Luke met the Easter Bunny!

and didn't care about him one way or the other, lol. he loved, however, playing with the camera girls! he loved that they were tickling him and taking the time to make him laugh and smile. what a great bunny meeting :)

**this is because i love his full, round cheeks**

Happy 7-month Birthday, Luke!

i'll update with more when i have a few minutes, but here's a pic of my little 7-month old baby boy taken a couple days ago. i never imagined how much love my heart would hold for such a small little boy...

Fix-it Friday

Nervous, this is my first "fix-it friday." I decided to play (honestly, i take it more seriously than this) the I Heart Face's Fix-It Fridays so that i can learn more about post processing and how to do it more efficiently while achieving a natural look (if you knew me, you'd know how hard that is for me personally, think Kim Kardashian's makeup, before her less-is-more look, ugh!). After seeing everyone else's edit, I can see (as expected) i still have a long way to go.

Here's the Fix-It Original

and my edited version

post processing steps:

LightRoom: cwb, upped exposure, upped saturation (slightly), upped clarity (slightly), upped blacks

PSE: adjusted levels, softened skin, soft light layer over eyes to brighten

Nap STRIKE!

poor baby. i don't know what was going on with him this morning, he absolutely refused to take a nap. all my attempts ended in a big FAIL. mommy was exhausted right along with baby. i rocked him, nursed him (which usually always works), laid right down beside him, and nothing. i didn't think to give him a bath (dummy me), will have to remember that for next time (God forbid). Luke was awake for over 4 hrs straight, a big huge jump from his usual 1-1:15 of wakefulness. every time i attempt to lengthen his wakeful period, in hopes of lengthening his naptime (which usually is only an hour), it bites me in the arse! like today :(

every time i attempted to put him down in his crib he would scream bloody murder. i let him try to work through it (for an honest 30 seconds, lol) but it was too much to bear. 3 attempts made, 3 attempts failed. this was him on the 4th and final attempt. He's recently been rolling from his back to his tummy (while he's known how to do this for a couple months now, he's never done it in bed), ugh, something else for me to worry about. i go in and check on him often, afraid his angelcare monitor will fail me and i'll find a baby that's not breathing (ugh, so hard to even WRITE that!). today, this is what i found..

how did you get over there Luke?!

he's suppose to help you go to sleep...

no silly, you can't get milk out of your gloworm's belly!

my tired sleepy boy after 4 1/2 hours of wakefulness

My new fave pic

ok, so it's a little obvious... i'm completely obsessed with snapping shots of my ds. normal? then why does everyone look at me crossed eyed, asking what in the world i'm going to do with all these pics... guess what everyone... i DON'T KNOW! seriously, i have over 8,000 (that's right, eight THOUSAND) pics of ds since November. NOVEMBER 2009!!! ok, i'm going to try to put the camera down once in a while... seriously. i have a problem!

well here it is, my new fave pic (for the next few days anyway ;) black & white is growing on me, surprisingly. and hubbs keeps telling me i have a heavy hand when editing, yeah, that's me... i have a heavy hand with everything i do. i don't really think there's any changing that, i try but fail miserably. so for now, here it is, heavy-handed and all!

Luke's 6 month session with Sarah K Chen

sorry i couldn't figure out how to save the images and put them in post... but here's the link to his amazing photographer's website. we just LOVE the sneak peeks and can't wait to see the rest (of which i'll be posting my faves, so stay tuned).

::update to Luke & Daddy post/pictures - not that i was ever deluded into thinking my picture-taking skill was anywhere near the talent of Sarah K Chen, but after seeing her pictures it's even more clear now why hiring a professional photographer to document Luke's first year of life was a great investment::

Playing with black & white

generally i'm not a fan of black and white conversions. i don't know why, i guess i feel like dimension and detail gets lost without color. so i decided to play a little today, because i have absolutely nothing else to do ::insert sarcasm:: and here's what i came up with.

Luke & Daddy

We met up with Sarah K Chen on Saturday so she could shoot Luke's 6 month pictures. I'm so excited and can't wait to see what she got. The park was so beautiful, Sarah found a great location and we just can't wait to see the pics. We packed up ready to head home and I realized two things 1) perfect lighting for photos and 2) my camera was in the car! So here's what I got. And while they're not the greatest pics, I'm pretty happy with them considering I have no idea what I'm doing (still) and I'm even that much more excited to see what Sarah got. Sorry there's so many, let me tell you, this is a big cut from 150!

Ear cleanings...

Luke LOVES LOVES LOVES getting his ears cleaned (with a baby-safe q-tip) after his baths. I can't believe I haven't written about this or taken a pic sooner! Really, it's his favorite thing, so far, in the world. After his bath Daddy gets him all dry, lotioned up, and in his jammies. It's a kick and squirm fest until Mommy enters with the q-tip and all goes still, really, Luke will stop in mid action, close his eyes and just enjoy the 20-30 second swabbing. I try to give him bliss a little longer but c'mon, how clean can the boys ears be?! I'll take a pic of it tomorrow and update this post (hubbs is down at the hoa meeting so I'm on my own tonight).

