this week so she got to wear pig pajamas to school today and they ate pancakes!

 

To top that off, she brought cupcakes to school for her class and her book, I Love You Like Crazycakes, which her teacher read for the class.

 

She came home, took a bath, and put on one of her Chinese dresses for dinner tonight at Panda Garden.  I talked her in to posing for a picture or two before we left.

 

Last night we watched her "gotcha" day videos.  We got to the part where she saw the nannies down the hall as we were getting into the elevator to leave and she started crying her little eyes out.  Cara watched quietly and said, "Man, I was really scared of that elevator!"

It was a little bit funny; she doesn't associate her grief on the video anymore with going away with strangers.  She thinks it was the elevator that scared her. ;)

What a transformation from two short years ago!

We love you, crazy girl, all the way to China and back!

Tickle Monster Before Bathtime

 

Cara loves to play tickle monster before bath:

 

Making Cider {Sunday Snapshot}

Yesterday was the annual pig barbeque that my parents put on for employees and customers.  It's a lot of fun with tons of food, live music, dancing, and making cider.

 

This is the only picture I could get because the cider press was swarmed with kids for the majority of the day.

 



I took this picture with my Cannon T2i and the kit lens.  I snapped it in automatic on the landscape setting and ran it through Florabella clean color.  I added paint-on color to the apples at 100% opacity.

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