Lila and Ava

We went to Heather and Craig’s on Sunday.  It’d been way too long since we’ve seen them, and all of a sudden, Lila is 6 months old!  That is such a fun age—smiley and happy, but not yet very mobile.  She is a very good baby, content to just hang out and watch the world around her.  Much different than Olivia at that age!

Since I had my camera with me, and Lila was just so smiley, I couldn’t help but take some pictures of her. 

Ava loved playing with Baby Lila.  I’m sure Heather wishes these pictures below were of Olivia and Lila instead.  Olivia isn’t quite as interested in having her picture taken, so we’ll have to try those again next time. 

Is that not the sweetest thing?  It was great to see the Kruses again….it had been too long.  I will probably get together and take a few more formal 6 month photos of Lila this weekend, so you may see more of this sweet heart. 

Ava’s first day of Preschool

I mentioned yesterday that Ava—my little baby girl—was going to be starting preschool today.  I can’t believe she is old enough to be doing that already!  It seems like only yesterday she was this little tiny baby getting held by her big brother—who was even younger than she is today. 

Well, time flies, even when we don’t want it to.  It is definitely exciting to see Ava growing up, and excited about this new adventure.  I was hoping to be home to take her pictures this morning, but I had to get Tyler to Aunt Tina’s bus stop.  Dave took a few pictures of Ava for me, and luckily sent me one by text message too.  Some of you may have seen it on Facebook already, but here are a few more of our baby girl on her FIRST day of preschool!

And, unlike Tyler’s school, which doesn’t start homework until first grade, Ava will have “homework” every night!  Tyler just started his homework this week, consisting of a reading log that he keeps all week (more on that later), but he still wanted to help advise Ava on how to do her work sheet tonight. She is going to do great in school, I just know it!

Happy first day of school, Ava!  We love you!

Tomorrow…

Tomorrow, my baby girl starts preschool. 

Ava will be going to an in-home preschool with Mrs. Rogers every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for 2 hours.  Lacy went last year, and Kathy asked if we wanted to send Ava with her this year.  We didn’t do preschool with Tyler, but mostly because it just wasn’t convenient.  There was no way to get him somewhere for just a couple hours in the middle of the day—trials of two parents who work full time.  Luckily for Ava though, Aunt Kathy has taken out the inconvenience of it all and has made it possible for Ava to go to preschool.  She will pick her up in the mornings on her way to Mrs. Rogers’ house, before she heads to work. One day a week the girls get to have a play date with Lacy’s Grandma Dairman and one of her friends, and the other two days, Claire will get them and take them back to Kathy’s until we get off work.  I can’t say enough how lucky we are to have such wonderful—and amazingly helpful family who make this all possible.  Between Tina, Kathy, & Claire--I really don’t know how we’d do it.

I’ll get a picture of Ava before school tomorrow, but for now, here is a picture I snapped with my phone of the girls when I took them to the Open House at preschool.

I just know Ava will do great in preschool.  She loves making new friends and learning new things.  It’s great to have Lacy going there too, so she can help show her around and be comfortable in the new environment.  I can’t wait to hear about her new friends and all the things she’s learning at “school!”  Stay tuned for the first day of school picture!

Dancing cousins

One of the kids’ favorite videos at Grandma Claire’s house is Bindy KidFitness.  She’s the daughter of the Crocodile Hunter, and it’s a super cheesy, but catchy little video of Bindy and her adult male friends dancing to animal songs.  Braden is the biggest fan of Bindy since he’s the animal lover, but all the kids like dancing to it.  Braden, Lacy, and Ava were jamming out to it the other day when I got there after work.  I couldn’t miss catching it on video with my phone.  They are all pretty long videos, but I posted them anyway.  They’re pretty cute!  Enjoy!

The Bradley boys turned two!

I have shared the stories of my friend Becky’s twin boys, from their newborn pictures (my second ever newborn shoot) up until now, their 2nd birthday.  I am always happy to spend time with the Bradley clan—it makes my home seem pretty calm!  They have twin two year old boys and 4 big, energetic dogs.  And, their boys are about as BOY as it gets!  It’s always an entertaining experience.  It’s hard to believe those little babies who came out less than 4 lbs each are now busy two year olds. 

They had a super fun birthday party for them a couple weeks back, and I was happy to be the resident photographer for the day.  They rented a huge water slide to help everyone stay cool, and all of the kids (and some adults) had a blast.  Here are some pictures from the day.

The boys are following Tyler’s trail of passions by being obsessed with cars right now.  They actually have Tyler’s old car collection, and love it.  Their party was car themed, and the cake was adorable—and delicious!  Notice how the boys are holding their hands the same way?  They were doing that in almost all of the cake pictures.  So funny!

Ava was helping Dylan get his duck off his cupcake….

The happy Bradley bunch…..

Ava can hold her own with the boys!

Like most of the kids, Tyler had a blast on this giant water slide.

