Daddy's Home

One of the times of day I look forward to the most is when Daddy walks in that door after work. From about 5 pm on we have a lot of breakdown and a lot of drama, but most of all a lot of asking for Daddy. For that hour until Daddy comes home Erik keeps checking the window for him, I keep listening for the loud engines sounds of his van and every once in a while I hear a "da da" from Elliot's mouth.

It's no wonder they can't wait for their daddy to get home, because after 10 straight hours with them I am ready for reinforcements and daddy sure knows how to bring it. We are usually right about to eat when he gets home and Erik is usually so excited he can hardly sit still eating dinner and gets up in just a few seconds. We always all finish while Erik runs around in excitement and then it is time to play.

Usually we stay inside, but its summer and so nice outside we took advantage to burn off that extra energy and get some fun daddy time in. Even Elliot who was pretty tired at this point, got him some good daddy cuddles outside. I think outside fun will be better for him once he learns how to walk and isn't crawling on the cement as much.

My favorite is watching my little baby grow up before my eyes. In so many ways he is so much younger than Erik, yet in different ways he is so much older. Today all my boys decided to play "Ring Around The Rosies" and even Elliot got it and joined in full force today.

Elliot's absolute favorite game of all is "This Is How Elliot Rides" and could play it for hours given the chance. Of course Erik always joins in and makes it a duo.

 

Of course the fun must come to an end and the tired eyes rear their ugly heads and it is time to start thinking about bed. Their time oh so short with Daddy.

Reluctantly we all head upstairs for some quiet time or mischief time and this is where our new companion showed up again, puppet. The boys love the puppets and can't get enough each and every time. Good night Daddy.

 

Working Again - Giuliano Family

For the next two months I have scheduled up photo sessions for many of my friends and their kids in order to create a new portfolio in a certain style I want to achieve with my business. I have a lot of good pictures of different families and children I have shot over the years, but I have a different vision now. I pretty much understand how I am going to run my business, where I will shoot consistently and I am really trying to control my vision by only shooting in certain light, which is what I will be working on for the next couple months.

Well the first victims in me achieving my vision is my very good friend and college roommate, Christine. Originally we were just going to photograph her son Enzo, but decided to get some family shot in there.

Christine's photo shoot was interesting because I never got a chance to talk to her prior to our session and we scheduled it about 3 days before we were to shoot, so it was spontaneous.  Since this was the case I decided to show up to her house an hour before we needed to start shooting so I could act as her stylist and also scout out some locations. Christine lives about an hour from my house so I couldn't scout it prior to our photo session.

Luckily Christine lives in a beautiful yard with plenty of beautiful light and great landscaping so after finding our outfits and getting the family ready we headed outside.

Enzo was definitely one of my more challenging children I have photographed over the years. This guy would not sit still for a second and when I got him to sit still he was upset over being stopped in his endeavours and barely cracked a smile. He is absolutely adorable and I was able to get him to stop for me a few times.

 

Pretty much every time we stood, sat or just gathered to do the family picture Enzo would squirm out of his parents grasp and try to crawl away. We tried toys, noises, bells, sounds, we finally had a few trick that worked. Lesson learned here, pack a few noise toys and stuffed toys for distraction for the more difficult babies. Although my funky noises did the trick as usual, but I am not sure if it gets the smiles and laughs I am looking for from the kids. Luckily Christine and Marcello were perfect models and knew to look at the camera and not Enzo when he was being challenging. It made my life easier and gave us some good shots to work with. I would prefer bigger smiles from the little guy, but since he is my "nephew" I think he is adorable regardless.

 

 

Just as a side note, unless a picture really calls for it I pretty much decided to shoot in color only. If a picture looks like it might be absolutely stunning in black and white I might offer that option for my clients, but really am going to stick with a strictly color format for now.

The Girls Turn 3

You are reading my title and thinking to yourself, but Heather only has boys, why would she care if some girls turned 3 years old. Well here is the story, Erik has had the same group of friend, a bunch of girls I meet at mommy & me, when he was 4 months old. Four of the girls in our playgroup are all born in June two days apart from each other, on the 10-16. So every year instead of having to go to 4 different birthday parties, one or two of my friends have a birthday party for their child and then we do a group celebration for everyone. This year was special because the girls were 3 and they actually understood what it meant to get presents and birthday cake.

It was pure chaos at this party. We have definitely multiplied as a group even though it is the same people every year. About half of us have two kids and it just seems like pure chaos when we are together. I tried for about 15 frames to get just a picture of the girls in their new heeled shoes. There were additional children in every shot. Somehow I did come away with this picture, the one and only of the girls.

This party was a bit of a challenge for Erik. My friend Tracy kept saying poor Erik and I just didn't understand and wasn't empathetic enough and then I saw the look on his face. He was so sad to see all of his friends getting presents while he had to watch. He has been to a lot of birthday parties recently so I thought this would be fine, but I think since it was his closest friends getting presents and so many of them, he took it really hard.

Erik did get a cupcake, and I might add that he was the ONLY child to eat the entire thing. I wish I had a child who didn't have a crazy sweet tooth, would make my life much easier. He waited by the door for those cupcakes as soon as they arrived. He REALLY REALLY wanted them.

