happy mother's day.....

may you have a very restful and peace filled day....

we got a letter from the grand blanc optimist club last week.....

it was addressed to the parents of austen mandernach and it said that his teacher had nominated him to be honored at the Grand Blanc Optimist Club 2nd Annual Youth Appreciation Night on May 9th. we were surprised and a little unsure of what this was. i asked austen if his teacher had talked to him about this and how many kids from his class had been nominated and he told me that it was just him....when i asked him why, he told me that it was because he was most improved in his class. we were thrilled to hear that because he has worked so hard this year.
he was one of 14 kids nominated from 8 schools in his school district. it was held at the senior center in town and there was a dessert reception.
he got a name tag and a special award certificate...
and his teacher got on stage with him and talked about how hard austen has worked and improved his grades this year and what a wonderful kid he was to have in class..he just stood on that stage and beamed...we could tell that he was very proud of himself (as he should be) and we are so proud of all of his hard work too. good job boog....

more maternity pics....

i just love doing these shoots....pregnancy is such a happy time. tina trains me (to lose weight) and has about 3 weeks to go before she has her next little girl. we tried to get the pictures done a couple of weeks ago but tina became very ill and we had to reschedule for this past sunday. i love these pictures and and we had fun doing them. her daughter eden was less than cooperative and unfortunately i didn't get any of her kissing mama's tummy, but we did get a few family shots.
we got these fun poses and she was game for anything.
i had trouble keeping her awake, though...i guess that is a good sign that she was really relaxed and comfortable. :)

every pregnant woman should look this wonderful at 37 weeks...

the boys of summer are back...

it's baseball season once again. and this time, they mean business. you bat until you get a hit, get a walk or strike out. 5 innings or two hours, whichever comes first. this was his first scrimmage, from last thursday.... and he got to play catcher for a couple of innings. even though he never played that position before he did really well. he got a triple, too.

and he didn't let one ball get by him....well almost... champ loves to go out to the ballpark too. although he is more interested in the other dogs there than in cheering austen on....and he is just a tiny bit humiliated by having to be tied to the fence....