"The tank"

My darling Elizabeth LOVES food. Which is great when it's meal time. I never have to worry whether or not she will eat what I make, 99% of the time she will we call her "the tank." Abigail was always more of a picky eater and still is just today I made peanut butter, raspberry jam and banana pin wheels for lunch but since it was not in a sandwich form there was a huge struggle at the lunch table today, lol. Oh toddlers! It ended in empty tummy till dinner time. It may sound harsh to let my child go with an empty tummy for a few hours but to me it is a lesson well worth teaching her. There are thousands of children that go hungry for days and we are absolutely spoiled and privileged that we get to open our fridge and eat whenever and whatever we want. My rule is if it is something that is completely different they have to try it, if they try it and don't like it then I'll make something else but she loves peanut butter, jam and bananas so empty tummy for a few hours. By the time dinner was ready and served she ate the whole thing!
This post was suposed to be about Elizabeth, lol. She had a chance to hold her first ice cream cone the other day and I was thankful I had my camera on me because her face was the best!

My little cowgirl

I've been holding onto these photos for weeks! I didn't want to share them until at least a week before her birthday. On March 5th my baby who isn't really a baby anymore will be turning 3. Three! I cannot believe it. She is a spunky little one and loves her Toy Story as you can guess from "Adventures with Jesse." This Sunday we are having a Toy Story themed birthday for her and for some reason it always ends up being an adult party more than a kids one, meaning there are way more adults than children. Maybe it's a little blessing in disguise for me in terms of craziness and clean up but I feel bad for Abigail. I'm sure she doesn't care as most of us are her best friends anyway as she says.
ROPE EM UP COWGIRL!

Don't judge a book by it's cover

Once again a Friday has graced us with it's presence. One our favorite things to do as a family is head to our local library. My oldest Abigail loves to read and Elizabeth is just starting to get into it but has a hard time sitting for story time. We love our local library and love the staff there! They know us all by name and frequently ask us how everything is going and about the new baby on it's way when they see us. Did you know that you can take out new releases at your local library?! This has saved us a ton of money. Some times you have to put a request in but it is worth the wait for us. Jesse had a blast looking at books and chilling in the library with Abigail today. Happy Adventures with Jesse day and happy Friday I hope your weekend is filled with family, friends and laughter!

Blessings,
Shannon

Manual mode

I am in week 3 of a photography course that I am taking. This course is geared towards learning how to use your camera in full manual mode meaning I choose all of my settings, ISO, shutter speed, aperture and white balance. Tonight I was playing around with my camera and practicing so I thought I would share.

My darling

Today the sun is shinning and I could not be more grateful for it! I even opened the sliding door a little bit to get some fresh air circulating, ahh the best! I am looking more and more forward to the summer. For one the weather but for two we will have baby #3 with us and I'll be on the road to getting back to normal once again. I have been feeling like a big ugly whale this past month and can not wait to start running again.

Here are just a few shots of my darling second child, Elizabeth. She has grown extremely fast and is so unique. I love how each and everyone of us is different. I love looking at my oldest and watching her interests then seeing the difference in Elizabeth's interests. Abigail loves to sit read, do puzzles and has a hard time with independent play but is getting a little better at it. Elizabeth can not be bothered to sit and occupy herself in those ways. She likes to explore get into a ton of things and has no problem going into her room and start playing on her own. She likes to stack things and see how things work. It just always blows my mind how different we all are.

Anyways if the sun is shinning where you are I hope you have a glorious day and if it isn't I hope you too regardless have a glorious day!

Blessings,
Shannon

Adventures with Jesse

Welcome to another Adventure with Jessie. I hope you are enjoying seeing what this cowgirl has been up too as much as I have been enjoying finding creative ways to incorporate her into our outings!
The sun came out today YAY! I have been feeling pretty cabin feverish these past few weeks and I was excited when my husband said, "Let's go for a walk." I have not been on a walk with my husband and the girls since last summer it feels like. We enjoyed ourselves checking out the local park we live by now. Abigail and Jessie did some rock climbing and jumping!

enjoying the view.

Happy Friday everyone!

Love is in the air

How was every one's Valentines Day? I hope everyone had a great day even if they didn't have a special someone to share it with.
This year I was totally into it. My daughter is almost 3 now so it is a lot of fun making goodies for other people and getting her to hand them out. She loves it as well. I filled a basket full of rice krispy hearts dipped in chocolate for her church friends and stapled non-other than some Toy Story Valentines to the bags. Abigail helped with the cards, she put heart stickers on them and some what wrote her name.
For my husband and I we agreed that I was in charge of the morning and he would be in charge of the night. I had this amazing plan all ready to go. Do you remember those "Choose your own Adventure" books? Well on pinterest I found that a few wives rallied together and made a "Choose your own Adventure" date night for their hubby's. I modified it to suit just Jon and I and was totally excited for it. He had to chose which path to take the night before so I taped it to the bathroom mirror and left some cookies for him for when he got home from work. One path had us starting off waking up to watch the sunrise and the other had us starting off by him sleeping in. He chose the sunrise. Now I had looked at the weather network all week and it started off saying sun then came to a gloomy end of rain but I was hopeful still! However I woke to pouring rain and a little crushed but not broken yet for my plan to go through. I had a plan B! Then my daughter wakes up and her eye is red and green gunk all around it, pink eye! UGH! haha. Well to summarize we had to go to the clinic only to find out it was a cold in her eye and by the time we were done all of that the day was over. boooo. I saved everything so the next time sun is in the forecast and we do not have anything going on that morning he'll get his adventure!

Blessings,
Shannon

Oh the memories!

I haven't been able to get out much this week and shoot which has been a major bummer. If you know anyone who is looking to get some photos done, maternity, engagement, family, birth let me know i'm itching to do another shoot!
I was just glancing through all my photos tonight and came across some old ones. All three brought up such great memories and that is exactly one of the reasons why I love taking photos. To be able to capture those moments that brought me joy or inspired me and look back and remember, words just can not explain!
The first one is of my mom and second daughter Elizabeth. She was probaly about 2 months old here. I love this picture because my mom looks absoutely stunning and Lizz is pretty darn cute too. The other two bring amazing memories of last summer to my mind. It was the best summer I've had in years. We did nothing special but that was the best thing about it. We would just open our back door and play in the back yard, eat our lunches and dinners outside, the best!
Well readers, Valentines Day is fast approching and boy do I have something fun planned for my hubby but you'll have to wait and see until I post some pictures!

Food glorious Food!

I can not believe it is Friday already. This week has just flown by for me. We didn't get up to much this week but the one thing that we all were in desperate need of even, our pal Jesse was FOOD! We hadn't been able to get grocery shopping till today and boy were we ever thankful when we got home! Jesse couldn't contain herself!

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!

Stumbling on a memory while the sun paints the sky

This morning was such a beautiful sunrise that I had to capture it. I didn't think that I would have time to seeing how my husband had to work this morning but I could not take my eyes off the sky as it slowly started painting the earth. My husband said "just go already." I quickly hustled out the door and headed just down the road. I ended up having to jump a ditch slightly and slipped, whops, but it was worth it. I even ended up at a favorite spot that I took a family photo 3 years ago!