Eggs Eggs Eggs - Mar 29

It's that time of year already and I don't just mean my Birthday. ;-) Easter! This week we pulled out all the stops. I hard boiled 2 dozen eggs and we spent a night letting Chloe dye Easter eggs which she really enjoyed doing, of course. For the 2nd year in a row we still don't own any vinegar (which it says to use in the dye) and the eggs don't really color that well without it LOL but Chloe had a great time decorating the eggs. This weeks pics are are a mix of us doing that and just a few that I already know that Ali doesn't like because Chloe is wearing her Adidas jumpsuit. I'm not sure where she got that if it was a birthday present or what but I do know that it's not from Ali(who works for Nike). I generally like Nike stuff better but the Adidas jumpsuit and the side pony tail do go hand in hand..and Chloe was rockin it so here we are. =)

Have a great weekend and happy Easter!

-B

Shamrock - Mar 22

Saint Patrick's Day. A holiday I don't entirely understand I'll admit it but from what I gather from facebook you are supposed to drink green beer, go to a parade, and have corned beef and cabbage for dinner that day. I(we) did none of those things. =) Everybody around here seems to have finally kicked their colds(knock on wood) and it seems we have officially had our first day of spring. Hopefully that means lots more time outside and with some nice weather maybe even some visits to the park for Chloe! This week, we just have a few shots I snapped of Chloe wearing her Saint Patrick's Day shirt which..ironically...we forgot to make her wear ON Saint Patrick's Day. The leprechauns would be disappointed. Oh well! I never liked their cereal anyway.

Have a great weekend~

-B






serious

this one missed focus but I don't care..still like it

Cherry Blossoms - Mar 15

If you are one of like I don't know, 6 people who follow this blog you might remember a post from last year around this time when I posted some pics I took of Chloe with these really pretty cherry blossom trees that live in our neighborhood. This year I have been following these trees growth very closely because an important lesson was learned last year. These trees bloom these really pretty pink flowers for about 2 weeks and then POOF! Gone. Add to that last year we took some photos and the next day had a big storm with wind and rain that basically knocked the trees out so timing this year would be crucial. This year, right when the trees were basically fully bloomed we had some wind and rain for about a day that I was certain ruined our chances. Luckily, I was wrong and last week after returning from photographing another family we used the last 30 minutes of nice light to try to capture a few new shots in the same location. It works out pretty well considering it's within walking distance. =)
Have a great weekend~

B

Furbish - Mar 8

Our neighbor is the nicest lady. I have posted about her before (Diane) and she has been a great neighbor not to mention she just ADORES Chloe. A few weeks ago she came over and asked me if Chloe would like this "thing" that her grandson had given her for Christmas. She said she was going to get rid of it but thought Chloe might like it. I remember Furby from years ago but never had one and never had any interest to have one although they were all the rage. Immediately when she handed me this thing it was talking all kinds of nonsense, moving it's ears and wiggling around. Seemed like a cool thing..and then she tells me that she had it under a blanket in her garage because she couldn't figure out how to turn it off. Whoops. That should have been enough reason to toss this thing but I brought it inside and gave it to Chloe after she got up from her nap. Chloe LOVED it and all was well of course until I tried to turn it off..as you might expect you would be able to do. Uh, not so. This thing has to be left alone to go to "sleep" and I don't know if it's light sensitive or movement or what but we can be sitting on the couch and suddenly you will hear muffled gibberish coming from the toy box. LOL. Not a very good toy and I wouldn't recommend it as a gift unless the point is to give someone a super annoying gift..but Chloe likes it and because we have learned to live with it, it's not so bad after all. Save the $20. =) Have a great weekend, folks.

-B

The Location Scout Ver 2.0 - Mar 1

Spring is almost here and it's about dang time. The weather should be warming up, things are starting to bloom and it won't be long before the busy season starts for outdoor photo sessions. I have been working on one particular session for a couple weeks for a little girl who just turned 5 and one of the things they really wanted to incorporate is the cherry blossoms that are now starting to bloom. The most annoying thing is that while there are a lot of these trees around, there aren't any really pretty groupings of them anywhere and while I'm sure it exists, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. So I went out last week and just drove around to some places I know of and things were barely starting to bloom and this week Chloe and I went to check out a few more places and this time things were actually starting to look good! The problem is(and this is what happened last year) is that there will be something in BEAUTIFUL full bloom and then we will get a rainstorm for 2 days and the entire thing gets knocked to the ground. I am walking a thin line here and I finally found a perfect spot! Well, it doesn't look like anything in THESE photos but the bummer is the trees are probably 40% ready and it's supposed to rain 3 days next week. If we don't shoot this weekend we may loose the opportunity altogether! Well, at least Chloe got to goof around a bit and while these photos will not win any awards, we had fun. I'll let you know how it turns out. =)

Have a great weekend, folks~
-B

I'm In My Big Girl Bed! - Feb 22

Three years, one month, and two weeks.

