end of summer little things

Elle did a couple photo shoots.

As I have mentioned before, I am usually her assistant.  And although it’s kind of crazy sometimes, I love having those kinds of “dates” with her and most of all I love watching her in action.  We will get to the location early and practice on each other… testing out the light:

…and the angles:

Yeah, it’s pretty fun to have a daughter who appreciates that gorgeous light as much as I do.

Lucy learned the art of Yatzee and we played many a game.

Max came home from his stint in China (more about that HERE).  As you can see, we weren’t too happy about that 🙂

Did I already share this one?

Sorry if I did but I thought it was funny.

This is where Max worked a little bit this summer with his cousin.

I didn’t know he could put together a skateboard.

Breakfast back together…complete with mustache and jersey bargained for in China.

My sister in law who was in town for the summer invited Claire and Lu to sleep over at Nana’s house with her.

While they were gone we took the oldest on a little date.

Max and I went to get his senior pictures taken.  He insisted that it was funny to wear his clay-made-homemade t-shirt he made with the volleyball team and his mini-mustache for the yearbook picture.

The photographer had to stand up on a stool to take his picture, and had him pose in the funniest ways, tilting his head just so, hands in pockets and turned from side to side.

When we got in the car after and started talking about it we started laughing so hard I had tears spilling down my face.  Here’s his reenactment pose on the way to do a little school shopping:

I love how he humors me.  Man I love that kid.

Our nephew got home from his mission.

He had quite the crowd at the airport to greet him:

Elle is ever figuring out cool new things to take pictures of:

Big excitement for the night when they posted the class lists on the school windows.

I worried at first when I saw that a couple of Lucy’s friends she hangs out with a lot were in a different class, but loved when she read the list and looked up at me with a huge smile telling me all the kids she was excited about being with.

School shopping with these two:

Max got a new calling being a leader for the boys his age.  I couldn’t resist snapping a quick pic of him with his leaders.

Such great men.

Lucy seems to have her nose in books a lot lately:

…when she’s not learning new ways to draw things:

Cousins.

Elle worked her tail off to get her Personal Progress award by her birthday.  One of the things on the list is finishing the Book of Mormon.  I was determined to finish it right along with her and loved the challenge.

We did a bunch of haircuts to get ready for school:

And soaked in those last couple days of freedom.

Back-to-school night with Lu and Claire one night:

And with Grace the next night: