cousins!

Jessica and her kids drove up from their office in Houston to see us for three days. My kids were in heaven. Swimming, going to the Stockyards, and we even had a Pioneer Day parade. And Jess and I got to go to the Lady Gaga concert in Dallas! I wish we had better pictures from it, but concert pics are never great. Oh and don't mind the pink floaties, Cody is very secure in his manhood.

shopping

I'm really not much of a shopper, especially with kids. Though I do love a good Target run. But there are a few stores here that we found that we just keep going back to. Rachel found us two fabric gold mines! One is a wholesale warehouse (supposedly the biggest outside LA or New York) where we have scored fabric for 99 cents/yard! The other is called City Craft and is the cutest boutique with tons of oil cloth and plastic covered cotton (not sure what the term for that is). A post with all my sewing projects will come soon.


We also keep finding ourselves at the NorthPark Mall in Dallas. My favorite thing is to just walk down the halls admiring the artwork and the amazing plants. I took the pictures of the kids in front of a smoothie shop covered in tile on the day we went to pick up Justin's new iPhone - his 125 account incentive. And I got his old phone!

P.S. Ellie does in fact, own more than one dress - somehow that same one keeps appearing on my blog!

heritage village

On July 4th we ventured into Dallas to visit the Heritage Village. Absolutely my kind of thing. Justin kept laughing at me b/c he could tell I was in my element. Set against the backdrop of the downtown high-rises (see the logo - it's great), the village contains buildings from the late 1800's and early 1900's including businesses, hotels, a school, log cabins, a general store, mansions, farms, blacksmiths, etc. All of them are period decorated and someone is there to tell you about each building. Being the fourth there was also crafts, games, and root beer floats!

it's the fourth ya'll

Some lovely photos by Carolee Beckham of our Sunday evening bbq before fireworks.

Saturday morning parade and waiting for the fireworks to start Sunday night.

around the house

bankhead's visit

At the end of June, Justin's parents and two little sisters came to visit. We had a rare cold front come in and it was beautifully rainy and never got above 80 degrees. We visited the Cowboys stadium, mini-golfed, went to Toy Story, bbq'd with the office, swam, ate at Which Wich - our favorite sandwhich shop, visited the Forth Worth Stockyards, went running, and spent the entire time at the fabulous Northpark Mall in Paper Source gawking over wedding invites for Jaime's August wedding! We came up with a design for her invites and they are being letterpressed as I type - I hope they turn out!

happiness is...

having a "claw" (said like the martians on Toy Story), and becoming a mermaid. Second only to the scooter from last year, the claw is probably Cody's most favorite toy ever. So handy for carrying drinks to different locations, opening and closing cupboards, getting out cereal meant to be out of reach, and poking me from the back seat of the car.

in the meantime

Having an unreliable internet connection has been good for me. I have cut my blogroll down to about 10 (after realizing that life does go on even when I don't know what everyone in blogland has been doing in the last day, or hour). But my own blog is suffering. Anywho - here are some photos from last semesters Photo 1 class while I work on getting some more edited from our endless summer.

From a portrait assignment.

From a shutter speed assignment.

For my final project I photographed my Grandpa and Grandma Bagley's home. Their home is clean and bright. My grandma is stylish and an incredible homemaker. I wanted to show some of the beautiful and sentimental objects in their home, and show a little of their day to day life. There are quite a few more photos that I won't put up but I was very pleased with the results.