MN car trip 2012- Pics from Jen

As I said, Jen was kind enough to take some pics for us. I'm not linking the actual pics, but if you click you'll get Jen's site to get ahold of her if you'd like them!Email jen@jenlessingerphotography.com. We put Jen under some tight time/childcare/physical constraints, but I still love these. If you want to see previous sessions, click here.







That last shot is an ode to this, and I'm so happy to have one for each!:

MN car trip 2012 pt 1

Yes, we did it- one car, two kids, about 2000 miles (total). For my own recordkeeping, we left at 5 AM on Sept. 16, the day after our trip to Washington. I packed the car while everyone else was at our neighborhood block party. I reallly wasn't ready to hit an airport after two days of flying already that week. I'd stink at Ray's job, apparently.

Anyway...

An artistic view of driving into Nebraska. For some reason we had no 3G service until we left Nebraska, which is when our families saw this pic.


Fun at the rest stop. Not sure why we thought the poles were SO fun, but I think 200-odd miles had something to do with it.

Survival - just before the kid starts to whine, suggest a show.

Eamon learned to climb trees at a rest stop in Iowa.

Ok, not really, but that pair of pics cracks me up. We did have a good long stop to play frisbee and make E run in circles. Ray had the genius idea of bringing a cooler of food, and being able to grab food we wanted whenever really did make the stops more relaxed. E was a trooper in the car, and T did well - but had a 240 mile limit that was amazingly predictable. Case in point, on the way back Ray was putting T in the carseat and told him he had to wait until the west side of Lincoln for his next stop. I was driving and realized eastern Lincoln would be 240 miles, western lincoln would be more like 280. Guess where we should have stopped? Guess which town had a lot of construction and  closed exits...

Anyway, first actual stop: Lessingers.

These two get along so well. I also love how concerned T is about the situation.
However, T got in plenty of his own fun and relaxation.



Perhaps too much relaxation?


Ray and the twins played a lot of games of "melting", which was basically hide and seek for stuffed animals. I tried to get decent pics of the game, but three active 3yo= blurry. I did get these, though, and they don't show the game but I love them:
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Speaking of pics I love- Jen was kind enough to take a few pics while we were there. Next post!

Let us entertain you

Keeping three two-year-olds entertained through a wedding and shopping is... a challenge.
 Bob pointed out that an iPad, Cars, and a minivan is a good start (thanks for the pic, Bob).
A restaurant with a big pond setup and fish helps, too.
It would have been more helpful it weren't thirty degrees and humid out, but the kids had fun.
While you're trying to sign the older kids into Smaland at IKEA, may I recommend the storage lockers for the short set?



No paparazzi, please!

Travel

A few shots from our last trip to Minnesota. All off of the iphone, I am hoping Jen will post her pretty shots of the weekend....

(sense a certain theme? It's hard to be short. This is, of course, Clark's pool table. E and Nick had a lot of fun, which is not photodocumented, although I think there is video of hockey here somewhere.)

If you're having a group event with a decent number of kids, I recommend a hotel with a water park. E wasn't a fan of the train noises, but he did like the water park, as did Ray. (Thanks to Ken for these shots)
The real reason behind all of this.
One of the pics I want to see Jen's version of...
Why I need a better camera. This was adorable. E loves Miss Q and keeps asking for her and the twins.
Also, these two looked quite good. Emily was gorgeous, not nearly this blurry (darn iphone). But the happy comes through even here. It was a good weekend!

You can give a boy a harmonica, but you can't make him sing the blues

Nobody knows... the troubles I've seen...
Hey, this is fun!....Oops, yeah, troubles...
Okay, that's more like it....The troubles I've seen... 

More vignettes from Lessingerland

Ray and his iphone attract attention from the younger set. (See the third pic on the post here. Or the LJ Christmas video. Or...)
Ray has no idea why he was so grumpy here.
Fortunately he resolved whatever it was!

I just like this photo. Not sure why. Cute subject is definitely part of it. And she is competing with E for lashes!


The pics below amuse me. They need a caption, but I'm not sure what it is. Mouse over the next pic to see the fun (I learned some html for this one... now if I were just classy enough to center the pictures the same way...). Speaks to how the younger siblings just pop up sometimes.

This is just too sweet. I hope I'll be that patient going over drawings...

Blanket Races

Or, what you wish you were doing right now. (Or, darn I wish I hadn't left the lens in manual focus for a good chunk of this...)
Despite any appearances to the contrary, they're all laughing.
Even when it looks like they're asking for help (he's waving, actually).
Because they know this is coming. (darn manual focus and my idiocy)

Because yes, they LOVE it.

The Toddler Whisperer

A continuation of my love for the DSLR...

I've never seen a young kid who was so good with younger kids, or so willing to entertain them.
He spent quite a while constructing for their entertainment.
Including a pretty hefty train setup.
Of course, they worship all that he does. Especially Mario Kart.