mini fall photos + mosquitoes

As you all know, I am the worst at lining up family pictures. We've done it once. Three years ago.

And here it is the middle of October and yet again, I didn't get around to or even think of scheduling family pictures. 

(Maybe every 4th year is the ticket?)

Recently I helped a friend take some impromptu newborn photos. She literally texted me one day and said, "You have an expensive camera, can you take some pictures?"  I said yes, and then quickly tried to learn all there was to learn about our camera in the course of two hours. 

Long story short, I took the photos, Jared did some hefty editing to make up for my lack of eye/knowledge-of-anything-camera-related and they turned out much better than I ever expected.

So I've been suggesting we take a few of our kids. And by "we" I mean Jared.

There was beautiful weather out one evening, so we fancied up the kids and took them to a local walk park with lots of trees and fields in the background.

They were pretty decent sports for about 30 seconds.

Because while we had accounted for the sunset and their clothes and all that, we didn't really think of bugs, specifically mosquitoes. And they were out in full force.

In almost every photo, one child or another is swatting one or scratching somewhere.  We were able to get one or two acceptable ones, but we will definitely need to retry another time.

And the biggest mistake on our part was that school photos were the next day. And the poor things already had bites on their cheeks and foreheads showing up that night. So I had the pleasure of shelling out an extra $6 a piece for "touch-ups" so their school pictures wouldn't showcase the massive welts on their faces.

Lesson learned.

May photo randoms

Birthday Breakfast: Daddy's Famous Cinnamon Roll + 5 candles

Grandma Snuggles

Grandpa Wheelbarrow Rides

New in the Solko household
It's like that weird extra room was just waiting for this piano to show up and complete it.

Ladies' Tea at church

I thought digital cameras made it fool-proof and virtually impossible to cut off someone's head. 
Guess not. 
Boo.

Tiny bowls for tiny chefs

The hat and pink aviators. 
Be still my heart.

Planting with Daddy

A scolding from Daddy

 Back yard chillin' and cupcakes with Papa Alan

Always Fighting/Kicking/Pinching/Hitting/Arguing

"Push me, Papa!"

 Painting

Photography by Bailey

 Photography by Graham

Photography by Avery

Workshoppin'!

found on my phone

I don't take photos with my phone much. If it's handy, sure. But if the photo is even somewhat important, I try to get out the good camera. 
So that means that lots of the photos on my phone are slightly blurry or downloaded from a Snap I took and sent to family.

And what usually happens is that I forgot I ever took them, and I am surprised to randomly find them months later.

Like this one last month before Boo's first concert.

Easter morning, anxiously awaiting the egg hunting

Have I mentioned this guy is obsessed with stealing my coffee?
Some days I will take one or two drinks, leave to do something for a few minutes and come back to find the entire mug empty.
And then I find him, and he is smiling really, really big.

This lady taking a nap on me in the doctor's office (Hour #2).

It seems there are seasons in parenting: all-night feeding season, diapers, constant activities, the teen years... 

But is there supposed to be a UTI season?

We're still trying to get to the bottom of all the issues, and we're trying whatever we can think of.

Currently: chiropractic. 

Photography by Avery Jo.

She really captured his essence, don't you think?

spring cleaning

This is the post where I dump random pictures on you in an attempt to add to some content to this slightly neglected blog.
Listed in no particular order:


Graham's first farm sale.

Carhartt cuteness overload!

Graham has been potty-trained for about 3ish months now - shortly after he turned three. We bought him underwear last year, but he was never very reliable when it came to using the toilet. (Remember how he pooped on Batman?) 

So I didn't push it. 

But one day I did tell him that once he was out of diapers he could start going to sales with Papa. Papa doesn't change diapers. (Once while I went out for a morning of garage sales with my mom and Jared, my dad volunteered to watch the kids. It all went well except for the dirty washcloths in my bathroom sink. My dad panicked at the thought of a dirty diaper change and didn't think to use the wet wipes next to the stack of clean diapers in Graham's room. So instead Avery gave him about 4 washcloths from the linen closet to use. Please keep in mind that this man has four daughters... )

Anyway, long story long, Graham started actually giving a crap (pun intended) once future farm sales were on the line. He got to go with Papa Jeff to his first one this past month. And unfortunately for all involved, my dad still hasn't improved with the whole Graham going #2 situation, but that's a story for another day.

The Father Daughter Dance

The girls attended their first father daughter dance recently. My dad came along as as extra set of hands for Jared, although since the girls ended up only wanting to dance with their friends, neither man felt overly needed that night.