If you are wondering why there were no pictures of Elliot, it is because he was hysterical the entire party and wouldn't let me set him down. I was holding him and taking pictures the entire time. I looked for just one glimpse of him in any pictures. It just didn't exist. Sorry kid I wanted you to get some pictures with your friend William.

Here are the girls the first year we celebrated. Molly was missing from this party, but it is amazing to see how much they changed since one years old. I pretty sure Erik is not in this circle and the pictures because he was 10 months old at the time and I didn't want him to have cake. So no cool cake shot of all fo them. I don't have pictures from their second birthday, since I had a 2 month old I was a little out of it.

A Week of Playdate and Fun Stuff

About 3 weeks ago when I realized our Thursday 2's class was ending and all of our Parks and Rec classes and story time at the library were finishing up I pretty much started to freak out. Erik is one of those kids who likes to leave the house and be around town. Every time we are driving and heading back home he always says to me "I don't want to go home" over and over again. He is a child who is energized by being around other children and needs the stimulation of out of the house activities.

So when all our classes started ending at once I pretty much freaked out. I asked everyone I saw at parks who I knew, I emailed our Thursday 2s class, and I emailed all of our little friends. I just didn't know what I was going to do with the boys this summer and we don't start preschool until August.  I knew that we needed an activity a day to keep us occupied with some downtime in between.

Fortunately our parks and rec is pretty comprehensive this summer and Erik is attending Tumble Tots again, also I found a class for Elliot. In addition Erik with be starting swim lessons next week for the next 5 weeks straight. Also we have a couple of field trip through school planned and some activities with friends all scheduled up so we are busy.  Whew, I worried for nothing.

Of course, the most important thing of all with staying busy is spending time with friends. This week I took it a little easy because on Tuesday the boys were exhausted from the weekend at their Grandparents and needed to catch up on sleep. Then on Wednesday we had our regular weekly playdate and all of our friends came over to our house since I was the host this week.

The girls and Erik are so fun to watch right now. They really are interacting in new ways and really playing with their imaginations. This week my favorite moment is when I caught them all sitting on the stairs together. I can't remember the scenario they were acting out, but I think it had to do with someone being the mommy and the rest were in time out or one was the teacher and they were the students. I think time out was probably the closest truth because that is their reality right now. I really tried to capture this on film, but the lens I needed was upstairs and to get it would have ruined this moment.

Of course once we all stood around watching the moment ended and we only got a glimpse of what was going on. We were all sitting in the living room talking.  Then it turned into a dance, twirl party in the living room. Totally adorable! As a side note, I can't believe how much taller Ella is than Erik. They were the same height a couple months ago, what happened? I think Erik might be going through a growth spurt though because he is eating and sleeping like crazy.

Then Ella and Rachel and their mommies headed home, but Audrey, Keely and Molly's mommy had no husbands at home waiting for dinner. Carl was going to be home late that night due to a business dinner so we had a spontaneous mom's night out and I made everyone dinner. The best scenario to fit all the kids and adults was to put this table in our dining room. Totally worked. It was a great playdate and a great afternoon. As soon as our friends left the boys were in bed asleep within half an hour. The best case scenario when Carl is not around for bedtime.

A couple days ago I realized we hadn't seen our friends Mo, Aiden and Liam in a long time. Last time we were suppose to get together I flaked on them due to tired and cranky kids. So a playdate was long overdue and I missed my friend. So she suggested we head to her favorite coffee shop and then sit in this grassy area and drink coffee and watch the trains go by. I have to admit that I thought she was crazy when she suggested going to a place that wasn't a park and to go to a coffee shop with 4 kids!!! It actually ended up being an awesome morning and the kids had so much fun together.

Here are the boys enjoying a snack from the coffee shop. Their favorite, a croissant.

 

One of the best moments of the day is that Erik and Liam were really getting along today. Sometimes we have problems because Liam is more of a sensitive little guy and Erik is more of a loud and touchy boy. Sometimes it is just not the right combination for these two. Today I suggested that Liam and Erik chase each other so they could burn off energy and have something to do together. It was great. They shared and played with Erik's car and they chased each other very nicely. I was so happy to see these two getting along.

It really was a great spot because the trains were constantly passing through which fueled Erik's imagination and he was playing characters from Chuggington the entire time. He loved to stop and just look at the trains up close.

I was finally able to capture Elliot's new acrobatic move on film. I have been cracking up at this for a while now, but never really have my camera around when he does it. My little man is just so silly!

Here are my two favorite portraits for the day. I love this one I took Aiden. He has the most beautiful blue eyes. Also I knew this one would be good of Erik due to the outfit he was wearing today and the lighting in this little spot. Priceless.

The Cemented Backyard

After having an entire week of not being able to use our backyard the very first thing I did when we were just hanging out at home on Tuesday was head outside. We hadn't been outside in our own house in a very long time and just needed to remember how to enjoy our time there.

Erik did what he does best, he started crashing into walls. I am still trying to get him to use the peddles on his tricycle but he doesn't seem that interested.

 

Elliot walked across the cement using his little car. He is so close to walking right now and will get there any day.

Erik has the most adorable habit right now, he takes out this magazine from Oriental Trading Company and flips through it and looks at all the pictures. He is such mine and Carl's child with his reading obsession and it just makes some really cute pictures.