August: Goalie Camp, 7 Bridges & Toilet Paper

 

Summer in Colorado is absolutely wonderful.  We have a great shade tree in our front yard and HJ and I (Dad) spend a lot of time hanging out there.  The only trick is keeping her from eating grass, dead leaves & ladybugs.  She also has a habit of pulling on those little white things – our flower bed would be demolished if I just let her run amok.

 

 

 

We’ve also started a mini-goalie camp in the backyard.  It runs about 3 times a week for 5 minutes at a time.  Nothing too rigorous just yet.  It has to be a goalie camp since she’s not walking yet.  Apparently, it’s hard to kick a ball when when you can’t walk.  That being said, her ball-handling skills are coming along quite nicely.  My fellow soccer coaches would be quite proud.  She goes to ground (an asset in a goalie) with ease, probably because she’s already on the ground.

I have switched her to size 1 training ball since the regulation size 5 is 1/2 her size.  You never think of a soccer ball as gigantic until it’s in the hands of a 9 month old.

 

 

 

 

This day’s camp ended a bit early because Chico started wrestling with a stick a little too close to our star athlete.

 

 

 

 

 

Halley is not a big fan of socks on her feet.  As a chew toy, though, they’re one of her favorites:

Along with the not-liking-socks thing, she’s becoming a big fan of my flip-flops.  As an avid fan myself, I’m so proud.

 

We took Halley to Cheyenne Canon to hike the 7 Bridges Trail.  Becky tried out a real ponytail in the back (instead of the top of her head like a Dr. Seuss character) and it was pretty darn cute.

 

 

This is one of my favorite pictures of both of my girls.  Aren’t they beautiful?

 

 

 

 

HJ’s not actually brushing her teeth, but her goal was to keep all 3 toothbrushes in her hands at all times:

 

 

This was just an adorable outfit on our our adorable girl.  Sorry the pic is so grainy.

 

 

 

 

Our Aunt Debbie in Atlanta told us that it’s great when she’s able to play by herself because she doesn’t have to depend on us for entertainment and we now see the value in that little lesson.  As a parent, it’s tempting to want to be with her all the time, but if we do that, then we get our wish and no time to sit down, eat, etc.  This is HJ playing by herself while we were getting ready for a walk.  Did we mention that she really loves tearing paper apart?  In this case, it’s toilet paper so it makes for really good shredding.  She wants to be a paper shredder when she grows up (if the goalie thing doesn’t work out).  Becky and I don’t have the heart to tell her they already have machines that do that.  I suppose we’ll have to take her to Office Depot one day and introduce her to her competition.

This video probably works best if you turn your computer on its side.  Sorry if you’re watching on a desktop – those monitors can be heavy.  It’s nothing amazing but she was cracking us up…  Enjoy!