Summer Update

Hello all! Man, life gets busy and the blog gets put on the back burner :) Summer has flown by. We were in Colorado for Katelyn's wedding, I photographed a couple of weddings here in AZ (HOT!!!) and Steve studied non-stop for his Comps (the HUGE test he has to take to complete his PhD.) When he asked what he needs to know for the test, his adviser told him, "everything that a PhD student should know." Very helpful. So he has been studying everything he can get his hands on. He is in CA now, taking his comps for the next three days, and then when he gets back he has to prepare to defend his dissertation in Oct. My photography business has been pretty steady, especially considering the heat. It is picking up a bit now and I expect that to continue through the fall. Grace will start preschool again at the end of the month, she is so excited! I can't believe how much the kids are changing! Noah is almost into the preschool stage, chatting up a storm and SOOOO busy. I find his little matchbox cars in the weirdest places. He has so many and he takes them everywhere, so it is not unusual for me to change a load of laundry only to have a car fall out of the machine. Or to open the refrigerator, (or freezer or dishwasher) and find a car tucked away for safe keeping. Grace has started hiding anything she doesn't want Noah to have, so I am constantly pulling princesses out from under the living room rug, or the couch cushions. Suffice to say, you definitely never know what you will find when you open a cupboard here at the Hallam house. Heres a few recent pics of the kids. (By the way, since I am terrible at updating my blog, make sure and check my facebook page if you want to be kept more in the Hallam loop!)










Grace has started dance and LOVES it. Here is a video of her and her good friend Adeline at their class. She sort of likes to shake her booty...hopefully just a short stage that doesn't last until her teen years! :)

Spring Pics

I have launched a new photography blog for my business!(www.lindsayhallam.com/blog)I posted these pics there too (although it won't typically have much family stuff on it), but for those of you who get this blog via email, here are some recent pics of the kids. I wanted to practice shooting a bit with my 50mm lens so I took the kiddos out to a grassy area by our house and let them run around. They had a blast and I actually got some pictures of the two of them together, in the same frame. Dreams do come true! :)

Soccer!

Today was Grace's first soccer practice. It was so funny! All those little kiddos running around on the field doing drills...ha ha. The push-ups were the best part, we need to practice them a bit, she couldn't seem to get her knees off the ground. She laid her head down and stuck her bottom up in the air and sort of waggled it around, lol! Noah was soooo bummed he didn't get to play. We brought a ball for him on the sidelines but he pretty much spent the whole time sobbing "soccer baaaaallll...soccer baaaallll..dada PLEEEASE" poor kid. I might have to go get another small goal and set it up for him on the sideline so he feels included. There are enough younger siblings we could probably have a whole other practice just for them! I told Grace to show me her "soccer pose" and this is what she gave me:

I suppose her dada's surfing background is rubbing off ;) Grace LOVED practicing. When it was her turn to run the ball down the field she would laugh hysterically while dribbling it down. She is pretty fast! But she gets the ball all the way to the goal, and then stops. Then after some encouragement she kicks it in. At the end of the practice all the kids circled up and made up a team chant "1..2..3..Gooooo Scorpians" and then they jump up and down, only some of them aren't great at jumping yet so its so cute. They get their uniforms Thurs. We couldn't find any shorts that would fit her for the practice until she gets her uniform so she is wearing Noah's shorts. Crazy that they are close enough in sizes to do that now! First game is on Saturday, I will post a video then.

And....we're back!

How embarrassing! I can't believe it has been almost 3 months since I last posted. Well, life with two toddlers/preschoolers can get crazy I guess, that will have to be my excuse! Grace is busy, back in school for the spring, doing AWANAs (a kids program at church) and starting soccer soon! She has been begging us to do soccer, I have no idea where she came up with that, but she is determined. I can't believe we are already at that age where the hobbies and sports begin! She is also very excited about her upcoming role in her Aunt Kate's wedding! Noah also goes non-stop. He is into trucks trains and dinosaurs in a major way and loves to read. He almost always has a toy car/train/truck in one hand and a book in the other. I never quite believed the rumors about the powers of destruction possessed by two year old boys, but I am here to tell you, they are all true. Hurricane Noah can destroy a room in five minutes flat! He is getting so big and talking a ton! He loves to be able to communicate. One of my favorite things about this stage is listening to his conversations with Grace. They will play make-believe for hours on end and our backyard has been transfered into everything from a mid-evil kingdom to a prehistoric jungle to a pirates ship in the middle of the ocean. Here are some recent pics from last week when we had some rain (picture grace saying "tut tut, wooks wike wain...") The video is from Grace's preschool today. It has been western week and they got to ride pony's. Have to run get Grace ready for a sleepover at Dallas' house but I promise to be better about the blogging (that sounds familiar, I know!, but this time I mean it!)

