Happy Birthday Ladies!

My little ladies aren't so little anymore!  I now have a couple of smart and beautiful 6 year old girls!

I had a permanent grin on my face as I was looking back through pictures to make this collage. I have loved watching these cuties grow right up.

The Sunday before their birthday we had family over to celebrate.  It's a good thing that there are 2 cakes!  Every one came to celebrate and some of the neighbors too! 

For their birthday Casey & I gave them a bunch of clothes for summer.  One of my childhood memories is shopping trips with my Grandma Babe.  So - I want to make that a memory for my kids too.  Grammy and I took the girls shopping for their summer attire.  What's kind of funny is I didn't take one picture of Taylor & Rylee on this shopping trip, but Alexa got plenty of attention.  She seriously was having the night of her life.  She was doing big girl things and LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT!

Another gift from Casey and I was a trip to dinner and then to build-a-bear!  The girls loved making their stuffed animals.  I think that they also loved the parent time at dinner.  We each took one and helped them with their place-mat games while we waited for our food.  One-on-one time is something that doesn't happen to often at our house!  Taylor ended up choosing a rabbit that she named Brownie.

Rylee made a white tiger which she named Sparkle Glamour.  Watching life through the eyes of my children gives me pleasure.  Why do we all have to grow up?!?!

Pictures!

I attempted to get some pictures of my kids a couple of times.  Caleb was due for his 9 year old pictures and the girls were turning 6.  I thought, "I have a nice camera!  I can just do this."  Professionals just know what they are doing.  Period.  I took the kids to Mantua one snowy morning and we tried that - needless to say, they sun glare off of the snow as a little much for everyone.  

 Then one morning before school I thought Taylor & Rylee were looking extra cute, so I just tried some in my driveway.  F A I L.  They girls look cute, but the angle is wrong, the lighting is wrong,  wrong, wrong, wrong.  (that is a stupid word...wrong...looks Chinese the more I type it....wrong)

Shelby Evans is amazing.  She has captured a lot of darling pictures of my little people. These pictures of Caleb make me happy.  He is a cute boy!!  He is so artistic and his sense of humor is coming along nicely.  The other day he was SLOWLY eating his dinner (some soup) and I said, "You better hurry and eat. It doesn't taste very good cold."  Without missing a beat, he replied, "It doesn't taste very good warm either."  Then I looked at him and he was grinning and said, "Just kidding!!"

Taylor...look at that pretty girl.  She is so sweet.  She is always thinking of others and always trying to do the right thing.  She is my little mini me.

Rylee...another pretty girl!  She can also be sweet, but she sprinkles in a little bit of sass and drama too.  She gets so emotional!  We were at quilted bear a while ago and she came to me, hugged me and said with tears in her eyes, "This is the best day of my whole entire life."

They have both told me that they don't want to be twins anymore - which I am thinking means they don't want to dress the same.  I don't enforce it when we are just home doing nothing...and my mom says I can dress them how I want for the next few years.  I'm thinking 3rd grade I'll stop being so weird about it.  I understand they are individual people...but they are individual people WHO LOOK THE SAME!  It's neat!

I brought Luke & Alexa along for the photo shoot and had some group shots taken.  Alexa was such a poser!  Luke loves his manhood.  There are several pictures that he is just making sure his package is still in tact.

I love these kiddos.  I am so glad I have these pictures to love on when I get old and wrinkly.