Our Little Guy

I took a few pics of Trip today.  He is so hard to take pictures of.  He will not look at the camera.  I took 80 pictures to get these 3.  I saw this bed of leaves and thought it would be nice for some pictures, so here they are!  The first pic is untouched.  I played around with some post processing on the last 3.

Brandons Wood Duck 11-14-09

Brandons Woodie 11-14-09 LR, originally uploaded by LukeT123.

I was playing around with Adobe Lightroom and thought that this would make an awesome computer background for those that like duck hunting.

Chris's Wood Duck

IMG_0780, originally uploaded by LukeT123.

Chris bagged a nice drake wood duck today. Great shot Chris!

Kolbe

T1i 11-11-09 020, originally uploaded by LukeT123.

Just wanted to throw a quick picture of Kolbe that Keri took a few weeks ago. He has finally calmed down after 5 years of acting like a puppy. He has also been a really good hunting companion. I think he likes ducks hunting as much or more than I do!

Throwing out the Deke's

T1i 11-11-09 027, originally uploaded by LukeT123.

Keri took this photo when we went hunting together. Great shot.

Awesome Wife

T1i 11-11-09 051, originally uploaded by LukeT123.

I have an awesome wife. She went hunting with me. Hopefully we will be able to get out many, many more times together. And maybe next time we will get to shoot.....

New house _ Street view

T1i 11-11-09 061, originally uploaded by LukeT123.

View From the outside of the new house.

OUR NEW LIVING ROOM

T1i 11-11-09 058, originally uploaded by LukeT123.

We put an offer on a new house today and it was accepted. More infor to follow!!!!

photos of Cade at 6 weeks

Well better late than never seems to my mantra in this season of life, sadly. :( But here are some long over due photos I took of Cade (Jackson) who is my 3rd baby from Monday to Thursday. He was 6 weeks old here, right before I started to keep him. {These are not w my cam, they are with mom's}And of course I had to throw one in of my Sunshine.

New Camera Day!

Finally! A sweet new camera! I've saved & Luke has bargain shopped & the day has come! I wanted to play with it a little so I threw a precious punkin hat on Trip & snapped away. Here's a few of my Sunshine.

Pumpkin Chase

We had a leader scavenger hunt at church in costume. I was the karate kid as a shower and Keri was a UPS man. Good times. The shower won second place in the costume contest. It was bested by a tornado! They clearly spent a lot more time than I did and she deserved to win!

Nelle & Lizzy-from Luke

"Awww! Lukey you shouldn't have!" This is what I squealed when I got my gift card to Nelle&Lizzy to pick out my mothers ring. It arrived a while back & I keep forgetting to blog about it. I love my ring I where it every day. It was a move of the grandest husbandry on my man's part. I was so surprised. It took me forever to decide what I wanted & commit. The packaging is so fantastic when you get it you just want to stare at it. It couldn't possibley look as adorable on your finger as it does in that tiny box of lavendar witht the little flower bud...no, wait...it does look as adorable on my finger!!! Yeah! Well here's some pics, although they don't do it justice. I'm sure it's too fuzzy to see "Trip" & "Joss" engraved on the individual rings. (I can't figure out how to do real close up shots on my little point & shoot cam. Any suggestions?)

Inspiration all Around

Well I'm addicted. I've found myself lately using words that I often tease April for saying 10 times a day: "on this blog I read..." So now I can no longer poke at her, for there is a log in my own eye!

Aaahhh, back to the inspiring. Well, there has been this air of creativity floating all about me for a few weeks now. I have most recently become fascinated with pinwheels. Jossi calls them "round & rounds" because they go round &...well you know the rest. So this has become the theme for her birthday bash coming up on Saturday. Yeah! We will have pinwheel cupcake toppers, a home made cake from scratch (pictures to follow) made by your truly, complete with fresh marshmallow fondant! I have found pinwheels to be particularly mesmerising as of late. If you get a puff of wind in the sweltering summer heat & your pinwheel begins to turn, it's bright colors whirling into one...you can get lost in a stare. I can relate to Joss on so many levels when I get down on the floor & take in her view. It's just taking that time to get down there that is the challenge. I am very excited about her 2nd birthday party & to see how all my fun little details turn out. Stay tuned to find out yourself! (Actually I'd better see you all there to find out in person!). Pic of hand made pinwheels is from Twirlie Whirlies Etsy shop, romantic pinwheel shot from Dana & Jeremy Photography

Every day life #1

Some times you just want to post a few pics of every day life. So I'll just call them Everyday life & # them from now on.

