Last Friday, Mike and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We treated ourselves for this big occasion and we went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for 5 days and 4 nights. It was such a nice and relaxing trip. We so needed it for a recharge.

At our resort, they offed complementary photo shoots. Of course, you know I had to do it. You just booked a time and the photographer took you around the resort and snapped away. You just picked the ones you wanted for $15 a picture and they burned the high res files to a disk! These are the ten I picked. It’s so great to have nice pictures of us to mark this big milestone. I can’t wait to get these printed! What a great husband I have for getting in front of the camera for me as an anniversary gift. He knows the way to my heart.

I like to try and take the kids photos in the fall once or twice. I took them out today for round 1. Usually we go to a local park, but today I decided to do something different and take them to the Capital Complex. That way they could walk around and I could take pictures when they were willing. For the most part, it worked out well. They boys were super cooperative. It was wonderful. They even had ideas for picture poses. Jillian was not so easy. It’s the age. But I got a few of the three of them together that I love. The one wasn’t in the most ideal spot with door being in the back left, but they thought it was a neat place to sit so I snapped away while they were willing subjects. Hopefully in a year or two it will be a piece of cake since all the kids will be able to take direction.

It’s neat to think 10 years ago Mike and I were having our wedding photos taken there and now I’m taking pictures of our beautiful children.

On Jillian’s actual birthday the boys had off school, so I decided to take the day off and keep her home with us. Me and the kiddos had a nice day. We ate donut holes for breakfast, watched some TV, got ready and met Mimi for lunch, went to the park, rested at home, then went to Chocolate World with Daddy when he got out of work.

Jillian was really fighting her nap. She slept for 10 minutes in the car on the way to lunch and when we got home from the park I thought for sure she would crash. Nope. She laid down on the ottoman, but that was short lived. She got up to play with her balloon, help me clean, and play with her brothers. Eventually I could tell she needed to just cuddle and rest. We laid on the couch with her on my chest and watched Brave and she fell asleep. That was secretly my favorite part of the day. She gets bigger and bigger with each passing day and soon we won’t be able to take cat naps like that. I have learned to cherish these little moments with my girl. Still can’t believe she is TWO!

As promised, here are pics from the first day of school. I have my annual ritual of taking pics of backpacks, any folders/school items we got before hand, and of course their first day of school notes from mom and dad.

And we have the tradition that you must wear new sneakers the first day. The boys are all about their new shoes so I make sure I document their selection for the new year too.

The boys were great and let me snap away. I got so many good keepsakes in under 5 minutes – sorry, I had to share most of them. Thanks boys!

I’ve been trying to get her to sing her ABCs on video for a while. Got it today. I still need to get Twinkle Twinkle, but maybe another day.

If the embedded video doesn’t work: Click here to watch the video of Jilly’s ABCs on YouTube.