The First Easter

Well Tyler's that is. We had a lovely, casual first Easter. A good friend of mine, Rachel, came to visit from Colorado and also attend a conference while here. It was so nice to see her- it had been two years! I hope it's not that long next time around. Grandma Chris and Barry came to visit from Phoenix. We made a nice lunch and showed them the house we are buying. It was very relaxed with good company. Here are the few photos I took.

The yummy dinner!

Tyler and Grandma

My boys! Aren't I so lucky? Look at those handsome men!

Photos with Sobecki Photography

Even though I am a photographer and a baby photographer at that, I still chose to pay our family photographer and friend, Shammie to do 6 month photos for Tyler. I REALLY wanted a family photo, but due to some work drama it turned into a mommy and me session. So I wanted to share. Here are my favorites.

 

Sunrise has yummy photo light. That's what I have to say as a photographer. As a mom well my boy is adorable! Love him! Let me know if you want to order photos and I'll send you a link. 

MDP: Newborns!

Hi All: This is a blog post for my photography business. I thought I would be making a blog post for every session I've done, but well that just hasn't happened, so I'm going to make a few categorized posts to show you my favorites from sessions I've done in that category! I've had 3 newborn sessions so far. The first one went swimmingly, baby slept like a dream! The second one I was a tad nervous about because baby was out of the 2 week time frame that all newborn photographers recommend, but she did well! She was a little more wakeful than my first, but still very posable and adorable. My third was a bit of a challenge. She is a beautiful baby and just wanted to be awake and play! She was quite wiggly and didn't want to give in to my wraps- note to self ditch the cheese cloth wraps and buy the stretchy knit wraps ONLY! She also did not like very many of my poses. Baby is boss ;-) We still got some adorable images from her session! Here are my favorites from ALL the sessions, in no particular order....

I still have plenty I'm working on, but I'm pretty proud of the work I've done so far, but I've had pretty gorgeous girl's too so I'm lucky! Thanks for looking!

My Baby is Growing Up...

I know, I know he's only 6 months going on 7 but I feel like things are really starting to escalate. So I wanted to write a post to remember what he was doing at this age.

He's definitely teething- last night he started pulling on his ears and was super cranky, he slept ok but this morning mommy has a light bulb moment and I looked at his bottom gums. Yes- I see the little white spots those teeth are going to break through any day! I'm a little nervous about adjusting to make sure he doesn't bite while nursing, but I'm sure we'll figure it out.

 He's eating solid foods- I offer him 3 meals a day now, he doesn't eat much but this is the beginning of it all. Sweet potatoes, carrots, apple sauce, and bananas. I think tomorrow I'll try zucchini cause I've been slacking in the green veggie department. He seems to like eating- he makes a grunting sound when he's done. We're still using the bumbo for feedings as he tends to slouch over in the high chair.

 He's sleeping well at night. He's moved his bedtime a little later and still wakes up between 2 and 4 which he then snuggles with mommy until about 6. We are starting to wean from the swaddle- he's been going one armed for a few days now and it hasn't seemed to mess up his sleep!

 He's moving! He can now officially roll both ways! And he's getting ok at scooting around a room. He either pushes himself backwards on his tummy or kind of does this weird wormy thing on his back. I don't have to chase him but he still can wiggle around pretty well.

 His personality shines! He is very attached to mommy and will let you know that! But who can blame him with all the time we spend together. Though he does finally start to seem to be comfortable with daddy for a bit. He loves to splash in the tub and he finds our dogs, especially Sammy the lab, absolutely hilarious. He will occasionally just look at the dog sitting across the room and start laughing or get the biggest grin! He also loves it when we call daddy on the phone- he likes to grunt at daddy too!

 Things that are coming soon: crawling and then walking, swaddle free sleep, words, finger foods, and so much more! When you spend every day with these little guys it's so easy to miss the changes. I kinda feel like tearing up writing this because I know it's such a special, but short lived age. Though I know where we are headed is pretty amazing too! So that's all- just me reflecting on what we've accomplished! I love you son! I know you are meant to do amazing things- and know your mommy will always be here cheering you on xoxo

The many faces of Tyler!

We had an overcast day today and I'm always looking for great new photography spots so Tyler and I went on an adventure and I found a gem! I did a speed photo session with Tyler- maybe 5 minutes cause we had to get out of there before the rain! I call the results the many faces of Tyler. Which is your favorite?

Sometimes it can be fun to capture more than smiles! Let their little personalities shine! Love this boy!

Family Outing!

