One Year

This video of William on his birthday says more than I can about his 1st year...

He's grown big, strong, and fun.
His cousins love him like he is their own brother and I'll forever be grateful to them for this.

Little-kid birthday parties rock. 

There are cool cakes,

lots of fun presents,

 

and tons of family.

And why don't we keep the tradition of diving into our birthday cake with our bare hands?

Happy Birthday William!

You are awesome.

Avant-garde Photo Shoot

Steve and I did a photo shoot for hair & makeup artist Julianna Bowman. 

It was an avant-garde themed and shot on the 5D and 7D.

Julie has a fun style and we tried to create the lighting to match it.

The focus of the photo shoot was to highlight her hair and makeup design. 

MAKING OF

 

 Julie hard at work  

Working with Steve makes this dream job even better.

He is a fantastic photographer and I learn something new from him on every shoot.

In some ways capturing a story using still photography is harder than telling a story through a video.

In a movie you have 24 frames per second to help tell your story. 

In still photography you only have 1 frame,

1 frame to communicate your message, mood, and approach.

Thanks:

 Julie's salon for the studio space

Underfunded Film Production for the great deal on lights

 Brady and Becca for watching William during the shoot!

Homemade Toys

This week Steve made William and his cousin wooden toys to play with.

There is this sweet, lasting feeling about homemade toys.

 They require so much more imagination from the child and are built with so much love.

Building these toys brought up several conversations about childhood and parenting.

Steve said, "Oh, I want our kids to love the simple things!" We both want our kids to love doing things like digging holes in the backyard, building giant forts, and reading into the night when they are supposed to be sleeping.

A fishing boat! 

(He made these last two when he was younger.)

Mostly we want to teach our kids how to work. 

So much about life is about work and learning to love work. 

Dear Reader, how is it done? Do you know? 

How did your parents teach you to love to work and create?

How do you teach your kids those skills?