Impromptu Photo Shoot

When I was a baby, my parents had this picture taken of me:


And for some reason, when Abby was a baby, I got it into my head that I wanted her to have her picture made like that. Well, I kept putting it off and putting it off, so we ended up quickly having her picture made at this little place in the mall. It looks really weird because I had to take a picture of it and import it - we don't have a digital copy of it or a scanner!


Anyway, on Saturday morning Garner was just waking up from his nap and Abby and I went into his room to get him. (It's so cute - when she hears him, she gets excited and says, "Hey, my brother awake! Come on Mama!") He woke up in a really good mood and he was excited to see us! Abby always wants to get in his crib with him. For his first several months of life, I did not allow this. But...every once in a while these days I will let her get in for a few minutes when I am in there with them. I don't even remember what they were doing that was so cute, but something prompted me to get the camera and take a picture of them.


Somehow the idea to try and take Garner picture like ours popped into my head. So, I quickly got the boppy and pulled some things out of my closet and threw them together and came up with this...


I actually think it turned out okay! And it is nearly impossible to tell that he is on my bed! (When you see some of these pictures you will be able to tell what my set up was! It's pretty funny! ) Well, after that I just started snapping a bunch of pictures of them. When Garner woke up we had just taken Abby's pajamas off and I was about to dress her, so when we started taking pictures I told Abby to put her tutu on. She did not object!

A good majority of the time, they were doing their own thing, which resulted in pictures like this...
By the way, do you like Garner's acrobatics? He is trying so hard to crawl! He pushes himself all the way up and just balances on his feet and hands. It's pretty impressive.

Angelo came home in the middle of all this and I somehow talked him into helping me move my operation and taking more pictures! We took a lot of pictures and I am really surprised how they came out.

We just let Abby do what she felt like doing! We decided to sit Garner up and see if he could stay up long enough to get a picture of him. And he did! He probably sat up by himself for at least 20 minutes! I couldn't believe it! This is a new achievement for him!


I wasn't too worried about the sheet being messed up. I just figured "one day we'll have photoshop and I'll try to fix it - I just want the pictures", but now I kind of like it the way it is. And there was light coming in from the window that bothered me at first, but I really don't mind it in any of the pictures.






They're kind of goofy and, had a been paying someone to take them, I might be thinking, "What?" But I love how they turned out. It's just them.

Some of the best ones are just random pictures that were almost taken by accident.







What beautiful little faces! The only problem is now I think we can take better pictures, so I am plotting where we can take the next ones!

Farm to Market

Yesterday was a very busy day for us! We started out the day at Farm Day at the World Hunger Relief Farm. It is a really neat place. It is a christian organization that has a farm outside of town where they "train individuals in holistic ministry that equips them to work with communities in developing sustainable farming techniques, educate those with an economic abundance on methods of conserving and sharing resources, and participate in local and international sustainable development programs ." Every Saturday, they have a farm stand and you can even go pick your own vegetables to purchase. They also have free range eggs, sausage, and a little store that sells fair trade goods. (They have a blog as well, where members of the farm tell stories and such.) Anyway, every year they have Farm Day and that is what brought us to the farm.
Unfortunately, I carried Garner in this Moby the whole time, so every picture of him, has me in it! I do have to say that this is the first place I really felt normal wearing this because there were A LOT of other people with them on.
Usually people look at me really weird for some reason.

Abby was getting really excited waiting for the the cart pulled by a Shetland pony. Here is Abby waiting to take a ride.
I don't know what it is about that picture, but it is so funny to me.
Where is it?

Oh, here it is!
Garner has to take a ride too!
I really feel for that pony having to pull me around! It was a very short ride, though. And I wasn't the only mom who had to ride with their child.
There was a petting zoo that they really liked.
I included this last picture simply to show that boy in the background holding that chicken. Those chickens were so tame!
We took a rest and listened to the band and had a bite (or drink in Garner's case)!
Abby did some milk cap art!
Just goes to show how the simplest things can be fun for a child!

Oh, and Abby fell in love with a goat!
By this time we were ready to head home to eat and bathe the goat smell off! Which brings us to the "Market" part of our day.
Every year at this time, the Junior League of Waco has a "Deck the Halls Gift Market" at the Convention Center. They decorate it so it is literally unrecognizable and vendors come and set up a bunch of different booths where you can buy all sorts of interesting, expensive things from shea butter to tutus to necklaces made from scrabble tiles. It's pretty neat. They also have some extra events you can take part in like Mother-Daughter tea. Bianca and I took Abby to the gingerbread house decorating. She was actually more interested in eating the candy and the gingerbread men, but I think she had a good time. This was her main contribution...
It was pretty hard work!
I really didn't think she cared much about it by the time we finished. But when we went up to get it wrapped up and I layed it on the table, she proudly looked at the girl and said, "That's mine!" It was really cute!
After we finished shopping we went to eat at Ninfa's and I took these next pictures of her while we were waiting. Her Bibi got her this cute hat at one of the shops.
She was really posing!She really makes me smile!

All in all, we had a really great day! It was tiring, but fun!