Newborn/Family photo session

Our neighbor, who took Austin's newborn photos and who we used last fall for family photos, moved to Florida last spring. She had hoped to come back in October to do another session for us (after Graham's birth), but then was unable to... sorta at the last minute. Good thing that a friend from church does photography! Here is a small sampling of pictures from that day:

After being awake the entire photo session (much to my dismay--I wanted a sleeping infant photo!), he crashed when Evan was putting his equipment away and I asked for this sleeping photo.

Graham's Progression Photos -- 1 week

We will be doing Progression Photos for Graham just like we did with Austin--a sign, a stuffed animal to show his size, and white onesies. Here's the first installment.

I realize he's screaming here and my hand is still holding him up, but it's the best we got of him upright.

Austin's 2nd Birthday

I had really lofty goals for the cake, but this is what he got--a 10-inch square gluten free chocolate cake, two layers, with store-bought white icing.

Just showing how tall it was, and how tall the candles were.

The Thank You gift was homemade pralines Seth made.

There is some sort of helium shortage, so Seth just blew them up and the kids played.

and played...

the spread...

Austin blew the candles out all by himself!

enjoying some cake

I never actually got around to wrapping his gifts from us, so I just spread them out on the table and had him discover them. Two Melissa & Doug puzzles (I love the Melissa & Doug puzzles!), clear/mess-free fingerpaint, a giant coloring book, a book, and some bubbles.

He's really good at puzzles, these are almost too easy for him.

The giant coloring book was a huge hit. (no pun intended)

bubbles!

I don't "do bubbles," so these are always a Daddy-Time Treat.

Overall, I wouldn't exactly say I "enjoyed" Austin's party, but I wouldn't change anything either. It was important to me that he not get completely overlooked given the recent arrival of his baby brother, but I wasn't yet ready (health-wise) to have a house full of guests. I ended up getting quite the headache midway through and disappeared for half the party. Half the guests left and I was stuck back in the bedroom because of the blinding pain! But given that the boys' birthdays are only 5 days apart, I think this might be the last birthday party Austin has until he's of school age and wants to have friends over, so I'm all the more glad we did this for him.  

Austin's Progression Photos -- 2 years

We've been doing Austin's progression photos since the first week of his life. We did 1 week, and then 1 month, 2 months, etc., and now we're at 2 years. I cannot believe it! I didn't have the blog back then so I couldn't track his growth before now (like I'm doing with Graham from birth), but figured now is a great time to start, so you'll find his stats and his pictures here. (We don't have the futon anymore--where he used to pose--so we decided to use the growth chart I made last year.)

2 years; November 2, 2012
weight: 31.2 lbs              (83rd percentile)
height: 34.65 inches     (54th percentile)
head: 19.29 inches        (88th percentile)

At birth, Austin was smaller than that monkey.