New pool

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New garden

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New haircut

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Last {Sunny} Weekend

Last weekend we spent lots of time outside prepping for our new lives as "people with a yard" - we  attached the rain barrel to the house, got the compost bin started, built the raised garden bed, busted out the summer toys, talked over possible scenarios for the swingset, and daydreamed about the months of June, July and August as Four Schneiders. Beatrice spent lots of time in the Ergobaby Carrier and Josephine spent lots of time in the sunshine.  As usual, Lou spent lots of time working hard and I spent lots of time snapping photos.

In other news, my camera and I are finally hitting our stride.  All those words that used to perplex me - aperture, shutterspeed, ISO - finally clicked! I think this was the combination of knowing my "time off" was ending because I had to go back to work (and mastering my camera was on my time off to-do list) and a beautiful day outside with great lighting that made that "manual" setting a lot less terrifying.  If you haven't been over to Four Austins lately - get your buns there stat. My sister (who made a vow with me at Christmas to get this photography stuff figured out) took some stunning photos on their recent vacation. 

Here are some more pics on my phone from last sunny weekend. We are hoping for lots more this {sunny} weekend.

Hooping

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Smiling

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Cuddling

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Tossing

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Basking

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Zoo Member's Night

We heart the Cincinnati Zoo (if you haven't already figured that out).  Last weekend was Members' Night. It's an annual event that we highly recommend all members to put on their calendars. The zoo is open from 5pm - 9pm. There's live music, free games, bounce houses, glitter tattoos, food and oh - animals!  Here are some pics from our third Members' Night.

I love the Hokey-Pokey pictures of Lou and Josie dancing.  Seriously, does it get any sweeter than that? I totally had a "wow, life is good" moment standing there in the sunshine watching these two twirl around while holding sweet baby Bea.

Smiley Bea, 10 weeks

Little Beatrice is just like her big sister - all smiles, all the time - and so so close to that first real giggle. Enjoy!



Google Video (that I used for all the early Josie videos on the Three Schneiders blog) recently transferred everything to YouTube. When that happened, it made all of the videos of "Sweet Baby Josie" my most recent videos. It's been so fun going back through them, and I've found that the ordinary, everyday moments of Josie are among my favorites. The changes in her little voice, watching her little brain working as she figured out something new - these are the moments that I am most grateful that I captured.  I'm so thankful for these videos and this blog as a way to record all of this. Thanks for sharing that journey with us.

On that note, here's a video of Josie from around this same age - hilarious but just by coincidence they happen to be wearing the same outfit. :)



Also - good reason here that "Aunt Amanda" became "Tia" - much easier.