Wow, what a day! Mother’s Day is a well deserved day of celebration, but it can really wear you out!
I guess having a 2+ hour photo session with a hyper baby doesn’t help, huh?
Kelley’s parents, Nana and Papa, hosted the family for Mother’s Day, and Papa graciously took Avery’s 6 month photos. Kelley had several ideas picked out from Pinterest, and Steve (Papa) is a great photographer with high quality equipment. So it just made sense for Papa to do the “shoot.”
And he wasn’t messing around; for only having photography as a hobby, he’s well equipped to have his own studio.
He also had white and black backdrops, and both were used for our session with Avery. The black backdrop made for a dramatic effect and think the pictures will turn out great. Actually, I think all of the pics will turn out wonderful! I’ll be sure to share once we have them.
Before making the trek over to Nana and Papa’s, I woke up before the girls to make breakfast and coffee for Kelley and setup her gifts.
In the bowl is one of her favorites, teff porridge cooked with whey protein, peanut flour, mashed banana, and lots of blueberries. And coffee is always a must in our house!
Yesterday I posted about my Casting Keepsakes clay print and photo kit which I reviewed and gave to Kelley as one of her Mother’s Day gifts. She loved it, and I love how simple it was to make such a lasting memory with Avery’s help!
The other items include a “handmade” card, my personal recipe of baked goat cheese crackers, and a poem I wrote from scratch. I’ll post the full poem at the end of this post for those who want to read it.
Inside I wrote “The guy who cut these pieces of paper.” I know, she’s lucky, huh? Well I’d say it certainly beats giving a bouquet of flowers someone else cut and put in a vase that all you do is have to pay for; but that’s just me. 🙂
At Nana and Papa’s we cut right to the chase and started the photo shoot. Avery was already missing out on her regular naptime and Kelley said it best by saying she was a ticking time bomb.
Fortunately, Avery did a lot better than expected and besides her constant squirminess, she was good for most of the session.
One of Kelley’s Pinterest inspirations was to have a photo of Avery sitting with several stuffed animals. I loved the idea and the pictures she showed me, but Avery was difficult to keep still. Nonetheless, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
Another idea was to have Avery naked with just a bow and pearls; these photos are adorable too! I used my camera to snap a few quick shots while Steve did the pro shots, so just want to make that clear.
Towards the end, when we brought her outside and I tried tickling her for the millionth time, she finally started to get impatient.
In all fairness, so did I, I was ready to get out of my jeans and into shorts and a shirt!
After our session was over, several attempts were made to get Avery to take a nap, but to no avail. I guess there was too much going on and she didn’t want to miss anything!
I was happy to have my mom (G-ma), and brother (Uncle Preston) there with us and we all had a nice late lunch together. Uncle P even got a little niece holding action as she tried to eat his hand.
For G-Ma’s gift, I kept with the handprint theme but used a block of Sculpey polymer clay. This required more work than the Casting Keepsakes kit, and you have to bake it instead of letting it air dry.
5 handprints and 1 footprint later, I finally settled on a print I felt G-Ma would love. I first made an impression with my hand, and then put Avery’s hand in the middle. I saw it on Pinterest (that site is so useful, but also addicting!), and knew I wanted to give something like that to my mom.
Yeah, that’s my best painting job and I’m proud of it! I also gave her a picture frame with a picture of her holding me as a baby and another picture of her holding Avery now. Going Mom helped me out a lot and wrote “Great Moms Make Wonderful G-Mas” beside the pictures and it turned out great! What an outstanding wife!
Since we don’t have a printer, I had to wait for my mom to bring a printout before I could give Going Mom her last gift. I purchased a Groupon for the two of us to attend a BYOB painting session at Texas U Can Paint. It’s something we’ve both been wanting to do, and since G-Ma agreed to watching Avery anytime, we’ll be doing this soon!
It’s kind of like a little gift to myself too, but only with my best friend/wife! Can’t wait to go!
Avery only took a couple of short cat naps the whole day and her tiredness was coming up fast once we were home. I made Kelley a quick salmon with steamed rice and broccoli dinner but she had to save half of it until after we bathed and got Avery to sleep.
It was a very long and busy day, but we both agreed it was a great day. We loved being with each other and our family and are so happy with our current lives. Let the warm fuzzies commence!
