My 64th Birthday Gift

and all I wanted was family photos since we were all together in the same state for one more day.  However, with Austen deployed 7000 miles away, we had to go with grandchildren photos.  As is usual with these types of things, it always is more work in process with more problems that it seemed like "on paper."  I so appreciate all of the moms that made this work so that we can have some adorable photos of the grandkids with their "grandma" blankets.  What you can't see is the heat of the evening and the lure of the running stream behind us and the pull of the lake down the path---hard to keep focused with all of that going on.

Scarlett-- age 4 years 11 months and 15 days or so....

Niki-- age 4 years 10 months and 15 days or so....

Liam-- age 4 years almost one month..

Zander-- age 2 years and almost 7 months...

James-- age 2 years and almost 5 months...

Cooper-- age 2 years and almost 3 months....

Carter-- age 9 months old

Alex-- age 9 months old

and Ava-- age 7 months old

At the end of this, one of my goals was to have a group shot and then one with me in it as well.  They were all hot and tired and so we decided to get the photo with me in it and that is how it ended.

Jessica sent me this one that she snapped while we were posing for the official photo.  I still use this one as my screen saver on my phone.  I love the bubble in the air, blown by Gary to help get kids looking in the same direction.

We need to work on the final copy of this photo which is going to require a bit of photo shop magic, but I do love the black and white colors in the natural background.  These photos were all taken at the Farmington Pond up on the bench in Farmington, Utah, about 20 minutes away.

Jessica was the one that pointed out that we took the photo when we had 3 4-year olds, 3 2-year olds and 3 under one year olds.  There is only 6 weeks out of every year that line up the ages in sets of three.  (She was always one of our math children.)

Jena wanted a photo with everyone as well and came dressed in white and black, but it was hard to keep it together at that point.

Thanks to the amazing Ashlee Hair who took our photos again!  We love her!