Christmas photographed with an iPhone

We just returned from Christmas vacation and went back to work. But I wanted to share a few vacation photographs from our trip. Whenever we're visiting family I bring my camera. Even more important though, I have to use it when the moment arises! I didn't want to be lugging my camera around on this trip. So I used my iPhone instead. Two of these images were made with my iPhone. Can you guess which ones? The first picture is a photograph of Grandma and Grandpa Cayton and Aunt Cathryn after a sleigh ride in the winterland town of Leavenworth, Washington on Christmas Eve. The second is a photograph of Abby in her ballerina outfit that Aunt Cathryn gave her for Christmas. Abby is infatuated with the Nutcracker Ballet and as soon as she put it on she wanted to be Claire for Christmas. (Guess this means we need to enroll her in ballet...) Below is a photograph of Harper sharing a secret with his grandfather. We had a great time and we hope to see Grandma and Grandpa when the baby arrives in February. — Sean

Harper's First Haircut

Three years ago we photographed Abby's first haircut at Blades Salon in Manitou Springs. See pictures from Abby's first haircut here. This year it was Harper's turn. Stylist Melanie Le Doux offers parents with small children a great deal on a haircut. (Blades also does a great job styling for brides too.) I thought I would come along with my camera again and capture this coming-of-age ritual. Harper's no longer a baby. He's turning into a child with childlike whims and desires and of course a growing head of strawberry blond hair...:) — Sean

Fall portraits of Abby and Harper

Last week we took Abby and Harper on a walk to check out the fall colors that are turning here in Colorado Springs. I brought my camera to take some portraits of the kids. A nice fall afternoon is a great time to photograph children. They are discoverers and a change in the leaves leaves plenty to discover:) I try to do these mini-portrait sessions with my kids at least once every couple of months. Anyone with children can practice this same type of portrait photography on their own. The recipe for success? Let your kids be themselves. Our walk went around the block and by the time we got back, I had several nice frames. These I like the best. They show their personalities and their expressions are priceless. Today happens to be a perfect day to take a walk with your kids and don't forget to bring your camera. Happy shooting! — Sean

Abby and Harper at play

Here's a picture of Abby and Harper playing together. It caught my attention after I saw it on my sister-in-law's iPhone. Sometimes the best edit happens when someone else looks at your photographs...— Sean

Summertime Portraits of Abby and Harper

Well, it's finally gotten hot here and Abby and Harper spent this evening at the pool. (The little plastic one in our backyard) I busted out the camera and made these portraits with a lens I haven't used in a long time. Glad I found it again. I think I will have to return it to the bag for some of our upcoming weddings... — Sean

A cup of mud a day keeps the doctor at bay

Our little rascal has managed a visit to the doctor once a week for the past three weeks, so we're trying something different. We're letting him play in our muddy raised beds with his plastic tea cup. Maybe, just maybe, this is the magic cure all we've been looking for and we will finally get rid of the sleepless nights and what is now a routine Monday morning visit to his pediatrician. We're not abandoning our antibiotics at this point, just adding some earthy holistics to the mix... Our fingers crossed:)— Sean

Snow Day

Harper's not sure he likes being outside. — Sean

Happy Kid

Harper enjoys his bath time. I'm so lucky to have such happy kids. — Sean

Pardon our mess

Here's a shot of Harper and his friendly foot during Christmas dinner. You may recall from this post that his left foot enjoys a seat at the table:) This post is also meant to let everyone know that we are moving to a new ISP and our blog and main site may be down for a couple of days as we point the internet to our new home. We will update the blog again as soon as we've successfully made the switch! — Sean

Mommy's Back!

Peek-a-boo

Harper's had a long couple of days. Mom is away at a photo workshop and it's the first time she's been gone more than a day. Even though he looks a little tired (he just got up from his nap) we've had a great time together. - Sean

Behold! Harper Walks

Here's a first look at Harper walking from last night. Enjoy! — Sean

Harper in the window

I caught this picture of Harper last night. He wanted to help Daddy with the holiday lights. Too cute. — Sean

On walking watch

We're on watch here this week to see when Harper gets up enough gumption to take his first steps. Sure, he's walked a little. But he's not quite at the point where he thinks of walking before crawling. This week could be the week that changes. We're watching closely, monitoring his progress carefully and will definitely keep you updated. Stay tuned! — Sean

Crescent Moon in November

It's 4:30 in the morning and Harper has decided it's time to wake up. Outside the window I can see this crescent moon, so I grabbed my tripod, camera and Harper and we made this picture. — Sean

Sick day, pajama party

Abby came home from Montessori yesterday with a cold, so we called it a sick day today and had a little pajama party this morning. Shedoesn't look sick, does she? Meanwhile Harper is ready to walk. I'm always surprised by his ability to get into everything. He's learned how to stand on his tippy toes to great effect. My bet? He's walking by Thanksgiving... – Sean

