Cuteness Award

Every couple of months, Lover and I get that age-old, super annoying question; when are you having kids? While I try not to get irritated about it, after four years I have come up with some snotty little comebacks for the people that just won't back off. :-) That said, I do try to be civil, and I patiently explain, over and over again, that it's not that we don't want kids, it's just that we're not ready for kids. This goes over much better in Spain, where couples typically get married in their mid twenties, and wait to have kids until their thirties. But, we live in America, and Americans love to "do it now!" (Did anyone watch 24, back when it was good and Jack Bauer was constantly yelling "DO IT NOW!"?) so we have to put up with the constant questioning.

Anyways, one of the reasons that we are in no hurry to have our own kids is because we have a whole passle of adorable nieces and nephews. Whenever we need some serious silly time with a bunch of soft skinned toddlers, or  some snuggle time with a little baby, we just hit up the brothers and sisters who have so kindly provided for this need. ;-) There are a lot of not-so-cute kids out there in the world, but none of them are among our nieces and nephews.

Just a little while ago, we spent a great evening with four of our little family members, hanging out a fun kid's play place, and snapping some cute shots of them in the gorgeous light of the setting sun.

This guy is the oldest. He makes sure to keep everyone in line, and he has the privilege of being the very first grandchild so you can imagine how great that was. He just started losing his baby teeth, as you can see here.

Next up is the little brother, this guy is a barrel of laughs. He is the goofiest kid I know, but most likely the sweetest as well. For a while his favorite thing to do was rhymes. You'd ask him, "what rhymes with window?" His answer "finnow". Hilarious.



Getting a nice calm smile like that is a rarity. More often than not, these are the faces he's making:

Then, we have their little sister, who looks exactly like her mom did growing up. She's sneaky like her too. (JK :-) Is she not the most adorable little girl?

I love her little flowery dress. It made her look like such a little lady.

Sweet girl. The baby of the family is another pretty little girl, who I photographed last fall with mixed results. She was cranky last year, but this time she was in a perfect mood!

She is so cute. They call her the little bean, and  I always think she looks like a baby elf. Either way, she is so sweet and adorable.

Munching on some clover.

And then she found a pretty flower. :-)

The two sisters together. I hope these girls grow up to be best friends.

And the brothers - they're both in school this year! When did they get so big?

And then a few of the four of them all together. As you can imagine, this part was mayhem. :-)





So there you go. Adorable cuteness, available whenever we need a baby fix. :-)