bluebonnet pictures

okay, it's official, we now live in texas (it's only taken 21 months or sofor this to kick in...). so of course, that means we now have pictures of our kids in the blue bonnets. rayna was a little sick the day we took the pictures, so she looks a little stoned (just a mild fever and some bad allergies, but still not fun for picture-taking), but i think we still got a bunch of cute ones. hope you like them too:

the ladybug was far more fascinating than listening to mom or taking pictures

rayna
afton

both girls together :) and both smiling at the same time--amazing, i know

my favorite of rayna, she was running back to look at herself in the camera

(which is why we take pictures you know, so we can say how cute we are)

and my favorite of afton, twirling, of course :)

the dog whisperer

so paul's been on me to post this little story for a while, but haven't actually done it...

a little bit ago (week and a half maybe) we stopped by to visit some friends after church. they have three dogs--two big ones and a little one, varieties unknown--and a cat. we were visiting and the kids were playing for a while, and just before time to leave, it was time to clean up. rayna and afton helped put the toys away, and then rayna went to the back door, opened it up and said "out doggies, out now doggies" in a cute little tiny girly voice. to our utter surprise all three dogs and the cat stood up and calmly walked in a single file line out the back door. i'd never seen anything like it! fortunately, they're outside/inside dogs :)

trouble?

is anyone else having trouble with blogger? i've been trying to change my header picture for four days now and it won't shrink-to-fit any of my photos. i've never had this happen before, i figured if i waited a day or two it would fix by itself... but now i'm thinking it's a problem with me not blogger. any suggestions?

some easter pictures

here's a few pictures from easter... mostly egg-hunting, cause that's when i pulled the camera out, but there's also a couple from this past sunday, which while not "easter" dresses, produced cute pictures :)

these boiled eggs lasted three days (and the girls ate all but, i think, 3 of them)

twirling!

just cause i think they're cute

aquarium

we're very fortunate in our friends! last week (okay, nearly 2 weeks ago now, i've been behind blogging) we went with some friends to the dallas aquarium (which is really super-expensive, and they have a pass that gets us in free! hooray!!!) here's a few picturs of our favorite things:

this is one of my favorite fish, it's called arapaima, i wish the picture was better, i think it makes it REALLY clear why people believe in mermaids! the fish is probably 4-5 feet long, most of which is tail, and it's gorgous, with lots of red shimmer on greenish or bluish scales. if you only caught a glimpse of the tail, it'd be easy to imagine there was a beautiful woman attached :)the shark tank is always a favorite. you can walk through a tunnel and see lots of differnt sharks and rays (our favorite was the saw-fish, like a swordfish, but with saw blade "teeth" on the sides). afton was universally excited in the tunnel, but rayna was a little nervous (sometimes i couldnt blame her):that ray was easily 5 feet long, plus tail, and it totally freaked rayna out! she was in the process of jumping onto my shoulder from the bench when i was trying to catch a few pictures as this guy swam by.one of the more traditional aquarium pictures (most of this aquarium is more like a zoo, lots of birds, monkeys, a sloth--that wanders at will around the greenery directly overhead of the pathways, and various other animals). that's afton's friend the giant clam.and, like i said, there's lots of other animals there too, this is a jaguar, sitting right by my little girl! she was in heaven! that's her friend nino also, and rayna didn't want to pose for this pictures, though she liked the cat a lot better than the sharks!

thanks friends we had a WONDERFUL time!