Where have I been for two weeks?

Clue #1

Clue #2

Clue #3

Please tell me you have it by now! Clue #4

Still a little fuzzy? Clue #5

Ok, If you didn't get it, I don't know how else to help you. I left weather that permitted this...

and arrived in Indiana greeted by weather that was forcing this...

I'm home!

The Magic Kingdom

D'arcy was my excited baby who was watching the clock to make sure we headed out when we said we were going to. She wanted to buy little bits of everything. She wanted to go on rides, rides, rides. She wanted to get everyone's autograph. I love her enthusiasm and her joy in being a little girl.

I didn't get to spend much time with my little Schroe man. He rode with Daddy or Poppy on all the rides. He had a hard time waiting in line, but his awesome bandanna sure did prompt some awes. His little shriek of joy when he spotted Jesse in the parade stands out in my mind, though.

Julian was always at my side ready to hold my hand or snag a hug. He quietly enjoyed the rides. He said the carousel was his favorite. He almost bought a signature book but decided he wanted to save all his money to get some LEGOs. Surprise. At the end of the day, he did spend a bit of his money on some pirate Mickey ears.

Loved that Maggie Lu got to ride to come on some rides with us. All day, she wanted to walk on her own and sit on her own. She sat beside me as we rode through It's a Small World and she bounced up and down to the music. We brought out Mickey ears for her and instead of fussing and taking them off, she happily looked cute in them.

Goodnight Magic Kingdom...we'll be back soon.

Kids say the darndest things...

I apologize that five out of the last ten of my posts have been "Kids say the darndest things...". I think I've been to busy to write anything more substantial. We left for vacation last Thursday and stopped in Atlanta to spend a couple nights with some dear friends, the Knoltes. We were friends with them for probably 4 years before we discovered their last name did not start with a K and by that point we had already started to fondly refer to them as the ka-noltes so the K remains on Christmas Cards and blog posts.

On the way to Atlanta, we try to ease the pain of the "are we there, yet?" question by giving D'arcy a map with the route highlighted and asked her to read the road signs to follow our progress. She seemed to do fairly well and announced to us as we entered Atlanta that Exit could be broken into two words, egg and zit. Huh?

Anyway, I shared this next story with my mother-in-law and she asked if I was going to share this one on the blog. It was embarrassing enough to begin with... but here goes. The Knoltes took us to the Martin Luther King Jr museum which was profound and inspiring and thought provoking. We were in the room with pictures and memorabilia from MLK's death and funeral. There was a floral cross which also contained some vines, you know, a very large arrangement that would stand beside a casket. Schroeder came into the room and immediately said "He's gone." when he saw the cross. I'm guessing he was referring to Jesus. Then he said something horrifying but in reference to the vines on the cross. He said, "it's a monkey. hoo hoo ha ha." Um...what? Everyone in the room is appropriately somber and thoughtful about this very sensitive topic and, I'm sorry, what did you say?

Mark & Emily are engaged!

I shared the first three on Facebook, but I thought I would share a few more here before I take off for FLORIDA! This is a super sweet couple. I enjoyed every minute of our session. They trusted me to take them down to this field off the side of the highway that I've been admiring. In the fall it is full of yellows and purples. So pretty. As it gets colder, the colors fade and become so soft and subtle. Mark didn't feel very natural acting naturally. He was worried that he was ruining them all. It's a good thing that he has a pretty girl to make up for it ;).

Kids say the darndest things...

D'arcy: "Mom, one of my friends at school's dad lost his job so I gave my friend one of your business cards to give to her dad."

Me: "Ummmm...why? So I could give him a job?"

D'arcy: "Yeah."

Zoo

We went to the zoo for a Stephen's company picnic. There was face painting. The order in which they got their faces painted shows the personality of my kids. D'arcy immediately asked to have hers painted as soon as she saw the opportunity was available to her. She even wanted something else done on her arm or something. Schroeder was asked if he wanted his done, and was kind of like, "sure...yeah...let's go." Julian was asked and said no because he wasn't sure having paint in his eyes sounded like much fun. At the last second, he decided that, yeah, maybe he wanted his done. Before you see the pictures of the kids, you must first be forced to look at some pictures that I took that I think are pretty.

I think this is one of my all time favorite pictures of Schroe. It is definitely being printed!

Roberts family on the farm

So here is the lowdown on the farm. Greg (the guy I took photos of) is a fireman. He works part time at the Whitestown fire department. One of the other firemen lives on the farm and tends to the upkeep. The ninety year old woman who actually lives in the house is William Shatner's mother-in-law. I guess he was here recently to celebrate his mother-in-law's birthday. I thought it was worth sharing. On first glance, I thought these photos were also worth sharing. Meet Greg, Theresa, Jillian, and Casper.

Love the softness of this photo.

Final picture of the night.