18 Months Already

I can't believe it. On Wednesday, my sweet Anna cupcake will be 18 months old. To most that might not seem like a big deal, but 18 months is to me. My favorite age so far has been 11-18 months with both kids. It's such an exciting time of discovery and change! They are like little sponges, soaking up everything around them and happily learning so much. I just love teaching them and watching them change from babies to toddlers. I often find myself just sitting back, not really interacting with Anna.....just watching and listening to what she's saying and doing. It's so amazing. So on Wednesday, she'll be 18 months. One and a half years old. That means its been 6 whole months since she turned one, 18 months since she joined our family.....18 months of pure joy watching her develop into her very own wonderfully sweet and spunky self! We are so looking forward to continuing to watch her grow and just love her so much!

When Benjamin turned 18 months, I had his picture taken by a professional at an outdoor setting. I am still pleased with them and try really hard to be fair with each kid. Since I have my own SLR (read, really awesome camera) now and have been enjoying editing pictures lately, I decided to try and do the pictures myself and save myself the outrageous prices that photographers are charging these days. So we headed to a favorite park of ours. There's no playground equipment or anything, just a large pond with water fountains, lots of grassy room to run about, big trees, and beautiful architecture surrounding it. I figured the way the light sifts in there in the evenings would make for great pictures and it didn't disappoint! I'm so pleased with how they turned out! It was a bit challenging to get Anna smiling and looking at the camera as she ran about with her brother, but very worth it! :)

Here she is before we left for the park that evening. I had planned to have her wear this bow, but she has my fine hair and it kept slipping at the park as she ran around. I quickly decided it was best just to take it out, instead of constantly be fixing it!

She does this with her hand as she's saying, "Where Daddy/Benjamin go?" (They were playing hide and seek).

Saying one of her favorite words, "Whoa!!"

I think it's such a great area to get pictures!

RUN!!!!

W-I-L-D girl!!!

I really like this one!

She is 100% a Daddy's Girl!

To get her to smile a lot, we told her to spin. She loves to spin and always laughs and smiles so big. She also falls down a lot! :)

They both had a great time spinning and running and falling down and laughing, which made for great moments and great pictures!

They actually climbed onto this bench together all by themselves. Daddy pretended he was going to get them, which you will be able to tell they really got into!

Here's the water fountains!

I joked with Dave that this was the one that looked the most like Anna, b/c it shows her crazy hair and her crazy teeth! :)

I wanted to try and get some pregnancy pictures done too. Dave did a really good job!

Can you tell I still have 7 whole weeks to go?!?!?! :)

My sweet boy who is going to make such an awesome big brother again!

We tried to get some pictures of Anna "kissing" Little Three, but the height difference made it too difficult. So we just went on a walk together instead! :)

It was a great time and we were so thankful for the beautiful pictures we were able to capture to help remember this great time in our lives. I had fun making a collage of all the pictures with my new photo editing program too. It doesn't let you pick which picture go where, you just have to keep shuffling them until you get one you like, but it still makes for a fun collage! You might have to click on it and enlarge it for the pictures to be big enough to see.

One day last week, I was blessed with a girl's night out and went to see a movie with my friends. After Anna went to sleep, Dave and Benjamin were sweet enough to fold some laundry for me. Dave told me later how great a job Benjamin did matching every single sock and how pleased he was with himself!

This sweet guy has his first day of preschool tomorrow! He's pretty excited and seems to understand and be okay with knowing that he's going to stay there without us. I'm really excited for him and anxious to see how much fun he has. We're praying it's an easy transition for him and he just LOVES it!!!! :)