We have been fortunate that Chloe has never been one to be a risk taker. She has probably been tall enough to physically climb out of her crib for 6 months to a year but she was perfectly content to sit in there and wait for us to come get her when she wakes up. We have friends who have kids that climbed out of their cribs when there were like a year old so in that respect we dodged a gigantic bullet there. She recently started expressing interest of getting out of her crib herself and she stuck her foot over the edge and when she did that I felt like I literally saw a light bulb go off in her head. She stuck her other foot up over the rail and suddenly she was sitting on the top rail of the crib..and couldn't get down. Heather and I made the decision it was probably time to swap out the front crib rail for the "toddler bed" piece that we purchased when we originally bought the crib. Chloe was immediately excited by the idea of having her special new bed..even thought it's just a small change to her existing crib.

Heather and I have both been worried about how this change would go once we actually made the switch. We could only picture her immediately getting out of bed and not actually staying in bed when we put her down. We thought she would wake up in the morning, get herself out of bed and just start playing with her stuff. Nope. Chloe is awesome. Of course she is. From the first night she happily climbs herself into bed and stays there all night. Same for her naps. She wakes up we can hear her talking to herself on the monitor and she still stays in her bed until we go into the room. We thought it was going to be a disaster but it turns out that she is old enough now to be given a pep talk and she wants to follow the directions. Color me amazed.
Just a few random shots of her in her "new" bed. Have a great weekend, folks. =)

Brian

The Love Bug - Feb 15

Happy Valentines Day! Personally, I don't care for Valentines day. Yeah, I said it. To many people are excluded and made to feel bad about themselves if they don't have "someone special to share it with". I know, I'm mister stick in the mud but that's how I feel! Chloe, doesn't know all that yet and I'm married to a girl so we celebrate Valentines day around here, lol. =) Over the last week both Chloe and myself had a strange 24-36 hour flu bug that knocked us on our respective butts. Chloe woke herself up Saturday morning throwing up in her crib..which aside from being an infant and dealing with spitting up, this was our first incident with that. Um, totally not the same, BTW. I have heard horror stories about it happening to kids while they are in the car and worse so I feel we got off pretty lucky. Much to our surprise she was not even phased by it at all. By Monday, she was fine and it was my turn. LOL. When I made this post, I swear it was only about her shirt but as I started writing, I see the irony.

By mid week life was normal and Chloe and I set out to our most clever and top secret Valentines shopping spot(Target) where I could let Chloe help pick out some stuff for Heather. We got her a card that Chloe colored and decorated with stickers and some Chocolates that Chloe insisted she was going to eat when we got home. Overall, another low key week around here with Valentines day stuck in there somewhere and that's pretty much how we got here. =P

Have a great weekend, folks.
-B

It's Almost Spring Time! - Feb 8

Last weekend I set out to take some photos of our friends 6 month old little girl at a local park. It was a nice day so Heather & Chloe decided to tag along and have some fun at the park! It's been several months since we have had nice weather and I'm sure Chloe was more than happy to get in some park time, lol. After my session concluded we decided it was such a nice day that we would jam on over to the Oakland Zoo and spend a few hours there. It's strange for me I'm sure but even though I obviously had my camera with me I decided not to take it with us and just enjoy the day without having to take pictures of stuff. Besides, we have been to the zoo many times with lots of pictures to prove it so here are just a few snaps from the park that I liked..and the rest will have to be left to your imaginations. =p

Have a great weekend!

B

Speed. SPEED! - Feb 1

Between bad weather and Chloe being sick for what seemed like a month we haven't really had much time to "drive' McQueen. This thing may only go 3 miles per hour but for Chloe it must feel like 30. LOL. We have finally had a week of pretty decent weather and of course now I have been sick most of this week so we have pretty much been lying low here at home. I've had this idea in my head of some pictures I wanted to get with Chloe driving and these are just a few of my "test" shots for inspiration. I'm feeling better but I'm off to bed so I'll just say have a great weekend and enjoy the pics!

-B