bloggin' reynolds: Magnolia Tree Pictures

It is a super early spring this year. I think it was at least 74 degrees out on my birthday on March 14th...which is unusually warm for Iowa. My Mom will always tell the story of how I was born during the girls state basketball tournament....in a blizzard. I'm not up to speed on the whole global warming topic, but it is weather like this that makes you wonder what we're doing to our planet. That said, it is actually quite wonderful and I would take this kind of weather practically the whole year if I had my choice! :) The sunshine and warmth has brought about our annual magnolia tree pictures a bit early this year. The first set of shots I took while the buds were just about ready to open. I was afraid that the forecast for rain was going to beat off the petals when I was ready to take photos. So I got out there a bit early.

There are several things about these shots show that you might not notice on first glance. First of all...look, great pictures!! Last year I couldn't get these two to stand still and smile for the life of me. My boys are growing up. Less wiggly....well I'm not so sure about that. But at least my barking commands held some attention this year and I got pretty pictures. :) Happy about that!

A little side note. We got a big tree cut down this past week in our front yard. It lost a huge branch last year that took Mom, Dad, Wes and I almost a whole day to cut up and haul away. The tree cutting this week coincided with the movie "The Lorax" which we saw just a couple of weekends ago. And if you know the Seuss story then you know that the Lorax pops out of a truffula tree after it is chopped down...and he is not terribly happy. Wes and I keep asking the boys if they've seen the Lorax pop out of our stump. Aiden rolls his eyes at us...but I think we've still got Jude a little nervous. Oh the joys of parenting. He he. :)

Anyway both boys wanted to take a Lorax picture, which I figured just entailed them standing on the stump. But Aiden came up with the rather creative idea that they both needed a mustache as well....too funny. So here are my two little Lorax boys with their mustaches.

Which brings us to the second thing you may not notice about these pictures. Check out how long Jude's curls are in the above picture. And if I'm admitting to how long they are...then you know they are long. I try to keep those bad boys as long as possible. Jude got a hair cut between magnolia photo shoots, and now looks a bit more like a boy. And I got a beautiful day with open blooms on the magnolia tree and drug the two kiddos out again for more pretty pictures.

Aiden is holding up a petal because I just kept going on and on at how beautiful and green everything was, and how excited I was that spring was here.

The below shot kind of cracks me up because Jude is trying with his absolute whole might to stand still (note the clasped hands together) and smile (note the mega smile that I now have in about ten pictures...it stuck there for 10 pictures). Funny