School and Other Portraits

School Picture time came and I wanted to do my own session with Eliana for her Kindergarten pictures. Since I was doing hers, I also decided to do some 2.5 year old shots of Julia. Love these girls!

Right around the same time I had an ultrasound and we found out we are having a baby BOY!! These are some of his first shots ;)

September

August and September were busy months with the start of school, soccer, music etc. On top of that I was on a modified bed rest for a couple weeks in there. I found out that I was pregnant at the end of July and not too far into August they found that I had another subchorionic hemorrhage. Thankfully many women from the ward offered to help and Tiffany was a lifesaver, helping me and our family more than I could ever imagine. I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends.

Eliana loved soccer!

In September Christian was also filmed by a film crew out of LA for a Pepsico commercial/ recruiting ad that is on their website. They spent 3 FULL days with him to create a two minute clip. Here is how they set up our family room to create a shot that occupied about 2 seconds of the video... it took the lighting crew over an hour to set it up!!

The crew out in front of our house, having Christian ride his bike in and out of the driveway over and over again.

In August and September Katie (Christian's sister) and her son Ethan stayed with us for awhile. Katie was busy doing lots of Saladmaster shows so we got to spend a lot of time with Ethan. The girls started to think of him as a brother almost. They loved to wrestle with him.

First Day of School

August 16th was Eliana's first day of Kindergarten. She was so excited. Her teacher is Ms. Punjak and she and Dean are in the same class.

Summer Rain

Sometimes living in Arizona in the summer can be trying. When it barely dips below 100 in the middle of the night and is back up to 105 by 10 am and 110+ by 4pm with a rare cloud sighting, it can feel stifiling and uncomfortable and unbearable. But then, the winds come which bring in the clouds, and create skies like this....

(oh how I love skies like this!!)



and then I can see the rain in the distance and as it comes closer and closer it creates skies like this...

and the temperature drops into the low 90's or maybe if we're really lucky the mid - high 80's
and the girls can run like crazy animals in the back yard like this without collapsing of heat exhaustion....




and I can watch them and laugh with them and find joy in their joy and look up into the setting sun and see how it creates skies like this,

and like this...

and then, I feel so much more alive and free... like I can handle a little more of this Arizona summer. Thank you Heavenly Father for the rain. I. LOVE. IT!!!!

Snowflake

This past week we had the chance to take a quick trip to Snowflake. We stayed at Tiff's in-laws home and visited with her and also visited with Katie, Christian's sister. The weather there was so nice and refreshing and the girls loved playing outside. Julia LOVED the trampoline.




Julia loves to pretend to be sleeping. Almost everytime I get her out of her carseat, she is pretending to be asleep. She likes to surprise me by saying wake up and then she laughs. It's really cute. Her and Becca started playing a sleeping game on the tramp.

Tiff took Eliana and Dean for a ride around the yard on the 4 wheeler. Of course they didn't go by themselves though; Tiff just got off for the picture.

We are into our monsoon season here which I love. It's been cloudy this week and we've even gotten a tiny bit of rain. The other morning it was cool enough to play in the sand and the girls got the hose out. It was a big mess but at least they had fun.

More Looks....

This first picture is from the other day when I was playing with my self timer, ignore the quality of it, I just love the expression. I didn't tell her to pose this way or look at me in any certain way, but this is what she came up with. Guess she has been practicing in the mirror. lol

I was testing my light and needed a test subject. Eliana was not very happy about it. I just want to remember this look because even though she's mad, she's still cute.

All Ready for Church

It just so happens that I created a little "studio" in our loft this past week. We couldn't figure out a way to affordably cool the one car garage that has become my studio so now it's in the house. It's okay because then at least maybe I will use it more for my own girls. This morning we were ready for church a little early... wow, can't really believe that, but we were, so I grabbed a couple of quick shots of the girls before we left. They never look the same after church, well, even after 20 minutes for that matter!!