Hide Man and the Beautiful Butterfly Princess

The kids recently attended a birthday party where the boys came dressed as superheroes and the girls came dressed as princesses.

Izzie settled on her pink frilly dress with her butterfly wings and, of course, a crown. Here she is with her trusty sidekick "Rooster."

And from the back. Notice her large ruby ring.

We didn't have much in the way of superhero clothes for Ben, but a quick trip to the Salvation Army solved that. We decided to make up our own superhero and Ben came up with "Hide Man" who can hide from his enemies (Ben is big on camouflage) and shoot a cage from his magic finger.

Here is Hide Man looking strong and tough. But also friendly.

Ben's best superhero pose. We ended up with a shiny red top, black electrical tape for the H, and (girl's) red pants with 3T shorts on top. Ben will be 5 in another month or so - what a skinny guy he is. But check out his biceps! Oh, and of course every superhero has to have a mask. Ours was a foam parrot mask from the dollar store that we cut up and glued back together.

And even superheroes have to ride in car seats!

Rhododendron Gardens Take Three

During June I made several trips up to Roan Mountain to capture the rhododendron gardens in bloom. Somehow I managed to miss the peak though. I'm not sure how that happened since I was up there at least three times during the two weeks in which they bloom. I got there very early in the morning and since nobody else was around I thought I'd take a self-portrait with the timer and the tripod. Unfortunately, (I'm not even sure it was on this trip) I made it home without the tripod. Thank goodness it's much more easily replaced than the camera.

Windfall

Last night we had really heavy rain and a lot of wind. This is what Colin found when he looked on the porch! It fell down in the early evening while I was on my way home but Colin and the kids didn't even hear it. And I didn't even notice it when I drove up. (Maybe that was because I was trying to see the road though all the rain!)

The view from the sidewalk. The door to the porch is somewhere under all those leaves and branches.

Side view.

We were up early to clear it all away before the workers came back to finish the floors. (They finished today - new linoleum in the kitchen and laminate in our bedroom!) Colin sawed and I used the pruners and around seven a friend of Colin's who was meeting him for coffee pitched in and helped make piles of branches. After we cleared everything away there was one bunch of leaves left decorating the doorknob. Somehow we got away without any broken windows: even the one screen that's held on with the handyman's secret weapon remained in place.

Recent Favorites

I took the kids out a while ago, as is my wont to do, and took pictures of them. Little do they know I'm gearing up for one more round of pictures before we leave Tenneesee.

The pensive look. Trying out a muted effect. Yea or nay?

The glower. She's not really being a stinker. She has been playing with this look a bit and thinks it's funny to experiment.

A few seconds later.

They were getting bored so I told them to stick out their tongues.

My handsome shy guy.


Izzie's trademark laugh. I love it! How can you not smile when you see this?

Ghost Izzie

I think my shutter speed was a little too slow!

X is for...

excited! We've been working on an alphabet book. Here's Izzie being excited for the letter X.

Silly Hugs with Elmo and Teddy