This candid photo

They're both making get-outta-here/geez-Mom/seriously?! faces to some comment. And it cracks me up that it was caught on camera.


Be still my heart.
I love these people so much. ♥

Jared is back to honey-doing lately. I've wanted a bench for a boring spot in our front landscape since we moved in (ie: 2012), so he built me this bad boy. He also built another planter bed for our backyard along with getting back into a busier Etsy schedule after two months off.

Bailey's first "informance"
(ie: an informal performance/concert)
Don't worry, I rolled my eyes just as hard as you probably just did.

She did a good job. It was slightly odd to us. The teacher sang more than the kids did. It was a lot of them going around in circles or jumping and random stuff like that. But Bailey seemed to be enjoying it, so that is what matters.
She did sing a little solo part, which was sweet to watch. 
And the two songs the kids did sing (really, they sang 2 songs in 35 minutes) were good. 


Do not kum in heer. X

Yeah, sta awt!

The kids (aka - Bailey wielding a dry erase marker) have been leaving us notes all around warning us to stay out of their areas, mainly their bedrooms or the toy room. They haven't tried to enforce their warnings so we haven't been annoyed by it yet. I still love finding little notes around the house with Bailey's writing. I particularly love the challenge of phonetically sounding out the messages and trying to figure it out. 
Kindergarten decoding 101.


The Grandpa Version of Dress-up

My dad is getting a lot of blog play here today, folks!
If you're going to just sit around at our house, there is a chance you could get decorated like a Christmas tree. Or look like the dress-up cart threw up on you.


And in case you're wondering,
we're still loving hats around here.

Easter 2016

I love Easter. Not only because of the obvious reason as a Christian, but also because it's pretty fun and low-key as far as holidays go. There is family and food aplenty. There is no gift-buying pressure. There are fun traditions like dyeing and hunting for eggs. And don't forget the excuse to wear a fancy hat. (Stay tuned for that portion.)

Prepared for dyeing duty

Bring on the ridiculous photos

And then there's that Easter hat.
If any of our kids is going to be the one to make a fashion statement, it's Avery. And she wore that baby with pride. Apparently people like seeing a throwback to traditions of yesteryear (btw: Google informs me that is indeed a word) because she received plenty of compliments on it.
Thanks to Grandma Cathy as always for the lovely Easter regalia.  :)

Easter had a different feel for me this year too. It felt more real, if that even makes sense. It's no secret that I've grown a lot in my faith over the past year, so it felt more personal. 

Bailey is older this year, and she had questions, many that tended to involve details about the death of Jesus.
Why would people hate him that much?
Why did he have to die?
How could he save us if he died?
If God is his dad, why would he let him get hurt?

Deep stuff. 
It's challenging for adults to understand, let alone a 6 year-old. I don't have all the answers, but I tried my best. I don't know how much made sense in their little minds. 

But on Easter evening as my mom was rocking a sleepy Graham, he told her he loved her and she responded back that she loved him too. Then he matter of factly told her, "But Jesus loves me more than even you or Mommy or Daddy."

I think that is a fine way to sum up Easter. 

capturing our holiday spirit

Our new computer might be up in running in a newly updated office space (ie: no more green carpet, window, or trim) but that doesn't mean Photoshop is working. Or even downloaded.

So I am presenting to you our Christmas season photos with zero editing or cropping. 
(And really, I would have loved to edit some make-up onto my face in that family photo. Yikes.)

Back in November, when we actually had snow

The kids love their yearly Christmas jammies.

If you know Avery, you will recognize that this is a perfect capture of her "Oh my gosh, seriously, you guys, wait, this story is so amazing" face.

family "Polar Express" movie & popcorn night

The annual coordinating outfits for the church program...

And like a thousand outtakes

They rediscovered our tiny apron collection and now they can't cook a pretend meal in their play kitchen without one on.

Sugar cookie dough = pure enjoyment

All three kids near Santa and no one cried?!

Penning a careful and thoughtful letter to Santa

And then there is my favorite photo.

This year I was so excited to put up the trees in their rooms.  The lights wrapped around their bunk bed and the tree lit across the room just scream holiday spirit to 4 and 5 year-olds. So the tree skirt was meant for a tree about one-fourth of that size and the kids don't actually leave any ornaments on it, it doesn't matter.

This time of year is so special and magical to them that they couldn't handle sleeping in their beds 8 feet from the tree, they had to camp out right in front of it. 

Merry Christmas, everyone! Only 3 days left!