N!NE years old, and farewell

when we first found out that i was pregnant with twins, we were thrilled!  i began blogging about emmett and magnolia shortly thereafter, and the act of documenting my pregnancy, their birth, and all of the milestones that followed helped me feel connected to the outside world, especially in those first years where i was completely consumed by caring for babies.

emmett and magnolia are still some of my most photographed and favorite subjects, and i hope the tradition of birthday portraits will continue for years to come.

i can hardly believe these kids are NINE!  they are huge, and smart, and so grown up! 

saying goodbye to this blog is bittersweet-
from the very first photo of our twins, to the epic day that we became a family of four, to the birth of our sweet surprise georgia- pretty much every moment of our lives for the past ten years is documented here in these 1000+ posts.
thanks for sharing it with us.
love,
the keeling three
(and their parents)

back to school models

a couple weekends ago, our kids and friends modeled their back-to-school styles for an article our friend sara was writing for the oregonian.  it was a quick, fun little session with a bunch of great kids!

georgia's grin

georgia has been losing teeth all year- and just another one came out this past week while we were vacationing in sun river. she is happy to show off her "toothless" grin to anyone who asks, and doesn't seem to mind our jokes about her big gaps.

our super spring break!

we just got back from an amazing family vacation to southern california!  our crew loved the beach vibes in la jolla, visiting the san diego zoo, and spending a day at legoland in carlsbad.  after our time in san diego, we headed to the desert where we met up with grammy and gramps in palm desert.  the weather was hot and beautiful!  we swam in the beautiful resort pools every day, hiked in joshua tree, toured the gardens at sunnylands, and enjoyed our sunny, family time immensely!  from the desert, we drove back to the ocean (with a quick stop in heather's home town along the way!) for one last night at the beach in dana point.

 

dada's birthday

a birthday in our family means cake, presents and a meal out at the birthday boy or girl's favorite restaurant.  yesterday we celebrated our wonderful dad's forty-somethingth at one of his favorite brew pubs.  our entire portland family met us there, and after our table of 11 enjoyed our meal, we soaked up the sun on the huge deck outside. 
happy birthday, gtk!

so many snow days!

we have had one of the craziest winters in years, and the kids have been LOVING it! they are finally back in school after nine days of cancelled classes due to snow and ice in the past month.  the biggest snowfall we had was just last week- we had 16'' in front of our house, and temps stayed cold so the snow lasted for nearly a week!  the kids made a "snow fort," sledded down our hill, collected icicles, and more every day.  it was pretty amazing to watch these big kids play for hours in the winter wonderland that was our culdesac!

 we will remember our first west side winter for many years to come!