Tag Archives: photos

Smartphone Photo Dump: Looking Back a Year

07/31/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

I was looking through pictures on my phone the other day, and WOW, there’s so many things I forgot about! As new parents, it’s mostly Avery pics along with one date night worked in there, but thought it would be neat to do a photo dump from my phone a year ago.

Avery has changed so much (I guess teeth really make a difference), and it’s amazing just how much happens over the course of a year. Well, Uncle Preston not knowing how to hold a kid hasn’t changed…

This was one of the first times I wore Avery on my back in our Onya Baby NexStep. Notice the excitement on her face. Or maybe that’s her getting tired of my selfies.

We love a sleeping baby. Bonus points when you can get this close with the lights on to snap a pic and they stay asleep!

Hey, it’s a date night! We went to a BYOB paint class while G-Ma watched Avery. Good times with my wife!

For some reason, Kelley’s jellyfish got to stay out, but mine had to go in the closet. I don’t get it.

More sleeping. We just wanted to go a cuddle with her, but would never dare do such a thing!

This is a sight we’ll never see again. Now she’s always standing and pointing out our shirt, shorts/pants, and butt. Notice how I kept it safe with the oven on in the background.

C’mon, I know all parents love the sight of their sleeping kid(s). Never gets old!

Now she’s excited about the Onya, after I took it off. This changed and she still loves riding on my back to get a better view of everything around.

This is marks the beginning of her sharing the love of Zevia with Mommy and Daddy.

No, I wasn’t auditioning to be Bane in the next Batman movie. This is an elevation training mask I just got and decided to go for a leisurely stroll with Avery in the Onya Outback. If a baby can get embarrassed, she definitely was that day.

Hmmm, funny, this is how a lot of our meals still look today…

Before the need for a gate in the garage while working out, this jumper did just fine. I’m sure with all the jumping she did, it helped develop that leg strength for her awesome moves she does now.

Maybe I’ll start making this an end of the month thing where I share pics on my phone from that month a year ago. Hope you enjoyed the past pics, and keep a lookout at the end of August!

Go back a year ago on your phone and see if there’s anything you find that you forgot about.

Find anything cool/interesting?

Life, Parenting, Photo Journal

Daddy-Daughter Photo Book: Birth to 19 Months

06/24/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

For my first Father’s Day, Going Mom made a Dad and Avery photo book that means the world to me. It’s not just something anyone can buy, and she put some obvious love and quality time into making it.

This year, for my second Father’s Day, she slipped the book from it’s spot on our bookshelf (or tried, because I noticed it was missing) to add to it with more daddy-daughter photos. In my last post, Kelley was in the process of putting it together as I wrote (all hail nap time!), and after seeing the final product, my heart turned from mush to pure liquid. Kinda sounds bad, but trust me, it’s a good kind of mush-to-liquid.

I love it so much and every time I flip through the pages beginning from the first day Avery was born to just a few weeks ago, I am still amazed at how much she has already grown. I figured I’d share the entire book in a post for everyone to appreciate Kelley’s lovely crafting skills and pictures we will hold dear for eternity.

I’d like to note, the pictures of me wearing Avery in a Baby Bjorn are before we learned of the dangers of wearing babies in “crotch danglers” for impeding their hip development among other issues. Plus, having them face outward is also not the best. Not judging, I’ve obviously been there too, but I stopped right after learning of this and hope any babywearing parents will consider the same.

Okay, I’m done with the thought of the day. I can’t express my gratitude to Kelley enough for making this book of memories, and wish I was at least a quarter as crafty as her so I could do the same. Makes my photo coffee mug I got her pale in comparison.

I’ve said it already, but THANK YOU, Kelley, for being such an amazing wife/mother and for the best gift ever. Oh, and the beer of the month club is just stevia sweetened icing on our homemade chocolate cake! 🙂

Do you love sentimental gifts like these or prefer getting gifts from retail stores instead?

What would be your favorite personalized gift to receive? A photo book, jewelry, framed picture, kitchenware, etc.?

Parenting, Photo Journal

17 Month Photo Session: No Go With The Bow

04/20/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

This is the second month we’ve had to push off Avery’s monthly photo session. Last month, my wife and I had a date night paint night (King Kong even made an appearance), and this month Avery was too ill for us to subject her to pictures in the chair.

Once our little girl was back in action and running wild, we knew it was time for her photo session. She’s still not eating right and it’s obvious her current teething is the culprit. Poor kid, can’t catch a break.

I have to hand it to her though, aside from her stubborn eating, she bounced back from her fever rather fast and won’t let anything slow her down. She made sure to make her photo session difficult just to prove that she’s not sick anymore and we can’t just take pictures as we please like I did the other day. Taking her away from the book she was “reading” probably didn’t help either….

But that’s what parents do, right, we annoy the hell out of our kids. The first setup seemed promising and Avery put up a front as if she’d cooperate.

But not a second later, she was lunging forward with her crazy face.

It became obvious this session would be added to the another one of those categories, so we just managed with what we had. Basically, just a lot of re-positioning.

The only time she held still was when she was pulling on the bow in her hair.

Which, of course, led to it coming off.

Kelley only had to put the bow back on, ohhhhhhh, eleventy-billion times.

Which only made Avery increasingly interested in the little white thing clipped to her hair. Maybe it would be something good to eat?

Nope, maybe handing it to Daddy would be better.

Or maybe I’ll just hold on to it and give a quick pose.

Guess that was all we got, because things went “downhill” from there….

And hey, what’s with this bow always getting stuck on my head?!

So that was our photo session for her 17 month mark. I know there’s a lot of changes occurring each day in our growing girl, but does that mean she’ll be better or worse for her 18 month session?