Catching up with the Joneses

So much for keeping up, let's just try catching up! Here are some shots from a June (yes, as in 5 months ago!) shoot that I did with my sister's kids and mine at Loyola College in Baltimore. The Jones Cousins from left to right: Colin, 1 3/4; Ellen, 4 1/2; Caroline, 3 3/4; Ben, 6.

My favorite...I think...

Colin - my most photogenic subject EVER. It is absolutely impossible to take a bad picture of this kid...weeeeeeell, except for the day of his 2nd b-day shoot when he was just generally Miserable. But we'll save that tale for another post. :)

My Boy. I already miss that missing front tooth! Now, five months later, it's most of the way in...sigh...

How come I am such a professional at getting pictures of Miss Ellen with the rims of her glasses going right through her eyes? Grrr.... Still cute, though, nonetheless. :)

And Miss Caroline. She is my most challenging subject to date, yet I love her to pieces. She's an absolute sweetheart, but she has the "tries WAY too hard in the facial expressions" category locked up. Let me tell ya! This one is quite a gem, though.

And this one...kinda cool, I think. Not sure what I would do with it, though...

We all did a lot of waiting for "Mr. 1 and 3/4," as you can imagine. I posted this next picture just for Sarah. She always says that Caroline would let Ben and Ellie get away with murder, because she idolizes them. This shot just makes me laugh. B & E are obviously looking over toward wherever Colin is trying to escape, and poor Caroline looks rather uncomfortable. Yet never a sound was uttered - after all, it was Ben and Ellie! :)

As we were all hiking across campus back to the vans, the girls were stopped in their tracks when they realized that there was a wedding ceremony concluding in the church! We seriously could have left them standing right there and they would have never known we were gone!

Cupcake

This is Emma. Don't you just love those big brown eyes?!?


She has been my most faithful model (aside from my own kids :) since she was born last August. She has let me practice my photography skills on her time and time again. This past August (yes, as in THREE months ago!), her mommy and I got together for Emma's 1st Birthday photos.

These are the shots I captured as she explored her very first cupcake EVER.

After a timid start, Emma very quickly discovered just how tasty cupcakes are. Just look how hard she is shoving it into her mouth, below! She had her mommy and me in stitches!

Time out to savor...

My favorite from the shoot...

An unexpected gem captured while Mommy was wiping her down from her cupcake shoot... So Sweet! Happy 15 months, Emma! :)

I'm Back on My Game!

I'm finally ending my latest "dry spell." I posted here last night and on Pennlive this evening! Stop by, read, become a follower. :)

From Baltimore to Berlin!

My Aunt Mary and Uncle John have seven children ranging in Life from "married for almost 4 years" to "just finishing fifth grade." They asked me to drive down and take pictures of the whole crew a few weeks ago in advance of their oldest son and his wife's move to Berlin, Germany. By some miracle, I was actually completely free on the day that everyone would be home, and we had ourselves a grand old time taking LOTS of pictures.

I think this is my absolute favorite of the entire family. I just love all of the interaction and personality that was captured.

Here are the Trueschler Men...

...and the sisters...

...and the Proud Parents.

Best wishes, Brian and Joella, on your move to Berlin in just two weeks!!!! We will all miss you greatly.

Emma & Izzy

I somehow missed out on posting pictures from my shoot with Emma just before Easter! Mommy and Daddy asked me to take some more pictures of her...now that she's a good 7 months older than the last time! She brought along her 3-year-old cousin, Izzy, so we could get a few shots of the cousins together for their grandparents, too.

Love her BIG eyes and pouty lip. Too cute!

Ah, yes. Three-year-olds...I asked him to hold ONE egg, and he found FOUR that he absolutely couldn't part with! Obviously the subject know best, though. :)

Two of my most favorite Emma expressions... Everyone has cute pics of their kid smiling, but what about making their trademark expressions? Emma is QUITE the lip-sucker!!!!

Then came the introduction of the lollipop. My plan was to keep Izzy occupied so I could position him next to Emma. What I failed to factor in was the intense interest that such a colorful pop would garner from one particular 7 month-old! Check out the next series of pics; they make me chuckle even now.







Aaaaand this one absolutely cracks. me. up! Emma, back to her lip-sucking, looks as if she is about to either burst into tears or beat the snot out of Izzy and steal his lollipop!!!!

Sorry it took me so long to post these! Perhaps I should go back through my files and check for more fun stuff to share...

Happy Mother's Day!

Come check out what my cuties made for me for Mother's Day! :) Click to access my pennlive blog. Being Becky

Easter Day...a month later!

I know I left my Easter post hanging, so here's the rest of the holiday in pictures.

Easter morning, the kids were thrilled to see that the Easter Bunny had brought them each a new bike helmet as well as baskets full of candy. He hid plastic eggs and some real eggs for them to find. He also had given them each a bunch of dry erase markers, thinking that they are now old enough for such "art" supplies. AND the Bunny apparently used those markers to leave the kids a message on their dry erase board thanking them for the snacks they had left him. :)

Now, weeks later, I can say that the Easter Bunny was WAY off. Those darn dry erase markers STAIN! I mean, seriously stain. WHAT was that Bunny thinking?!?!?

After the egg hunt and testing out at least one of each type of candy, we headed for Mass and then to Gram and Poppy's house. I just love this outtake of the girls together! These two sweet little things in their gorgeous Easter clothes...with hideous looks on their faces! Just makes me laugh!

