Birdseye Photography Photo Shoot

(Alternate Title: Kyle's first stab at modeling)

The Internet is a funny place and not always in the hilarious, knee-slapping way. With all the pervy spam messages and glittery emoticons on MySpace, it's a wonder any of us manage to maintain faith in this medium. With each click of the mouse, one can find more and more evidence that they'll sell a wireless card or a monthly Internet package to just anyone, no need to prove you won't use that service to stalk your ex-boyfriend on Facebook or leave poorly spelled creepy comments on strangers' blogs. But it's not all bad and I know that first hand. Here, let me prove it to you:

A few months ago, I received an e-mail from Julie, a girl I went to middle and high school with. I hadn't talked to her in years -- enough years to make me feel very, very old, in fact -- but she had somehow stumbled upon this site and had been reading about how crazy her old high school friend had become.

(I sometimes wonder how many other high school or college or even elementary school friends have found my little corner of the Internet and thought to themselves: She seemed so normal back in Geometry class, but no normal person is that obsessed with Veronica Mars.)

Julie congratulated me and Mike on our soon-to-be born baby boy and said some other very kind things, and then she took her niceness 76 steps further. Julie is a photographer -- a very good one, at that -- and she offered up her photography skills free of charge to document Kyle once he made his debut. 

The first few days of Kyle's life were hard -- I think I've mentioned that a few dozen times already -- and I just couldn't imagine putting on a clean outfit and being helpful to a photographer for a few hours while she snapped pictures of my boy. Thankfully, Julie couldn't have been more professional, more on-the-ball, more considerate to our exhaustion. She showed up at our house with props and blankets and we really didn't need to do a thing -- didn't need to even move the laundry piles off the couches -- except stand by and ooh and ahh over our little man.

Julie also had the pictures ready for me to see days later, and that's when I had wanted to put this post up. But, it's taken me a while to do this post justice. (Have I mentioned a newborn is hard?) In a way, I'm glad I've waited to talk about our photo shoot because he's already changed so much since these pictures were snapped -- he's already a totally different little boy than he is in these photos -- and it's nice to look back on them and remember how much can happen in a month, how much can change in a month.

If you do live near me -- anywhere in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, in fact -- I'd whole-heartedly suggest you turn to Julie for any photography needs. I'd suggest you book her immediately as you won't be disappointed. Please take a moment to look at her Web site and blog.

Snapping pictures of Kyle with our camera is something we do on a daily basis and something we plan to continue to do on a daily basis until the day he's moved out of the house and won't let us into his new home to take pictures of him there. But there's something about these pictures that I'll forever cherish -- something that only Julie could capture, I think.

Thank you, Julie.

(If you'd like to see the entire set from the photo shoot, click here.)

Comments

[Kim]

Totally agree - Julie has taken our boy's pics and they are the best keepsakes you can have. Our walls would be bare were it not for Birdseye Photography! That last pic of Kyle is amazing.

[La Petite Chic]

What a nice gesture! You're right...despite all of the weird and crazy that you can run into on the internet, I've found that there's far more good to outweigh the bad. The pictures turned out so lovely...I especially adore the last one.

[Dena]

What a beautiful little boy! Just precious. Great pictures.

[Anonymous New York]

So, so beautiful. Julie did a lovely job and Kyle is such a photogenic baby! So adorable.

[See Sherm Blog]

These are TO DIE FOR!!!!!! Oh how precious these are!! :-)

[Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com]

I love that first image. These pictures are precious! Well done, Julie =)

[hillary]

the last photo is perfection

[Jess]

What a nice thing to do. And what a beautiful, precious, amazing child you have.

[Kristabella]

I saw these on Flickr and they are SO ADORABLE!

BTW, I have a gift for Kyle that is in an envelope and has been addressed for oh, about 3 weeks. I PROMISE to mail it this week!

And then I expect photos when he fits into it! :)

[auntie]

oh my goodness, i don't think he could be any cuter! all of the pics are beautiful but that third one? absolutely precious. like, it brought tears to my eyes. *sigh*

i'm not in the D/FW area (sadly) but i have friends that are, so i'll pass her info along to them!!

[just me]

Such great pictures.

Jennie have you tried Gripe Water? Walgreens sells it. The brand is Mommy's Bliss. It's 13-15 bucks a bottle but it REALLY works. There's directions on the side of the bottle, it's all natural good stuff and great for colic/reflux (it's one in the same).

Also, have you tried changing your diet and taking milk products out to see if that's whats causing him some issues? Dr. Sears has some great info on Colic and the breastfed baby that helped me out a TON!

[She Likes Purple]

just me: I have taken milk out of my diet. I'm also going to try gripe water today. I didn't realize it was sold at Walgreens, though, so thank you!

[Zandor]

That first picture is the most adorable thing ever.

[metalia]

Oh, the pictures are making me MELT! So, so gorgeous.

(Also, I *just* realized I owe you an email, and I want to punch myself for sucking as much as I do. So sorry!!)

[Jen L.]

What a sweet pumpkin!!!!! I'm like you. I love my daily shots that we've taken since, oh, the second we met our son, but there's nothing like a great set done by a pro. Julie did a phenomenal job.

[just me]

Here's my favorite site ever for breastfeeding.

www.kellymom.com

Here's a great article about breastfeeding the colicy baby from above site.

http://www.kellymom.com/newman/02colic_in_bf_baby.html

In addition to all her great tips I also would pump for 10ish minutes after my LO's were done nursing (pump the breast they nursed from) to try and get as much "hind" milk as possible and then either give them a bottle or use a SNS nurser.

[Danielle]

Oh he is just precious!!