My daughter’s first birthday is next month, and we needed a nice photo to include with her Birthday Party Invitation. You won’t believe how incredibly tough it was to get one good shot! Anyhow, after lots of frustration on trying to get her to smile, here are the photos we ended up with.
This is the photo we are going to use for her invitation.
This little girl is growing up so fast. Sometimes.. it’s as if time slips away when you pay all your attention to the little ones. Once you have a child, most of your adult life is spent paying special attention to the little things like a little coo here and there. You pay your attention to the little burps and even farts… and for some reason it’s comforting to hear it come from them. It’s comforting because you know that it releases air trapped in their bellies so they won’t get a tummy ache later. You want to show them the world. With the looks in their eyes.. to the smiles they get once something sparkles their curiousity.. how could you not want to show them the world? After a while, your whole goal is to make them smile. During Christmas weekend we were grateful to have my dear friends visit us from Minnesota. It was nice to see Chris and Cristina once again after almost 6 months. Once I laid my eyes on Gianna, it was a huge surprise on how much she has grown! Take a look at this post here to see for yourself: http://telaphotography.com/archives/100 . And now.. take a look here for some recent photos:
Hope you are having a great holiday in the snowy Winter Wonderland!
Last week my Wife + her two sisters + I took the children to visit the Dupage Childrens Museum. We weren’t planning on buying a membership to the place, but after spending the day at the Naperville location… we were sold. I will let the photos speak for themselves. With this membership, we will have access to hundreds of other Children’s Museums across the US. Kaiden had such a blast, and I think it will be beneficial to have him explore this place from time to time.
I finally visited this Hot Dog stand located in West Chicago called Scoobys. We have been driving by this joint for years, and everytime we pass by it, I would say “I have to eat there some day”. Finally after what seems to be about 10 years, we stopped by the place. All the neon lights were amazing!
I’ve been so sick this past weekend. Hopefully I don’t have the H1N1 flu O.o but anyway, it was my children’s first time apple / pumpkin picking day, so I had to go. County Line Orchard is located in Indiana. My wife had to drive the van, since I was on drowsy cold medication. Her sister followed in another vehicle since we were not all able to fit in the van. This was a great way to start the month of October, and the season of Fall!
And now folks, it’s time for some more family photos! I’m so glad that both of my children are now done with baptisms and the like. Here are some highlights from the event:
This past weekend we brought the kids over to Cosley Zoo. Located in Wheaton, this Zoo offers a display of 35 different species on display.. and best of all, it’s free to get in! Notice how I didn’t take any photos of the animals. I couldn’t get a clear shot of the animals since most of them were either caged or sleeping under some sort of shelter. I wanted to capture the children in their curious ways.
Kian eating his mother's shoulder Maleyah and Kaiden taking a break
Kailyn sitting on her aunt Tena
Maleyah and Kaiden taking a break
I didn’t get any processing done last night. However, I did work on the process! I upgraded my Photoshop CS3 to CS4. It was such a daunting task since I had so many plugins that I did not want to lose. I also decided to incorporate using Adobe Lightroom 2. I used to always be against using the application, but since I have over 30,000 photos to keep track of… this would enable me to speed up my workflow and organize my images a little better. I’m very pleased with the outcome of using Lightroom 2 and editing in CS4. This should enable me to spend less time processing, and more time shooting!
As my wife and I were driving home from work a couple days ago, we pulled into the Willowbrook Wildlife Preserve. It was a beautiful day out, about 85 degrees warm and sunny. As I was snapping photos of the Butterfly Garden, I started thinking to myself that these are the last days of Summer. Where did it go really??? I didn’t even get a chance to sit at a beach, or ride my bike by the lake. I was a little upset, but now I’m really looking forward to some Autumn photos.
Willowbrook Wildlife Preserve is a great place to stop by at. It’s pretty much a rehabilitation center for animals that has experienced a life threatening event, and cannot survive on their own. I noticed that most of the animals displayed have been hit by some sort of car or another. They are displayed out to the public like a zoo setting, only all animals are being treated to recover. Once they recover, they are then released out in the wild at a discreet location in Dupage County. It’s really nice being able to see a Bald Eagle up close, or a Red Fox lounging around. Big credit to the Willowbrook Wildlife Preserve, I really hope they continue to rehab animals in the future.
I had plans to go out towards downtown Aurora earlier with a fellow photographer, but they fell through due to babysitting issues. We really felt it was a great night for some downtown night shooting. Anyhow, I spent the evening with my two children Kaiden and Kailyn, plus my sister in law’s daughter Maleyah. I had a blast! Kailyn turned 3 months about 5 days ago. She’s really starting to get the smiling thing down now, and is able to follow moving objects with her eyes. Perhaps we will do some night shooting some other day.
Kailyn staring at the wonderful lights her soothing swing makes.
