and gets rained out…

Not a great weekend to forget the rain fly… Note the make shift rain fly – it is actually one of those canopies that you put over your picnic table only we had to use it on our tent. And yes Simon is crying in that picture. He had it with the rain!

Can I just say that all my friends are a bunch of flakes! We had this very nice group camping trip planned and in the end only the Gilbert’s showed up. True it rained with no chance of let up and we scraped the whole thing after one night away from home but at least we tried!

Eli is in a phase right now where he avoids cameras at all cost. So now it is a game for me to try and take his photo.

gotcha! (taken from across the fire so it looks, well, smoky)

You may remember Myles cooking pancakes  last year. Well we discovered and wonderful new product that fixed our camping cooking woes. Oh the wonders of food science that have brought us….

Pancakes in a Can! and organic none the less!

Simply squirt them on to the griddle and presto! perfect pancakes! No batter to mix, no bowl or utensils to clean up! And they taste great too. I hate washing dishes and I really hate washing dishes while camping so anything that eliminates dish washing gets 5 stars in my book. Normally we try to avoid highly processed foods like this but who are we kidding here when your camping you get to eat all kinds of junk (hot dogs, smores, trail mix, jerky, etc) and based on the ingredient list these are actually healthier less bad for you then the traditional krusteezs mix we use while camping.  So if you don’t mind paying for ridiculously overpriced pancakes just for the convenience of having them in a spray can go ahead and give them a try! Maybe next they will come out with some whole wheat ones.      

I week ago I entered Simon in Leah Profancik’s Sweet Summer contest. Leah is an amazing photographer from Indianapolis . First prize in her contest is complimentary session and
$ 800.00 towards prints.

The theme of her contest is "your little ones enjoying the outdoors". I entered the photo of Simon in his John Deere shirt that I posted a while back. I have quite a few family members that live near Indianapolis, in fact my maternal grandmother lives near there. Every fall my Aunt and Uncle host a weenie roast, this is a huge event that involves a large bonfire and a hay ride. This year ALL of my Mom’s brothers and sisters are attending (My mom has 5 sisters and 4 brothers). I was thinking that it would be really fun to attend the weenie roast and if Simon wins this contest we will have an extra reason to fly out to Indiana. So if you have a second please hop over to Leah’s blog and cast a vote for Simon. I may be a bit biased but I believe that he is the cutest kid in the competition : )
His photo is entry #6, if you scroll down a bit you can see all the photos.
click here to vote!

please only one vote per household per the competition rules.

And since no blog post should be with out a photo here is one that I took of Simon this morning.

We were horsing around on the bed. He is really into sticking out his tongue lately. It is like he just discovered it.

Pictures by my mom

We had our first Swimming lesson on Tuesday at the Bellevue Aquatic Center. This is a therapy pool so the water temperature is kept at 91 degrees. Perfect for babies!

Simon was a little  unsure at first but then warmed right up to it and started splashing like crazy.

look at that craw!

I have been wanting to take him for some time but babies must be 6-months old for the class. He is not quite 6-months but since he will be next week they let him start.

camera lens fogged up!

Mom’s like warm water too!

On a completely unrelated note, I found this video and thought it was one of the coolest things ever. If you haven’t already seen this guy who dances all around the world check it out.

Newport Beach

Whew! a lot of fun but we are glad to be back home again sleeping in our own bed. This trip was a lot of first for Simon.
- first time flying on an airplane
- first time to California
- first time swimming in the ocean
- first time playing in sand
- first time swimming in a pool
- first time attending a wedding
He was a real trooper and a great traveler. He did great on the airplane. I don’t think the other passengers even knew that there was a baby on board.

First Airplane ride – kind of hard to take a picture while also trying to keep him from rolling off the seat.

First time swimming in a pool. For the record he loved swimming in the ocean just about as much as he loved swimming in the American falls reservoir. However, he did seem to like the swimming pool I think because it was significantly warmer.

Believe it or not but I actually didn’t take that many pictures. Simon and I spent the first part of the week hanging out with my brother Mark and with my old college buddy, Melissa. regrettably I didn’t take a single picture of either of them. On Friday Myles flew down and we picked him up at the airport and drove down to San Diego for Gordy and Alexis’s wedding.

