Never know what I'll find when I download pics

I have never been so bad about downloading our pictures! I just did and realized our entire summer was documented in 50 or so frames. Seeing that it's only 35* out right now, it's very nice to see beautiful summer evening snapshots from the garden. Here's E, stealthily looking for lightening bugs, sometime this summer.

 And the legs of the Quidditch Stand in the background.

 Little M, looking quite babyish here (at least to me). I was just at a potluck this evening and I was laughing with another parent about these Little Tykes red cars. Everyone with a kid 3 or younger seems to have one, yet no one I know has actually ever bought one. They just keep getting handed down. Which is cool. It took us ten years to get one (never had one when S or E were toddlers)!!

 This made me laugh. I don't know who did this or took the picture. It's fun having kids who take your camera out for a spin. 

 Here's M on her second birthday a few weeks back. She does this cute thing where she bites her bottom lip when she's feeling shy, like when we whip the camera out. 

 We had a fair share of gorgeous praying mantises late this summer! HUGE and beautiful! This particular one hung out on the back porch for 5 straight days. I'd pick him up and move him to the nearby planting bed and he'd make his way back to the house and just hang out on the porch or the wall. I was nervous one of us would accidently squash him. I don't think we did, unless someone's not telling me something. They all know what a "save the bugs!" freak I am, wandering around the house with a glass and magazine postcard trying to catch and release spiders that are big enough to wink at you.

M continues to amaze us all with her stellar potty skills. There's always a stack of magazines to flip through in the bathroom. Here she's flipping through a Lego catalog. Big sister S caught her here. A child just can't seem to escape childhood without an embarrassing potty photo or two.