Nathan's Photography

Most of you probably have no idea, but my husband is becoming quite the little photographer lately. It all started when we invested in a nice camera a little while ago. He's been into video editing and stuff for a couple years...but now he's almost as excited about taking pictures as he is video. And whenever he gets into technical stuff like this...he really gets down to the nitty gritty and learns all he can about it! I've been really impressed with him and all that he's learned about how a camera works and how to take great pictures. So I'm putting these pictures up a few months late but when Violet was born we had a go at our own little newborn photography. We ended up using all of his pictures in Violet's Birth Announcement (which my sister, Sydney, designed!). I just love the pictures AND the design!!! So glad I've got such talented people in my family :). And we just barely got these announcements sent out, too (better late than never, right?!)

Sydkyd

Ok time to catch up again. As mentioned in a previous post, my little sister Sydney came to visit us in Arizona in June! She just finished up her very last semester at BYU and decided to come down and celebrate with Kristie and I. We just loved having her here! She rotated between sleeping at our place and sleeping at Kristie's...and during the days we all got together for some kind of activity...pretty much consisted of either shopping or swimming. It really doesn't get much better than that! Here are a few pictures to show what we were up to.

This was our day at Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall. Pretty much the best mall I've ever been to. The boys even did alright that day. They LOVE their aunt Sydney!

Our little strawberry, Violet, at the pool one day

We spent a lot of time at Kristie's pool. It is an amazing place. The boys have such a great time together and Sawyer actually stays in the water instead of running off to some random place every 2 minutes...maybe it has something to do with the floor being scalding hot and not wanting to run off barefoot. Whatever the reason I'm happy!

Hawaiian Punch & Kristie's shades...

Pretty exhausted after a long day in the heat

The first day Sydney got here we all got together at the pool for a little barbecue...

Dads are way more fun than moms!

We're just content holding our little baby girls!

Best Buds...

One night we put the kiddos to bed and went out to dinner just the 3 of us. That was such a great night! We went to True Food's Kitchen in Scottsdale...AMAZING! All their food is fresh, organic, and healthy. Right up my ally!

This summer Kristie and I bought the Harkins Summer Movie Passes. It was only $7 for 10 movies! Every Thursday morning we take the kids to see a movie...every now and then we make it through the whole movie. Usually at least an hour of it, though. Totally worth it to get out of the house. The week Sydney was here it was 'How to Train your Dragon'. Here we are all loaded up. When did I become such a mom?! Haha

And here is one last shot of our little girls.

Syd it was so great having you here! We hope you can come again soon! We love you!!!!!

Happy 4th!!!

Sort of last minute we decided to head to Vegas for our holiday weekend. Andrea, Paul, Kasey & Erin were all going as well. Nathan's mom had borrowed some jet skis from a lady in their ward so we all met up at a nice little lake about an hour and a half from their home. It was a smaller, less popular lake than Lake Mead and we all had a great time there! The water was really clear and the perfect temperature. And although it was a boiling 115 degrees outside, we all managed to stay cool either in the shade or in the water. Even Violet enjoyed a nice spritzing of water from the spray bottle every five minutes. Sawyer loved playing on the beach and in the water. He was excited about the jet ski for the first 10 minutes as we slowly idled out of the 'no wake' zone...as soon as Nathan hit the gas even a little bit it was all downhill. He was NOT having it. Oh well...maybe next year. And another sad little story from the day...I realized about 2 seconds too late that Sawyer had discovered a block of wood with about 6 nails sticking over an inch out of it. That's right--he totally stepped on one of the nails. Poor guy. He was pretty shaken up for a bit, but overall he handled it REALLY well. There was a paramedic on site who cleaned it off for us (with sterile water--what the heck, where was the alcohol or iodine?!) and gave him a bandaid. In that moment I was very grateful that Sawyer was up to date on all his vaccinations so that we didn't have to worry about tetanus. Yikes. Within 10 minutes or so Sawyer was back to playing in the water and other than walking around on his tip-toes for the past week it hasn't seemed to bother him too much. I'm grateful it all turned out so well.

We spent Sunday trying to recover from Saturday--we were all exhausted! And on Monday we hit up a breakfast buffet at a casino before heading home. It was a great trip and we had a blast hanging out with everyone.

Violet's Blessing Day

I really needed to post about Sydney's visit before this one, but I still don't have the pictures and I'm trying to get all caught up so I guess we'll just have to do this out of order for now. On June 26th Violet was blessed. We waited to do it this weekend because Brooke's son, Talmage, was getting baptized the day before so Nathan's parents were already in town. It's so hard to coordinate with all the family members when everyone lives all over the country! And it didn't work out to do it when my mom was still here, so therefore she was 2 1/2 months old when we finally got around to it. I was grateful that Kristie and her family were around to represent the Schindler side! :) We had a brunch at our house the morning of, and then Violet was blessed in our sacrament meeting at 11 am. Nathan gave her a beautiful blessing and she smiled up at him during the whole thing. She already loves her daddy. He can always make her smile. I was so glad that she was happy throughout the blessing. We even managed to squeeze in a few pictures outside afterwards. Poor Kristie had to bail before sacrament was over due to Jake having a rough morning...so that's why they aren't in the pictures outside. But we did get a shot with them at the house during breakfast. It was a wonderful day and I feel so blessed to have Violet in my life.

Father's Day

We had a wonderful Father's Day this year. My sister, Sydney, was in town visiting (more on that later) and she happened to be staying with us that morning. It was great having her around. We had some amazing breakfast burritos for the man of the day, followed by a relaxing Sunday morning before heading off to church. I got Nathan a dual-sided glasses case. He's always got his glasses and contacts stuff laying around everywhere so I thought that it was appropriate. Pretty exciting gift, eh? Haha. Sawyer made him a puzzle out of popsicle sticks. I am so grateful for a husband who loves being a daddy. He is just so great with our kids! He definitely brings a funny, adventurous, sometimes crazy aspect to this family and we wouldn't be the same without him! And he is such a great example of faith, obedience, and testimony. We love him so much!

I didn't take great pictures that day...but I had to post something.

And here are just a couple pictures to illustrate what a great dad Nathan is to our kids!

Don't worry, I didn't let them drive away ;)

Memorial Day

For Memorial Day Weekend we decided to head up to Las Vegas and visit with Nathan's parents. He had the following week off of school so we took off after church on Sunday and stayed through Thursday. Erin came down to join us as well while Kasey was on a business trip. It was so much fun spending time with everyone...especially Erin because she is going to be moving to Boston at the end of the summer! We will miss her and Kasey a ton but we know that they have such an awesome adventure ahead of them! Overall it was a super relaxing trip. Sawyer has such a great time there and entertains himself really well. He had a blast playing in the back yard and hanging out with grandma. It was just so nice to get away for a few days. Here are a couple pictures from our weekend.

Baby Violet in her patriotic Memorial Day outfit

Roasting some mallows in the backyard fire pit