Grace got to go see her very first movie in a theatre tonight. She was SOOOO excited! Nana, Mama and Grace (or in her words "just us girls") went to see "the Princess and the Frog" which turned out to be really cute. Great music and a sweet story (I only cried once...darn that romantic lightning bug who finally gets to be with his true love.) I am always disappointed that Disney seems to feel the need to bring in some really evil stuff (scary voodoo and evil spirits in this one!) in all of their princess movies (Cinderella is the only exception that I have found.)I mean, c'mon Disney, your target age group is 3-7 year old girls, you could definitely tone down the scary stuff and they wouldn't miss it a bit! During the scary parts Grace decided that she needed to go potty so she wouldn't have to watch (proof that she is her father's daughter). She was so good,and watched the whole thing without talking. Whenever the other little kids laughed and talked she would get this frustrated face and say "why are they talking? People won't be able to hear the movie!" (proof that she is MY daughter!) Grace's favorite part? The "cool chairs." Overall a great experience and further proof that my girlie is growing up way to fast.


These are movies, so you will need to go onto the actual blog (http://hallam4.blogsot.com) to watch them

Deliquent Blogger

First, for those of my friends and family that usually just view this blog in email format, you will want to go to hallam4.blogspot.com to view the actual blog as this post contains a slide show and some videos. I can't believe how much has happened since I last blogged! I guess it has only been a month but during the holiday season a lot gets packed into that small amount of time! We had a great Thanksgiving with all of our friends and family (22 people, 37 lbs of turkey and 16 pies consumed- the turkey and pies not the people. Noah had a great birthday. I can't believe that he is 2 years old! Mema and Papa gave him a bouncer (Grace calls it a "jumprine"..I guess like trampoline?) so the kids had a lot of fun on that. Noah usually loves them, but he was nervous, perhaps because he isn't used to seeing this big thing in our backyard, so he chose to watch from the outside. He thoroughly enjoyed eating Doritos and laughing at the other kids while they jumped. Noah is in to "Geotrax" (a train/car/plane system) in a big way. Our living room is filled with all of the tracks that he got from his birthday and the early Christmas we celebrated with my Dad's side of the family. We have been doing lots of Christmas baking, and a few days ago we had our annual gingerbread house party. Katelyn made an elaborate Victorian house that blew all of the others out of the water as usual. Steve made a gingerbread surfboard which he intends to submit a picture of to his surfing magazine (just don't include your age Steve!) The next morning the kids made their houses which turned out super cute.
More photos of the houses to come, they are still on my camera :)
Tonight was Grace's Christmas pageant at church. She was a sheep. I had a cute sweater and leggings picked out for her to wear, but Nana and Mema bought a poofy dress and I got out-voted. Grace, of course, loves the dress and says it looks JUST like a sheep.


I am looking forward to Christmas next week, and I promise to do a better job keeping up with the pictures and videos so all of our family can be included in our holiday.

Bespectacled Ballerina

After failing two vision screenings at school we took Grace to the optomatrist (we learned really quickly not to call him an 'eye doctor' as Grace has developed an intense dislike for doctors). It turns out that her vision is really pretty bad. She is very far sighted, which I thought meant that she couldn't see close up, but apparently has to do with the shape of her eye more than anything else. We were told that without correction most children develop a lazy eye, but that since her vision is so bad, she would have most likely developed two. Sooooooo we definitely got her glasses, which was a whole other ordeal. They brought out these glasses and said "these are the newest in child eye glass innovation, lightweight, and practically unbreakable." After taking one look at the huge coke bottle glasses that the girl was holding I responded "and could you show me your slightly breakable pairs?" Unfortunately,the lenses needed to correct far-sightedness are the kind that give kids that "bug-eyed" appearance, so we also asked to get the special (more expensive, thanks nana and grandpa) lenses that don't do that quite as much. Then we had the discussion about "transition lenses" (absolutely not!) I have to give my girly a fighting chance :) Anyways, all that said, she looks adorable in her PINK (for Grace) Nike (for dad) frames. It has been rough for her today, but they said that after her eyes learn to relax (usually a day or two) she will see much better and won't mind them as much. We were also told we should bring Noah in, so we will see what happens on Friday at that appointment.


On a lighter note, Grace and her friend Adeline started "fairytale ballerina ballet" classes at the local rec center. They were soooo excited! In the video we asked them to show us what they learned...this is what got :)