Fabulous pictures and the Wildlife Preserve

Well here are a zillion few zillion (let's be honest) more pictures I've taken recently. I've been Ross's little leech.  It's great.  :)

Pretty much the handsomest boy in the world - just like his daddy.

Trying to pull down the blinds

A normal occurrence for Ross - scaling any furniture he can, and making it look effortless...or too much effort.  Whatever.

We LOVE books in our house.  Ross loves turning the pages.

Which one should I read next?

What a captivating read...

Can I help you?

 

Love a good smile. :)

My food pictures are so much more AMAZING now - this is a veggie burger - so easy and yummy!

Steve toyed around with the idea of growing a beard - with absolutely no support from me.  I don't have anything against other men wearing beards...but kissing goes out the window if Steve ever decided to grow one...really he can't stand the beard himself anyway.

Steve was entertaining Ross with our empty paper towel tube.

 Sunday was just about the most beautiful and warm day we've had in a while.  Ross, of course, skipped his nap for church, and was supposed to take one after he ate lunch when we got home, but we couldn't resist going out and enjoying the warm fresh air.  We went with our fellow Parkies - aka our friends that live in these Parkview Apartments too.  It was sooooo nice to just meander around for a little while and look at all the birds.  We had watched a film called Big Year with our friends the Listers which makes the hobbie of birding (which we learned is the correct term - not bird watching) practically a sport and makes you feel like you're a fool if you aren't doing it too.  So - obviously we had to go birding ourselves! ;) 

There is a Wildlife Preserve only 5 minutes from our house!  Apparently we have to go there when it's sunset and in a few weeks to see all the little ducklings and goslings around.

Family picture - Ross is extremely tired as you can see.

There is an eagle's nest in that tree in the middle.

Our birding adventure - the Listers took care of the binoculars and we took care of the camera part.

You can tell how long Ross hung in there - about 3 minutes.

But this face is too cute to care.

Same with this one. ;)

Sunshine where have you been all my life?!!

There were patches of ducks and geese all around.  Some of those geese were pretty mean.

Our friend Jen got a job as a guide recently - so we made her practice her skills.  Here she is presenting the dead weeds of the preserve. :)

A Girl Pic

A Boy Pic - of course they can't be serious.

The Listers

Us

The Vosses

Ross decided to wake up towards the end - you can tell how happy he is about it.  We took 5 pictures - all 5 with no smiles from him. :)

Ross was super excited to see the ducks and geese. 

He wouldn't even look at me.

I have no idea what kind of bird this is - but it was pretty beautiful.

My boys.

Mommy and Ross

So this is my spring wreath.  I was pretty excited about it - I'm toying around with the idea of putting buttons on it too, but I quite like having just the ribbons on there.  We'll see.

A Brand New Camera...

The day has finally come.  I've got a new toy to play with!  Last night we picked up our first SLR camera.  I did a bunch of research on which ones to get, got a lot of opinions which were extremely helpful, and finally got the means and the sale to get our Canon Rebel T2i with an extra 55-200mm lens for a steal!  Wahoo!  A whole new hobby has opened its doors to us...and Ross--the poor guinea pig--will be my little victim to practice on.  I don't think he's had enough pictures taken of him yet...although my Grandma Grenny - who's lived a lot longer than me - has proclaimed him to be "probably the most photographed little boy in the land." She may be right, but I just can't help how cute and adorable this little guy can be.  Here are some sample shots...in my know-nothing-about-how-to-work-this-camera-yet skills.  

So it had been a really long day when we finally picked this up.  Babysitting two energized kids, making dinner, and feeding the missionaries, and then going to pick up Steve made for a bit of a frazzled end for me.  I was super excited to get the camera - but the tiredness was creeping up on me here!

These brown eyes of Steve's get me every time!!

I just love his cute chubby hands trying to grab things he shouldn't!

Hey mom!  What is that you're holding?

And why are you pointing it at me??

It snowed last night - so Ross is taking some time to contemplate this...

Very interesting....

Two teeth breakfast - yum!  He sure loves oatmeal. :)

Ross has some great faces...I think this new camera helps capture some of them...

Okay - this is my favorite - his face is totally saying "Mom - are you seriously doing this now?"

Get me out!

These are a couple of pics from my other camera.  Ross loves playing with the magnets on the fridge.  The big blue flower makes great scraping noises on the floor.  He likes to swish it back and forth in preparation as he slides it across the floor and then crawls over to it to start again. :)

We made some veggie grill cheese sandwiches.  Absolutely delicious with Dave's Bread.

I got this baked potato idea from my friend Margy on Pinterest.  Quite tasty.

The snow from today.

Steve took this picture of our Christus...beautiful.

   So we've mostly just been doing the same old same old.  Leap year was quite the event weatherwise.  We got everything - sunshine, rain, snow, wind - multiple times over.  I think since we only get leap year every four years it had to make up for all the weather its missed the last few years.  Ross has figured out how to open cupboards, chatters all the time, and definitely loves other kids.  Babysitting yesterday was a total party for him.  He was super excited to swap binkies with one of the kids whenever mommy wasn't looking.  He loved watching them play with his toys or even just sit there.  I think we need to get him around kids more often!  He loves laughing and throwing things off of his high chair tray or diaper changing pad.  He looks at you while he does it too - like it's a stand off or something and he's holding something you hold dear for ransom.  Hilarious.
Steve is still dreaming of the day when he won't dread the next morning of having to go to school and do more studying.  On that note - one of his professors gave him the ultimate compliment while they were dissecting cadavers by telling the whole class his dissection was the best one she had ever seen.  Steve has a real niche for human anatomy and dissection.  He's started a new class that has just about terrified him to death - but hopefully we'll get by without any life threatening events or mental break downs.  That goes for me and Steve.
My little stuffed balls I made for Ross turned out pretty well.  Here they are - though the fabric isn't going to last for very long I think - oh well - we'll enjoy them while we can. ;)...and yes I know the biggest one looks like a watermelon - or a rugby ball as Steve puts it.  I had some stuffing and sewing issues...more out of my lazy sewing ways than anything.

Oh - and P.S. I promise Ross wears more than these red fire engine pajamas...it seems I keep taking pictures of him when he's wearing them.  You can still judge me if you want though. ;)