My pictures this week are all blurry, of people’s back, or of nothing interesting. It’s actually a terrible representation of our week – we did a lot of stuff!! – but the more I have my big camera in my hands the less I use my phone. My poor Instagram feed is sadly neglected. Maybe some day I’ll find a balance.

Sunday:

A rare Suzanne sighting IN one of my pictures.

Couch naps at the lake – sleeping like a baby.

Oh, it’s cold and cloudy? NO1CURR. We want to swim.

Monday:

Evan decided mint chocolate chip is his favorite, which was totally my favorite as a kid too.

IT’S SO GOOD ONCE IT HITS YOUR LIPS.

Watching my kids play with my old toys in my old house is always weird.

Tuesday:

Jersey Plates: FISTPMP (I was stopped, traffic was terrible)

This is how she feels about cheeseburgers

The moon is far less impressive in this picture, but was very cool. You’ll just have to trust me.

Wednesday:

Hands in her pockets.

Don’t let her face fool you, she luuuuuvs frozen yogurt.

An evening walk-run-roll in the grass

Thursday:

For a kid who was having a TON OF FUN, that’s a pretty strong side-eye.

MISSER TATO HEAD!!!

Dancing at the winery – they fell down a lot for people who weren’t even drinking.

 Friday:

DRIVE THRU STARBUCKS DRIVE THRU STARBUCKS IN MY TOWN! And whatever this peach green tea lemonade thing is is delicious.

What are these candies shaped like rings?? What sorcery is this?!?!?!

Gorgeous night for a photo shoot at the beach.

Saturday:

Princesses love strawberries for breakfast.

As close as I get to a day off – letting them destroy the house and watch TV.

Evening walk. Still in royal princess garb.

 This week is going to be crazy too (pictures, orientation, Evan’s first day of school ON A BUS!) but hopefully I can do a better job blogging than I did last week. My mother will be very sad if I quite posting pictures of her grandchildren because I’m taking pictures of other people.

Technically it’s still summer, but someone forgot to tell Connecticut. And Virginia.

Sunday:

Life’s tough choices: cinnamon cider donuts or glazed cider donuts?

Giving directions in the maze

Brushing the princess’s hair

Monday:

Belle watching Belle

Being a princess is exhausting

Blue Icees are the best reward

Tuesday:

Pre-pre-school hugs

Purple dress with tiny pink foxes at Target. Go get one for your baby.

Building a dinosaur skeleton zoo, to keep dinosaurs skeletons for escaping

Wednesday:

Hello Hartford!

Doin’ sciencey stuff

Not swinging. Sitting. Because I was working. But she refused to get out (or put on pants).

Thursday:

I’ve been going to the clinic on base for 8 years and this was the first time I ever noticed the water tower. Observant!

Cooperative art

We pay $200 a year for an aquarium membership and they think the lobsters at the grocery store are just as good.

Friday:

Go on vacation? Nah, we’ll hang at this rest area and look at diggers.

Can’t you see I’m RELAXING? Knock it off with the pictures.

RELAAAAAAAAAAX

Saturday:

Man-time fishing on the lake

Jumper!

Golden child

I keep thinking there’s just one week left in August and I have way too much to do, but there are TWO weeks left in August…and I still have way too much to do. Well, no, not too much. I can never, ever get too much photography work and I’m super excited I have some shoots lined up already.

So excited I MIGHT have just ordered myself my dream camera. Now I have 6 months to pay for it. Please forgive me if there are a few extra sponsored posts next month – dreams are pretty expensive and I’m determined to finance mine on my own, without using the family (husband-earned) money.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of OshKosh B’Gosh and Kohl’s, but it’s mostly just pictures of my kids.

I’m going to whisper, because I don’t want to jinx anything, but I think the horrible, hot, humid part of the summer is over. It’s still warm enough to spend the day outside, but not so hot my hair never dries between cold showers. And our non-air conditioned house feels like a comfortable place to take a nap instead of a sweat lodge. We all smell better now, too.

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See what I did there? In the title? A-MAZE-ing. Sorry about that, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

With several pick-your-own places within a couple miles of our house and a field of sunflowers the next town over we’ve never made the drive out to Lyman Orchards before last weekend. We planned to just go for the sunflowers but ended up having breakfast (giant apple cinnamon cream cheese bearclaw NOM NOM) and blueberry picking too. The kids loved the maze and would have stayed “lost” in it all day if we let them. And then Caroline ate her body weight in blueberries right off the bush. I would have felt bad about how many we didn’t pay for, except when we carried our GIANT pail of blueberries up to get weighed our total was $5. Best deal ever. We’re definitely going back for apples and pears – the views alone are worth the drive.

I actually had to DECREASE the color saturation on these pictures, because the flowers were so yellow and the sky was so blue it hurt my eyes. Real life, how can you be so gorgeous?!

Lyman Orchards offered free maze tickets to several Connecticut bloggers and I was lucky enough to score them for our family, but no compensation was received and we paid for our food and blueberries.  The sunflower maze runs until August 25th and I highly recommend it!

Welcome to August in New England, where the weather cools down juuuuust enough to make life bearable, the days are still super long, and the kids can SENSE that I’m shipping them off to school soon so they start demanding the playground every day.

Sunday:

When you take gymnastics, every wall is a balance beam

The King of All Wild Things demands a rumpus.

Admiring herself in the table reflection. Vanity, thy name is Caroline.

Monday:

HI PIRANHAS! I LOVE YOU! YOU SO SPARKLY!

Want to see him wait patiently? Promise him grilled cheese.

Swinger

Tuesday:

I walked to the grocery store. The halfway point is the hospital where both kids were born.

MORE SWINGING!

Photographer (and model) in training

Wednesday:

Evan decorated her hair during a cat nap

Appropriate scooter attire

Creepy ass princess takes a bath

Thursday:

When you don’t have a photography studio, you improvise. Thank God for sliding glass doors.

Scooter pro already

Photography assistant for my evening maternity shoot

Friday:

She found the shirt she liked and wouldn’t even LOOK at anything else.

I got beat at Princess Chutes and Ladders by a 2 year old. It hurts.

Uh oh, I hear sirens…

Saturday:

TINY PRE-K SCHOOL UNIFORMS I CAN’T EVEN.

Photo editing while the kids watch a surprisingly not terrible fake Pixar movie about sea turtles.

Terribly grainy drive thru photo of the kids attempting the clapping part of the Cups song.

E’s hours are still killing him, but we managed to fit in some family time today, which was super fun. He even put up a curtain rod we’ve been meaning to put up for seven years. Maybe in another seven years we’ll fix the shower door that’s been broken since we moved in!  No, probably not. That clothes pin keeps it closed pretty well.