Good job Colton!

The slide was a bit faster than Becky expected.  She looks more scared than Dylan!

Ava was practicing her back float.  She did a bit better at the Bradley pool this time than she did last time she was there.

These boys love the water!

We had about 3 minutes to clear off the slide, grab all the umbrellas from the backyard and get inside before the haboob came through.  Typical monsoon-y afternoon in the desert.

But, it gave the boys an excuse to open their birthday presents.  The first one they opened was the John Deere trucks that we gave them.  Becky said it’s one of their favorites, and that they fight over them all the time! 

These cute boys have come a long way from the little nakey babies in the basket!  I look forward to being there for many more. Happy 2nd birthday Bradley boys!

On the Flying Trapeze!

Before heading to ND, my co-worker and friend, Meredith invited me to go with her and 2 others from work to try a trapeze class.  Her doctor owns and runs a trapeze school called Arizona Trapeze School in his Chandler backyard. She suggested we try it out to consider it as a potential team building outing for our students at MCC.  I certainly wasn’t going to pass up that opportunity!  

It was about 115 degrees last Friday, but that didn’t stop us—luckily we didn’t go until after dark.  Meredith, Kim, Samantha and I met there around 7 pm, some of us excited (me!), and the others a bit nervous.  Sam was wondering what in the heck she got herself into!  After signing our life away, getting a few initial instructions, we were belted up and climbing the ladder up the trapeze rig. 

I went first because I was the most excited. I jumped off that platform and I was in love! 

My friends did great too, even the two who were most hesitant (Sam and Mer).  The first move was just jumping off of the board, swinging our legs forward and back a couple times, and then dropping to the net.  Next, we learned how to do a knee hang, which is exactly what it sounds like it is.  You jump off, and then listen for the instructor to cue you with “legs up,” and then you lift your legs up and over the bar, and then drop your arms and hang.  Then he cues you to put grab the bar again and let your legs down before dropping to the net.  I should mention at this point that the person cueing us and holding the safety rope is a man named Colby Balch, who is a professional trapeze catcher who has traveled with several circuses around the world, including Barnum and Bailey.  I don’t have many pictures of anyone doing a knee hang, but do have this one from later in the night of Samantha.

After perfecting the knee hang, they gave Kim and I the opportunity to try a catch. We were both able to get the timing of the knee hang down right, which is why we were ready to try the next step.  After a couple of brief instructions, Colby headed up the rig to get on his bar.  In case you’re not sure what the catch I’m talking about would be, look at the position Sam is in in the photo above—she has her arms in the perfect position to do a catch if Colby would have been swinging towards her.

I didn’t do it the first time I tried, but only because I couldn’t get my knees up in time.  I was determined to do it though, so climbed back up the ladder for another try.  This time, I did it with no trouble!  Just jump, swing, knee hang, reach out and there were Colby’s hands reaching for mine.  It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  And, I can’t wait to do it again.  Don’t believe me, well, see for yourself!  I know the video is very dark, but look for my blue shirt, flying through the air.  The camera operator was so excited for me that she didn’t follow me very well (missed the actual catch), but she does catch the camera up while I'm hanging from Colby's arms.

This video is a combination of 3 different videos of me on the trapeze.  The one video in the middle is of me trying (and failing) to do the somersault dismount.  I did get it one other time I was up there, but no video proof.

Here we are with George, the owner of the school. He was a great teacher, and was so good at reassuring those who were a little hesitant.

And here we are with Colby, who was also an awesome coach!  Talk about learning from the experts! 

Here is a link to an album of all of the pictures of us.  I also put together a video of each of the girls doing their jumps, and they are in the album as well.  Kim (on the left in the photo above) was also able to do a catch, but I didn’t think to have my camera on her at the time.  I felt so bad!  She did great, and so did the others.  It was a big deal for Meredith and Sam, who were both a little nervous about the whole thing. They were awesome! I don't want to brag or anything, but Colby said he hoped I'd come back again because I "might have something"--which I took to mean that I'm a natural!  Ha!  Maybe it's the 6 years of diving that helped me?

The only downside of this experience was that I was extremely sore the next day, and for several days after.  My ab muscles especially….and, the back of my left knee was really bruised.  I’m the only one who had this happen, but I bruise really easily, and there was one knee hang that I caught wrong resulting in legs that looked like this for awhile—still do, as a matter of fact.

I think this would be a great way to spend a night out with some friends. It's only $40  per lesson and it’s such an amazing feeling to be able to do something that seems so difficult.  It was such a unique opportunity—who gets to learn how to trapeze when they’re 33 years old?!  Well, I WILL be doing this again.  Now, who wants to buy me a set of lessons?  Anyone? 

Baby Brayson

I met this sweet baby boy after his mom was referred to me by a friend.  He was a very good boy the entire time, and I enjoyed cuddling him between the photos.  Mom had a few props lying around that worked out well, which is always nice.