Two Hundred and thirty four...

Total Party Animal!

So, why all the posts about Bodie. Two reasons. One, I am way behind on the post a day and Two, Bodie just turned two and I thought it would be fun to watch him grow. He turned two at the end of August and we had a party for him. His cousins came to swim and eat yet another hotdog for a meal. I was so hot dogged out by the end of this summer....

Anyways Happy Birthday Big Two Year Old! The funny face he is making in the photo on the bottom left is because he just tried to eat the candle...it does look good if you didn't know it was made out of wax.

Two Hundred and thirty three...

Bodie at 21 months, playing in the rocks. Why are rocks so fascinating to little boys?

Two Hundred and Thirty two...

Bodie and my Mom, snuggling before nap time. Bodie was 18 months old.

Two Hundred and thirty one...

Bodie at 15 months, enjoying a little spin on the ATV.

Two Hundred and thirty...

Bodie at 1 year. They sure do change a bunch in the first year!

Two hundred and twenty nine...

Bodie at 10 months. Learning to stand up on his own...look how proud!

Two hundred and twenty eight...

Bodie at 5 months chillin' in his little chair. See that little tuft of hair on his head. Ron and I had so many discussions about if we should cut it or not. Ron thought not, I thought cut! He was a cutie no matter what...but it always looked like he had a little comb over action goin' on.

Two Hundred and twenty seven...

Bodie at 2 months. We were on our way to my Mom's 70th birthday party. She was thrilled to have us all there. Especially, her newest Grandson!

Two hundred and twenty six...

Bodie and my Dad share a birthday month. My Dad has been gone for six years now. I remember feeling his presence so strongly when Bodie was born. I just kept lookin at Bodie's little hands and thinking those are my dad's hands. My Dad had very square looking hands, meaning his fingers were kind of blocky and they all looked the same length. That is why I snapped the little photo of Bodie's hand...see his fingers, see how square and similiar in length they are?
I love you Dad!

>

Two Hundred and twenty five...

I am learning to love the light in my barn...

...and I love the fact that he feeds the dog. All by himself.

And he even calls the dog to come and eat!

Two Hundred and twenty four...

This is Stella. She is from Tawain. She stayed with us for 5 weeks this summer and she became very good friends with the kids. Avery really liked her and I am sure enjoyed having another girl around to play with. We miss Stella.

Two hundred and twenty-three...

The weekend Kim and I got together was really short but we did manage to carve out some time to go to lunch and go practice what we learned at the workshop. We found a couple places on the way to lunch to hop out and take some photos. This one was a surprise to me because I was so pleased with the way it came out of the camera. I did the smallest amount of editing to this photo...well I had a great subject to work with to start. I guess I learned something at the workshop because I loved the color of this photo and the exposure as well.



Kim, I had a great time during your visit and I wish we could have spent longer doing what we love and enjoying each other's time together (kid free). What a treat it was to have a break from the norm and hangout with a girlfriend!

Two hundred and twenty-two...

So this was the group for the workshop we attended the gentleman on the right is Michael Andrew. He is a great instructor and photographer. His workshop was very informative in both photography techniques and the business side of things. I left with many bits of inspiration that had nothing to do with how to take a picture! I keep finding myself saying things like "Just like Michael said at the workshop..."

He took this of me and I edited it.




I took this of him. I was a great day!

Two hundred and twenty one...

So at the beginning of August I got to have a playdate with one of my friends. Kim came to Oregon to attend a photography workshop with me. We had been planning it for months. It takes so much coordination for us Mommies to break away from Mommy duties and do something for ourselves. I am so glad that we made it all happen. I will never forget it. We learned a lot and practiced a lot.

Two Hundred and twenty...

Rewind: Bodie is such a smart little boy. When we went to get his cast off, we walked down the same hall to the same room were he got his cast on and he said..."ow, owie"! Smart, smart, smart little boy!
Before:

He warmed up quickly when he saw there was a fire truck to play with.

Waiting for Dada to zoom the firetruck back.

