A beautiful baby girl!

Simon love to jump on our bed and roll around on the comforter. He is so cute when he is all clean and happy. Normally he takes his bath in the evening but we had a particularity messy morning so he had a morning bath. The light was streaming in my bedroom window so I grabbed my camera and snapped a few of him “reading” a book.

He really likes books but he won’t actually let you read an entire one straight through – he just wants to identify any animals or balls on the pages and then turn them as quick as possible.

A week ago I posted about looking for new pajamas for Simon. Thanks for all your tips – I found some cute ones!

Here he is rocking his new Hannah Anderson Jams – they also happen to made with organic cotton which I feel good about since they use  insane amounts of pesticides on cotton.  I thought they were so cute that he just needed a photo in them. I found these at the Hannah outlet store in Woodinville. I looked for pajamas at a lot of places (Children’s Place, Gap, Nordstroms, Target, Fred Meyer). I guess I am kind of picky because most of these stores just didn’t have what I wanted. I ended up finding this one pair at Hannah (the only 2 piece in his size and the last left on the rack) and then I found 2 more pairs at costco – also organic cotton but not nearly as cute.  I let him eat breakfast in his jams and they usually get dirty so he needs at least 3 pairs. I will continue to stock the goodwill but for the time being he has something to sleep in!

thanks for your help!

-Emily

I really think that all pregnant women are beautiful. I love the way they glow and radiate love for their unborn children. This mother was no exception.

I can’t’ wait to meet your little guy!

until next time

-Emily

2 month old darling Victoria.

Can I just say that I love hearing birth stories – at most newborn sessions I get to hear all about the birth, this one was no exception.  This, however, was the best birth story I have heard so far. Victoria was an unplaned “freebirth”. Victoria came so fast that the only attendenent was her 8 year old sister. Not exactly what they had in mind but everyone was healthy and happy and now they have an amazing story to tell.

My Friend Rane and her son Jack are in town and on Monday Hayven, Rane and I took the kids to the Seattle aquarium.  I had a lot of fun shooting with my D700 in the dark with no flash.  Simon got a lot more out of this Aquarium visit then he did last time. Granted last time he was only 9 months old. Now he is so much taller and can really see (and feel) into the tanks. He can also say “ish” (fish) which he does a lot as he frantically signs it.

Here he is touching some sea stars

I am a little frustrated with the lack of ASL for aquarium words. There are no ASL signs for “Anemone”, “Jelly Fish”, or “otter”.  So we settled for making up our own signs for the words for which there are no signs. Simon added “crab“, “otter”, “seal“, “octopus“, and “whale” to his vocabulary.  In case you are wondering there is a wonderful online video dictionary called Signing Savvy where you can look up all of the ASL signs. Also the ASL browser is very good. I have started to learn that there are “dialects” within ASL and not everyone does the sign the same way. I have also had to modify a few signs because it is very hard to hold a toddler and use both hands at the same time so a lot of our signs have become one handed. We have a lot of fun with it.

This was the most active I have ever seen and octopus. He was cruising all over that tank. Too bad you can’t put your hand in that one : )

I continue to be impressed with the aquarium staff. They have so many employees just standing around answering questions and talking to kids (and adults) about what they are seeing and touching.  They have this Jelly Fish ring which you can walk though and the jelly fish are sort of slowly circulating around in it. They shine brightly colored lights through it turning the jelly fish a rainbow of colors. (That’s why Simon’s face is purple in the above shot – the light was reflecting off the jelly fish display which is right next to the octopus.) When Simon saw the jelly fish floating through the ring he exclaimed “Oh! Bubbles!” He loves bubbles and I guess jelly fish do sort of look like bubbles. It’s so fun now that he is able to communicate more I get little glimpses of what is going on in his brain.  He likes to know what everything is called now. He will point to something and say “this?, this?, this?” until I tell him what “this is” He usually wants me to say it 3 or 4 times and sometimes he will try and repeat it back to me (or sign it if I happen to know the sign).  The other day he was eating some fish sticks and kept saying “this?, this?, this?” and pointing to them. I told him “That’s fish” and I signed fish. he looked and me and said “ish?” (and signed it) and then asked again as if in disbelief “ish?”

I was just thinking – they probably go through gallons of Windex.

While at the Aquarium I realized that  that I have never once taken my camera to the zoo and we go there all the time (we have a membership) but we have only been to the aquarium 2 times and both times I have taken a lot of photos. We are planning a trip to the zoo tomorrow and I will remedy the lack of zoo photos.

Until next time!

-Emily

I got to meet my little nephew Tucker for the first time last week. He is 6 months old and such a cutie, and a very content easy going guy too.

He is just about to crawl but is at that perfect age for photos because he can’t yet get away from me.

Of course we tried for a shot of Simon and Tucker together – Simon, who is not that into posing for photos at the moment thought it was a less than stellar idea.

we did get him to corporate for one hug though. They are almost 10 months apart in age and Simon did not like me holding Tucker. Whenever I had Tucker on my lap I also had Simon. It was funny to me because it’s the first time I have seen him really jealous.

To my husband Myles who is an excellent Father -  we love you so much!

This is one of Simon’s favorite activities – playing “gar” with daddy. Simon’s  guitar actually a ukulele and he won’t play it unless he has a pick in his hand just like daddy. He periodically drops the pick inside the ukulele and freaks out until someone shakes it out for him.  Myles recently taught him how to hold the neck with his left hand and I think this photo is funny because it looks like he actually knows how to play it.

I hope everyone had a happy father’s day – We did!

This beautiful Senior girl just graduated and will be attending UW next fall. It makes me remember what it was like to be off on my own for the first time. What an exciting time in ones life.

Congratulations Lauren! and best wishes next year!

actually I am a little late on blogging this session and this little baby has already made her appearance and has been photographed. However this was too good of a session not to blog. Such a cute little bump!

until next time

-Emily