More Butterflies!!!

April 16, 2016

Since Livvy wanted to see the butterflies this year too, we went with the Lewis family back to Fredrick Meijer Gardens to visit the butterfly exhibit. It was such a beautiful day, we were able to wander over to the Japanese gardens too. They aren't quite as pretty as they were when we went last year, but it's still April and not everything has started growing yet. We'll have to try again later this year.

Bonus of butterflies for the second time: Andy, Kristin, and Livvy came back to our house after for dinner. And it was such gorgeous weather, it was perfect!

^Plant life :)

^Oh Jules, you are so informative.

^Smiles at the moss wall :D

^Enjoying the scenery.

^The first photo shows off her best Puss Pout :)

^Sweet smile, beautiful eyes :D

^I (kind of) caught a big blue!

^Visiting the Japanese gardens

^They need a little more growing but we thought we'd take a look at the Japanese gardens anyway

Jules Smiles (Part Two of 15 month photos)

April 15, 2016

Julie is so fast, I thought for her next "serious" photo session, I'd take her somewhere and just let her play. And by "play", I mean follow her yelling "NO!" and "Don't Touch That!" a million times. Lenore came with us to help in the wrangling. Julie ran and ran around the greenhouse at Ludema's enjoying herself for quite awhile. Though I didn't get a lot of sitting pretty smiling photos, I did get a lot of fun action shots with big smiles (and quite a few plants I had to buy because of her destruction tendencies ;). Lots of fun, even if it wasn't quite what I was hoping for.

^The one and only "sitting pretty" photo we got!

^She was definitely enjoying herself!

^Uh oh...

^All but two survived.

^Prancing :D

^We bought that one too ;)

^These were going to be so cute, but she wasn't having being stuff in a pot.

^It's over!

Dear Future Baby

April 14, 2016

It's been a long few months worrying about things, but I finally got enough from my doctor's for me to feel okay about ACTUALLY trying for Baby Hoek 2.0! Literally JUST got back from my latest appointment and I feel pretty comfortable with trying now. I'm always going to worry, that's pretty much just what I do nowadays, but at least there are no immediate concerns right now.

I'm hoping it won't take too long. As I'm sure I've said before, being pregnant was certainly not my favorite thing. But we got an amazing Jules out of it, so if I have to do it again, I guess I can push through. Right now, it is about two years exactly from when Jules would have been conceived (hush, gutter heads!), so if we are crazy enough to get preggers right away, they'll be around the same birthdate. I kind of hope it takes a LITTLE bit longer than right now but we'll see. It may not happen as fast this time, what with my insane ball of stress lately but who knows. so for the first time...

Dear Baby 2.0

I don't think you are there yet. But if by some weird chance you are, I LOVE YOU already. Your daddy will love you so much, and your sister will too, although she won't get it for awhile at first. I hope to meet you soon... well, in 10 months or so, anyway ;)

Love, Mommy

P.S. Julie looked me in the eyes with the biggest grin on her face and said "Mama!" right at me. She always refuses to say it, though I know she can. I hugged and kissed her and told her to say it again. Instead she gave me a big cheesy grin. I'll take that as a no ;)

Julie Sparkles (Part One of 15 month photos)

April 9, 2016

While Jules and I were up in Harrison visiting Grandmer and Poopah, I noticed Lauren Heath was doing some glitter mini sessions. I figured though that would be the messiest thing ever, I wasn't going to have to clean it up. And likely I wouldn't find something like that anytime soon again so I was all for it. We went over to her home studio and though Julie wasn't in the best mood (we had to wake her up from an early nap), she thought the glitter was pretty cool. Love it ;) Thanks, Lauren, for the fun little shoot.

^That face... she always makes it an it's so silly but I love it.

^It was kind of hard to watch the mess being made ;)

^I got to throw some glitter for a few shots!

^I suspect Lauren might have digitally added the glitter in this one. I'm not THAT good at tossing ;)

Back to the Butterflies!

April 1, 2016

It was a relatively nice day. Still too chilly to get some sun outside for long, so we organized a trip to the "tropical climates" in the greenhouse at Fredrick Meijer Gardens. Mike and Lenore met me and Julie (with my Mike close behind) to go see the butterflies. Mom, Kara and I took Jules last year, and she was interested, but in a quite, sluggish baby way. This year, she was interested and so amazed at all the bugs flying around. I loved watched her point out the butterflies. A few almost landed right on her but I missed all of those instances. Oh well. It was a nice little trip. We also went out to the Children's Garden for a bit, before the place was ready to close. Still too chilly for much exploring but it was nice to get out for a bit!

^My little butterfly!

^She didn't want to get photos in front of the moss wall.

^LOTS of orchids!

^Snuggles for Grandma Nore before we go into the butterfly room.

^She was very interested in the little weird things that kept flying around.

^Taking a walk with Grandpa Mike.

^My favorite butterfly photo :)

^She really liked the bear sculpture!

^This little treehouse type thing was awesome to Jules. She didn't want to get out of it!

^Checking out the bear again.

^One more time as a big butterfly, this time with the snake that Daddy bought her.