This little guy was TOO CUTE! I had such fun with this session - he’s a little thumb sucker which makes me giggle - he kept plopping that thumb right back in his mouth! Here are some sneak peeks from our session for his Mom & Dad to see and all his long distance relatives!
Sooooo handsome!
By golly, it’s another “thumbs up” rating for me!
He’s got them wrapped around his little finger!
Jake is the newest member of the babyJACKS club and I can tell you that we are going to have a FUN set of sessions with him over the course of the next year. He was a real trooper for the sessions - showing off his big belly and how strong he is when he’s got tummy time. He even dozed off at the end of his session after getting a bite to eat!
This one melts my heart!
Belly Tickles= Happy Baby!
Shhhh…. he’s sleeping!
This guy is a kid after my own heart - he has two cats which are his FAVORITE things in the world! He told me that they don’t sleep with him because they are too fat to jump up in his top bunk but I still bet they love to cuddle with him when he’s relaxing on the couch!
This is a shameless mom-post. Isn’t my Sarah cute? (Just nod your head and agree!) She’s nearly 21 months - and seems to be on the cusp of her terrible twos. She’s learning to pitch fits when she doesn’t get her way and when she’s doing something she shouldn’t be and you give her that initial “Sarah, that’s a no-no” verbal warning, she will turn her head and look at you with this gleam in her eye. It’s as if she is gaging the distance from you to her to guesstimate how long it will take you to physically get to her to stop her nefarious plans.
Growing up in Iowa, I joined 4-H when I was in elementary school after a not-so-enthusiastic endeavor into Brownies & Girl Scouts. 4-H was more my speed as it allowed me to pursue my individual interests (such as baking, photography and raising rabbits). The program helped give me a good foundation on how to set goals for myself and create plans to achieve them as well as learning how to give presentations to a group. Now what does this have to do with cupcakes & ice cream, you ask? Well…
I heard a radio ad the other day for Blue Bell’s Centennial Cupcake Ice Cream that featured 4-H on the carton as well as little green candy clovers in the ice cream itself. I have to admit, my ears would have perked up at the notion of Cupcake Ice Cream, but toss in the 4-H aspect and now you’ve got my head justifying the purchase as a nostalgic endeavor. Thankfully Blue Bell Ice Cream is sold in Arizona - now I just need to go hunt down a carton!
My son brought home a flier from preschool with information on this event: Banner Thunderbird Children’s Safety Fair. It looks to be a TON of fun! 
Definitely will try to take my little guy over there after t-ball on Saturday. He LOVES fire trucks!
Date: Saturday, April 26, 2008
Where: Peoria Sports Complex (16101 N. 83rd Ave., Peoria)
Time: 10am-2pm From the Banner Thunderbird Hospital website:
Winner of a Westmarc 2007 Best of the West Award, the safety fair is a collaborative effort between the Glendale-based medical center and neighboring Glendale and Peoria Fire and Police Departments, area businesses and state agencies to deliver a unified message of child and family safety.
Covering everything from fire, home and bicycle safety to stranger danger and Internet predators, the event is an interactive and enjoyable opportunity to educate families on ways to protect themselves. Inflatable activity centers, live music and performance from local cheer squads, dance teams, gymnastics and martial arts studios will add to the excitement.
The first 1,200 children, up to 16 years of age, will receive a free bicycle safety helmet, compliments of Banner Thunderbird Children’s Center.
Interactive games, fire escape demonstrations, safe target shooting demonstrations and face painting are just some of the activities that will serve to entertain children. Notable safety figures may include McGruff the Crime Dog, Smokey the Bear and the Crash Test Dummies promote good safety practices. Banner Thunderbird will also be accepting new, unwrapped toy donations on behalf of Andrea’s Closet—a non-profit organization with hospital-based toy closets established in honor of Andrea Nicole Brunk, a little girl who passed away from leukemia shortly before her 10th birthday. Andrea’s Closet provides toys to the pediatric patients of Banner Thunderbird and other hospitals throughout Arizona.
For more information on the Banner Thunderbird Children’s Safety Fair, please call (602) 865-5733.
Miss Vanessa came to visit today to celebrate her six month birthday with some beautiful portraits! I promised her Mom some sneak peeks this weekend - These are just a few of my faves - I saw SOOO many adorable ones in the mix. Hard to choose the ones to show on here!
This little man had SUCH drama surrounding his birth! His heartbeat became undetectable during labor so Mom was whisked away for an emergency c-section. Her OB had a nasty case of food poisoning and wasn’t able to perform the c-section so they had to call in the doctor who lived the closest to the hospital and he was the fastest c-section surgeon in the west - from first cut to full delivery was under 1 minute (from loss of heartbeat to delivery was under 9 minutes!) Thank goodness for modern medicine and swift acting nurses and doctors!
It’s been nearly a year since I’ve seen this brotherly duo and MY how things have changed! Ian is still a fun loving older brother but Brayden is really working to make his mark on the world!
Ian is getting ready to celebrate his 4th birthday! He was very adamant to remind me, though, that he is STILL only 3! I love his serious look in this one..
But in less than 15 seconds he was all smiles and giggles…
Little brother wasn’t shy about ANYTHING. Thankfully he sat still for about 2 minutes and let me fire off a rapid series of shots..
I think there are some teeth coming in there somewhere as he REALLY liked chewing on his fingers… well, that and crawling/walking over to me to take a look at my camera. Oh, I need to mention - he took his FIRST STEPS in my studio! I feel honored that he saved them to show me!
Here they are together… I think one is a mirror image of Dad and the other a copy of Mom!
Summer decided to pop in over the weekend and wave “hello” and remind us that it hasn’t forgotten about us Phoenicians - I think it was 95 or so on Sunday. Ugh. Thankfully the 10-day forecast for Phoenix doesn’t look too bad.
Each spring we purchase a little plastic play pool for the kids. We have a regular swimming pool, but the plastic pool is easy for us to manage with the kids - The regular pool water is too cold right now for my tastes and so I prefer to just sit in a lawn chair and closely supervise as compared to actually getting in the water.
Sunday was the first day to fill up the plastic pool - Kev splashed in it some, but since my husband had some work to do on the larger pool, kev elected to go play in it while Scott supervised. When Sarah woke up from her nap, I took her out to the play pool and grabbed my camera along the way. There was no way I would miss photographing this.
::ALWAYS WATCH YOUR KIDS AROUND WATER!::
She is yelling at her daddy to watch her play! “DAAAAAD!!!”
Wild child!
