Remember the old Western “Shane”? At the end of the movie, Shane rides off into the sunset,

like all good cowboys do, and the little boy who has become his friend calls after him to come back…

While going through my old files, weeding out and backing up, I came across the set of cowboy pictures I did of M last spring, just over a year ago. He was so into cowboys then – the only way I could convince him to cooperate for pictures was to let him dress up in all his cowboy gear…

Now he has moved on from cowboys, just as he once moved on from Bob the Builder and John Deere Tractors. Today it is Star Wars and Legos, tomorrow, who knows?

A year ago, I thought I would scream if I had to listen to the Lone Ranger and Tonto one more time in the car on the way to Nana and Grandpa’s, if he ran through the living room again firing his toy gun and rolling across the arm of the couch, if I had to have one more battle about why he couldn’t wear Wranglers and cowboy boots to church.

Today, I wonder how it is all going by so quickly. I would gladly welcome the little cowboy and all that went along with him back with open arms.

Come back, Shane…

Summer is finally on its way! M spent the weekend at his grandparents’ house in search of tree frogs – his current obsession (I mean interest).

What is it that makes children want to put every small creature they come across in some sort of container? The tiny frog he found spent a terrifying hour in a plastic sandwich box with a handful of grass before we convinced M that his family was probably missing him and that we were pretty sure he didn’t eat grass. He finally agreed to return him to the wilds of Nana & Grandpa’s front yard.

Soon the fields will be twinkling with lightning bugs (those are fireflies for those of you not from the south) and M will spend many happy evenings filling old Mason jars with them. (Don’t call PETA on us though…mommy has a soft spot for all of God’s creatures, and we practice catch and release lightning bug hunting!)

It isn’t quite lightning bug weather yet, so I had a little fun in Photoshop…

M lost his first tooth last night. It has been loose for a couple of weeks, and he has been wondering when it would finally come out. Well, the answer to that is about 4 in the morning. And of course he had to come wake Mama & Daddy up to tell us the exciting news! I was just thankful he didn’t swallow it in his sleep. What he was doing awake at that hour wiggling his tooth, I will never know.

He had lots of offers of assistance with the loose tooth, both from his Daddy and his
Grandpa. My dad loved to trick us into letting him pull our loose teeth when we were
little. “I’m just going to wiggle it to see how loose it is,” he’d say. I’m not sure how many
times we fell for that…more than we should probably admit. What is that old saying?
“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!” We did eventually learn
our lesson though, so M knew better than to let Grandpa wiggle his tooth.

Grandpa is pretty sure he’ll get the next one though…

I got the best Valentine’s day present this year – I got to photograph my best friend’s brand new baby. Little R was 7 days old on V-day and was so good for us! He slept right through the shoot!

I guess all kids love splashing in the tub, & Miss G is no exception. Now that she can take baths in the “big girl tub,” she is free to splash to her heart’s content.