Liam's first birthday!

Liam is my best friend's little boy. They were living in Florida when he was first born and I was thrilled when a few months later they moved back home. We did some cake smash pictures and one year portraits.



Two peas in a pod



We were thrilled to celebrate his first birthday with him.

cousins

While Chris and my siblings don't have any kids yet, Chris has a couple cousins that are close in age to our kids. They are technically our kids 1st cousins once removed but they will grow up as cousins. 4 boys! I love it!

Ryder is 10 months

(and a week)

Ryder has quite the personality. He loves his brother and laughs all the time.

At 10 months Ryder

cruises along furniture
can stand on his own
has taken one step
wears size 18 months clothes

He continues to enjoy swim lessons and is starting to get the hang of going underwater. He is a super fast crawler and loves to be where the action is. That's usually right with his brother and the other toddlers. Two more months and we'll be celebrating his 1st birthday!

Beach Boys: Day one

Ok so we're going to rewind a day. We left Saturday morning to head to Long Island. We dropped Coors (our dog) off at Papa's house and headed to the beach. Mason wasn't a big fan of the water but he loved to play in the sand and so did Ryder! They had a blast and Ryder even took a nap in his tent.





crowded beach!



Ryder sleeping in his tent. I couldn't get enough of it!



A couple more from day 2. Ryder had a blast playing in the bay. He kept on crawling around in the water and tried to crawl out to sea.

Beach Boys : Day two

I'm sure you're wondering why there's no post with day one but that will be coming! We went to Long Island for the weekend and on Sunday morning I convinced everyone to wake up super early to see the sunrise. I have those pictures ready to go first so I'll blog those and then you'll get to see day one in a day or so.

I don't know how I convinced everyone but I did. Well the kids had no choice but Chris humored me. I learned several things while taking my sunrise pictures.

-Although we're on the East Coast Long Island's beaches are on the North and South shore. Chris informed me of this on our way to the beach crushing my dreams. Luckily there was the bay which was a nice substitute. (I still want my beach sunrise pics someday though)
-The sun rises very fast when you're trying to take pictures before the beautiful golden light is too harsh
-I hate metering in light changing situations
-I need to learn more about landscape photography
-Photographers always say that the light is most important and that is so true!
-My family is going to be tortured with more early wakings for sunrise pictures when I want more family portraits.

We were running a couple minutes late so as soon as we got there I ran out to set up some shots.



MIL was not aware that she was going to be in any photos but I had to get one of all of us!



My first attempt at silhouette pictures. They are my new love.



I'm thrilled to have more family pictures of us. I started off this summer with only one from the day Ryder was born. Now I have several.





The sun continues to rise. Still beautiful!



The little guy and I





Mr. Serious (a.k.a. Mason)









He's such a little ham!





Notice Mason's messy hair in all the beach pictures? We got home and he got a haircut!