It Breaks My Heart

My neighbor, Glena, is fighting her second battle with cancer. She is an incredibly wonderful and strong woman. She has substituted in Primary a few times since I've been in the ward, and I just stand in awe of her. She has an incredible ability to capture all the little children's attention and hold their attention. A little over a year ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through a, no doubt rough, year of treatments for that. During a follow-up visit to check and see if the cancer had returned her doctors found a completely different cancer present now. She's been diagnosed with stage 4 neuroendocrine cancer. I was asked to do some family pictures for her since she doesn't know how much longer she has left.  I took these a week ago, and now her head is already bald again. (Her hair had just only started growing back from her first year of chemo.) Their three children are ages 4, 5 and 8. The oldest, the boy, is pretty severly autistic. She especially wanted one-on-one pictures with each of her kids. I think these may be some of the best pictures I've ever taken.  I really tried to capture the emotion and connection  between mother and children. I really felt honored to finally be able to really do something for Glena and her family. It just breaks my heart to think about these precious children loosing their mother. I've also done a lot of introspection this past week. There are so many things that I get caught up in that do not matter, and I've really realized that the only things that truly matter are the ones that are eternal.

I know this picture isn't prefect, but I just love the expression on the 5-year-old!

I think this next picture could possibly be my favorite. I just love it when my children snuggle into me like this.

I made this template with the lyrics to the Primary song "I Often Go Walking". I especially love the last part of the second verse that says "For if I love blossoms, and meadows, and walking, I learn how to love them, dear mother, from you." I think this whole song could have been my theme for the photo shoot. I hope these children always remember the things their mother has taught them.

This last one is of her and her sister. This sister lives all the way in Utah, and has sacrificed so much of her time to be with her sister and her sister's family to help them through the hard times they have faced over this past year.

Update!!!

Okay, so it's been a long time since I've actually shared what's been going on in our lives, and since I am almost completely incapable of short posts, be prepared! Now that Grady is 1 that means big changes for him. First of all, I've started giving him cow's milk, and to my suprise he absolutely hated it at first! Hopefully now I can get him weaned from nursing in the next couple of weeks! Luke was really easy. He took to milk really well, and I had him weaned within 2 weeks of his 1st b-day! Second of all, Grady got his big boy hair-cut. Ty and I were both really relieved to see that he looks good with short hair (or at least we think he looks good)! He hated having his hair cut, so I know I probably missed a few spots, but here's the new do!

Regular

and Spikey!

Moving on. Swim Lessons! Luke took swim lessons for 3 weeks at the Safford Pool. The staff encouraged parents to not be present at the pool during swim lessons. If we really wanted to watch we had to do it from quite a distance away, so that our children could bond with their swim instructors. On the second to last day, they told parents to come and to bring their cameras. I was all over that! I'm so proud of my little Luke! He did so good, listened to his teachers, overcame a lot of his fears, and learned a lot! He can by no means, swim now, but overall it was a good experience for him.

We had a great 4th of July! All the festivities were on Saturday, and we spent almost all the day with Ty's family. We went to a parade that morning, swimming in the afternoon, dinner with Ty's family in the evening, and then fireworks at night! Luke was very scared of the fireworks, but after about 5 minutes at least he stopped screaming and shaking! Luke did love running around and pushing a big car in his Papa's dirt in his underware. On the actual 4th, Ty and his brother Aaron put on a little fireworks display for the family in the evening. Oh yes, and I just realized that I mispelled independence!

My favorite part of summer is just spending almost every evening in the backyard together as a family. I just love how I can get my camera to turn what would be an incredibly ugly background into beautiful creamy blurryness! I can't believe how tan Luke is getting either!

These next three are just for proof that Luke does at least occasionally wear clothing when playing outside! :)

Just look at those muscles!

This is my new favorite picture of Luke ever! I'm happy, because it is soooooo ridiculously hard to get him to look at the camera! Just look at those big brown eyes, as he relaxes in the backyard!

Our neighbors just upgraded swing sets, so they gave this one to us for free! We  have awesome neighbors! The boys have already had so much fun with it!

My Little Grady

I think he's just so adorable with his sweet round face, big blue eyes, and crazy wavy long hair. He has developed so much personality lately! He cracks us up with his deep manly grunting. He's gotten pretty good at throwing fits too. He's walking pretty well now, and his little vocabulary is slowly expanding. Here are his 1 year photos. I wanted these to have a more classic and timeless feel to them. I had a really hard time choosing favorites. This kid is just way too photogenic!

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Just for fun. This kid has yet to meet a rock that didn't taste good!

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This was taken on the way home after the sun had set. I just couldn't resist taking a picture with this fabulous sky! I love monsoon season!

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You made it to the end!!! Thanks for looking!

My Little Mess

This picture was taken not 24 hours from the last time I swept and mopped the floor just from around the high chair!

Everything this kid touches just turns to mess! Grady is now one, and that means this will probably be the messiest year of his life! The year Luke was one I think I spent more time sweeping the floor in that one year than I did in my whole life combined! Oh well, they certainly are cute at this age, so I guess I can live with the mess that comes along with this cute face!

A week of Celebration

We sure had fun last week! I turned 26 on Thursday, Grady turned 1on Saturday, Sunday was Father's Day, and then we had a party for Grady on Monday! My birthday was pretty nice. Ty and Luke made me breakfast, and later that afternoon Ty took me to the new temple for the first time. On Friday night he took me out to dinner.

Saturday we went on a little day trip up on Mt. Graham. We had a fun picnic, and then we hiked Lady Bug Saddle. We took a wrong turn on the hike and the terrain became extreemly dangerous, especially with 2 kids! We found our way back to the trail after a while and finally made it to the top. There were just thousands and thousands of lady bugs everywhere! Luke loved it!

Luke actually picked some flowers for me to put in my hair. He sure is going to be a heartbreaker!

Believe it or not, this is actually the first tie I have ever gotten for Ty. Father's day was just a nice laid back day, just the way Ty likes it. My boys are so lucky to have such an awesome, caring, and involved father! We finished off the day with a nice steak dinner.

We did some celebrating for Grady on Saturday, but reserved most of the fun for Monday night. He wasn't too interested in his presents, but he really loved his cake! He just dug in face first! I love this kid!

4 Years Ago...

We were there!!!

Germany hosted the last World Cup while Ty and I were there. We didn't actually get to go to any of the games, but we could feel the excitement in the air. Every city we went to, even the little cities had a huge screen in the center of town where people gathered together to watch the games. We were in Berlin for Germany's first game in the 2006 World Cup, and we joined all the crazy people behind the famous Brandenburger Gate to watch Germany win. It was so fun and exciting! Ever since then, Ty has become a huge soccer fan, and this year we've really enjoyed rooting on the USA together as a family from our couch (and getting upset at the ref every time we watch replays of the goal that didn't count!)

The screen behind the Brandenburger Gate. If you look really closely you can see the side of my head!

Frankfurt, by far, had the coolest set up. They put a big huge screen right in the middle of the river Main!Heidi, Jeffrey, and Ty in front of the screen.

Photography Fun

I went to a photography class on Friday with Chea Lamb. I have really been focusing on all the technical aspects of photography. Her approach to photography is very artistic, and so it was really good for me to hear everything she had to share. She chose the locations and did most of the posing of the models. These are all pictures that I took and processed. (Sorry there are so many!) I tried processing them all in a few different ways to get a certain feel that I wanted. This was really fun for me, and now I'm hoping that maybe I can find a couple high school seniors this fall that will let me do their senior pictures for them!