2 down, 1 to go

The obligatory back to school photo. They're standing for the picture nicely, but their eyes are sort of glazed over.


The hug pose always works for them. It's cute. They actually like to hug each other. They get each other going with the giggles. :)



Derek plays hide and go seek with them in the mornings while waiting for the school bus. What an awesome Dad! With a shutter speed of 1/200 I still got motion blur in Charlotte's foot. The kid's fast.


The first day seemed to go really well for both of them. They were very nonchalant about the day, which I guess is probably a good thing.

All three

These were taken over the last week and a half or so. I am not sure why it took me so long to post them.

Gracie in the yard. It was sprinkling, so she is holding an umbrella.


Eli on his bike. This little bike really belongs to the studio and I use it all the time for little ones 18 months or so. They all see it and know just what to do and it keeps them in one place for a moment or two. Eli rides it around my studio all the time. At 2 and a couple of months, he is getting a little big for it.


My sweet boy.


Charlotte had her face painted at the Elmwood Art Festival yesterday with Grandma. She loved it!

Charlotte diving

Preface - I changed the layout of the blog becuase I was having trouble embedding these videos. The way it was before constricted the dimensions of the video frame and I was losing the edges of the video. It's still super simple. I was almost inspired to go design a pretty header with some favorite pictures and maybe even a background. I should probably stop playing and get some actual work done now. We'll see.

This is Charlotte at the pool yesterday. Both girls have really turned a corner on swimming this summer. Grace still uses arm floaties and Charlotte swims with no real form to speak of, but 6 months ago neither one wanted to put their eyes under water so this is major progress.

Techincal note - I took these with my iPhone which has surprisingly nice video quality. I think the major compression here happened when I uploaded the video to YouTube directly from my phone instead of downloading to my computer first. Anyway, that little pink blob is my daughter :)

Charlotte was watching some older boys try to learn to dive off the side. I wasn't paying attention to her efforts. This one honestly surprised me. Again, no real form at all, but she goes pretty deep.




Jumping off the diving board. This is her cannonball.




This is the running approach at Gracie's request. You can hear her "asking" (read: whining) for it in the previous video.



And here is one of Gracie. She both stars in and directs videos of her. When she says, "you got to move it!" she means that I need to move the cmaera so I don't miss her splash. What did I ever do without a 5 year old to boss me around?

A Mixture

The girls, especially Grace, have been unusually open to having their pictures taken. And even taking a little direction. I really like these pictures of Gracie from last week (I posted a few already on Facebook, so you have probably seen them before).

My favorite




Of course no bed photoshoot is complete without jumping.






On Saturday we did some back to school shopping for Charlotte. She modeled for me a little. Just one for now.


Also On Saturday, we walked a little ways down the bike path and tried to take a picture of all three. This was the first frame right after Derek put Eli down and stepped away.


This was the second frame. He looks uncooperative here, but this was my miscalculation really. Eli just wanted to keep walking the other way to see what was over the bridge. If I had positioned myself on the other side, this would probably have been a successful shot. Or maybe it still is because it shows him doing something so universally toddler-like. 2 year olds wrote the book on passive resistance. Or, I don't know, maybe it was Gandhi. But 2 year olds are really good at it. They just go limp and there is nothing you can do about it.


I like these two of Charlie and Grace. The second one is my favorite. They really are very good friends. They have lots of inside jokes and they play together all the time.

Front Porch

From yesterday. Gracie has really grown taller this summer, I think. She's still a head shorter than Charlotte, so I don't think we notice as much. She also tends to swim a little in her clothes. I usually buy them sized for Charlotte since they basically share a wardrobe and I think that makes her look a little more babyish. She came home frm Grandma's in these little shorts yesterday and I was almost surprised how grown up she is looking.

Posing under duress.


Closer to a real smile.


Both girls :)


Eli sitting in the same spot the night before. He's growing fast too.

...

Beautiful evening light and a boy full of smiles.




Grace makes this goofy face, too. I never really thought about the similarlity until looking at these pictures tonight.



This one's my favorite.


By the way, he was making raspberry sounds which is what was cracking him up so much. Every other frame looks like this (but I usually just edit the giggles).

New tricks

So today I was getting the studio ready for a session tomorrow. I got everything ready and then brought my little buddy over. As soon as he looked up and saw the camera pointed at him he said, "CHEEEEEEEEEESE". And a little part of me died inside. Oh little boy, who taught you that!?


He's kind of cute cheesing for the camera, though, I will admit. The good thing is that he thinks he's hilarious saying "cheese" on cue, so he cracks himself up and I get a smile in the next frame. This one still has a little cheese left in it, but it was too cute to toss.


This one's a better Eli smile.


I have a big smiley series of these, too. I only edited two.

Birthday

Birthday boy looking at his cake.


Birthday boy burns himself on hot candle wax.


Birthday boy consoles himself with ice cream cake.




A favorite of Eli from our trip to North Carolina to visit Aunt Mel and Uncle Greg this past week. Boy, do I love that kid. My son is beautiful.



Where did 2 years go? Eli is a fun and funny little guy. He sings more than he talks. He knows most of the words to all the typical preschool songs. He knows numbers up to 15 and can point to and name any number 1 to 10. He counts forwards and backwards, actually. He sits in his crib at night and reads his board books, sometimes for over an hour. When he falls asleep he covers himself with his pillow for a blanket - it's really cute. If he hears so much as the jingle of a car key he heads straight for the front door and gathers up his shoes. He doesn't know where you're going, but he knows he wants to go too. His disposition at two is overall quite endearingly sunny. He can definitely storm when he wants to, but it usually blows over quickly.

Just this week Eli started to say both of his sisters' names. I remember before he was born talking with Charlotte about how old the baby might be when he would learn to say her name. He now loves to point and name all of the members of the family, including himself. Mommy, Daddy, Charlie, Gracie (pronounced sort of like Cee-Cee) and Eli (minus the "l", like Ee-i). We are truly blessed.