I’m so in love with these boys.

I’m Learning how to use my camera on Manual thanks to Clickin’ Moms and taking some pretty awesome shots of my boys.

If you recall I moved out of Syracuse late February.  It is now April and there is still no date in sight as to when or if we will get the house we have placed an offer on in Tampa.  In the mean time we decided as a family that rather than live in the tiny hotel with four people the boys and I would stay in Charlotte NC with my in-laws.  My husband went to live in Tampa and work.

He visited us this past weekend and we finally took the long overdue trip to Asheville to see the Biltmore.  I’ve been dying to go for years.  We were well aware that the trip wouldn’t be a piece of cake with two young ones.  I packed my {lifesaving} ring sling and the dinky umbrella stroller my mother-in-law purchased for use here in NC.  We managed to walk the entire tour inside the home, most of the gardens, the petting zoo, did a wine tasting, and came home with lots of goodies.

Despite car sickness, a gazzillion stairs, out of the ordinary heat in April, a nasty fall, and many “Moooom I don’t LIKE this place let’s GO!!!”‘s we had a wonderful time together.  Enjoy some photos from our trip to America’s Largest Home!

I’ve been learning how to shoot in Manual Mode on my Nikon D80 for the past 2 weeks in earnest (inspired by Jill from Baby Rabies). After shooting a few photos of my guy I laid the camera down on the bed and he signed for milk. I crawled in bed with him and cuddled up for a nursing session. With the camera within reach I grabbed it and took this shot. Thankfully the settings worked fairly well since we were in the same lighting as before. I’m sure I’ll cherish this photo forever as a lasting reminder of the 16+ months we have been in a nursing relationship. Everett is 16.5 months and not even close to weaning. I’m OK with that.

PS:  I just made the “Cloth Rocks” t-shirt he is wearing available for sale in white or black on http://shopddl.com.

Thanks to warmer temperatures than normal we were able to sneak in one final park day. As a resident of Syracuse, NY going to the park in December, and not having snow, are really rare. This was the first time Everett had been to the park since he learned how to walk. He had a blast! Sad to say we won’t be able to do this for a looooong time.