Nappy naps

I love sleeping babies, but not as much as I love that belly hanging out of his shirt.

P.S.  I'm really frustrated that I can't seem to get things truly in focus half the time.  Maybe I need to update my glasses prescription.

The Zoo!

3 posts in one day!  And all of them pictures, too. 

So, like I touched on in this post a few days ago, I've been feeling pretty sad, heavy, and weighed-down lately thinking about my friend's baby (who very sadly passed away last Tuesday), and also this poor sweet thing here (<--- warning if you click on that, some of the pictures are hard to look at).  I was needed to go do something fun and light with my little family I love so much.  Because of my job I have a pass to the zoo that gets all three of us in for free, so Tony suggested we do that.  And who can be sad at the zoo?

This kid doesn't really know that the zoo is anything special yet, so we put him in his animal shirt to see if that would help infuse some zoo-joy into him.  (It didn't.)

When I had the camera I was intent on trying to figure out the manual settings for each photo, but the light kept changing as the sun went in and out of clouds, so pictures kept coming out way too light or too dark like this one.

This kid also doesn't really know how to feel about hats.

So I was complaining a couple posts back about how there aren't any pictures of me with James, so I made Tony take the camera for a while so I could get some and now there are hardly any pictures of him with James at the zoo.  Sorry honey.

Also, I look really awkward in pictures anyway.

James conked out before we even got to the polar bear.

Some more proof of me messing with camera settings.  On the first one it's obviously way over-exposed, so I think I both lowered the ISO and slowed the shutter speed and it turned out much better the second time.

I know this is way way unfocused, but this is the only picture I could get of this.  We caught these giant tortoises at either the beginning or the tail end of an intimate moment.  I so wanted to hear that infamous turtle mating sound, but I guess he was shy.

An elephant's butt.  I was too late to capture her epic pee.

James slept contentedly through all of the good stuff, but we woke him up for the train ride.  Someday he'll care about all of this, maybe.

James at 3 1/2 months

Okay, so this will be photo-heavy.

I know I haven't been sharing them here, but since James was born I've been doing little mini monthly photo shoots to track his growth through his first year.  I plan on making seperate posts for months 1 and 2 in a bit, but here at least are his 3 months.  Well, 3 and a half months, because I'm a slacker and got to them late.  He turned 4 months on August 18th and I still haven't taken those pictures.  Slacker!

And just as a note, I am obviously not anywhere close to a professional photographer, but I've always been interested in photography and we have a pretty nice DSLR.  I've been using these shoots as an opportunity to try and teach myself how to use the camera better.  All the pictures are taken using manual settings. 

This first picture is the only one from the whole shoot where he was smiling (also it's way too dark and slightly out of focus).  He wasn't grumpy, he was just more interested in sucking on his hands than smiling for the camera.  Whenever I put the camera down he'd give me a big grin.

Out of focus.  It seemed to be in focus on the camera's tiny screen, darnitall.

Armpit chub!

This picture makes me laugh out loud.  He looks so hard core with his baby gang sign.

Since I got his feet in frame, I wish I had just shifted to the left a bit and got his knee in there too.

And in case anyone is interested, no, I definitely don't remember what my camera settings were for each shot.

I know I have a lot to learn still, but I feel like I'm improving.  I know there are a billion websites I could go to that have tutorials and junk like that, but I think I'll learn better if I take my time and slowly figure it all out on my own.  At least for a while.

Teensy picture update

I was uploading some pictures onto the computer when I found these ones I took several weeks ago.  Boy was just waking up from a nap and I thought he was extra cute.

I took this awkward mirror-shot because I feel like there are no pictures of me with my baby.

And here James is helping daddy lose at Mario.

The end!