Happy belated birthday to me

So my birthday was last Tuesday.....kind of a quiet day. At my age, you kind of hope your birthday just slips by without anyone noticing. For the record, I'd like to freeze my age right here. I kind of like being in my 30's. A lot more confident than I was in my 20's and I feel like I've kind of come into my own over the past few years. Kind of a nice place to be if you ask me. Plus, I'd like to freeze time now because I don't want my kiddos to get any older. It scares me how fast time is flying. In the blink of an eye, they aren't babies anymore and I'm almost in my mid-30's. How did that happen?!

Field of flowers

So a friend tipped me off to this patch of sun flowers last summer. By the time I got my act together to get the kids out there, the sunflowers were well past their peak. I totally forgot about them this year until I happened to need to go to my friends house to pick something up. On the way home from her house, I drove past the patch for the first time in months. Low and behold, the sunflowers were back! They were *almost* past their peak again, but I managed to get my stuff together and convince C to get out there and pose for me. When I got home that evening, I was a little bummed because most of the shots were slightly out of focus. See, I guess I was a little nervous about trespassing and being on the side of a busy road, that I quickly took some shots and didn't really watch what I was doing. I loved the way they turned out, but it wasn't exactly what I had in mind (ps-that's another 30 year old dress).

A week later, I decided to take C back out and try again. She was a little resistant at first (i.e. she was holding out until I promised lollipops and various other candies) but finally agreed. When we went back, the sunflowers were not looking as good, but I got what I wanted. Mental note for next year, think about this towards the end of July when the flowers are at their best. These pictures were taken two nights ago and I'm sure if I drove by the patch today, the sunflowers would be wilted over and not worth photographing.

This makes me smile

I just love this little kid :)

Call it mommy goggles, but he's just so stinkin' cute and he makes me smile.

Look who

can tie their shoe! Miss C finally figured out how to tie her shoe this week! We were getting hung up on how to make it work after doing the "bunny ears". For some reason, her little fingers just couldn't get those bunny ears to work right. We'll after trying and trying and trying this past week, she finally figured it out (I told her to cross the bunny ears and make a mickey mouse face--so the hole would be big enough to put the ears though. Sounds hokey, but it worked). She even tied her own shoes this morning as she was getting ready for camp (I of course had to double knot them). Who is this big girl?! I mean, first no training wheels, then swimming on her own, and now tying her own shoes. Next thing I know she'll be off to college :)

Lot's of stuff going on around here between swimming lessons, daily dance recitals, camps, etc. I'll try to get it all blogged soon. For now, the shoe tying pics. She wouldn't let me take video of it, so this is all I got.