The Great Outdoors

From the moment Evan was born, the best way to soothe him was to bring him outside. Luckily, Brian & I both love to be outside. Evan is currently teething, on top of having a cold . . . which makes for a bit of a cranky baby. So, despite the cold temps, we decided to take him out for a hike today. First, I just have to say - what a difference 9 months makes. We took the same hike on Father's Day and the pictures are taken in similar places on the hike:

I got to take a turn carrying him as we both quickly learned how HEAVY 20 extra pounds is to carry on your back. My "turn" lasted 15 minutes (as compared to Brian's 40 minutes). Evan didn't care who was carrying him - he had a smile on his face the whole time as he took in the scenery.

Lastly, a hike is just about the happiest thing for our first "child" to enjoy (our dog, Lily). She is so at home in nature and didn't mind taking a swim in the freezing cold waters of Ridley Creek.

We also spent the better part of our weekend enjoying a visit from Brian's family. We, unfortunately, were on the go so much that we didn't get to take any pictures. We had a great time visiting with our niece Morgan and enjoyed grandparent babysitting services while we went out to dinner to watch the basketball games. I'm hoping for the warm weather to hit soon so that we can enjoy more time outside.

First Photography Class

I recently started taking a photography class called "Digital SLR Essentials" on Monday nights. I will be learning how a camera actually works as well as the basics on how to use our fancy new camera. For the first class, we were instructed to just "take some pictures" to practice using our cameras. My friend Brianna (who is a fantastic photographer) taught me the basics on how to shoot in manual a few weeks ago. So I practiced shooting in manual this weekend to take a few pics for class. I was working on trying to get one object in focus while the rest of the photo stays out of focus (with the exception of Lily's action shot below). It takes me about 5 minutes to get the camera ready for each shot, so I don't see myself shooting in manual too often. But the class will teach us about all other semi-manual settings that will get us the same result. So here are the first pics I took for class (these were my 5 favorite out of about 100). It turns out that Lily is a much easier "subject" to work with than Evan. She will do just about anything for a treat :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! After Evan was one of the few kids at school not dressed for Valentine's Day, I decided to get with the program and get him a shirt for St. Patty's day. My late-shopping paid off as the shirt was 50% off at Old Navy this week.

Getting this child, who used to pose for a camera all day long, to sit still is now a minor miracle. These were the best pics we could get. I hope to be improving my photography skills soon but these are still being taken with my little old camera. This basketball set is one of his favorite toys - many thanks to Aunt Megan & Uncle Dave for that one. He's definitely getting into the spirit of March Madness :)

Weiss It Up . . .

The Weisses are known for having LARGE appetites. My friends from work affectionately coined the slang term "Weiss it up" for eating someone's leftovers. For example, at lunch, if someone had fries leftover, I would be the one to eat them. If there were potato chips leftover, I would be the one to eat them. So, if anyone ever had leftover food, the question was asked "Do you want to Weiss that up?". Well, it seems that Evan is following in the Weiss footsteps. He may not be "advanced" in many of his milestones, but I have come to find out that he is far advanced for his age in eating. I spoke with my friend yesterday whose daughter is the same age as Evan and she informed me that her baby is eating mostly jarred baby food and puffs. Evan is largely refusing to let us feed him jarred baby food at this point and has moved to almost all table food. And he knows how to eat! My mother-in-law& her family watched in awe this weekend as Evan ate more food than the other kids there . . . the next youngest child was 4 years old. So last night, after I prepared his dinner, I shot a picture of it with my camera phone. It's not the best quality picture, but you get the idea. This was Evan's dinner (shown on a small plate) and he ate every last bite. It was chicken nuggets, sweet potato fries and mac-n-cheese. Unfortunately for us, he's refusing most fruits & vegetables now. But he certainly is enjoying his food . . . just like a true Weiss!

Family Fun

Brian's brother, Kyle, came back to the east coast from Alaska this weekend. That meant a road-trip for us to get together with many of Brian's family members. While the car ride to get there is not fun (4 hours long), once we are there it is always very relaxing. Compared to where I grew up (outside of NYC), it is a whole other world . . . one where having a horse is not unusual. Evan's first horse ride happened MUCH earlier in life than my first horse ride. My first was also at Brian's Aunt Karen's house, but I was 22 years old! I just love the look on Evan's face in this picture, where he's "riding" Chief (a 37 year old horse):

Throwing children in the air is a favorite sport of Brian's. And our niece Morgan was more than happy to be his tossing toy for the day. After this, we were exhausted and relaxed on the couch.

And finally one last shot with Brian's immediate family:

Our next trip to visit Brian's family will be in July, when we go to Aunt Karen & Uncle Cliff's lake house at Keuka Lake (one of the finger lakes). It is one of our favorite weekends of the year and we can't wait!

Girlfriends . . .

Evan is one lucky guy . . . because most of our friends who had babies around the same time as me had little girls. He has many lady friends and I just wanted to share these pictures.

First is a little girl named Lucy - her mom and I were best friends growing up. Evan is a MUCH older man (5 whole days) and Lucy was the first friend that he ever met. The picture on the left was their first meeting. And in the second picture, I think Evan wasn't quite ready for Lucy to put the moves on him.

Next up is Brynn. Brynn's mom and dad are great friends of ours. And I am also honored to be Brynn's Godmother. This picture on the left below is just one that I could look at all day. Two happy babies with big, chubby cheeks. I don't think we could capture that moment again if we tried for hours. The one on the right shows Evan's more aggressive side - watch out Brynn!

And these last two pics are also also two of my favorites. The left photo is a picture of Tryna and Evan. Tryna's mom and I went to college together, lived together and are best friends. Looks like Evan was hoping for a kiss. And the picture on the right is of Kaylie. It's a shame you can't see her precious face in this photo, but this picture was caught at just the right moment. In 16 years, he's going to wish Kaylie would hug him like that :)

And there are even more little girls in our lives now (along with a few boys for him to hang out with). But he sure is one lucky little guy :)