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Luke's fun day at the park

we spent the afternoon at a local park with some good friends (and their beautiful little daughter). i wish i could post some super cute pics of Luke playing with his lil' friend (she's just 2 days younger than he is) but this being a public blog and all, i think i'd better not (especially without her parent's permission). so for now, you're stuck with just seeing some pics of Luke from his fun-filled day. we are all exhausted, the time change didn't affect Luke's bedtime routine at all! he went down without any problem. i'm sure all the fun he had today helped with that too ;)

the first few pics are of Luke trying peas for the second time. so far he's had avocado, butternut squash, and now peas. i'd say he's liked them all about the same, not particularly fond but will open up and gobble down whatever we put in front of him/on a spoon. next on the list... sweet potato (momma's favorite!!!). so far he's been a really good eater, hopefully he keeps it up because if he's anything like his dad... forget about it! btw - i make hubbs try everything before i give it to Luke.. hubbs has a much harder time getting down veggies than our 6 month old lil' champ, he better get it together before ds starts sitting at the table with us!

hope you all had a wonderful weekend and recover quickly from losing that hour!

"i'd rather eat my bib than those peas!"

"weee!" ok, this wasn't really an action shot, i just lucked out behind the lens :)

"can we got yet?"

so tired after a long, fun-filled day!

Luke's 6 month session

with mommarazzi! every month i grab my poor little boy and play photographer with him. here are a few shots from this month's session :)

Her name was Lola...

she was a camera bag, teehee. Lola arrived yesterday and oh, she is a thing of beauty. i just love her so! i ran and jumped into hubbs' arms to thank him for feeding my habit and he said, "of course i'm supportive (of photography) babe, i see how much time you're spending on it and really doing a lot of research and learning!" ahhh, what a great hubbs! i've totally cashed in on his "supportiveness" and in the past few weeks have purchased a nice little chunk of awesomeness to keep me "well-fed" for a little while ;)

so here's Lola in all her glory. she is really so much more beautiful irl! here is where you can get one too, if interested. she comes with a nice little dust bag that matches the purple lining. ahhh, i say it again!

Homemade Butternut Squash

i made Luke's first homemade baby food today. the only thing that makes it "baby" food really is the breast milk that i added to get the smoother, creamy texture. though, i doubt any adult would ever want to willingly eat pureed butternut squash without seasoning (flavor). i tried it and immediately wanted to reach for the cinnamon and butter, oh no, that's sweet potato!

so, it was really easy and a lot of fun. no sarcasm here. the hardest part was cutting the dern squash before popping into the oven! i got the cooking instructions from wholesomebabyfood. love that website! after i baked it as instructed, i gutted half the squash and added about 2.5 oz of breast milk to it and then pureed it in my mini prep. then i did the same for the other half. i filled up two freezer trays and then once frozen, transfered the cubes into labeled (& dated) freezer bags.

so here are a couple pics of my efforts. so proud of myself!!! and as an added bonus, Luke gobbled it up!

Honestly...

i just LOVE this little boy!

That's my Boy!!

drinking from the bottle, finally!

lol, if that's what you can call it?! he REFUSES to drink from an artificial nipple, ugh! we've tried a few different brands, and have tried a soft-tip sippy cup. all he does is gnaw on the nips so i'm thinking he's going to do this with every artifical nip that comes his way! i'm going to run out and get a hard-tip sippy cup and see how he does with that, but for now, i feel so much relief that at least he'll drink it out of a cup!

Practice Back-to-Work Day

today was a "practice" work day if you will. i had to be in downtown LA by 7:45 a.m. if you know LA, you know that the 29 1/2 mile commute is not fun at that hour (there's actually not even a "good" hour to ever make that commute)! so, to get there by that time i had to leave my house by 6:30 a.m. so why was i barely waking Luke up to nurse at 6:32 a.m.? yeah, first practice day didn't go so well. while trying to enjoy the act of nursing, thinking this will soon become our daily reality, i found myself watching the clock chanting, "c'mon lukey, c'mon, drink it up!" at 6:44 a.m. i decide to take him off since he's no longer nursing, just comfort sucking, on the second breast, hand him off to daddy (who's still asleep in bed) and make a mad dash out the front door. it's 6:51 a.m. when i get into my car... and 7:47 a.m. when i arrive at my destination. not too bad.

i get ushered into a conference room with 12 other potential employees and by 8:35 a.m. i'm sitting down with a #2 pencil in hand and two super long (like 518 and 200+ questions) questionnaires. you think t/f and multiple tests are a breeze until you're filling in that little bubble over 700 times! constantly watching the clock because i'm trying to get out of there so i can go feed my son. i left him with two 4 oz bottles, though sure he wouldn't touch them, and yep, sure enough... by the time i get back to my mom's house (where hubbs dropped off Luke at 7:45), it had been over 4 hours since he last ate and the boy was ravenous!

ugh, just another thing to have on my mind when returning to work. and since momma was tired today, no pictures of my gorgeous baby boy today :(

When I'm not Spitting... I'm Playing

and mommy is getting it all on camera! so, Luke is into spitting now. he must've decided on his 1/2 year birthday, "hey, i'm a big boy now, let me show everyone how i can purse my lips together, blow, and make bubbles and spit come out!" and since of course mommy can never catch it on camera, usually because she's holding me while i'm doing it, she puts me down to play and runs to grab the camera... and these are the next best shots she can get...