Aubrey's in Charge

Aubrey watched the three younger kids for me the other day for several hours. I told all of them that Aubrey is in charge and that they needed to do whatever she tells them and that I didn't want any phone calls from her that started with these words: "Connor's doing this..." or "Ronin's doing that...", etc, etc (you all know what I'm talking about.) As an added incentive, I also told them that if I didn't get a phone call that they would get an extra thirty minutes of video game time when I got home. Not only that but both Connor and Ronin had a list of jobs on the refrigerator to get done before any playtime. As for Aubrey, I told her that she ought to give them a few warnings before she called.

Well, off I went and after awhile I started to wonder how the kids were doing because I hadn't gotten any phone calls (which is most unusual.) I called home and Aubrey said everything was going well.

Ok....great. After several hours I came home and the boys were just bursting at the seams because they had been very good and I didn't get a phone call from Aubrey. Not only that but the house was spick and span clean. Wow! I was very impressed. Sure enough, I kept my word and let them have an extra 30 minutes.

However, I noticed this when I walked in the kitchen....

Can we say "close call?"

I thought this was a clever idea that Aubrey came up with - it made it very apparent to the boys how many warnings they would get before "the phone call" and where they were at throughout the course of the day. Maybe next time I'll tell her to take it down to 1 warning and see how well they do.

Family Portraits 2009

It's been 3 years since our last family portraits, so we finally got them done again this last week. Jed's photographer friend, Stan, was kind enough to take the pictures for us even though he doesn't really do family photo sessions. Can I just say after it was all said and done...it's no wonder why we wait so long to get them done. After about the first 15 minutes I was ready to call it quits. Connor and Ronin were constantly trying to outdo each other in silly poses and crazy faces while Rigdon just did his own thing - throwing rocks, constantly running out of the shots, and getting mad when anyone tried to make him stay put. Of course Aubrey was very good and easy to photograph. Thank goodness out of 287 pictures taken we did manage to get a few that were really good. Stan has not yet done any photo editing on them because he waiting for me to tell him which ones we want. So you get to see the raw, unedited shots with a bit of photo shopping by me.

You can see a larger version by clicking on the photo, although there are a few that won't do it for some reason.

The first few photos were taken in back of one of the really old, original buildings. (Carl and Sadie's family photo was the inspiration behind this one.) Due to Stan's schedule we had to do the photo shoot in the afternoon when it was really bright so we had to deal with strong highlights and shadows. But I still really like how they turned out.

The Kids.

This photo is out of order but I couln't get it to move.

One of the very few family shots where Rigdon would actually look at the camera and stand long enough for the picture to be taken.
A cropped view of Rigdon laughing at Connor's funny faces.

Our little girl is growing up...she is very quickly turning into a beautiful, young woman.

Rigdon having fun throwing rocks while I'm trying to tell the other kids to look at the camera, not at Rigdon.

This was a very typical photo of the kids...Rigdon running off while everyone else is laughing.


This was the best one we could get with just the kids in this background....(sigh.) At this point I didn't care too much.

Jed and Mindy.

Yay! A happy face!

Nothing like swinging to put a 1 year old in a good mood.

Ronin.

I love Ronin's laugh, he makes everyone smile.

Mindy and Rigdon.
Rigdon is such a joy to have....I love the toddler stage.

Now it was time to let loose and just let the kids have fun.

Connor.

Aubrey & Ronin.

Well there are tons more pictures but I think this will do for now. Perhaps I'll do a separate post with some of the silly photos...there are certainly plenty of them. That will have to be for another time.

Stan, thank you for the beautiful and fun pictures! (And also for putting up with all of us.)