My little birds...

This was taken from "my nest" in our kitchen. I really feel like I spend 75% of my day standing in the same spot feeding Carter and Claire. What can I say... they (well... really Claire) like to eat. That's been a big reason for my absence from the blog... that and 4 teenagers and 2rphoto. The photo business has been such a recharging part of life for me right now. It's been so great to have this tiny avenue amidst the craziness of life to chase my dreams. I'm so thankful for an amazing husband who makes sure I have the time to make these dreams a reality. More updates coming soon!

The scoot...

So... I've been freaking out a tiny bit that Claire is not crawling yet. Not only is she not crawling... she's refusing to be on her belly at all. She seriously can't stand it. We see the pediatrician tomorrow for her 9 month appointment... so I'm kind of anxious to find out if we should be doing anything differently. On the plus side... she has figured out how to move without using her hands and without being on her belly. I've read a couple different places that the fact she is figuring out how to move is what's important... even if it's not crawling. Here she is (along with her crazy brother :))...

A little Reeve photo shoot...

For the longest time I've been trying to come up with a place indoors to do photo shoots during the winter. For the most part... my sessions have been scheduled on days where it worked great to be outside... but there have been those few days where it's just been way too cold. Since I try to only use natural light (although I've decided to buy a flash so I have the possibility of shooting events at night)... I've needed a place that is not only warm... but also has great light. After a year of trying to come up with a place... I've finally found it... and it's only like 10 feet from my desk. I am seriously so SLOW sometimes! Our dining room faces the perfect direction... and the house next door is like a built in reflector! Geez! The light is AMAZING! A couple days ago I decided to use the kids as models... and mess around with some different backdrop options. There are some things I don't love about the pictures that I'll need to do differently next time... but I still couldn't resist sharing these!! Carter wasn't quite as into it as Claire (who can't move :))... so I didn't get as many of him.

This one really makes me laugh... Claire is almost as big as Carter!!

My mom made the quilt in this one...

The black background was my favorite... of course I only got one good shot of them in front of it. I won't be using the white again.

Getting there...

I've posted twice in one week now... we're starting to get back in our flow... hopefully! :)

Today marked a huge milestone in our house... Carter finally moved out of his car seat and into a booster. It was a decision that I thought about for months! I would have left him in his car seat for a lot longer... but Claire grew out of two different car-seats and we needed to figure out something else for her. The poor girl was starting to cry when we would buckle her up. So... she's in his old car seat. I remember when we first put Carter in that seat at 6 months! It goes by so fast! Claire also grew out of her winter hat a lot faster than I thought she would. The girl knows how to eat! I asked a friend (who is an incredible knitter) if she would make Claire a new hat. Carter has had the same knit hat since he was about Claire's age. I wanted her to have something unique that she could wear for a long time as well. This is what my friend dropped off tonight (do you see the owls?). Amazing!!!!

I also had to include this picture... Carter with his sweet friend Manna earlier today. I love that I have pictures of these two next to each other in infant car seats!

Still here...

Wow... the last three weeks have really flown by! We had a great Christmas and New Years! The awesome thing about our two weeks off was that it really felt so much longer than two weeks! Hopefully I'll get around to updating what's been going on around here soon. We have 4 boys in the house now (3 of them are seniors). We're going to focus these next months on soaking up our time with these guys before they graduate. I can't believe we'll have three graduating at the same time again!!!

Wanted to at least get one updated picture posted! Here are Carter and Claire right before our Christmas Eve service at church. So fun to have a little girl to dress up!

It's that wonderful time of the year...

It's been a rough couple of months. We love our boys and we love living here... but lately it's been... well... rough. We have been counting down the days to Christmas break for weeks (all the guys will be spending time with family and friends until January 2nd). We're just a LITTLE bit excited. Probably the biggest thing I'm looking forward to is having the freedom to leave the house whenever we want (and only having to pick up after 2 kids instead of 6). We are so thankful for these times of getting to recharge and prepare for the next semester. I know we will look forward to the guys checking back in... especially looking back at this video from last week of Ty're coaching Carter on how to do flips on the couch...

Salt

I know it's not officially winter yet... but the entryway to our house sure looks like it is. Growing up in the part of Northern California that I did... I don't think I ever fully understood what cold was. I also did not understand salt outside of baking and seasoning. After almost 8 years in the midwest... I understand. During this time of the year... we have a daily battle with the white stuff. I am SO thankful that we don't have to worry about anyone falling on our front walk... but with at least 7 pairs (usually more) of shoes constantly in and out of the house it is a losing battle. I have a rug and blanket at the front door where everyone takes off their shoes... but it doesn't matter. Salt is everywhere... and it drives me CRAZY. Thankfully the floors were cleaned tonight (not that it will last long :)).

Dealing with the mess on our floors makes me glad this sweet girl isn't crawling yet. Here she is with two of her favorite guys yesterday...

One of the reasons I really love that picture is because it reminds me of this post from almost three years ago with Jude's older sister.

