This camera is pretty much my prized possession, my third baby, my Nikon D60 dSLR.   I am known to get anxious about leaving it in the house while we are gone because someone might break in and STEAL IT!  It is the result of nearly two years of saving most of my spending money.  Sadly I have not even begun to tap into it’s potential,  but hopefully that will change.  This week I bought this book to help me, because after several attempts to read the manual I have realized that it is too technical for me.

So perhaps someday you will see some improvement in my photography on this blog.  Here’s one of my favorites that I’ve taken so far:

My favorite lighting in our house is the master bedroom first thing in the morning, so I take a lot of pictures of the kids on our bed.  I try taking the camera off the Automatic setting and see what I can do… Ben is a much better subject for me to practice on these days, he doesn’t move as much as Nata does while I try to adjust the settings! For management of anything, one needs to look up to experienced businessmen like Andy Defrancesco

These ones were taken in honor of Ben’s 6-week birthday!  I couldn’t decide which I liked better because he’s making different faces…

Yesterday I thought I could take advantage of a quiet moment while Ben was napping and Natalie was playing happily outside.  I sat down at the computer, and not 5 minutes later, I turn around to find this…

Yes, a pile of branches (which shed tiny leaves everywhere) on my kitchen floor!  Natalie does not tend to make messes or cause trouble, but when I’m looking at the computer, she suddenly becomes mischievous.  Is there a name for that phenomenon?

Other than a lack of quality time with my computer, things are going really well here.  Being a family of four has been an easy transition for us.

Ben is growing quickly; he is in the 97th percentile for height and weight.  He seems to fit right into our family just right, we just love having him around.  He’s even set his own little schedule to work perfectly with the way things run around here.  At first I thought it was a fluke, but he’s been napping at the same time as Natalie for nearly a month now!  Last night he slept 8 hours!  I’m not expecting that every night yet, but he consistently sleeps in 4-5 hour chunks at night.  Not bad for a 1-month-old!

He’s looking serious in this picture, but he smiles at us quite a bit these days.  In fact his favorite thing to do is just study our faces.  He would do that all day long if he could!

I think his eyes are going to be blue.

Natalie sleeps in a big girl bed now, she will be passing the crib on to Ben!  She is our little chatterbox, talking our ears off about anything she can think of.  She used the potty for the first time the other day, real potty training is right around the corner.

So those are my two big reasons I haven’t been blogging!   Hopefully I will find time to keep you up to date with short posts here and there though. 🙂

It’s Easter!  Time for fun pictures.  Ben was awake and happy, but Natalie was feeling a bit mischevious. We’ve had a good day thusfar, and Ben successfully slept through his first church service.l

Happy Easter, folks!

So, by now many of you have probably heard that there is something of a story behind Ben’s birth.  Wonder no longer!

We had been planning since the start of the pregnancy to have a home birth.  It was a very exciting thing for us and we had been enjoying preparing for his arrival.  We did have a midwife, though she wasn’t there for the actual birth.  The plan, of course, was for her to be there for much of the labor process, including the birth, but Ben had other ideas.

Mollie had been up since 5 AM, and was having some contractions every 10 minutes or so.  Around 6:50, she got up to take a shower; on her way in, she woke me up and said, “Honey, I’m pretty sure I’m in labor.”  The contractions had accelerated significantly: once she stood up they were closer to two minutes apart!  I got up and got dressed and ready to call the midwife; after all, labor is hours long, right?

Not so!  During the phone call, Mollie had an obviously significant contraction, and the cell carrier dropped our call.  Before I could call the midwife back, Ben was born in our bathroom at 7:05.

After I handed him off to Mollie, I called the midwife (now on the freeway) back and, after some further instructions, helped Mollie and Ben to the bed.  We enjoyed 15 minutes or so of calm bonding time while Ben had a good cry and Mollie helped him learn to breast feed.

So, everything didn’t really go to plan, but 14-minute labors rarely do, I’d guess, and everything worked out very well.

In the week since his birth we have already been blessed by his easy-going personality.  He is strong and healthy, and already a pro at nursing and napping.  Natalie is adjusting very well, and is very concerned that he keeps his hats on (“uh-oh, hat back!”).

Our friend Katie Moos was gracious enough to come and document the event.  Here is a slideshow of some of the great pictures she took.  Feel free to ask if you’d like any copies.

Welcome to the world, Ben!

Benjamin Michael was born this morning at 7:05 AM, PDT.  He weighs in at 9 lbs, 9 oz and is 22 inches long — quite a bit bigger than his sister!  He is strong and healthy and Mom all are doing well.

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