Family Pictures- It's about time!!!

I am kind of embarrassed to admit that the last time we paid someone to take pictures of us was at our wedding. Well, other than the crappy JC Penny ones when Josie was a newborn.  We do have a handful of pictures of all four of us, but they are far from professional. It was time. Plus, I wanted to do them before I had any kind of a belly. One of the photographers Kevin works with offered to take some of us for basically free. I mean, they were super cheap. He does mostly commercial photography, but he is a great photographer and has equipment that probably cost as much as my car.  We really just wanted some of all of us, which is why there aren't a ton of candids. Some of the ones of just the kids turned out cute too, but our goal was to get all of us. I can always get pics of the kids on my own. We picked a day and prayed the kids and lighting would work. The kids were pretty good, but we got started too late in the day, so the lighting wasn't great. It was nearly impossible to avoid sun spots. Oh well. I know it could be fixed in photoshop, but actually I don't mind them. These pics are straight out of the camera with no editing at all. I'm sure some of them could use some lightening and all that, but I like them just as they are for the most part. I get tired of seeing all the crazy photoshop actions people use these days.
I don't know. Photographer friends: What would you do with them?
So here you have em'!! Just us.

These ones probably need to be lightened/ have the lighting fixed. 

It was seriously impossible to get the kids to look at the camera. When they did, it was rare. This is mostly what we got.       

Donny!!! Over here!!!

Sun spots, but still cute!!

Just a few candids.

We could NOT get them away from that dang water bowl!

Since we were in an Asian garden, we decided to try out the traditional outfits Kevin got them on his last China trip.

Check out those adorable toddler cankles!!!

Again, OVER HERE KIDS!!!!

I think I may have been taking pictures at the same time so they were looking at me instead. Or maybe Daddy was being silly....

Of course, this is always how it ends up in lap sitting pictures.....

These next 2 I took. You can tell it's a different camera : )

Quick update!

So, my little Josephine is now a big 3 year old!!! She is growing up in every way and definitely deserves an update. Also, Donovan has turned into a sleeping (yay!), walking, 12-toothed 15 month old.

We got back from our Disney vacation a week ago and it was absolutely amazing. We had so much fun and completely wore out the kids. More than once, Josie asked if she could leave Disney World, go back to the resort and take a nap. Yeah, they were exhausted!!! I have tons of pics from that and still need to go through them. Maybe that will be my next post.

Anyway, lots going on. We are back doing our home preschool and have 5 kids participating. We love it and it's been a lot of fun coming up with lesson ideas. The weather is turning cold here, so we are planning out a lot of fun indoor activities for the next few months. Any fun idea I hear about that can be done indoors, I specifically wait until the winter to try. We make sure and get outside any sunny day we have!

Let's see........what else?  Oh, Kevin and I celebrated our 8th anniversary!!!! Can you believe we've been married that long?!? We are starting to plan our 10 year cruise. It's so weird. It makes me feel old.

Sorry no cute pics in this post. I just wanted to give a quick update. Anything else?

Oh, yeah.......

















there's this:

Coming May 2012

What the Packards do when the kids are in bed........

Funny things

I started writing down or taking mental notes of funny things Josie does on a daily basis. Of course, I have forgotten most of them, but here are a few I can remember.

Josie was drinking from Donny's sippy cup and it was making that weird squeaky, shrieking noise they sometimes make when kids are sucking the water out. Do you know what I'm talking about? Anyway, she stopped and said, "Mommy, the cup is yelling at me!! Sippy cup, that's not nice. Just ask nicely."

Josie is really good at whispering. Like, she could whisper all day if I needed her to. It's one of the first things I taught her after Donny was born and it's come in handy. Usually we whisper cause Donny is sleeping, but at church we whisper too. I always explain we are being reverent. So at church one week as we were whispering, Josie said to me, "We're whispering cause Jesus is sleeping. We don't want to wake him up!"

