Hunter, future horse girl

So there is nothing wrong with people, especially young girls, that love horses, but I am familiar with making fun of a few young girls in school that LOVED horses. And while I know high school clicks and stereo-types are lame, I still hope that Hunter doesn't fall into that category. :) 

Aunt Julie (Great-Aunt to Hunter, but Julie's so young, she really is just Aunt) recently got a new horse, her name is Emma. We stopped by to see her tonight and of course I had to take a few pictures. The pictures are taken with my iPhone, so not the usual quality that I prefer, but cute nonetheless. 

Hunter was a little scared of her at first, 

But after feeding her some treats and time, they warmed up to each other.

And Emma really warmed up to my phone.

I absolutely love this shot. The look on Hunter's face is so mature and matter-of-fact. She really will be that horse girl. :)

We wandered the rest of the horses at the "Case Stables" and I got this cute shot of Hunter taking her stance while saying Hi to this horse.

But it's not as adorable as the shaking head horse that we couldn't get enough of. 

And she couldn't get enough of us!

Ahhh, horses.

Brandon's Mom

It's with sadness that I post that on Monday, July 9th, 2012, Brandon's Mom, Dawn Illyene Case died at only 50 years old. She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer again after surviving it many years ago but it was a sudden heart attack or blood clot that took her life. 

I've personally only met Dawn about a dozen times in the last five years of her life. I know that she was a wonderful mother the early years of Brandon's life and then after that she had some changes that led to a divorce from Mark, Brandon's Dad. Looking through the photographs that Brandon and Erin have found from her belongings, it was nice to see Dawn in those younger years. She was a mother of two adorable children. She was a big sister to six young men. She was a young wife. She was a beautiful woman that may have made some bad decisions in her life but her life was taken too soon. 


I wish I would have gotten to know her and our kids could of met her. I'm thankful that we have many photographs to remember her by though. Here are just a few...

Dawn and Brandon

Brandon and Erin

Brandon and Dawn

Brandon and Mark

Dawn and Mark

Dawn, her brothers and father. And Brandon and Erin.

Dawn as a young girl

Dawn and her older sister Donagene, who has also passed

Dawn with Hunter at a few months old, the only time they met

Happy 4th of July!

Finally some sun for us Northwesterners!

We had a pretty relaxing day of lounging around and doing household odds and ends. We were outside for most of the afternoon and enjoyed the mild and perfect heat. Fun with the sprinkler and the kiddie pool.

Leo will definitely be a heart breaker!

As well as a crazy daredevil.

I love this next photo. You'd think that they were singing a song together, but in fact they are screaming at one another to get the other off the table. 

I did catch one sweet moment. Well, kinda sweet. 

And Hunter spent some time being my hair stylist while I sat in her tent. She can do my hair and be a chatty cathy any day of the week. :)

Princess camp

Last Halloween when we went trick or treating we got a free class coupon for the local dance academy, Chehalem Valley Dance Academy. Being a non-girly girl that I am, I wasn't thinking we'd actually ever use the coupon. But Hunter seemed to like the idea of dance class and I thought starting young in activities would be great for her, something I don't remember ever having as a child. We ended up signing her up in January and she has gone almost once a week since then. This was a picture of her in January, getting ready for one of her first classes.

 
The dance academy recently offered a summer camp for a week, called Princess Camp. She has been starting to get into princesses a bit more (I blame the little girls at school!) and so we thought she'd really enjoy this camp. And she did! We went and got her a few princess dresses from a local second hand thrift shop. I didn't want to get her a costume princess outfit so we got this one dress that was very classic and sweet. She loved doing her princess swirls with it too.

Here is a little video of the dance her class performed at the end of Princess Camp. Adorable! If only she'd get her fingers out of her mouth. :)

Adorable!