How was your Mother’s Day?
Anything special to note?
As promised, here is the poem I wrote to Kelley:
It was only last year
when you held something dear.
The excitement we had
and fear that nothing went bad,
stayed with us right to the day
“Hello, Avery” we would say.
At times we felt stuck in a rut,
especially with shots in the butt!
Now we have Avery,
the most beautiful baby
that we love so much,
and can’t get enough of her touch.
I am so happy to have you and our daughter,
and it cheers me each night we watch her splash in the water.
You are the kindest, most caring mother
whose love can be surpassed by no other.
We may have celebrated Mother’s Day last year,
but now our baby is actually here!
You are the best mother and wife
Avery and I have for life.
Let’s celebrate this day as your official first,
and know that you fill me with so love I could burst!
Happy Mother’s day to my best friend, my wife, my lover,
and now and always, a wonderful mother!
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Baby Collages: Sleeping, Sitting, and Saying “Ahh”?
Hey there, how’s your weekend going so far?
Saturday was pretty low key around here, but I did get a well overdue haircut! Yep, I used an exclamation because that’s what this stay-at-home dad gets excited about now.
I almost went too extreme by asking for a Mohawk, but thankfully the lady cutting my hair talked me out of it. Phew!
When I was a freshman in high school, my step-dad at the time once made me go back to the hairstylist that put highlights in my hair and have them taken out. Yep, I came home all happy to have highlights like the cool kids (fyi, not cool anymore) and he drove me right back to have it reversed. Fun guy…
Needless to say, my mom is no longer married to him and we’re all better because of it. She deserves better and has someone much better now!
Anyway, I got carried away, the moral of the story is that Kelley would’ve sent me right back to have the Mohawk cut off immediately; no questions asked. So just the regular “do” for me and we’re all happy.
When I returned home, I worked out in the garage and then Kelley and I went to a nearby hill for a great workout. I did hill sprints and Kelley charged (carefully) up and down the hill while wearing Avery in the Ergobaby Ventus.
We both worked up a good sweat and Avery had a short nap to boot! Win-win for us!
While I was out, Kelley had photo session with Avery in our room and snapped some great shots. I came in and we worked with Avery on sitting up and took more pictures in the process.
There are tons of photos to go through (yes, stamp “new parents” on our foreheads!), so I thought I’d share the most recent via collages.
Before the collages, here a few single shots. It’s hard not post everything we take since we are just so proud and think even the most blurry picture is priceless and hard to delete. C’mon, if you’re a parent, you know what I’m talking about.
I couldn’t “bear” to delete the photo because, well, what if one day…..
No explanation needed, just an adorable face I’m lucky to see everyday.
Oh hey, are those mine?
Helping her get set up for sit up practice.
Someone knows how to pose…
The first collage is of Avery’s multiple positions before falling asleep that we captured on the baby monitor.
Here she is in 3 stages all spanning about 5 seconds. From left to right: sitting, falling, fallen.
A few days ago Going Mom and I had a fun play session with Avery. Going Mom snapped these as Avery reached for and grasped the blue ring.
And the last collage is of Avery (surprise!) with her mouth wide open. Not sure if it’s just a laugh or she’s trying to say something, but as always, we think it’s adorable.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the rest of your weekend too!
Have you ever had to go back to have your hair “fixed” either by choice or by force?
Smiling Baby Pictures for Instant Stress Relief
You know “those” days, when nothing goes as planned and you’re feeling overwhelmed about everything. Yep, that’s stress and it sucks!
It’s said that a little bit of stress is good for us, but I’m willing to bet we get way more of than we prefer. When I’m feeling stressed, seeing my smiling baby’s face makes it all go away in an instant.
I could be chopping veggies and slice my hand (true story) making me run around franticly trying to stop the bleeding and not freak out. But, if I look up and see Avery’s face smiling at me, I would forget my injured limb and just smile back; then I’d proceed to freak out.
Anyway, here’s a few pictures of Avery smiling. These make Kelley and me happy every time we look at them, and I hope they’ll help you relieve some stress.
Too many? Didn’t think so. I hope I’ll be able to take many more and share with everyone!
Now go enjoy your day with a little less stress! If you’re still feeling unnerved by something…..see above.