more summer fun

Bryce is enjoying the fun activities that summer has to offer! We took Bryce to Burkwood on Friday to swim with Chase. We were lucky to get in a few minutes of fun in the sun before the rain and storms came.

The baby pool was the perfect place for Bryce to play. It was just deep enough that I could sit in the water and hold him at the right height for him to enjoy the water. As you can see, he enjoyed relaxing with us. Sadly, last Friday was Jason's last 4 day work week. He is back in the office, but.........now he gets home at 4:30 instead of 6:00. I can live with it!

6 year anniversary

Jason and I are celebrating 6 years of marriage today! It is so hard to believe how quickly time goes by. It seems like just yesterday we were on our honeymoon in the Bahamas. And just last year we were celebrating 5 years in Bermuda. For those of you who know us well, you know our story. But for those of you who don't know us, here is our history. Jason and I met in World Geography during our freshman year of high school (we were fourteen). We continued to date all through high school and during our college years. We got engaged during our freshman year of college (we were eighteen). We got married once we both turned twenty-one and well, the rest is history.

Here we are on our wedding day. Look how young we were.

I just loved my wedding dress. I saw it in a magazine and knew I had to have it. I went and tried it on at a local bridal shop in Richmond. Even though the dress was a size 14, they were able to adjust it well enough that I knew I loved the dress just as much on as I did in the magazine. (I wanted to post these last week on Kelly's, show us your life - wedding dresses, but I wanted to wait until our actual anniversary to do this post).

I was hoping that you would be able to see how the dress laced up in the back, but it's hard to see in this picture. It's amazing that our wedding was only 6 years ago and we don't have any digital photos. I was able to scan a few pictures that I found (the date on them is a day off).

Here I am with my girls

Jason with the guys (our ring bearer, Carter, was missing from this photo)

photography for dummies

What kind of camera are you using?? We have 2 cameras.........a small one (Canon Power Shot SD750) that I keep in the diaper bag so I will always have it handy to catch a priceless moment of Bryce, and a big SLR (Canon Rebel XSI) to take professional pictures of Bryce so we don't have to take Bryce anywhere for pictures. Only problem.................we have no idea how to take good pictures with the SLR.

Above, is our small point and shoot camera that I take with me everywhere. It is very easy to use, it only has a few settings, and I feel like it takes decent pictures for the kind of camera that it is.

Above, is the digital SLR camera we bought to take pictures of Bryce. It looks fancy, but we can't seem to take fancy pictures with it. I get too overwhelmed when I try to take pictures. I feel like for as much as we paid for it, it should take fabulous pictures every time. Unfortunately, neither of us have ever taken photography classes so our camera doesn't take outstanding pictures every time. HA! My brain turns to mush when I hear aperture (fstop?), ISO, white balance, histogram...........and the list goes on I'm sure. We even bought a book to teach us about the camera, but it is way over my head. I'm just confused!! Do you know anyone who can teach us how to use it?

future duck caller

Bryce is already making his daddy proud! I think this is what Jason dreams about at night. HA!

I guess it's never too early to start practicing your duck call.

This is the only duck Bryce will be calling for a while!

His daddy will have to teach him how to eat duck. I'm not sure the feet would really be all that tasty!

happy birthday to me

I just love coconut! I know tons of people don't like coconut, but I just can't get enough. On the 4th of July, Jason bought a bag of coconut M&Ms at 7-Eleven. They were so delicious and I'm pretty sure the best thing since sliced bread. HA! Well, we have been searching for them ever since, with no luck. I did a little research and found out they were only limited edition, would be out in August, and they were small bags. So maybe the bag we got in July was an early shipment for a test market. Who knows...........but, to make a long story short, I was at Kroger today and they had BIG bags. So being that today is my birthday, I could of done what any girl would do and buy jewelry, clothes, shoes, and get a mani/pedi, but I decided I would rather have 10 (yes, that's right, TEN) bags of M&M's for my birthday!

On a side note, thanks to all my blog friends and facebook friends for all the birthday wishes! And thanks to my wonderful hubby for the hot pinkish roses and new pandora charms. Love them!

MckLinky Blog Hop - Favorite Kid Photo

I decided to play along in the blog hop again this week. This week the theme is favorite kid photo. Just so happens that I have a kid and a favorite photo! Well I have a ton of favorite photos, but I just love this one.

I was so excited when Bryce started rolling over and could hold his head up. I looked forward to taking pictures like this one. Isn't he a cuite?!?

play time

Bryce has started to enjoy spending more time in his exersaucer and he can even turn himself all the way around and play with all the toys! I am very entertained when I watch him play.

Look at his tongue! It obviously takes a lot of concentration to play. His daddy does the same thing when he is working hard.

When you hit the buttons, the toy says the animal of the picture you hit (in English). When you hit it a second time it says the animal in Spanish. The third time you hit it you get the noise the animal makes and then the fourth time it plays music. Unfortunately we never get to hear the music because Bryce bangs the buttons so fast that the music never has a chance to play before it says what the animal is again. And we only get to hear the cow and the lion and sometimes the duck. The cat and dog are on the back and he can't reach them yet!

It totally looks like he is saying, "What in the heck is that strange puppet doing staring at me!" He looks a little freaked out by it.

He can't quite make the balls move over from one side to the other yet!

I just love his chubby little legs dangling from the seat since they aren't long enough to touch the bottom yet.

Macy enjoys play time too. She sat right beside Bryce on the floor and squeaked her toy and I threw it to her every now and then.

*Did you notice the color variation in almost every picture?? I am desperately trying to figure out how to take a "good" picture with our fancy camera! Hopefully I will have it figured out before Bryce goes to kindergarten. HA!

Giveaway

My good friend, Beth , is hosting a giveaway on her blog. Check it out for your chance to win! She is giving away a stamp from Sweet Papery.


The Carson stamp is my favorite. I hope I win!

Mmm Mmm.....

We introduced Bryce to the world of real food last night. Well rice cereal, but you have to start somewhere, right?! Bryce has been on a pretty regular feeding schedule for a while. Tonight was kind of off so we decided to wait until close to bedtime to try the rice cereal.

Here he is waiting patiently for his first meal in his Bumbo high chair. He sees it coming, but has no clue, hehe.

Taking his first bite

Testing it out

Coming back for more

Yummy....look at that face! That's how you know it's good!

He catches on quick

I think he really likes it

And he's had enough

All in all, I think Bryce had about 5 very small spoons of cereal. I think it was pretty successful. He would eat it right off the spoon and play around with it in his mouth and get fussy for more. Maybe once we can get a little more in him, he might start getting a better night sleep!

5 months

Bryce man is already 5 months old and he is getting SO big! He didn't gain as much weight as we thought he would when we went in at 4 months, but I'm pretty sure he has caught back up to his average 2 pound a month weight gain, if not more. HA!

I'm all about taking a million pictures in order to get one perfect picture for the blog. In my mind, the picture above is not the perfect picture to capture what I think Bryce looks like, but it is the perfect picture to capture the rolls and jowls that he has gained since last month!

Here is an update as to what Bryce is up to these days:

• He is still wearing size 2 diapers
• He is wearing 3-6 months clothes
• He likes waking up A LOT during the night (he didn't use to do this), but a pacifier will put him right back to sleep
• He takes a 2 hour nap everyday and sometimes more!

• He can roll over to his right side to his belly and back to his back
• He LOVES talking to his daddy
• He laughs when we tickle his neck
• His eyes are hazel (we think)