Tag Archives: pictures

This Is Dangerous To Do With Her Now #TBT

04/23/2015 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

Throwback Thursdays (aka #TBT) typically create many feelings all at once that go full circle. Sadness from realizing how fast time goes, humor from how funny you or someone you know might’ve looked, happiness from seeing how much your little one has grown, and right back to sadness because….your little one has grown.

Exactly one year ago today, I published a post titled Baby Steps to Baby’s First Steps where we were holding Avery as she did “the cat walk” across our kitchen island. Guess it wasn’t the safest thing then either.

So she wasn’t exactly taking steps, or walking………..oooorr even crawling at that point, but it made her happy and that’s what mattered most. Plus, we had fun with this nightly routine.

But now, if we were to try and hold her across the island as she walked on her OWN, the results could be detrimental! We sometimes hold her just sitting on the island and she quickly shows us how unsafe it is when she grabs at everything around her, including what’s in our hands!

Like most toddlers, she’ll grab at whatever’s in sight.

And, like most toddlers, she gets extremely pissy when we won’t let her have whatever object she is going for. Lately, that object is Going Mom’s phone.

Over the course of just one year, her craziness level has gone from…

….to….

She’s the best! I love her and Kelley more than words (even the dictionary) can describe!

April 2014

April 2015

How much growing has your kid done over the course of a year?

What else has happened for you since last April?

Parenting, Photo Journal

17 Month Photo Session: No Go With The Bow

04/20/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

This is the second month we’ve had to push off Avery’s monthly photo session. Last month, my wife and I had a date night paint night (King Kong even made an appearance), and this month Avery was too ill for us to subject her to pictures in the chair.

Once our little girl was back in action and running wild, we knew it was time for her photo session. She’s still not eating right and it’s obvious her current teething is the culprit. Poor kid, can’t catch a break.

I have to hand it to her though, aside from her stubborn eating, she bounced back from her fever rather fast and won’t let anything slow her down. She made sure to make her photo session difficult just to prove that she’s not sick anymore and we can’t just take pictures as we please like I did the other day. Taking her away from the book she was “reading” probably didn’t help either….

But that’s what parents do, right, we annoy the hell out of our kids. The first setup seemed promising and Avery put up a front as if she’d cooperate.

But not a second later, she was lunging forward with her crazy face.

It became obvious this session would be added to the another one of those categories, so we just managed with what we had. Basically, just a lot of re-positioning.

The only time she held still was when she was pulling on the bow in her hair.

Which, of course, led to it coming off.

Kelley only had to put the bow back on, ohhhhhhh, eleventy-billion times.

Which only made Avery increasingly interested in the little white thing clipped to her hair. Maybe it would be something good to eat?

Nope, maybe handing it to Daddy would be better.

Or maybe I’ll just hold on to it and give a quick pose.

Guess that was all we got, because things went “downhill” from there….

And hey, what’s with this bow always getting stuck on my head?!

So that was our photo session for her 17 month mark. I know there’s a lot of changes occurring each day in our growing girl, but does that mean she’ll be better or worse for her 18 month session?

I don’t know!

Life, Parenting

The Obligatory Texas Kid in Bluebonnet Pictures

04/13/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

It happens every year. Texas families drag their little ones all over to take bluebonnet pictures in patch close by. We see several families stopped on the side of the highway, rain or shine, in hopes of taking a brilliant photo of their kids in our state flower.

I used to laugh at these families, actually, I still do, but now that we have Avery, we too are seeking that perfect patch of bluebonnets to set Avery in. You see, stopping along side a busy highway simply doesn’t sound safe, mainly because it’s not. Plus, there are many fields of bluebonnets located safely away from any busy roads that are much better. Like , for instance, some random strangers’ front yard.

Yeah, so we’re not perfect, but we were in Nana and Papa’s (Going Mom’s parents) very nice and quaint neighborhood this weekend and decided to stop for pictures in one of their neighbors’ bluebonnet patches. We’ve never talked to or even seen these neighbors, and nothing bad happened in the process, so all is okay, right? Hey, still better than off the highway, or in the middle of a lightning storm like we’ve seen plenty of times in the past!

There’s actually a Facebook page dedicated to Texas Bluebonnet Sightings that has plenty of places for those eager to snap photos of their families smack dab in the middle of a patch of flowers.

We didn’t have the best setting on our DSLR for the lightning that day, but Avery makes any photo a trillion (because million is soooo 90’s) times better. But first I had to figure out the best placement of our child…

After Kelley found a good spot, I set Avery down and let me wife go to town with the pictures. Meanwhile, Avery went to town on the bluebonnets. Psssst, Avery, that’s illegal to do to our state flower!

Can’t say I didn’t try to tell her…..

Kelley took as many pics as she could with our difficult (as usual) subject, but I’d say they’re still cute.

I only had to set her down a handful of times and take one quick break to spin her around in hopes of a smile.

After that, Kelley took a few more photos and we called it a wrap.

We had a great time at Nana and Papa’s after the photoshoot, and Avery received a lot of new books by Sandra Boynton (we’ve come to enjoy this author), some cute clothes, and a psychedelic stuffed animal moose.

I’ll share more about our time at Nana and Papa’s soon, but right now I need to get some sleep. The Walking Dead is taking over our lives and keeping us up later than we need to be. But it’s just so good!!

Do you have an annual picture tradition like many Texans do with their bluebonnets?

Are you a fellow Texan who participates every April?