Archive for the 'Rilyn' Category



06
Oct
11

the sword

1 Timothy 4:12  “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”

(this video is unedited, my apologies to James, our family “videographer”!)  😉

*The only offensive weapon in the Christian’s armor is “the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.”  (Ephesians 6:15)  That power is nothing less than the omnipotence of God himself.  Isaiah 55:11 reads, “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”  The power of the word can never fail.

This year, we challenged our morning carpool to school to recite all 4 of their Bible verses that they memorized from the month of September.  (Kindergarteners only have to recite 3.)  The video above is Ella reciting her verses to the best of her ability.

We all use various techniques to help the kids memorize but the ones I use the most are hand motions and voices.    What I mean by voices is that I will recite the verse to the kids in various types of character voices.  I do “football player voice”(think deep and husky), “Disney princess voice”(think super high and sweet), “Valley Girl voice”(like totally!), “Cowboy voice”(y’all), “Baby voice”, “Opera  singer voice”(yes, I sing it like an opera star), etc.  The kids love it and they will join in with me!

Here is sweet little Ella memorizing The Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 when she was three years old.  (Convicting for me to watch, because we have practically dismissed Asher as able to learn Scripture “this young.”)

Here is a link from last year of Rilyn memorizing Romans 12:2.

*Taken from Salvation Belongs to The Lord by John Frame

25
Sep
11

explode! ignite! the falcons are dynamite!

Another game day for Rilyn on Saturday! She won the spirit stick yesterday for being the cheerleader with the most spirit! She was pretty excited!

You think she has spirit? 😉

I was on the sidelines again snapping action shots! Here is my favorite one from yesterday (#5)!

23
Sep
11

back to school dance!

I volunteered at Rilyn’s back to school dance on Thursday afternoon and it was INSANE!  Two hundred and sixty 7-11 year old kids crammed into the cafeteria for 3 hours with a DJ pumping tunes on full blast!  The snack bar was crazy too!  There were literally like 15 kids at once, and at all times, handing us bills and buying soda/candy/nachos/glow bracelets, etc.  I think we had 6 moms back there helping and we still were working non-stop!  I slipped away from the snack bar at one point to take some pictures, but even my camera could not take good pictures of a dimly lit cafeteria with movement everywhere.  My next purchase will be an external flash that should help in situations like that.

Here is the crowd!  (The PTO should be making a pretty penny off of this dance!)

Here is Rilyn, who was definitely enjoying herself!

Here is Ella in one of the many random conga lines that slithered through the cafeteria!

And here is Rilyn’s teacher pumping his fists in the air! He was a dancing machine(sweaty too)! The kids loved it! I was surprised how many teachers let loose on the dance floor!

What made me laugh was when a hip-hop song would come on. It felt like the whole cafeteria knew the song and dance except for my girls! 😉

14
Sep
11

more cheer!

Some of my favorite shots from Rilyn’s cheering last Saturday!

They have to “introduce” themselves to the stands and so when their name is called, they do a little jump and rah rah! Here is Rilyn’s jump:

Rilyn on the far left yelling her heart out!

One of Rilyn’s coaches is a former UT Longhorn cheerleader. She is in charge of coordinating the “stunts” and the cheer routine for competition in October. For some reason, unknown to me, she put Rilyn on top of the pyramid. Rilyn is a skinny girl, but she is on the taller side, and there are girls smaller…(The girl who is “holding” Rilyn-her face says it all…)

Rilyn can not wait to cheer each weekend!

And, just for fun, here is a picture from the last game. I also take action shots for the boy, #13, who is grabbing onto the quarterback’s leg and pulled him down!

04
Sep
11

Rilyn’s first game to cheer!

We have officially started cheer again this season!  Rilyn was especially excited to see that they added pink to the Falcon cheer outfits this year!  Here are a couple pictures of her on game day yesterday.  The Manor Falcons (Pop Warner) played the Westlake Chaps and we beat them 6-0!  She is cheering for tackle football now, (instead of flag), so it is pretty fun to watch!  (And I have a couple contracts to take action shots for moms on the football team, so I’m “working” on the sidelines during the whole game!)

early morning shot-her new uniform!
her team
cheering!

Here is one of my favorite action shots of the game. (I am taking shots for #5, who incidentally is the best player on the team, and scored the only touchdown, so he’s fun to photograph!)

go Falcons!
29
Aug
11

California vacation day 8

Sunday was my cousin’s wedding day!  My kids did very well being the flower girls and ring bearer and were party animals at the reception!  Seriously, they had a photo booth at the reception, and Rilyn was taking pictures with bridesmaids that we didn’t even know!  The girls were in the center of dance circles and dancing with strangers.  It was crazy to see how extroverted they were!  Asher was spinning out of control on the dance floor and falling half the time.  He loved it (and all the attention), and laughed the entire time!

*All professional photographs by Bluephoto

coming down the aisle

I got to sit in the second row and had a pretty good view!

married!

I love this shot I took of Ella sitting on great grandpa Erickson’s lap during the ceremony.

I also love this one! He was so cute in his lime green bow tie and never fussed with it once!

All dressed up!

*Professional photography-The wedding party! I love this shot because we had just pulled up Asher’s pants and apparently we pulled them up too high! 🙂

He never smiled for the group shot BUT he didn’t cry either!

*Professional-The reception. You can see James and Ella dancing in the bottom middle of the photograph.

beautiful!

Asher dancing with the bride!

so sweet

*Professional shot-the girls dancing with the groom!

swinging good time!

*Professional-cute!

The girls always wanted to dance near the bride!

The busta’ man bustin’ a move!