Here are the Bride and Groom. I caught them as they came out the door towards the end of the rehearsal.

I didn’t take any pictures of them during the actual wedding. Mainly because this was a small wedding and I was very concerned about respecting other photographer’s space, but also because I was very busy with an overly tired 5-month-old. I am not a wedding photographer nor do I have any plans to become one. Alexis was beautiful and I assure you of that. So now Simon officially has 2 Aunts, Stephanie and Alexis and Beth and Neil are official empty nester’s.   

This is Simon with his cousin Lexi. Note the grass in his hand. he seems to be saying "look what I can do Lexi!" Simon got kind of restless during the ceremony so I sat him down on the ground and he proceeded to pull up grass by the fist fulls and left a bald spot on the lawn.

I am sharing this last photo because it is a good picture of Myles and Simon but with the caveat that it should not be printed and stuck on anyone’s refrigerator (you know who you are).    

Today is Jacob’s first birthday.



Yes, it looks like he enjoyed his birthday cake but in reality this kid does not like sweets – not even fruit.

He picked up the cupcake, squished it in his hands a bit, took one bite, made a face, then threw the cupcake on the floor. With a lot of encouragement from him mom and me we managed to get him to take a few more bites. Click play bellow to see his slide show.

This little guy is named Chase and I think he is going to live up to his name. He had the strongest legs of any newborn I have ever held. He could practically crawl by shoving himself along with his legs.

Oh I just love baby feet!

This is the "watch out or I am going to pop you one" shot. 

Doesn’t it look like a miniature guitar! It is actually a ukulele. Eli treated me to his rendition of "Bah Bah Black sheep"

And just for trying something different this is Eli with his dump truck.

Two adorable girls, Eve and Naomi. ages 2 1/2 and 1 1/2.

Parents always want that money shot of both kids looking at the camera and smiling sweetly. The reality is that it rarely happens for siblings under the age of 3. It is too hard to keep your hands to yourself and of course little sister doesn’t want big sister touching her. So this is what I consider a miracle shot. Really it is just a miracle to get them both sitting down and in front of the camera. Don’t get me wrong these girls were both extremely well behaved. They are just 1.5 and 2.5. Even with marshmallow bribes it is hard to get them to both sit down at once. It is kind of like playing wack-a-mole, you get one positioned and the other pops up. Aren’t they cute though!

and despite being siblings who of course want whatever the other has it is obvious that they do love each other.

Here are some of the outtakes. I love the expressions on the center one.

This Carson Jared at 8 days old. At 3 days old he had brain surgery.

Carson is the first son of Myles’ long time friend Jared. Jared and Myles met on the first day of Kindergarten almost 23 years ago. I photographed Carson last week while in Idaho. He had just come home from the hospital in Salt Lake.

He is the sweetest little baby and has had to endure a lot but he is quite the little trooper.



As of his last pediatrician appointment he’d gained back up to his birth weight and his incisions are almost healed.


We are hoping to make another trip back to Idaho in November after the birth of Greg and Stephanie’s baby. If we do go I look forward to seeing this little guy again and taking more photos.

One of my clients asked me about using a new location that I had never been to before. I hate to work in  a new location with out seeing it first so I borrowed Ally and off we went.

It has been a long time since I have photographed Ally. She is becoming quite the young woman and she is so talented at many things.

This year she made the All star team for Softball.

She is going to be playing soccer again in the fall and she is going to be in the 3rd grade.

It is amazing the amount of corporation the promise of an ice-cream cone will buy me!

She even wore the sweater that I picked out for her.

Also I have been meaning to mention that this week is the buy one frame get one for one penny sale at Aaron Brothers. I often get asked where I purchased the frames that display the photographs around my house. The answer is Aaron brothers. They have fairly good quality frames for pretty cheap. If you don’t want to pay to have something custom framed it is definitely the way to go. They have this 50% off sale twice a year and if you want to do a photo wall in your house now is a good time to stock up on frames.

I am off to California but I am setting up typepad to keep posting while I am gone.