Even though we've been a few places- boring places like the grocery store, restaurants, and the mall, and Tyler and I have ventured on a few cooler outings with friends I feel like this is our FIRST real family outing- just the 3 of us going somewhere cool! So last Sunday we went to the Pima Air and Space Museum. I'm not sure how much Tyler got out of it- in the beginning he was cranky, then he napped in the ergo, then after lunch we had some actual happy awake time to look around. This is a pretty cool museum to just wonder, but there really isn't much information explaining everything so I think next time around we will have to splurge for a tour explaining everything. 

Tyler is sleeping here

Adorable huh?

Our little astronaut! 

Doesn't Tyler look HUGE here lol

Looking in a plane

Overall it was a fun day and I'm very glad we did it! It's really nice to get out and do things like this especially for me, cause I am home with the little one all the time! 

6 months and Sweet Potatoes

So I've been a major slacker and apparently didn't blog the entire month of February- oops! Anyways almost 2 weeks ago Tyler turned 6 months! So I went ahead and tried to feed him some sweet potatoes. I made it myself. I baked the sweet potato until it was really really soft and then mashed it up and added some breast milk until it was nice and thin. He did pretty good, seemed unsure and didn't take in much (as I expected). We've been feeding him 2x a day at this point, which is what the pediatrician recommended. He just now seems to be getting the hang of it and starting to enjoy it a bit. We have done the sweet potatoes and carrots thus far and before he turns orange, we will try some oatmeal and apples. I do plan to make all my own baby food, though I may break down and buy a few containers that we can take "to go" when we need to. So here are some photos of Tyler's first experience eating and him in his 6 month tie!

Umm mommy- what is this???

Ok I guess I'll try this

This is pretty good

Let me help you with that

All done!

Tyler and I also got some 6 month photos done with Sobecki Photography. You can view the slide show here. When I have the images available for print I will let you know!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I finally decided to give homemade laundry detergent a whirl, I say finally because it's been something I've been meaning to try for a long time. Anyways I found a crazy simple recipe. It literally took me less than 15 minutes to do this- that's less time than it would take me to drive to the store. Anyways, here's what I did...

These are what you need to buy for the laundry detergent adventure that I chose.

Step 1: Grate a bar of ivory soap, like so.

Then combine 1 part washing soda for every 1 part grated Ivory soap. For the one bar I got about 2 cups. I combined in a mason jar and shook it up to mix. 

Then when you do a load of laundry you insert 3 tblsp of this as you would a powdered detergent, and I used the vinegar in place of fabric softener. Here's my laundry ready to go!

And the settings I used, I always go with cold water when I can

Sorry the photos are kind of dark. It was night time and I have horrible lighting in my house and don't really care enough to edit photos of my laundry. But yeah that's all there is to it. It's dirt cheap, easy, fast, and better for your skin, and my clothes came out nice and clean so I'm pretty satisfied with this adventure! Crunchy mommy signing off- until next time!

MDP: Casey's Maternity Session

I had another awesome maternity session last night! Thank goodness we didn't get rained out, sometimes it's great when the weather man is wrong! Casey asked for a rustic setting so I hunted down a local dude ranch and off we went! It was a gorgeous afternoon and we got some great photos! Casey was simply glowing. Can't wait to see her beautiful baby girl behind my lens in less than a month! Oh my! Here are my favorites.

5 months!

Oh me oh my! Tyler turned 5 months last week. This one really hit me, he is only 1 month away from his half birthday. That's a little crazy! Of course I am a major planning dork and already have a game plan for his first birthday. Tyler really is progressing- he has started rolling over again, though he doesn't do it often, he has also started to "scoot" during tummy time. You can hardly notice he's doing it, but one minute he's facing one direction and the next he's somewhere else. I have a feeling we may skip the rolling as a form of transportation and make more progress with this "scooting". He seems more interested in doing that. We also finally went down to babies r us and used Tyler's Christmas gift card. We got a couple (eating friendly) bibs. and a toy (I can't decide if it's a dinosaur or a dragon. He doesn't have wings, but looks a little more dragon like to me, he so soft and Tyler seems to like it. The pediatrician suggested at his 4 month visit that we could start feeding him solids whenever we felt he was ready. I just don't really feel like he's showing signs of wanting to and I've heard starting solids too early has been linked to allergies so I've been hesitant, but that's probably an adventure we'll try soon.

A lot of the photos came out like this cause I was using the flash- can't wait to get my lighting equipment!

Meet my new friend

He's yummy!