Remember when I posted those black and white images of Calder and Amelie way back when and told you I’d post some color ones soon? Well, here they are. Again, big thanks to my friend Adam for the amazing photos.

Contemplative Calder.

This about sums these two up. They actually get along pretty well and seem to have fun together.

What a great kid.

He really is such a joy. Very helpful and a great sense of humor.

So so silly.

And sometimes a little serious.

And always a lot of fun.

In May, Amelie started taking art classes at the Hein Academy of Art in Salt Lake. We knew that she had an interest in art and talent and so I researched a bit and found this art studio. The combination of excellent instruction with Amelie’s natural patience, attention to detail, and talent have been amazing! This is her first finished piece, a self-portrait in charcoal. Her teacher really focused on teaching her about shadows and working with them. Amelie paid close attention and spent lots of time on this project. We were all blown away by the end result.

Needless to say, we will continue supporting our sweet artist as she develops this talent. I can’t wait to see where this takes her!

For those of you who saw my Facebook post, this is a bit redundant, but I wanted to share these on our blog, too. My friend, Adam, took pictures of Amelie and Calder and they turned out so well! He sent me almost all of the images in color and in black and white. I’ll post the color versions soon, but today I wanted to show you the black and white ones because I thought they turned out beautifully.

I hereby declare Calder “The Boy with 1,000 Faces.” He is so animated!

See what I mean?

Face #843. Sure love this kid.

Isn’t he cute?

Love this one, too.

My handsome guy.

Casual.

And Miss Amelie.

The lighting was awesome this night.

Isn’t she beautiful?

I just adore her.

My two babies.

When you’re busy! My doula work is taking off which is amazing and wonderful and exhausting sometimes. This month, I had a mother push out her 10 pound baby an hour after I met her at the hospital and another mother who was induced and needed me at the hospital for 26 hours. Crazy and fantastic stuff. Here are some other fun happenings from the past little while:

Uncle Colin and Graham spent a couple nights with us while they were here touring BYU. It was so fun to have them with us!

Swimming lessons! One of my doula clients owns a swim school and we’re making a trade: swim lessons for doula care.

Looking like an Olympian 🙂

Amelie and Calder both won school-wide awards for paintings they submitted to the PTA Reflections contest. Way to go, you two!

Amelie has joined the school jump rope team. This is just the 3rd grade part of the team. She’s loving it and learning some cool tricks!

When Colin was here, he told the kids the tale of Tikki Tikki Tembo. As soon as he was done, Amelie sat down and filled two sides of paper with the story, almost word for word. Love seeing how amazing kids’ memories can be!

Prompt #20:

Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.

You know how some people can remember things from when they were really young? I’ve heard that can be an indicator of how intelligent you are. Well, if that’s true, I am out of luck because I don’t feel like I have a very good memory. I also wonder sometimes how much I remember and how much I think I remember because I’ve heard my parents talk about things. But here are 3 childhood memories that (I think) I have. I’m not sure if they’re very significant:

1. I remember getting this great toy stand mixer for my birthday when I was 4 or 5. I could put the mixing bowl on, and I think there were some plastic “batters” that I could put in the bowl. I think there was a brown one, a white one, and a pink one. I remember playing with it and loving it.

2. I remember a shopping center in the Philippines–I think it might have been called something like Green Hills. My favorite thing was that it had bumper cars. I remember that I always wanted to ride in the car shaped like a blue bunny. I also remember a small basket of shells that my 1st grade teacher had in our classroom–small, smooth, and shiny.

3. I remember going with my friend Lindsay to her grandma’s house–at least I think it was her grandma’s house. This was when we lived in New York, so it must have been when I was in kindergarten. I remember dunking those little elf sandwich cookies and watching the milk fill the grooves of the debossed images on the cookies.

Like I said, these are not particularly significant. But it’s memories like these, a favorite toy, a chosen bumper car, a basket of shells, the perfect cookie, that combine to create the memory of a lovely childhood.