Cousins.

With my sister’s impending due date, we decided to finally take some maternity photos of my sister’s bump.  I totally missed the boat on the bump pictures of myself, but that’s basically because I absolutely hate taking photos and much prefer to be on the other side of the camera.  So, I just lived vicariously through my sister and let my child be in some of the photos.  Now I’ve got some maternity photos of my child – she’s just out of the womb and almost two.  Better late than never, right? 

Anna is crying in this one.  I have no idea why either.  Anna loves her aunt! Anna decided to walk right in front of the camera to show off her buns o’ steel.  Anna and Mimi! Anna and Paw Paw! Anna eating some chips that Paw Paw gave her. Kissy kiss. This is the face Anna makes when she is saying, “Huh?”  Anna is still eating chips.  Anna is a photo crasher! Crashing… again. 

Believe it or not, I did actually get some photos WITHOUT my child in them!

   

It was a fun day! Now I can't wait for Anna to meet her cousin! I'll make sure she doesn't crash his photos.

Why men and fire should never mix.

So, I get a phone call from Joe around 3:30 on Friday. There's nothing unusual about that at all. However, we've been together for about 8 years now, and I know him almost better than I know myself. From the second I picked up the phone, I knew he did something that would a) get him in trouble or b) get him in trouble. You see, unbeknownst to Joe, his voice changes a few octaves when he's up to something. Sometimes "the change" happens when he's trying to butter me up because he wants to make a big purchase (ex. our brand new grill) and sometimes it happens when he's done something bad and is trying to soften the blow (ex. what he did on Friday).

Here's a brief re-cap of our conversation:

Joe: Hey, I love you.
Me: What did you do?
Joe: Nothing (voice gets higher)
Me: Yeah right, what did you do?
Joe: Nothing, I swear (starting to sound like Mickey Mouse)
Me: Uh huh
Joe: Ok, are you sitting down? (voice is nearly inaudible at this point - dogs are coming out in droves from the high pitch)
Me: *silence*
Joe: Well, I kind of burned up our back yard.
Me: What do you mean "kinda"
Joe: Well, I left a box burning and it kinda spread throughout our yard and burned the grass up.
Me: How much of our grass is burned?
Joe: Not much
Me: Really?
Joe: Really! (mouse pitch again)
Me: *silence*
Joe: Ok, the entire yard, but at least we didn't burn down the neighbors house.
Me: *silence*
Joe: It's not so bad, you'll see.

We hung up the phone with one another because I don't really like talking about family matters and such while I'm at work. I guess at that point I didn't realize just how bad it was.
So, I get home from work and walk to the backyard. Looks like a vast wasteland, something you'd see on a National Geographic special. I partially expected Bear Grylls to pop out in all of his glorious hotness and start eating pieces of the charred grass because it has protein and tastes like steak. Poor Cosmo was outside playing hopscotch jumping from one section of grass that hadn't been fried to another section of grass that was still alive. He's a diva dog.

Just incase you're thinking "Nah, it can't be THAT bad!" here's photographic proof. Don't say I didn't warn you. By the way, this is only a small section of our yard. The burned grass stretches from one end of our yard to the next, stopping about an inch from our neighbor's fence. I think I heard, "You know, this is GOOD for our grass, it'll grow in nicely in a few weeks" about 50 times. I guess we'll find out in a few weeks if that's true!

Enjoy!