What a summer

Summer 2012 came and went.....well, almost. We are seeing the very end of summer right now. Oddly enough, everything is insanely green for this time of the year. We left for Nashville two weeks ago when all the grass was dead and leaves were starting to fall from trees, and we came back to lush green grass everywhere. It was a nice surprise. I am happy to finally be writing a post after several weeks.....ok ok, two months. Obviously many things to catch up on.

I ought to give you a fair warning, this is a really long post with a ridiculous amount of pictures. There.

I have been trying to practice with my camera more often. I have the cutest model so it's fun trying to keep up with her. In fact, I have taken so many pictures {and videos} in the last year and a half that I filled up my entire 250 Gig hard drive. Because of this, I had no room to put my most recent photos from the last month and a half. We finally invested in an external hard drive even though we thought we already had one in the time capsule we already had.....long story. Anyways, now I have enough room on here to put more of my masterpieces...LOL. Only I wouldn't get tired of seeing 1500 pictures of Brynley, well daddy and grandparents too of course. ;)

I joined a photography life group recently and I am so excited about this opportunity to fellowship and learn.  There are some very talented people I am excited to learn from. I thought I might be one of the people with the least amount of experience but I was excited to be able to teach some things to some of the girls at the last meeting. All that studying paid off I guess. My next wish is to get the opportunity to shadow a photographer, that would be very insightful. We got to observe a newborn photo shoot at our last meeting, and the next meeting we are going to do some senior portraits. Yay. After watching the newborn shoot, I took some of the things I learned and practiced on my niece Violette when we went to visit. Of course, we ran out of natural light {a necessity} but we made it work. I am happy with quite a few of them. Just a few of my favorites, isn't she beautiful.

{Now keep in mind, she is a six week old, not a one week old {preferable}....much more difficult to make her do what we wanted, but she was very cooperative for us.}

This silly girl wanted to put this on when it was 100+ outside. I was sweating just taking pictures of her.

Popsicle = happy girl.

Just as her daddy was walking in the door from work

We love to paint but it only lasts about 20 minutes before she starts painting on herself and playing in the water. My little artist.

Some of my random favorites

We recently got rid of our pool that we had up for a while. It kind of makes me sad to see these pictures now. We have high hopes for a real pool someday. I will think and pray on that. just kidding.

The sky was breathtaking that day.

Krista came to visit for several days in August, we had so much fun just catching up. We took her to pei wei. We took Brynley swimming and then to get shaved ice. yum. We introduced her to Jeremy's famous carnitas nachos, life changing! She convinced me to run with her at 6 am one morning. Her scheduled {short} run for that morning = 4 miles. How long I made it = 1.5 miles. I was discouraged at first being the ex athlete that I am. Then I had to realize I haven't ran in 2+ years. So not bad huh?

Benson's 1st birthday was a hit with the toddlers. Bubbles everywhere!

Brynley loves listening to our/her toys with her stethoscope. She says "la-lub, la-lub". You can tell her mom is a nurse because it's almost spot on {lub-dub} :) Makes me proud.

Unfortunately, I waited till the end of the summer to take Brynley to this pool. I didn't realize the pool would close down the middle of August because all the lifeguards are kids and they go back to school. It was fun the two times we went. We will definitely be frequenting it next summer.

Brynley decided that she was big enough to sit in the chair like a big girl this morning. I can't believe how tall she is. She's got her momma's torso. Lucky girl!

She was brave enough to try the tire swing.

 This is probably a day I will always remember. We had a true tent tea party. Made my heart warm.

We spent a weekend in Dallas to see grandmommy. Marcia had a big performance at Gateway church and we got to see them practice beforehand. They had me in tears at one point {and Jeremy too for the record, can't let that one slide baby} While they took a short break Brynley jetted to the stage and started dancing. And somehow she convinced one of the Unity girls to give her a mic and she started to sing twinkle twinkle little star. She stopped as soon as she realized she could hear her voice and got super embarrassed.

Brynley sporting her camp shirt from grandmommy

Girls got good taste in shoes.

We found the strangest stuffed bear sitting on the sidewalk in front of a store; it had a water bowl in front of it {with it's nose wet} like it had been drinking. Brynley, being the lover of all animals like her mom and dad, was obsessed with it.

Then we stopped for ice cream.....happy girl.

Those headphones, she found the strangest places to put them. I left out the picture of them on her bottom.

We color a lot. She is a pro at circles. I mean really, a pro ;)  Her latest request: "draw a wobot {robot} mommy, a wobot, pease?" Happy to oblige my love.

This was the first day there was a break in the 110 plus heat this summer. We were outside for over an hour just playing on a slide on the ground. I love toddler imaginations.

Our day at Grand Lake with our best friends, the Hendersons.

Brynley's first seadoo ride.....no words or squealing, but I think she liked it.

Yup, that happened.

She loves the rat. Sorry sweetheart, daddy says no rats. The birds on the other hand, they frighten her a bit. She stayed a few feet away from the cages.

We made a week long trip to see family in Tennessee the week after we went to Dallas {yes, a busy two weeks we had}. It was a long drive but so worth it. We got to meet little Miss Violette and Katie bug for the first time.  We spent several days at The Davises house and then spent the afternoon at the Zobel house before we had to head out as Hurricane Isaac made it's way north. Brynley did so well with the whole trip. It was a little difficult to get her to keep quiet in the mornings, but if that was the worst then I call it super successful. Unfortunately, we missed seeing my brother by a day. He was shipped out to Afghanistan earlier than expected. But we had a blast catching up with Christine and Katie. We went to White Castle for the first time and then Christine made a.m.a.z.i.n.g strawberry shortcake. What a treat.

I had to snap a few pics for them to have. Isn't she just precious? So smart too. {Pics of Violette above}

So now I am only two weeks behind. I better save something for tomorrow ;)

Be Blessed.