Speaking of churchy things, one day she found a penny and brought it to me and said, "Look mommy! There's a guy on there!" I said, "I know. It's Abraham Lincoln. He was a President." She looked at me matter-of-factly and said, "No mommy, actually it's Joseph Smith." Anyone seen in profile she immediately labels as Joseph Smith. I guess I need to introduce more non-profile pics of Joseph Smith.

Of course, like all children, she picks up on everything we say. She says things like "aw nuts!!!" "what the heck?" or "that's a bummer" when things go wrong. One day she walked in and saw a mess Donny had made on the floor and said, "Woah, look at all this CRAP, mommy!!"

She also tries out phrases that I have no idea where she heard them. Like one day she was holding a balloon and she gave it a hug and said, "This balloon just touches my heart!"

She is her own greatest fan. After doing anything that requires work, she will mutter under her breath, "Good job, Josie. Good job."

I don't wear my hair curly as much as I should. At one point it had been quite a while. Upon seeing my curls Josie said with disgust on her face, "Mommy, you need to brush your tangles out!"

She is into role playing lately. It's kind of weird, but she will sometimes role play with her hands. One hand will slap the other and she will tell it "No hitting, hand! Just be nice!" Or one of her hands will be doing something and she will tell the other hand to be patient and wait it's turn. Funny, but weird.

I wish I could remember more. There are so many things. It's hard to describe an almost 3 year old on a blog. You just have to see them in person! She is a funny little thing! Anyone with 2/3 year olds at home know that the funny things they say never end. I love it!


Totally random, I know, but here are a couple pictures of my little sickies when we all got the stomach flew last month. It went through our whole ward. Everyone at preschool and playgroup got it. I got it first reeeeeeally bad. I seriously wondered if I would need IV fluids from being so dehydrated. Kevin was in China and I didn't want to give it to anyone offering help, so I rode it out. I laid on the floor and cried and barfed all day. Probably 20 times. Gross. Fortunately, the children were little angels and just as they started to get sick, I started feeling better. Donny started throwing up a lot and the only thing would take in was breastmilk. I worried a lot about dehydration with him too, since he started looking really pale and was definitely tired and lethargic. He took a 5 hour nap that day and slept through the night (all the way!!) for the first (and last) time ever. He just laid his head on my lap all day and sucked his thumb. Of course, nursing him to keep him hydrated just made me more dehydrated. I was up all night with muscle cramps even though I drank all night long. Josie didn't seem to get sick, but she was fighting off something. She never barfed, but she was tired and extra snuggly all day and took a 4 hour nap (at the same time as Donny's 5 hour one!!) It was sad. To make matter's worse, after 2 weeks of Daddy being gone in China, he came home and got sick, too! I was so mad. I just wanted my husband back! Not another baby to take care of, lol. Poor thing. At least we all got better quickly!

Yes, he is sleeping with his hand in his pants. We started wondering how he was wetting his bed without  getting his pants wet. Turns out he discovered something fun to play with in his diaper. He sleeps in onesies now. I'll just delete that fact before he's old enough to kill me for writing it, lol.

And yes, Josie still sucks her fingers. I'm sure she will need braces someday......

Blogging blahs.......

I have been wanting to blog, but just haven't been able to get any posts together and as soon as I sit down, I don't know what to write. I know the kids deserve an update and I'm working on that. We do have some exciting things happening at our house, but we'll save that for a later post.... ; )

For now, I'll leave you with some pics of Josie dressing herself. This girl loves accessories. Especially ones that either don't fit, aren't clothing items at all, or belong to someone else. She gets quite creative. This is pretty much an everyday occurrence and they are often crazy and hard for her to walk in. I try to talk her out of wearing them in public, but she usually has to at least bring a crazy hat wherever we go. Yesterday it was a sorcerer's hat (like Mickey in Fantasia) that she wore to the craft store. I admit, it's kind of awesome.

Notice the 2 different shoes on the wrong feet.