the mandel 5

And these are from Blake and Kayla's double birthday. SO much to do - a Dora jumpy, a clown with balloon animals, a parachute, games, face painting, bubbles, a magic show. Plus family and friends and food! love that uncle brady! Logan and his girls...

Party month continues. We started at 10:45 in Anaheim for Matthew's 7th bday at House of Bounce. That's what these pictures are from. We came home for a one hour break, left daddy here so he could go to red football, and then left for another party that ended up being a late-nighter (so those pictures will be up tomorrow - I'm beat!).

For those of you who don't frequent my website, I had to share these. This little guy has been coming to me since he was a few days old. He showed no interest in EATING cake but boy, did he have fun playing with it! This was by far, my messiest cake session yet. All my newborns from last year are turning one and it's been so fun. The whole session is here .

Went to the lake for a picnic tonight and tried again with the zoom lens. Sigh....still blurry on most. Here are a couple that weren't so bad. I think I need aother prime lens, an 85mm. Will have to borrow that next. Not technically perfect by any means but that duck is mid-jump!

I know I need a new lens for a couple of weddings (yes, I said weddings) and beach shoots that are coming up. Today we went to my photo friend Teri's house and she's letting me borrow her Canon 75 - 300 1:4 - 5:6. These two are awesome but I'd say like half of the images I took are soft. It can't be the lens if I got some like this. Must be fast kids, wobbly hands, or that I really do stink at natural light!!

Diego's favorite spot is wherever we are about to step, usually at the top of the stairs. He's as bad as the kids when the camera gets out. He wouldn't hold still!

Maybe the only good thing about a memorial is seeing family and friends all at once. This is the first time I realized how small my family is. I only have three cousins, one aunt, and one grandparent. I have second cousins, great aunts and uncles, and a bunch of "adopted" grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The six cousins have all been together only three times in ten years. Only for funerals. Our kids, 12 in all (Logan made the even dozen), are so close in age and love to spend time together. We have to plan a family trip when there isn't a loss to mourn. Summer 2008 maybe. I'd love to see them all together at one time! Here I am with my brothers and my only 3 cousins from Michigan.

Julie and I have been friends for let me see here, 20 years! Holy moly, where did that time go? Her car broke down on the way to Mom's memorial yesterday so she had to spend the night. Darn it! I was forced to catch up with an old friend while watching a chick flick and drinking Starbucks (yeah, mine was hot chocolate!). Our kiddos got to have a slumber party and play all day together. The four older kids fell asleep watching Lady and the Tramp last night and the girls had a fun outing to City Walk today!

With all the family and friends in town for the memorial, Kari had 24 fans in the bleachers for her softball game today. Must be a Burrill record. She hit in the winning run!

Both boys now have Buzz Lightyear costumes but Logan wants one on all the time. He dresses up and says to Rob, "I want to hold you my fly" which translates to, "I want you to hold me so I can fly." Then he proceeds to shout "To infinity and beyond!" with a few additional words in there but we aren't sure what they are. :)

Cindy of CBT Photography in Florida took this for us on our trip. Cute, huh?

Cindy had her baby a week ago and came up yesterday for pictures. This is baby Dashiell and big brother Matthew. We've been posing Megan and Matthew together for almost 6 years. In fact, today is Matthew's birthday - Happy Birthday Buddy!!!

from the photographer's association . It's weird to not have "work friends" this year. These are from our local group of photographers who meet once a month.

That's what she called them - the chicklets. Here are some of my favorite pictures of her with the kids. I think they were taken last June except for the reading one - that was at her annual Kids' Christmas Party this last Christmas. You can tell Logan just got in trouble for hitting Kayla because we told him not to move an inch! :)

The boys had so much fun at Grantie's today, playing with their cousins and hunting for eggs. No pictures of Meg...long story....

We colored Easter eggs yesterday after a long naptime (jetlag). What a mess! Good thing the dye came out of clothing, chairs, and tile grout.