four years

We're celebrating four years of marriage today and I'm counting the ways I'm thankful for the relationship we've been blessed with. Matt is my best friend and he's Ezra's favorite playmate. It helps that he fixes everything around the house, but that's just a bonus. I'm especially thankful for Matt's hardworking nature. He provides for us so I can stay home with Ezra and spend all day with our little guy. I love you, Matt!

eleven months!

Eleven month photo shoot status: occurred approximately nine days late but successful! I'll take it. If we crop that first one I think it would be perfect for Ezra's RI license photo.

Ok, so the shoot was successful except that Ezra took his sticker off after the first snap of the shutter. I decided to be the bigger man and allow him to stick it on the gorilla (who was much more complacent), which he was very intent on doing.

Ez clearly didn't want anyone to feel left out so the aardvark had a turn with the sticker next.

Sticker-less and loving it!

Ezra taking a few tentative steps onto the pelt of a long dead baby polar bear. Just kidding - it's faux sheepskin from Ikea.

Ezra's to do list: demolish artfully arranged display of picture books in four seconds - check.

Ezra's first self portrait. I'm going to go set up his myspace account. 

[the aftermath, month eleven]

ten months!

So here we are back in time again, this time by about a month and a half. Ezra was uncooperative once again, which I guess is to be expected from a ten month old who doesn't exactly understand the concept of posing yet.

As much as I wanted to have 'professional' photos each month, I kind of like these funny face-blurry-too dark-or-too bright memories of Ezra, since that's what he and I were able to produce together...

... as I'm not anywhere near close to a professional photographer, although I would say Ezra is a professional baby, what with all the crawling, teething, and babbling he does.

My friend Kate gave me some tips for taking Ezra's one year photos to try to ensure a good result, so we'll see how that works in a couple of weeks. 

nine months!

These photos are a dead giveaway that I've been slacking in the blog department (note the 9 sticker on Ezra's onesie).  He already looks so much bigger to me, as he should - he's a little over eleven months old as I write this.  

take one: sans onesie

Ez & friends

complete fascination. and it wasn't even oscillating.

the view from above

and from the side

how I love those little fingers

and we're back to the fan

There are two more sessions of month photos that I need to post before we get to the big 0-1 in a few weeks, so please bear with me and the little guy in the white onesie. The sessions became increasingly unsuccessful (decreasingly successful?) with each passing month, but I hope to catch some good ones at the one year mark.

eight months!

Ezra's eight month photos are a facsimile of a sham for many reasons.
1. He is not wearing a white onesie.  Actually, he's not wearing any onesie.
2. He does not have his eight month sticker on.
3. He was actually eight months and twelve days old at the time the photos were taken.
4. He is not posing like a good eight month old baby should.
5. His room is in a state of disarray.
6. Most of the photos are blurry and/or grainy.
7. Matt pointed out that Picasa is compressing all my photos so they look pixel-y (and have been looking this way for months).

I would like to blame Ezra, but really it is my fault.  And really, how could it be his fault?  He's only eight months (and twelve days) old!  The photo shoot was off to a bad start when July 1st came and went without it taking place.  We were preparing for camping and we left earlier than I anticipated so photography quickly fell to the bottom of my to do list in favor of packing the cooler with all our food for the weekend, ensuring that Ezra had enough clothes in case of inclement weather, and getting the beach towels out of the dryer so we could bring them.  I recovered from the tragedy that was the lack of documentation for the eight month anniversary of Ezra's entrance into the world and resolved to hold the photo shoot upon our return.  I am happy to report that it was successful.  I am unhappy to report that I deleted the imaged from my memory card before transferring them to my computer.  So I dragged my feet until I realized we were nearly halfway to nine months and I had better take the faux eight month photos before August 1st rolled around.  

As you can see, our hearts weren't in it but despite his lackluster eight month performance, it is my humble opinion that Ezra is still quite a fine looking specimen of a baby.

Exhibit A

beautifully breastfed

Last Friday I mentioned that my friend Karissa was doing a shoot (inspired by these images) for me over the weekend.  Apparently she is the speediest photo editor out there which was wonderful to find out because that meant I got to see the images super soon. I love them so much and wanted to share them with you.

We used Saturday's picnic location, Crescent Park, for the shoot.  There was a little beach and acres of grass complete with park benches and shady trees.

Ezra wasn't the most cooperative subject because we were near the water and he absolutely loves water.  That means that he was constantly unlatching and attempting to squirm off my lap to get closer to Narragansett Bay.  

Karissa snapped away for the few moments I was able to distract him from the water lapping at the seaweed covered shore.

 

There are no words for how beautiful I think the above image is.  It's definitely my favorite of the bunch.

I'm sure Karissa will have a blog post of her own up soon so check out klm photography for more images!

seven months!

Please forgive me once more for posting Ezra's seven month shoot nineteen days after he turned seven months old.  I can't keep up with this baby.

I love these feet!  But then, who doesn't love baby feet?

with all his friends

already trying to destroy and eat his new room decor

 

thinking about crawling

 rocking back and forth until he lands on his fivehead

It's official: Ezra is now closer to one year old than he is to being zero years old.