The Wright Side of LifeThe family is one of nature’s masterpieces.

My friend Amanda recently gave me a disc with a bunch of pictures that she took and contained either shots I asked her to take of my kids (when I didn’t have my camera handy) or pictures of our kids together.  Even though it’s a huge mishmash of events, I wanted to post them to the blog anyway so that we will have them!

Scarlett and Olivia pouring pile after pile of sprinkles on their Valentine’s Day cookies at the SASCH (homeschool group) party:

Victoria, Scarlett, Oliva and Kinedy (Olivia’s cousin) as we prepared to head into the circus – our homeschool group had negotiated a reduced price on the tickets and Amanda purchased extra for our family and theirs and turned it into a really fun birthday outing for Olivia’s 4th Birthday!  We had a great time

Linc is such a clown

Me too!

At Little Bear in March – Judd was walking and Lincoln crawling, and they sure had fun trying to master all of the many toys there:

But Linc’s favorite was getting pushed around on the car!

Amanda and I went together for The Pioneer Woman’s book signing event at Borders in Buckhead for her second book, the story of how she and her husband met, fell in love and she became a transplanted city girl living on a huge Oklahoma cattle ranch.  “From High Heels to Tractor Wheels” was a great read and I now have a signed copy sitting on my bookshelf!  Plus, it was a great gals-night out

Just lovely!

At the zoo in March, soaking in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold weather, and as always, being silly:

“Think we can bust in there?”  Linc and Judd swap strategies.

There was much threatening involved to secure this picture:

Victoria pretty much ALWAYS has Judd in a love-lock (doesn’t that evoke nicer connotations than saying “headlock”??):

The kids always love playing on the bamboo, whether it’s draping casually on top of it…

Or stealing a smooch near it…

Or using it like a fireman’s pole!

I think the girls would stay in the goat pen for hours just brushing and brushing them down.  You wonder if the goats mind it or if at this point they barely notice all those kids hovering around them.

Finally!  The best attractions are at the end, according to the kids – the train ride and carousel.  Lincoln was literally drooling with excitement

While the girls took their own row right up front behind the conductor:

Linc’s first carousel ride on his own horse – he LOVED it!

Scarlett loves the carousel too – as long as it’s a non-up-and-down horse.  She prefers the stationary ones:

The girls dressed up in their self-made flower outfits at the Smith-Gilbert Garden’s kids program.  They hold one once a month and they are terrific!  The girls typically enjoy it immensely, but this day Victoria did NOT want to be a flower, only she wouldn’t tell me that… she just got quieter and quieter and looked like the saddest flower in the world:

From our April 1st camping trip with the Phillips – Amanda and Mikayla holding up my canopy tent gaffe.  Seeing that the weather was forecasted to be a bit iffy, I made a late-night Target run the night before we left and splurged on a canopy tent with screened-in walls.  Perfect!  Maybe we wouldn’t need it, but in the long run it would be great to have, weather camping, at the beach, or even on our deck.  Except, well, it was late. I was running.  Not so much on the paying attention to detail… and what I ended up with was JUST the screened-wall add-on and not an actual canopy to attach it too.  There was much laughter (at my expense)~

The boys playing in the gravel (Linc with his sock-mittens):

Chilly but mostly unfazed, they played on and on:

At the beach house – my smiley boy

Buddies!