Magic, books & snowcones...

Happiness is....
My sweet kiddos at the "liberry"!!

Me and the littles went to the kickoff of the summer reading program at our local library today.
They had so much fun.
They feel so important because they have their very own library cards.

Books, books and more books.
They both love to read, or be read to.
It still amazes me to hear Aidan actually reading a book.
Emma will read through the books and sing the parts she remembers.
Or even make up what she thinks the books should have said.

And then there were the movies.

The little lady got a couple Strawberry Shortcake movies last time we went

and we've seen them each a couple hundred times!

Okay, I may be exaggerating a little.
So we just renewed those instead of checking out more. YAY!
No sarcasm there....

Ahhhh.... snowcones.  Did I mention there were snowcones?!
I love this little girl to pieces!

She is so different than her brother about the camera.
It's hard sometimes to get candid shots of her.
She always wants to smile that cheesy smile and strike a pose.
What a camera HAM!

These two are buddies.

This is one of his best friends, and cousin. They're only 6 months apart.

I hope they stay close as they grow up.

I just love all the expressions Aidan makes.

Look at that scrunched up nose posing there with Braylin in the sun.

I don't know what they were talking about as Aidan had his arm around him.

I can just hear him though, saying, "Come on, dude. Let's go torture my little sister."

They had a magician, or illusionist I believe he called himself.
He started off by telling them he didn't have a real live bunny.
He put a picture of a bunny in the tube.
It made me a little nervous, because doesn't that look a lot like the Playboy Bunny?!
I really wasn't sure what he was going to pull out of that tube!! HEHE
In the middle picture, it looks a lot like a stuffed one!
But lo and behold, it was a real live bunny named Mr. Little.




I tried to get as many of their expressions as I could.
I just didn't have a good view of Aidan.
I got the biggest kick out of Emma and Braylin.
Emma got so tickled at one point her face was red!

Green-Eyed Country Girl

I took some pictures for a friend of mine a couple days ago.

She was so insecure at first, and so self conscious.

Worried that every picture would turn out terrible!

She finally loosened up and just had a little fun.

Here are a few shots of that green-eyed country girl..... 

Isn't she amazing?!

Wordless Wednesday {with a few words}

Happy Wednesday.... It is technically Wednesday as I'm typing and posting this.  It's 12:53 am and I just don't know why I'm still awake. GRRRRRR. 

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This is our sweetheart yard kitty Purricaine. Nope, not Hurricane, or even Purricane.He was named after a little boy named Caine. My little guy, 5 at the time, came up with the name.Pretty cute, huh? 

  

Texture Tuesday {Warmth Edition}

I so want to master textures!  I guess I need to take one of Kim Klassen's e-courses! I should definitely add that to my to-do list.  But for now, this is what I've got....

This week's theme at Texture Tuesday was WARMTH.  

It was a hot sticky, 92 degrees when I was out taking this.

How's that for WARMTH?

I used Kim's texture Phoebe at 50 % pin light.  I think it gave it a nice hazy look, and also gave it a little border at the same time. I LOVE borders.

As always, I can't wait to see everyone else's work! Always inspiring!

I'm also linking up with Sweet Shot Tuesdays. Fun stuff....




       

What a week!

There's no way in this world to pick a BEST picture this week....

This will have to be close enough.

My littlest man graduated kindergarten this week.

When he stood up to tell his name and what he wanted to be when he grew up...

He said he wanted to be a geologist! I am one proud mama.

Most of the other boys want to be cops, which is a proud profession.

Most of the little girls want to be cheerleaders.

The way I see it, our town will be safe & happy when these kiddos grow up.

Hubby is on his 14 day hitch, so he couldn't make it to his graduation. That's why he's missing from the middle picture.  And I'm sure we can all guess where Coby, the 15 year old is?!

Standing to our side. No WAY was he getting in the picture.  At least he did attend the graduation.

And then there's the princess...

She was in her first pageant. But she was way more interested in the candy she got to throw. She threw all of maybe three pieces. I think she was picking through it and finding what she wanted to eat instead.

If you can't tell, the theme for the pageant and parade was the 80's.  She won Most Awesome Hair.  And man oh man, does she have some AWESOME hair!!

I'm linking up with some awesome sites:

Sunday, Sunday, SUNday

Happy Sunday and Memorial Day weekend, all. Thank you to all the military men and women who serve or have served our country. We appreciate you and all you do to protect and serve and provide us the FREEDOM we enjoy each and every day!

It's been quite a lazy one for us. The little girl didn't come home until yesterday afternoon from spending a few days with some family. So the littlest boy and I just took it easy.  We did go to the park for a bit to try to get a "movement" photo of the train. Unfortunately, it was entirely too bright for what I was wanting to try, and the train was moving incredibly slow. Of all the years I've lived in this town, I've never seen the train move that slow! Of all times...  

And yes, I do have a 15 year old that I don't speak of much... we don't see him unless he's hungry or needs money :-)  But I am proud of him and want to brag about him for a sec.  He got higher standard (which I believe is the same as commended from our previous TAKS tests) in four of his STAAR tests, and in biology he says he was tied with another student for the highest score! I now have a sophomore, 1st grader and preK'er.

Well, on to it!  The scavenger hunt was kind of tricky for me this week, but I had help from the kiddos.  Can't wait to see everyone else's interpretations...

{Beneath Your Feet}

UGGH!! Fireants! 

They're always beneath our feet here in East Texas. And more often than UNDER, they're ON your feet! Stinging the FIRE out of you! 

I'd like to put the disclaimer "No fireants were harmed in the taking of this photo", but it would be a BIG FAT LIE! I struggled to get this photo.  And it's still not great.  It was a learning experience for sure.


{Capturing Movement}

I tried so many experiments with this one.
But I went with a good old kiddo splashin' in the water pic.  That's one thing Aidan never complains about me taking pictures of.... him playing in the water.

{Texture}

We have quite a few of these trees around our place.
I just love the roughness of the trunks.
Anyone have any idea what kind they are?!


{Face Your Fears}

I have to admit something.... I totally cheated on this one!  But I was definitely facing my fear of snakes as I chased this fella up the hill just to snap a picture of him! That should count for something?!  It was just a week earlier than this challenge!?  And even though I'm told he's a harmless snake, he's still CrAzY big!! Harmless or not, HE.IS.A.SNAKE.


{Currently}

Currently, I am on a Monster, caffeine, and just sugar in general.... BINGE!

I've never been a health food nut, to say the least.

But come on, Shannon! Ya gotta snap out of it!

I'll let y'all know how that goes :-/

UG LY

This kid just CRACKS.ME.UP.

This was a picture I took right after his Kindergarten graduation on Tuesday.  He wasn't too happy about having his picture taken.... or having to keep the tie on!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

His little sis and I just LOVE Justin Bieber.  But he doesn't! Quite the opposite actually.  This was our conversation as "Boyfriend" was playing on the radio a few hours ago:


Aidan: "I hate Justin Bieber. He sags.  And I got two words for ya. UG LY."


Me: "Actually, that's just one word."


Then he looks at me like I'm stupid.


Aidan: "Actually, no it's not. It's two words. Just like I said. UG LY.  See, two words. Do you think I'm stupid or something? I did just graduate kindergarten, mama."






http://www.thelongroadtochina.com/

Wordless Wednesday {Double Trouble}

Ahhhh, that's double trouble right there.

The curly headed one is mine.  

The other cutie is my son's best friend, 

and the son of a very dear friend of mine as well.

They're supposed to be participating in field day, 

but were distracted by something else outside the fence instead.

Boys :-)

Linking up with:

The Paper Mama