They were waiting for someone to con Colin, my 20-month-old nephew, into a good mood. He wanted no parts of me and my camera that day! Alas there are NO pics of all four grandchildren in their Easter finery... sigh...

Finally, after waiting for a while and with no "Happy Colin" in sight, even my "loyal subjects" (ha!) escaped!!!

I was able to wrangle Master Benjamin back over to get some pictures of him with his sport coat. This is one of my favorites of him. Notice the new watch? Thanks, Easter Bunny. :)

And then I did THIS to myself. I told Ben to give me his "Mr. Cool" look. And THIS is what I got. Yeah... Not quite what I was going for, but very "6-year-old Boy," don't ya think?

This next one of Ellie is one of my all-time favorites. :)

This was as decent of a shot as Colin would allow me to have that day... What a hip little cutie pie in his pink shirt and striped pants.

I have a handful of pictures very similar to this one of my sister's kids. We had to bribe each of them with some interesting toy to hold, but by this point we simply wanted a shot to catalog the holiday, what they looked like, and what they wore. We were SO past trying to get a cute shot of them!!!! :) I think this one is a cool shot of Caroline's hair, though. WHO does that with a three-year-old's hair?!? Oh, right. My sister. :) She makes fancy look so "easy." :)

I just had to include this lovely shot of Caroline's swinging form. Cracks me up... I don't know how she stays on!

Ben took ALL of his tee ball and lacrosse equipment with him just in case there was a chance to play. Not bad form, eh?

Colin had to get in on the action, too, of course!

Notice Colin's keeper, a.k.a. Poppy, is wearing Colin's hat? And Ben's apparently tossing the tee ball and getting ready to hit the lacrosse ball that Colin left on the tee. Too funny!

What a fun weekend we had from beginning to end! Thank goodness the boys were both home from school again on Monday! We needed the day to recuperate and get back into the school frame of mind!

Cherish the Little Things

Check see what Ellie was up to today on my Pennlive blog!

Easter Eve

On the day before Easter, we packed A LOT of action into a mere 12 or 13 hours! The day began with Ben's tee ball practice.

We came home and knocked out some yard work. Jim and I moved a bunch of trimmed branches to the front curb in preparation for the township brush pick-up on Monday. As we made our final trip through the side yard, we were scared out of our minds by a momma duck flying off of her nest...that is nestled in between a shrub and our gas tank!!!! Can you see the nest and eggs below? I drew an arrow. :) The kids are super excited about the 12 eggs, and I'm sure we'll continue to keep a close watch over them. We have already come up with 12 names in birth order. We'll let you know when they hatch... Momma's still there, as of the evening of Friday, 4/24.

Then, while the kids and I headed in for lunch, Jim mowed the lawn. As he started on the back yard, he yelled to us to come see what other "wildlife" he had discovered! This little guy almost got a very close shave! :)

After the mowing was finished, the kids headed back outside for the "Summer Festibal" that Ellie had been planning for days. Even though it was quite warm, I wasn't too sure they'd last in the sprinkler. Well, I was wrong! They ran around in the yard, chasing each other through the water for a long while! Notice Ellie's goggles? Everyone needs goggles when running through a sprinkler, right? :) Ben was upset that he couldn't find his. I did eventually uncover them, but apparently I took too long. When I took them out to him, he had Ellie's Cinderella ones on, instead. :)

Ellie was SO excited about going to Nana and Pop-Pop's for our Weaver Family Easter Dinner that she couldn't stand herself! While the boys played Wii for a bit after the "Summer Festibal," I sat with her in the dining room and painted my nails (I know! Can you believe it?!?!) while she drew this picture for Nana and Pop-Pop. She was quite proud of her work, and rightfully so! Too cute!

Leave it to me to throw in a detour on the way to an exciting family event! I couldn't help myself, though. The kids were so adorable in their Easter finery that I just had to get some good pics of them! We took the long way to Nana and Pop-Pop's and swung by Messiah College for a super fast 10-15 minutes of photos. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Ben's serious face???

"C'mon, Ben. Give me a smile!" Yeah...Stacy, this one's for you! I think Ben and Eli are kindred spirits! :)

Walking back to the van. So sweet!

At Nana and Pop-Pop's we went outside for an egg hunt. What incredible weather we had for Easter weekend!!!!! Here are the three Weaver granddaughters. Corey, 7 1/2; Ellie, 4; Lily almost 2. Lily is wearing the dress that both of the older girls wore around the same age.

This next one of Ben just exudes little boy holiday excitement. Makes me smile... Incidentally, see the sport coat? I bought it at a consignment shop for $8.00. And I'm pretty sure that it is the reason the weather was so warm for Easter this year. It was like pulling teeth to get him to leave it on..."Mommy, I'm hot..." lol!

Ellie contemplating her basket of purple eggs after the egg hunt...

Each grandchild had a different color of egg to collect. It made for a much more civil hunt and quite a beautiful photo opp afterward! :)

Soon after the egg hunt, we dined with the Weavers and then headed home to prepare for the Easter Bunny's visit. Somehow the children decided that this year we should leave out a snack of lettuce, carrots, and water for the Bunny. Then, at the last minute, they decided that perhaps the Bunny would also like a banana! I have no idea where that idea came from! Since they weren't sure if he would eat it or not, we left it out as an "experiment." :) Then we trudged off to bed to rest for the next day's excitement...