The end of an era...

Today was very bittersweet for me. It was my last day watching little Joaquin.

I have watched J full-time for a year and a half (75% of his life!).  That means that he has been a part of my family for a long time... and he and Elayna have been BFFs for a long time too.

Even though I know it was the right time for it to end, it doesn't make it any easier to watch him go. I know that E will often be asking about T.P. (her loving nickname for him, and I have no idea where she came up with it). They will always be friends, I hope... and this is certainly not the last time the kids will get to play together, but it won't ever be the same. I no longer have two toddlers. :(

We will miss you, Joaquin! Much love!!!

And, just to give you some idea of how long ago they became best friends ~ These are a few of my favorite oldies of E & J together. The first one is the first time they hung out together. The last one was today.

Elayna got her first laptop! ;)

Well.. it is a toy, but its still cool! She likes to "work on her computer" now... just like Mommy. ;)

Elayna's First Pillow

Elayna has talked about having a pillow for a while now, so we finally got her one. We sat her down in her little pink chair and told her we had a surprise for her. I couldn't have guessed she would be *so* excited about it. She loves it and was all smiles at bedtime that night! :)

My favorite set-up so far...

... and I can not decide on the editing! It's driving me crazy. Anyway, here is the current draft of these pictures of E. I love how sweet she looks in them... and the black and whites are done, but I want something vintage-y without being so over the top for the others and can't find it... yet. 

Don't be surprised if you see these again with different post-processing! ;)

Just a little more...

from our Phoenix trip.

I know, I know. I meant to catch this blog up a couple weeks ago and it just didn't happen. I am drowning in editing. In a good way though. I am really enjoying myself. :)

Something about the idea of Jake on a bike...

... made me want to mess with some vintage-y editing. I kind of like how they turned out. Of course, that might have more to do with Jake than the editing. Who knows. ;)

He really had fun riding with Jim around the neighborhood. Someday, if we ever live anywhere that is safe for it, I could see us all having bicycles. I would love that... and if Jake's face in these photos is any indication, he would, too!

Cuttin a rug with Gram! (Phoenix)

I love, love, love these action shots of E and Gram Jackie. They are not technically my best shots from our trip, but moments like these are so priceless. Elayna was still sick at this point, but dancing always seems to make her smile... and me too! Enjoy! :)

Doing the Pigeon Dance!

The morning after we arrived in Phoenix, we went to the farmer's market there. After we grabbed some seriously (ridiculously) delicious cinnamon bread, we headed over to the duck pond so Elayna could see some ducks.

There were some ducks there, but there were WAY more pigeons! Once we told E what they were, she started doing this hilarious dance.... Jake and I realized it was the pigeon dance that Bert from Sesame Street does (she has a musical dvd and that is one of the song/dances on there). It was pretty funny.

She wasn't afraid of the birds at all... she kept walking really close to them! She even fed them some chips that Gram Jackie had purchased at the market.

I love these pictures, but I can tell she wasn't quite feeling herself in them. She carried HB (Honeybear, her lovey) around off and on that whole day (and he usually just gets snuggled for sleep time). She definitely rallied and had some fun at the pond, but that was one of few outings while we were there. Once we got home we realized she had quite the fever, poor sweetie!

Anyway, here are some shots from that morning. Enjoy! :)

Meeting Great Aunt Penny :)

Elayna can be a little shy when it comes to meeting new people, but this didn't seem to get in the way of her having lots of fun with her Great Aunt Penny as soon as she met her for the first time in Phoenix! Maybe that's because Penny is super fun, and very sweet. They became pals right away, and now that we are home, Elayna talks about Penny (and Jim and Connor) quite a bit. :)

A couple of the lovely people we got to hang out with in Phoenix...

Sorry for the delay everyone! I'm back!

I'm sure some of you have seen (on our Flickr account specifically) that I took a ton of pictures of the girls at our beach weekend and it turned into quite the project for me, editing-wise.

The photos I took of my beautiful, amazing, seriously sassy friend Shafina were the first "photo shoot" shots I've done and I got a lot of good ones. So of course I've been wanting to finish the post processing on those.

I also took some other photos that it seems are going to end up on Melanie's website for her business. Yay

Oh, and I know the inundation of the Flickr account might be annoying. I am trying to fix that. I am going to use a different service soon, and I will have control over who sees what. I will keep you posted! :)

Anyway, I will try to diligently catch you all up.

For tonight, I will leave you with a few shots of our amazing host Connor, who is honestly one of the most grounded and sweet teenagers I've gotten to meet, his beautiful girlfriend Lauren, the amazing Aunt Penny, and sweet little Paris. I wish, wish, wish I had taken some with Jim in them. So sad. Guess we will just have to go back, right?! ;)