We are loving the warm afternoons. I love the perfect afternoon temperature and light. Noah just loves to eat grass and get dirty. Here are some highlights from the last week.

Love this one…

Evey after her new haircut. She didn’t want me to take her picture, but I stole a couple.

Despite her mad face, I just love this one. Plus she’s so frickin’ photogenic, even when she’s pouting!

I hope you are enjoying your summer half as much as we are!

We went to the lake yesterday, just to get out of the house. We weren’t intending to swim, but when we walked over to the beach, Noah crawled right in. Our little water baby.

Since Noah is almost walking, I got him his first real pair of shoes. And since he’s the coolest baby in the world, he asked me for Converse.

I did some shooting yesterday until my camera battery died. We are enjoying summer afternoons!

I have a friend who says she isn’t ready to have a baby. I keep telling her no one is ever really ready. If someone had asked me a year ago if I were ready for sleepless nights, worry, fear, frustration, crazy paranoid thoughts, and crying everyday for a month at the dinner table, I would say, “Of course not; that sounds awful.” It sounds more like I’ve had a mental illness than a baby [and for the first few months it seems like a baby and mental illness go hand in hand]. I don’t know if it was true post-partum depression, but there were hours and days in the beginning that I felt like I could not go on. I spent nine months “expecting,” but I was not expecting that. I had heard stories and read books about the physical pain of labor, but no matter what I read or heard about the hormonal or emotional impact, nothing had prepared me for the mental tilt-a-whirl. For weeks after Noah was born, I’d look at Nate tearfully and choke out, “I just can’t do this.” And he’d always look at me calmly, knowingly, unflinchingly, and he’d say, “But you are doing it.”

And then the tilt-a-whirl does what you’d expect: it tilts the other way. Just as nothing had prepared me for that pain, no explanation or description or poetry about motherhood had ever prepared me for its opposite: joy! There is nothing like feeling his chubby hands grip your shoulders when you pick him up after a long night at work. There is nothing so joyous as seeing recognition in his eyes, watching a slow smile spread across his face because he knows his Mama. Nothing smells so sweet as his hair after a bath, nothing warms you up more than his squirmy baby hugs and slobbery kisses. Nothing is sweeter than your baby.

You aren’t ready for a baby. No matter how prepared you are, it comes in and takes you by surprise. The baby takes over your life, shakes it away from what you thought it would be, and transforms it into something else entirely. All your plans fall softly around you, like the first winter snow. Life goes on, more heartbreakingly beautiful than before.

I found these cute animal frame kits a few months ago, and today I put them together and put a couple of our family photos in them. There’s an owl one, too, but the glue on it isn’t dry yet. I can’t wait to put these in Noah’s room when we move into our new house. He’s going to have an adorable animal-themed bedroom!

I wanted to shoot in full sun, but we got back from the Chinese restaurant too late. The sun was almost down when we went out. I’ll try again on another sunny day.

Today I learned that I want a macro lens.

In the interest of shooting more, I’ve decided to start a kind of 365 project. For those of you who don’t know, a 365 project is where someone posts a photo everyday. Now I may not post every day – I may not even shoot everyday – but that’s because I’m pretty busy with a one year old, working third shift, packing, moving, and making homemade pies everyday… Okay, that last one was a lie, but let’s just say I’ve got a lot on my plate. But since photography is important to me, I’m going to give this a shot. Here’s hoping I learn something!

Here is a long sneak peek of our family photos. We went out to see the sweet and talented Christine of Krysia Photography, and I think she did a fabulous job! I seriously want to be her. Well, with my own style. She totally rocked these!

I gave Nate a mini makeover for the photoshoot. I went out and bought him shorts and flip flops since we were doing this outside in summer weather. About this picture Nate said, “Everyone is gonna ask who that guy is standing next to Noah since I don’t wear shorts.”

Christine, if you are reading this, I really LOVE you!