Showing off for the camera.

They woke up one day asking to have pictures taken. Benjamin thinks he wants his picture taken, but as soon as I get the camera out all he wants to do is take it from me and look at the screen in the back.
Sometimes I wonder if she works on her posing when I'm not watching.
Julia has lost two teeth and has another loose one.
I don't know exactly what Ryan was trying to do, but the picture turned out really cool. 

Huh?

All of a sudden Benjamin comes walking up to me with this shirt in his hand, and he would not leave me alone until I put it on him. This was Julia's shirt last year, and it barely fit him. He is a very big boy. I don't think I even want to know what it was about the shirt that appealed to him so much and why he wasn't satisfied until I put it on him. 

Emily dancing.

We had to change Emily's dance class from Monday to Tuesday so we could fit in a piano lesson for Ryan Monday night. I took Emily's pictures of dancing later than Julia's, so we're going back to dancing to see Emily's ballet and tap routines. She loves her class so much.

 

Jack-o-lanterns

We suffered through the ceremonial carving of the pumpkins today. Julia wanted a "Princess Vampire" jack-o-lantern and Ryan wanted a "Pirate Ghost" jack-o-lantern. We added paint to Julia's to help her look more like a princess. I personally love the triangle shaped patch on Ryan's jack-o-lantern. Emily's pumpkin likes to lay on it's side, so we decided to use the stem for a nose and make hers into a bird.
Here is Julia with her jack-o-lantern making her best jack-o-lantern face.
Here is Ryan with his jack-o-lantern making his best jack-o-lantern face. 

More Halloween.

Here they are all together. They don't really go together (there costumes that is) but they all look so cute. I put Benjamin in his costume and almost couldn't stand it. He looked so cute with his little fake muscles. It seemed fitting because he always thinks he's older and stronger than he is. He likes to carry a full galloon of milk from the fridge to me to convey the thought that he's thirsty. Why he doesn't just say, "drink mama," is beyond me. Julia's personality is a lot like JoJo's, she is bubbly and full of energy. She's always the one coming up with the plan. Ryan just loves power rangers. Emily is a lot like Tinker Bell, she is a pretty princess who loves dressing up and looking beautiful. 

Halloween 2006!

We got all dressed up tonight thinking that everyone at our church party would be wearing costumes. . .they weren't, but we got a lot of cute pictures. Here is Ryan as the Red Mystic Force Power Ranger.
Here is Julia as JoJo from the Playhouse Disney show JoJo's Circus.
Emily is Tinker Bell.
Benjamin is the Green Mystic Force Power Ranger. 

Like Father, Like Son.

I did an entry about how Julia and I look a lot alike. I thought I'd do one about my husband Scott and our son Ryan. This first picture is Ryan at six months of age.
Here is Scott at six months of age. They look a lot alike. Everyone who has seen Scott and Ryan together calls Ryan "little Scott". 

We love to help each other!

That's what my kids always say when they are feeling love for their siblings. I caught Emily and Julia snuggling on the couch watching a movie. It makes me happy that they like each other. 

Halloween 2005

Here is a story that will scare the pants out of all you moms (and dads) who love to take pictures of your kids and scrapbook or blog them. We were very poor for the first six years of our marriage. To set the record straight, we have only been married for eight this December. There was never a lot of money for developing pictures. I always had one or two (or twelve) rolls of film that needed to be developed. When we started making a little more money, I decided one crisp fall day that I was going to get rid of the problem once and for all. I gathered the twelve rolls of undeveloped film I had sitting in a kitchen drawer and placed them in a galloon size ziploc bag. We had to go to Target anyway, so I decided I would take them with me and see how much it would cost to develop them. I am a cheapskate. When I saw the prices at Target, I decided I would take them to Costco instead. Somewhere during the course of the day, I lost the bag of undeveloped film. You can imagine my horror and heartbreak. Twelve rolls of pictures lost. Among those were the Halloween pictures from 2005.
Julia and Emily were princesses. Julia's dress was sewn in the Phillipines by the sister of one of the ladies in our ward, she looked beautiful. Emily's dress I sewed myself, and it is one of my few sewing triumphs. She looked like a mideval princess. Ryan went as Spiderman, if I remember correctly. He bobbled back and forth between several costume options. Benjamin was not quite ready to come out yet, so he missed Halloween.

Halloween 2004

Ryan was obsessed with Zorro in 2004, and Julia was just beginning the all-encompassing princess phase (which she is still in), so she went as Snow White.
Emmy got the shaft again this year. I threw her in an old dance recital costume I had found at a garage sale. She didn't even get to go Trick-or-Treating because she fell asleep before Dad and the kids left.
Here are Ryan and Julia with the pumpkins "they" carved. They were very proud. Ryan wanted a crabby pumpkin and Julia wanted, yep, you guessed it, a princess pumpkin. I did they best I could, but obviously my artestry left something to be desired with the princess. 

Halloween 2003

Ryan and Julia were both members of the cat family in 2003. Julia is wearing the Jaguar again (can you tell how much she loves it?). In fact as I was posting this she commented again on how cute she looked as the Jaguar. Ryan is a lion. Are we loving the rhyme? Emily went as a baby that year because her mom ran out of steam.
 

Halloween 2002

This is Ryan as a Pterydactal .
Then there's Julia as a baby Jaguar.
Finally there's a picture of them together. Aren't they cute? It's always fun to look back.

Like mother, like daughter!

This is for all you out there who think my daughter Julia and I look a lot alike. Your right, we do. This is me holding my easter basket when I was five years old.

The other picture is Julia posing for the camera when she was five years old (she still is five years old, but now she's five and a half). 

Looking back!

How time has flown by. This is our family in November of 2002 when my Grandma and Grandpa Kohler returned from their second mission to Russia. We all got together as an extended family and took pictures. Here is the picture of just our family. Ryan was 3, Julia was 17 months and I was five months pregnant with our third. 

Benjamin wins the prize!

Benjamin was by far the crabiest kiddo of all that day. He wins the prize for most cantankerous. 

Crankiness in the car.

These pictures were taken shortly after I bought our new digital camera and several months before we even considered moving to Texas. Daddy had to stop at his office on a Saturday to take care of a couple of things. He told us he wouldn't be longer than 5 minutes. Ha! They got crabbier and crabbier and all mom could think to do was take pictures.
Ryan always has "guys" in his hand. If you're one of the few lucky people, you even get to hear his sound effects. He's quite talented.
Here's Julia contorting her body into what she considers a beautiful pose. Can you see the strained smile on her face? She is working very hard to look very lovely.
Emily is such a cute girl! Here is her idea of a beautiful pose.