This made me nervous but Trip seemed to love it!Little Corn eater
Pushing babies with mommie
My little blue bell boy
This is Trip's blue steel pose with peas on top

Joss caught taking off her make up

Weekend Fun

Caden's 2nd birthday party. (thank you Monica for these beautiful pics!)



Joss waving at her Lolly (Kelli)
On the steps (in the wonderful shade)
Joss in Trip's floatie
Luke & I before Brittany & Matt's wedding Sunday night.

So this weekend was packed! Just the way I like it-makes for good naps on Mondays. We headed to Austin & Kelly's on Friday night for fajitas & a baby fix. Baby Cade is too precious-already growing & changing. I got to swaddle him up & get him put down for the night. (I can't locate my camera at the moment so I'm missing out on good pics. Ugh.) Then we had Caden Wardlaw's birthday party on Saturday morning. We had such a good time visiting with old friends. Monica Higgins was there with her camera (and precious baby Luke) capturing all the best moments. Check out her blog or facebook to see more of her incredible photos. Saturday afternoon we had a swim day with my family. Joss was quite the fish in her new suit with the built in floaties. Then she got over it & decided to go nude for the rest of the time. Crazy girl! Sunday night was Brittany Stull & Matt Vinson's wedding. It was beautiful, an intimate setting & great food. All around a good weekend. Oh except little Trip who's skin is awful right now. Poor itchy little guy.

Joss' Birthday Party

Come one, come all! Joss' birthday party will be here soon. I have created an invitation & decided to use the convenience of the internet to save monies. The cake will be yummy mint chocolate chip (from scratch of course & with home made fondant-my new obsession). We will all be in our swim gear so wear yours too & don 't forget floaties, sunscreen & hats for the little ones. There is an excellent kiddie pool as well as a large 3 foot to 4.5 foot pool for older kids & parents. We're so excited to see everyone & celebrate Joss' big day.

Le Tour

Not being able to watch the Tour for the first time in 8 years is tough. We cancelled our cable to save a few dollars..... Well that may have been a mistake (not really in the big picture). Most of you probably don't really care about the worlds longest race. I do.....

This years tour is headlined by the comeback of one of the greatest athletes of all times - Lance Armstrong. This guy is amazing. He already has the record for the most Tour de France wins and after several years in retirement he has come back to the sport he loves pro bono! That's right he is not getting paid by his team, Astana, he is riding for free. Well, he's got Nike, Oakley, Trek, and a few other major sponsors but still, he is not drawing a salary. He is doing it for the love of the sport and to raise awareness for his booming cancer research organization, Livestrong. His dedication is amazing.

He is on one of the best teams in cycling with 3 guys that could be contenders to win. Alberto Contador won the tour 2 years ago. Levi Leiphimer was runner up last year. Andreas Kloden has always been a solid rider. This year it will be hard to tell who the winner is going to be. The mountains will decide over the next few days. Imagine riding your bike over 100 miles then doing an all out sprint for 1000 yards. You'd be pretty tired the next day right. Well these guys are doing it 21 days in a row covering over 2,200 miles, with only 2 rest days.

Tune in and watch history in the making. Will Lance be able to beat his teamate Alberto Contador who has a 2 second advantage right now and more than a decade less wear and tear on his body. The next few days will tell. I'll be watching.

Someday the Thorkildsen family will go to France to watch this race. Until then I guess the TV will have to work.

Cade's Shower

Cade's shower seems like it was months ago! The anticipation of his arrival is getting to be too much to bear! Kelly is very busy with pedicures, floating in the pool with Jossi, resting up for the coming days & of course shopping! She is going to be an amazing mom & I cannot wait to see her in action & to meet this lil buckaroo.

The shower was at Julie's parents house-thanks so much for being amazing hosts! Spec worked really hard by staying out of the way & playing video games all afternoon. Janet saved our chocolate dip from certain demise, so then we had to eat it until we were all sick. Julie did what Julie does best: looked good, made unsweet tea for Kel & told us all what to do & where to go. ;) Kasey was super sister this day coming in with food & gifts & the whole nine yards. Trip was well entertained by friends of the female persuasion. Kelly looked beautiful & of course DeeDee was giddy & Coach was tearful, hiding behind his camera. The food was in abundance, the house was wonderful & the people came in droves. Here are some pics of the day of fun. (Debbie, Kasey & I made the diaper cake. I made the wreath & the little cactus party favors-it was such a fun theme!)

Julie & Trip
DeeDee & Trip
Lil cacti with a prayer for Cade
Western Cowboy Cake (yes I can/will make these for your showers too!)
Wreath (new idea I found on online-so fun!)
Yummy chocolate muffins with whip cream & raspberries. These sadly withered before the shower began. :(
The girls
Austin had a big honey do list at the end of this day. Good work daddy-to-be!