Carla's Birthday

is today!

We celebrated her birthday yesterday since she is in VT right now with Mom, Dad, and Evan. Here's some pictures and videos from her birthday.

Her beautifully wrapped presents :)

Carla acting normal (or maybe she's taking after her brother(s)...)

Her new outfit!

Evan was very excited to watch her open her presents (and even more excited to sing to her:)

Her new book, a Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

This is what I was talking about when I said Evan was really excited to sing to Carla. Just listen to how in tune he is! ;)

This one is probably a little better

After we sang, Carla took the candles out and licked the frosting off

Happy 12th Birthday Carla!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! I'm headed to VT myself tomorrow.

Let me know if the videos don't work...

Adios!

A Monarch Butterfly

I went out to get a tomato for my turkey sandwich and went back in with no tomato :) 

As I was walking by the flowers to get to the tomatoes, a butterfly flew out of the flowers. So what did I do? I went back inside and got my camera! (betcha David couldn't guess that one ;)

So here she (or he) is!

I wanted to get a picture with its wings out straight, but every time it landed on the flower, its wings would go up together and I could never see the top. I was like, oh, maybe if I click the camera button half way down and it clicks, maybe it will start to fly away and I can get a picture with its wings spread out. Well it would have worked well if I had clicked the button the rest of the way before it flew out of my view :(

And a picture of the flower

Do you notice anything new?

I updated my blog! It's not obvious or anything is it??

Not sure if I'll keep it like this for long, but for now I like it :)

In case you can't tell the difference or don't remember what the old one looked like, here's an old and a new picture:

Like it? Leave a comment and let me know what you think!!

The Duck Pond

Mom babysat for James and David a couple weeks ago and we brought them to the duck pond in South Windsor. We brought along a bunch of old frozen bread.

When we got there, there were ducks walking along the railing. They left some nice trails on the railing that we tried not to get our arms in!

There were some pretty ducks there but they were moving too much for me to get a good picture. Here's one of my best ones.

 A certain someone got tired :)

For a project for school, I needed a picture of someone that had their hand up by their face (showed the 5 senses taste touch etc). After asking a couple times I got James to do it.

A goose standing in the middle of the water. He's pretty tall! :) Must have been a log or rock underneath the water.

I didn't get a picture of the bread, but we had quite the pile. By the time we were done throwing it, not too many ducks were eating. There was quite a few pieces of bread floating in the water :)

We are in the process...

of cleaning out our room and putting in a new bedroom set. We are actually just cleaning out right now. I bought a bedroom set at a tag sale for $500. 

I'll post pictures of the old and new bedroom sets and the old and new set ups later (maybe a couple weeks later:) It's going to be a long process I think!

And since I don't think a post is a post without pictures, here's one (or a couple):

These are from when we had no power from Hurricane Irene

This is Carla brushing her teeth and holding a little flashlight so she can see what she is doing :)

This is Mom and Carla in the bathroom. Looks almost ghost-like!

Random Pictures

Taking a much needed break from writing a very boring paper!! ;)

Here are some pictures taken before David left

Mom and David

David and I

Evan and David with matching shirts. They are University of Illinois Veterinary shirts.  So cute!! :)

And here is a picture of our dog Snickers.

Isn't she cool??!!

Just to inform you all...

Once again I didn't win but one of my pictures made it into the insert!!!

Here's the picture that was in the insert:

The caption was: Heidi Beutel, Ellington.

A bee on a sunflower in late August.

Maybe one of these times I'll actually win...

And in case you are wondering why there aren't too many posts: school started :( This semester is going to be harder than the last two years, so you probably won't see too many posts in the future (unless I decide to take a break from school work:)