Harper's Red Head

In case you didn't notice, Harper is a red head. Sean's mother and my grandfather (nickname: Red) both had red hair and I guess we carry the recessive gene. Harper also has very brown eyes, not brown like mine, darker like Sean's mother. I took this photo yesterday while he was looking especially cute in his red pjs with the flap on the behind. — Cathy

Playing fire chief with Mammo

Mammo visited last week and spent some quality time with Abby and Harper. She got to see Abby's Montessori school and enjoy Harper's newfound mobility. He's everywhere and in everything these days . One day when nothing particular was going on, Abby decided to be a firefighter. It was a nice moment. Abby shared her hat with Mammo and Harper was unusually quiet sitting in her lap. Abby wanted to cuddle a little too. We're glad she could make it out to visit us. — Sean

Harper's friendly foot

Harper has a new habit of putting his left foot up on the table of his high chair while he eats. Not sure why he's doing this, but the foot appears to enjoy it's newfound seat at the table... no pun intended:) — Sean

Our little climber

The last few weeks Harper has found his coordination and muscles and now he's taken on the task of conquering the stairs and exploring parts of the living room that, until now, remained off limits. It's a little bit scary, because one second he's crawling around and the next he's climbing a chair to grab a hair brush. What's different from Abby is that when there's an accident, Harper gets up brushes himself off and keeps going. When Abby fell or bumped her head we were almost too quick to rush in and help. It's nice to see we've grown a bit as parents enough so that Cathy and I don't hesitate to photograph momentous moments like these. — Sean

More kitchen craziness...

I love the smell of avocado in the morning

You never realize how many photographs you can find in a kitchen, until you start to do it. Here's another one from this morning. Harper and his avocado breakfast.— Sean

Breakfast with Grandma

We visited with Grandma and Grandma Great by video during breakfast. If you haven't had the opportunity to use Skype, the video conferencing software that works on both PC and Mac, you should definitely check it out. It's free! — Sean

Our little giggler

Harper is teething bad. He has a little flap of skin just barely covering one of the big teeth on the top. I bet it's going to push through in the next few days. Despite the discomfort that he must be feeling, he's in a surprisingly good mood. Check out this video of our little giggler… —Cathy

Monster baby on the crawl

Harper's officially crawling and we need to keep all electronics out of his reach:) — Sean

Summer Vacation '08

In the beginning of July we dashed off for our summer vacation. Cathy spent two weeks in New Hampshire introducing young Harper to the family. We spent July 4th at Uncle Albert's house and enjoyed an afternoon BBQ. Cathy and the kids got to take off to the beach a couple of times. I joined her for a week in New Hampshire and then I grabbed a flight to Scotland with my roommate from college and best friend Kevin. If you ever want to see Scotland, I know a guy:) We were invited on the trip by Kevin's father-in-law Paul. Paul has visited Scotland 11 times and he treated us to a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We didn't meet anyone who wasn't a local. Details of the trip are a closely guarded secret. Click here to see slide show of both portions of our vacation. — Sean

Summer Vacation '08

Well you may have noticed a lack of posts here and that's because we took a two week vacation to the Northeast. Our family visited New Hampshire's North Country where we celebrated July 4th and saw grandparents, great grandparents, aunts and uncle on Cathy's side. (Nocousins yet, but we're waiting patiently:) Harper spent time with his granddad who makes some fine hard cider. With Harper's help they sold quite a bit of it at the Lancaster farmer's market. We alsogot in a couple of trips to the beach at Ipswich. The highlight of my trip was traveling to Scotland to play golf with some great friends, Kevin, Paul and Peter. I was the trip photographer, which proved to bedifficult since I was more focused on my five iron and the incredible food than the photographs. We're planning on posting a slide show from our trip soon. To everyone who contacted us while we were gone - thanks for your patience. We will be in touch with you shortly! — Sean

Harper's crawling (almost)

Harper is almost crawling. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks forward and back, preparing for the next step…moving a hand or a foot. He's much more motivated when there is a toy (or camera) to grab. I think he'll be crawling by the end of July. Abby never crawled…she scooted on her bottom, so we are all in new territory. I took these photos this morning on our bed using only window light. –Cathy

Mammo, Abby and Harper

Mammo returned home this morning and we are going to miss her. We made sure to take advantage of the time we had with her while she was here. That included plenty of playtime and a delightful trip to Manitou Springs where Abby got to take rides on her favorite horse at the Penny Arcade. - Sean

Family Day

We're taking a family day today. Have a great Monday! — Sean

And now for something completely different

We thought we would share a milestone in Harper's life. He's eating solid food! — Sean

On the Chesapeake with Abby and Harper

We're visiting Mammo for the next week and photographing Xavi and Mark's wedding at the National Cathedral on Saturday. We arrived to beautiful weather. Harper looked like he flew in himself (I don't know where he gets those ears:) and Abby and I spent sunset on the water. — Sean