And... continuing with the winter theme... here is a picture of our living room. Pay close attention to the bottom, left side of the tree and to the cranberry topiary above the fireplace. The tree was decorated by Carter... and Carter only... and the topiary was my attempt at some creativity this year. BAD idea! One of our boys jokingly said that it took me like two weeks to make. It really didn't... but it sure felt like it... and the cranberries have already gone bad! Oh well... maybe next year I can try something with salt. :)

Ending on a good note...

It was a crummy roller coaster of a week. I actually wrote an entire post this morning that I could not bring myself to publish. Let's just say we are SO thankful Joe's Place exists for the kids in this school district!

Moving on... about a month ago we transitioned to a cash budget... which has made us drastically cut back on eating out... one of our favorite things to do (it's actually been a lot easier than we thought). Since it was such a rough week... we decided a visit to our favorite restaurant (Schlafly Bottleworks) was in order tonight. Those folks make us feel so loved! Carter always ends up with his favorite juice (fixed just for him by one of the awesome bartenders) filled to the top with cherries. And sometimes they even deliver a special fruit face on a plate to the table for him. It's just so nice to feel known when you walk into a place. So... after an awesome dinner there... and then spending some time in front of the fire with a sweet chubby baby... you can't help but feel a little better. :)

Staying at home...

When you have a baby and a 4 year old and it's like 10 degrees outside... there's really not any point in going anywhere if you don't have to. That is really hard for me... but today that's what we did. Actually that's what we've been doing a lot lately. I really don't even bother getting Carter dressed MWF... because he doesn't have school. I am so thankful that I get the chance to be home all day with my kids (although there are days I want to run screaming out the front door as soon as Dan gets home :)). I know there's a lot of parents that don't get to. Anyway... I figured I would put up a few pictures from our day at home...

And then there was one...

It was a sad day in the Reeve family yesterday. On Sunday Dan dropped his not so trusty truck off at our mechanic to have a few problems checked out. On Monday our mechanic called and said... "Not even a doctor can save her." We were more than a little shocked. We had the glass replaced in two different windows last week... and were planning to have her cleaned up since we've been needing a 2nd vehicle more lately (the truck is usually just parked in back of our house). So... we are back to being a one vehicle family. I always say we really could live without any vehicles... I just wouldn't want to (we are a block from Dan's work, 3 blocks from Carter's school, 6 blocks from church and just a few blocks from two different grocery stores). I've really had a love/hate relationship with that truck... but we do have some great memories with it. Just to name a few... it drove Dan down into the city for his first teaching job (where he had to walk through metal detectors to even get into the school building), Fred took his driving test in that truck and Carter spent hours sitting in the cab pretending he was driving. We had to go drop the title off with our mechanic yesterday and clean some stuff out of it... so we let Carter take a few minutes to say goodbye. He was trying so hard not to cry. We took him for a chocolate milkshake after we left the shop. Here's our goodbye picture (taken with my cell phone). We'll miss you old, dirty, white truck!

She may not be able to roll over...

But she can jump! :) I'm not a huge fan of video on the blog. I would usually rather put pictures up... but when you live so far from EVERYONE in your family... I figured a little video can be nice at times. :) Claire has been hilarious lately in the Johnny Jump Up. It's funny because she's not a big fan of trying to move once you put her on the floor... so it's nice to see her actually try to get somewhere. She tries to jump as far out from the door frame as possible and then finally gives up and swings back... it's pretty cute!

She goes nuts in the exersaucer too... but of course wouldn't do it once I had the camera out this morning. She just had lots of smiles (and a few coughs :))! Still kind of figuring out the video function on my camera... that's why she keeps jumping out of the frame.

Thanksgiving Week

We had an incredible Thanksgiving break. We missed being with family... but we did not miss the traveling. We actually stayed in our pajamas until 3pm on Thanksgiving day... it was great! Skype has made holidays so much easier since we've lived out here. It's so nice to chat face to face.

So... here's a little picture recap of our week...

Headed to gym with Daddy for an end of the school day basketball game...

With Ty before the high school team started practice. Just to show how awesome Ty is... the ENTIRE high school basketball team was standing right behind me while Ty played a little game with Carter.

Claire on her 7 month birthday. Totally forgot to do a picture earlier in the day! I don't have a flash on my camera... so I wore a head lamp. That's why the color is a little funny.

Ty with his uniform before his first basketball tournament of the season.

Our three oldest boys on Thanksgiving eve. They came for dinner and ended up staying for five hours hanging out, laughing, looking at pictures and talking about favorite memories from their time here. Really wish we could see these 3 more!

Our first "snow" of the season on Thanksgiving day!!

Our low key, but very delicious, Thanksgiving meal.

On Sunday... Dan, Carter and Ty went and got our tree.

Carter has spent the last 4 days decorating our entire tree by himself! I'll have to post pictures of that later. Some parts of the tree have a ton more ornaments than others... it's pretty awesome!

Such a relaxing week. Can't wait for Christmas! :)