Balloons!

A beautiful fall day and a good opportunity to visit the NC Balloon Festival. Unfortunately, after being bitten by a radioactive dinosaur, Arden and Cierra grew to gigantic proportions and Arden ended up eating a hot-air balloon. You'll be seeing it all on the evening news....

Okay, so not really. But we did go to the balloon festival. Arden and Carter got to ride together in the red wagon for the first time! Arden did really well in there... I was expecting tears in the first few minutes but we wheeled her all over the fairgrounds and no problems.

They both tried to break in to Daddy's new coffee cup. Good thing I finished it off early this morning.

Cierra grabbed this shot of Arden looking cute in her makeshift photo studio earlier in the week. When I say photo studio, I mean a chair with a fuzzy blanket draped over it.

I turned around a week or two ago and Carter had put himself in a box. "Hold on, don't move" I said as I leapt for the camera. Almost as cute as the picture I didn't get of him trying to get out.

Arden just goes after the food. Her thinking is, why settle for the mouth when I can have food all over my face.

Okay I have no idea when we took this shot. But Arden is definitely a "little blossom."

And finally, a pair of shots from our recent trip to Indiana, given to us by Oma and Opa. Carter and cousin William on the slides....

... and helping celebrate Cierra's birthday a few weeks early. Now the real thing is coming up in a couple of days, and we're all set to go to the beach for a couple of days to celebrate. I'll bet we get some cute pics... :)

Pictures Galore

Thanks Jenine - we love them!

A quick trip to IN.

Hi everybody! We spent four days in Indiana last weekend and we brought back a bunch of pictures of the kiddos and family. Here's Arden playing in the grass at Grandview Lake...

.... on two different occasions! They have such nice grass at Mimi and Papa's house.

We took a ride on the "slow boat" and Papa let Carter drive for a little while. During our ride on the speed boat later, Carter stared mesmerized at the wake we were leaving behind. He seemed to be enjoying the experience, but afterwards when we asked if he liked the "fast boat" he said no.

Arden spent time rolling this eye-ball back and forth with Carter. An excellent way to work on her hand-eye coordination.

Carter loved the "beach" at Mimi & Papa's house too. Many hours were spent chucking pebbles into the water and setting beach toys afloat. Some of them drifted into deeper water, which he then expected Daddy to go get. Fully clothed Daddy. We had to ask a lady on a jetski to give us a hand.

It was such a nice day and Mimi's flowers were so beautiful it was a perfect time to get some family photos!

This is Playboy, Cierra's ol' pony. He's getting up there, 35 I think Deann said. But he's still feeling good and was happy to take Carter out for a little stroll.

Oma and Opa spent a day with us at Great-grandma Treva's house. As usual when we go to Treva's house we all ate our fill of fantastic food, then were given enough food for 4 or 5 more meals to take home.

William, Carter's second cousin, was playing with Arden. When I started taking pictures, he suddenly showed off his modeling skills. Every single shot I took was a different pose and they were all good! After 5 or 6 shots I had to turn to his mom and ask if he was modeling in his spare time.

Arden and Great-Grandpa Hemmerlein get to know each other better. Since we were so pressed for time on this short trip....

.... all the Hemmerleins got together for us!

Another fun trip over too soon! Back next week with pictures closer to home.