Aya’s longtime childhood friend, Ksenija, is a professional photographer. And by longtime friend, I mean since the first grade. Aya had moved to Japan and back and they still remained friends. So when we decided we wanted a family portrait session, of course we wanted Ksenija for the job. She photographed our wedding, our baby shower, and even Ellie when she was only a couple of weeks old. She was a close friend, and we loved her work. Her pictures are more than photographs, they are art. We had set up a session with her in the fall, our favorite time of year. Continue reading “PICTURE PERFECT?”
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES
Other than talking to my Mom on a regular basis, I also talk to my good friend Haniyyah. We used to be coworkers at my last job until she moved to Chicago about two years ago. She, my friend Meghan, and I all sat in the same studio. After working on the same project for two years, we all became not only friendly coworkers, but good friends. We all worked hard, but we brought an element of fun to our project that was otherwise extremely stressful and demanding.  Where Meghan made it very clear we were only FFs, you could say that Haniyyah and I are BFFs. Haniyyah also has a daughter and is a stay-at-home parent like me. So when we gab like two old ladies on the phone, we don’t talk about deadlines or TV shows anymore. We exchange recipes, and discuss our children’s sleep schedules and poop. Their poop, not ours. Anyways, she was coming to town with her daughter, and we decided to take the kids mallwalking. Continue reading “DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES”
HAIR!
Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen…
My friend Amy’s niece was in town from Florida. She’s just a few weeks younger than Ellie and has hair. Not just a little bit of hair, CRAZY amounts of hair. Ellie doesn’t have much which I think is why she loves pulling on other babies’hair. When she met Zayna, she grabbed her hair. At the library she grabs all of the other babies’hair. Now, with a play date with Corryn set up, I knew someone was going to get their hair pulled and it wasn’t going to be Ellie’s.
FRIENDS WALK TOGETHER
It had been awhile since I had seen my friend Meghan. We used to be coworkers and worked on a lot of projects together, so we got to be pretty good friends after awhile. When we sat next to each other, every day she would ask me, “do you wanna be friends forever!?” Yes Meghan, that sounds good. Then she would specify, “not BFFs… just FFs. BFF’s would be too crazy.” Right Meghan, that would be too crazy. Meghan is my unique exotic friend. She’s from an exotic country where they eat ketch-up chips, and things named “poutine.” Yes, you guessed it, Meghan is from the Great White North. She’s Canadian. Eh. Meghan was going to be in our friendly country and wanted to come by and visit me and Ellie. We originally had planned on taking a walk down by the river but the weather was cold and rainy. So we did the next best thing, we headed for the mall. I was excited because this would be Meghan’s first mallwalking experience.
LADIES, BABIES, and LUNCH
Now that I’ve had a couple months of being a stay-at-home Dad under my belt, I felt it was time to host a lunch. I’ve been out to lunch a few times with Ellie, and she’s met other babies, but now I felt ready to have people over. I can handle this I think. It’s time to show off my mom skills. I decide to cook, and I’m also going to make an apple bundt cake. I really want a cake and this is the perfect excuse to make one. And to be very honest, I don’t mind too much if they don’t like it, because I’m mostly making it for me. The event was lunch, and the reason was to catch up with some good friends; four adults and three babies. Haniyyah, Meghan, and Melissa. Haniyyah’s baby, Zayna, is just over a year. Melissa’s baby, Marcello, is almost 5 months. And Ellie is 8 months. We were all coworkers, but between moving, or getting canned, none of us work together anymore. And now, all of us have kids expect for Meghan.  I thought I knew what to expect. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into…      Continue reading “LADIES, BABIES, and LUNCH”