April showers

'My favorite weather is bird chirping weather.' ~ Lorie Hartwould

'The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day.' ~Robert Frost

'Rain showers my spirits and waters my soul.' ~Emily Logan Decens

'The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.' ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Kisses from Superman

So Friday afternoon the 3 of us were outside enjoying the beautiful Spring weather. It was 83 degrees(hot for Wisconsin in April) and very windy. I was watching the 2 of them play, taking pictures and William was being Superman. The above pic is Superman flying or it looks like he's contemplating what he'll do next...maybe save some people who are in trouble or fight some 'bad guys.' I started to take some pics of Grace by herself...

...and look what happened! Superman flew over for a kiss or two! {and yes he did this all by himself...}

Superman is my little hero and I know he's Grace's too!

My flower child

All boy

boy {noun} a noise with dirt on it.~Not Your Average Dictionary

I recently found the above little definition of the word 'boy' and it cracked me up because it describes Will perfectly right now. William is 'all boy' in every possible way. He is loud at times, can be rather mischievous, loves to jump, wrestle, swing, go down the slide, play on the teeter totter at the park, collect rocks and throw them in water and adores any little car, truck or tractor. These 2 pics are my favorite of him from the past week.

And I can happily say that Friday is finally here! The week has been a little bit long for me as I've been a 'single-mom' because Dan was gone on a business trip in Denver for 5 days. Grace and William did well with daddy being gone so long and I'm proud of them both. They spoke to Dan on the phone every night and behaved extremely well. Grace helped me a great deal. Happy Friday...hope your weekend is special...we'll be enjoying lots of time outside in the beautiful Spring weather that's here!

Wordless Wednesday

William's world

• Has been with our family for 9 months!
• Is 3 years and 4 months old(almost).
• Loves his Jie Jie with all his heart and the feeling is mutual.
• Is starting to dress himself (sometimes with mommy's help).
• Went pee pee on the big potty twice(he asked to do it!) in the last 3 days. {Looks like potty training will be happening soon}.
• Has made some new little friends in our neighborhood.
• Has been receiving one on one Speech services since January. We just recently found out he will qualify for Early Childhood preschool through our school district. He will greatly benefit from a structured preschool setting, the social component and get lots of practice with pragmatic speech. We are thrilled about this for him!

singing bird

'Keep a green bough in your heart and the singing bird will come.' ~Chinese proverb

Grace was welcomed into our arms over 5 and a half years ago. There are 17 years between our oldest son(Nick) and his sister Grace. It seemed like an eternity that we waited for this little girl.

For those of you who wait, I wait for you and with you.
Please keep on going. Keep living your life. Keep loving. Keep laughing. Keep hoping. Keep dreaming. Keep praying.
Your singing bird will come.

we picture {this}

This month's theme is 'daughters.' I couldn't pick one image because these 2 are my new favorites of my daughter Grace(age 6).

Nikon D80

exposure:1/60

aperture:f/8.0

focal length:32mm

ISO: 250

Aperture Priority

Nikon D80

exposure: 1/320

aperture: f/3.5

focal length: 50mm

ISO:640

Aperture priority

More favorites and it's Friday!

Here's a few more of my favorites from our vacation last week. It's hard to believe it was just a week ago that we were there... sometimes I think I need a vacation to recover fully from the vacation. ;)

Have a wonderful weekend! Spring has finally arrived here in Wisconsin and I'm hoping to get these 2 outside to burn some of their endless energy off and have some fun!

More pics

I think what I loved just as much as our time at the parks was our down time. Grace swimming with Daddy, and times like these. In the shot immediately below we were walking to the the pier area so they could play in the sand. Will's feet are so cute in this one.

Looking down at the ducks.

Pier and Lighthouse area.

Grace and Dan were swimming while William and I stayed to play in the sand. It looks like he got a mouthful here and he was quite happy about it! No complaints from the boy.

Yep...it's Disney Part Deux

Will with his Mickey sucker...no one got anywhere near him when he had it in his mouth. He kept saying....mine!

And his post sucker face.

One of the palm trees near our hotel, the Disney Yacht Club. A happy Will with a red mickey balloon. And the 2 of them walking down the pier to a lighthouse.

Will playing in the sand, Grace talking on the phone in Epcot, Grace sittin' pretty in the sand and me with the 2 of them at Mickey's House in the Magic Kingdom.


And this was one of my favorites...Dan in front of me with Will in the stroller and Grace happily jumping. We were walking back to our resort after a long day.

What a week it's been....

Will's first look at Cinderella's castle in the Magic Kingdom, from Daddy's shoulder level view. Will's response..."I yike this!"



Will's 2 favorite Disney characters are Donald Duck and Buzz Lightyear of the Toy Story movie. If you notice in the photo below he's standing exactly like Buzz.

Our resort was very near Epcot and we could easily walk there so went a few times. We met Donald Duck and spent time in China of course. What did we do in Epcots's China? Shopped, Grace made a Chinese mask and we saw acrobats perform.

Grace's favorite character is Mulan and this lovely young woman spent some special time with her.


Well we've had a whirlwind of a week with our Disney trip and Easter. It was all great... truly more than great. Grace and William loved every moment and didn't want to come home! A typical day for us at DisneyWorld was to go to a park in the morning and stay until about 2 or so and come back so Will could nap, then we'd return in the evenings. I am one tired mamma tonight but wanted to post a few pics of our trip and it was hard to decide what ones because I shot over 800. Maybe this post should have been called Disney part 1. I'll be posting more of my favorites from our vacation this week.

Happy Easter

The story of Easter is the story of God's wonderful window of divine surprise. ~Carl Knudsen

We wish you and yours a very blessed and happy Easter!

This and that

I love the above image because she looks very regal.

Grace in toile jumper.

These are a few of my favorite pics from this week(won't be posting tomorrow). I took these of Grace on Sunday in this darling hat I bought from etsy. Here's the link to the seller. She makes beautiful crocheted hats and adds the flower with a clip so you can remove it if you like. The toile dress is handmade by Lori and is Grace's new favorite.

We've had a very busy week. Grace has learned how to ride her two wheel bike without training wheels! She's very happy about that. Another milestone for children like learning to read. I was exactly Grace's age when I learned to ride a bike. We've also been busy because we are getting ready to take these 2 on a Spring break trip to Florida to DisneyWorld in a couple of days. {Shh....it's a surprise!} I'll be back in a little over a week with lots of pics. I can't wait to see William's face when we get to the Magic Kingdom. Have a great rest of week and weekend!

Wordless Wednesday