*Professional shot-spinning!

Needless to say, nobody wanted to leave early, but we had to get up at 3:30 a.m. the next morning to catch our early flight from LAX (not a fan of that airport) to Austin. It was the best family vacation yet! And we just get more excited thinking about our kids getting older and being able to do more fun things together!!!!

27
Aug
11

california vacation day 6

Friday was spent at Knott’s Berry Farm!  This was another amusement park that I spent a lot of time at in my childhood.  I wanted to “relive” some memories with my own kids, so off we went!  The park has changed a LOT since my younger days, but the kids still had a blast!  The big difference between Knott’s and Disneyland is the thrill rides.  We discovered Asher loves thrill rides, and Knott’s had a lot of kid friendly thrill rides.  (Disney is magical because of all the characters and fantasy story rides.)  We didn’t stay the whole day (we left at 6) because, well, we were on day 3 of amusement parks and we were tired!  🙂

Snoopy is to Knott’s as Mickey is to Disneyland
quick drops up and down were a thrill for all three!

This next picture is the Sidewinder roller coaster. It is like a normal roller coaster except each “cart” spins around while you are going fast on the tracks. Rilyn wasn’t prepared for the feeling of “falling out” and screamed “MOMMY!!!!!!!!” on the whole ride! 🙂

I am sitting with Rilyn at the very end (in the middle of the picture with a blue shirt on) with my hair flying and Rilyn screaming!
This was another thrill ride.   A giant “skateboard” that teetered back and forth.  Asher loved it as you can tell!  (I like the girl in the

front’s face!)

This was one of my favorite rides at Camp Snoopy when I was little. The “Huff N Puff”. My kids LOVED this ride. Even Rilyn wanted to go on again and again!

You have to pump the handle in order to go!
Asher was the last car on another time that they went and well, he got very left behind!  He really huffed and puffed for sure!
ferris wheel!
wheeeee

Rilyn’s favorite ride was the swings. She said she could take a nap on there! 🙂 (Ella was too small to ride.)

Rilyn in orange and pink with James in the yellow hat

One of my favorite things at Knott’s when I was little was the train ride because a “robber” would come into your cart and harass you. I thought it would be funny to go on and not tell the kids that a robber was coming!

Give me all your money!
Asher, as usual, could care less.
They got a little scared!
this was another thrill ride, the cars would speed around the corners and the kids loved it!
I think Asher likes it!
25
Aug
11

2nd grade!

Rilyn was a bit nervous on her first day of 2nd grade because she has a “man teacher.” 🙂

August 23rd

Here is her and Cole, her best guy friend, and carpool buddy! These two have known each other their whole lives!

Cole starts 1st grade!
Rilyn 6 months old, Cole-a week old!
backpack buddies
Mr. B and Rilyn

Jen made Rilyn an “apple” cupcake when she got home!

after school treat!
23
Aug
11

California vacation day 4

Day 4 took us back to Disneyland!  This time we took more opportunities to meet characters and see shows.  We hit 16 attractions in 12 hours.

Asher refused to wear a Mickey Ears hat.  So sad for this mommy!

Our first stop was Space Mountain. We made Ella and Rilyn go on it. We had a switch pass so after the first ride, James was going to go on with the girls. Ella hated the ride, so only Rilyn went back with daddy (and that was only because she knew daddy really wanted to go on it! See one of the pictures below.)

this is before the ride started!
during the ride
Both girls look like they’ve been through the washing machine after the ride, but Rilyn

went again just for daddy!

We went on the Nemo Submarine ride!

Ella
We met Fawn!
Peter Pan!
Tow Mater and McQueen
Toy Story Mania ride-James’ favorite!
Woody!
Sully from Monsters Inc.!

We took the girls to a princess show while Asher was napping where they teach you “how to be a princess”.  I think this picture is hilarious because the princesses are teaching the girls how to curtsy, and Ella is pulling out a wedgy.

Ella in plaid shorts, white top
Ella ribbon dancing with Snow White!

We headed to Toon Town in the evening. I love this picture. Check out Rilyn!

This is heavy!

Here is Roger Rabbit Toon Spin ride. Ella did this on pretty much every dark ride. She hates loud noises and surprises.

Our tradition is to end our visit to Disneyland on It’s A Small World. This still is our kid’s favorite ride!

Ella
Small World After All!
22
Aug
11

California vacation day 3

On Tuesday we went to the beach!  The kids had so much fun and could of stayed there all day!  The weather was perfect, and Asher was in heaven with so much sand and water!  When we first saw the beach I asked him what it was and he said, “A big pool and lots of sand boxes!!!”  You can tell he’s not a Californian!
You can also tell he’s not a Californian by the way he rubbed his eyes with sandy fingers. My kids could not figure out how to eat their lunch at the beach without getting sand all over their food. Such rookies!

salt water plus sandy eyes=tantrum
Rilyn running to the beach!
family shot
Ella the mermaid!

Asher could of done this all day. Random people got chunks of sand thrown on them as they were walking by!

building a sand castle!
I’ll “head” to the ocean in a minute!  hehe
one of the many times Asher got knocked down by the tide
future surfer dude?
building with grandpa

That night, me and James went to an Angels baseball game (with my cousin, dad, and uncle) because they were playing the Texas Rangers! How lucky was James? I grew up going to Angels games and so it was fun for me to bring out my old hat and cheer on the home team!

Anaheim stadium

I brought the “past into the present” again with a picture of me and my cousin, John, at an Angels game about 20 years ago.

John and me

The Rangers won so James was happy! I did catch James eyeing the Angels World Series trophy. The Rangers were so close last year!