The saw was loud and this was really hard to watch and I am glad I don't have that guy's job.
Rowdy, looked on so sweetly and very concerned about Bodie.
Ron was calm during the whole thing holding Bo and talking to him.
We asked Bodie if he got a "new" arm?He confirmed the answer with this look. There is a tear on Ron's hand. I was so sad that his little hand was overexposed in the photo, but so glad that I caught the expression on his face.
This was seconds after they pulled the cast away...that must feel so strange.Checking out his new arm!

Two hundred and nineteen...

I was looking through my old photos to see if I could find some images that I took with my camera shortly after I bought it...boy was there a lot of blurry images going on in that archive! But I did run across this reletively sharp photo of Bodie. My kids have lots of cousins, Aunties and Uncles. One of the kids Uncles has affectionately calls babies in this stage of teething...Tic Tac! Can you see why?

Two hundred and eighteen...

I overheard Ron and his brother's talking about the "amber waves of grain" that Ron planted and how there were indeed nestled among the "purple mountains" and were in fact "above the fruited plains". Never a dull moment around the Shinkle boys and their ability to take a singular topic and run with it.

See amber waves of grain...

Rowdy got to spend a day working the field of wheat with his Dad. He had a hard time deciding between staying home and swimming and going to the field with Ron. He decided to go to the field and when I went pick him up he didn't want to come home. I think it is funny that Avery's hair blends in with the wheat. It looks the same.

Two hundred and Seventeen...

I am working on a project for the kids at church and it involves me taking some pictures of them. This is Rowdy and his friend Austin. They are buddies and play really well together. They were in the same kindergarten class. Don't they look handsome. I think I told them to look tough or serious? That might explain Rowdy's face.

Two hundred and sixteen...

We went to the County Fair at the beginning of August and they had some tractors on display. Bodie got to sit on several of them. As you can see his little brain was on overload and couldn't possibly process the goodness of so many tractors being in one location. We would sit him on one of them and he would say, "more, tractor" and point at the other tractors around him. He was in heaven but he was also 100% overstimulated by the sea of farmer equipment surrounding him.


Sweet Boy!

Two hundered and fifteen...

More of Bodie's fake smile.

Two Hundred and thirty six...

Do you know how many of his little fake smiles I have in my files....

Two hundred and fourteen...

Since I didn't get to take any pictures of the kids on the beach this year because of the wind. I tracked down some from last year that I don't think I ever posted. This was a good reminder to me that I need to get more shots of them together.

Two hundred and thirteen...

These are is not from this August but they are from my archive, that is for sure. This was August 2006. We were at Roger and Maryanne's and the kids were playing in this old bathtub and pretending to be on a voyage of some kind. They look like the Little Rascles to me. I took these with my point and shoot and I was trying to get all fancy and I actually took these in black and white in my camera. Rowdy and Avery were so little. Rowdy still had baby fat for crying out loud.

Two hundred and twelve...

This little chunk is Ron's cousin's little boy. Do you want to know how you can tell that he is related. He and Bodie smile the same for the camera.... Also, Rowdy had the same amount of chunk on his legs when he was this age.

Two Hunderd and Eleven...

I am exactly one month behind on this blog post per day goal that I made with myself. So my plan to get caught up is to have a systematic approach...it's the Virgo in me, what can I say. And by no means was that a hint that my birthday is coming up. I take pictures everyday, practically. So I am going to go through my archives and post from each day of the month of August. But as I type this I am realizing if I really want to get caught up, I need to do two posts a day, one from August and one for September.I took this on August 1st. I was probably practicing one thing or another with my camera. This little one is really starting to talk much more. He shocked me the other night and kind of said his first sentence. It was bedtime and I asked him where his tractor book was and he said, "Tractor, book, brother, room." It was very animated and he was so cute trying to tell me where the book was. He is adding new words to his vocabulary everyday at warp speed.He loves to point out tractors and mail boxes when we are driving somewhere. So you can imagine what my van sounds like, "Mama, mail, mail, mail!!!" as he sees each one in succession along the side of the road. And since there is no shortage of tractors around here..."Mama, Dacdo." Dacdo=Tractor Before he could say Dacdo, he would just shout "Mama!" and point out the window at the Dacdo. My two favorites as of late are, Yep and Nope! Love that buttery boy!