Snowbird with the fam

Tomorrow James will be 10 months. Ten. That is much much too old in my opinion. I can't get over how quickly this year has slipped by. My pregnancy seemed to last forever, but now James is such a big happy boy... and he's bigger every day.

Anyway, I actually wanted to post a few of the photos from Snowbird that I took on Sunday. E, James and I went up to Snowbird to check out the Forever Young Playground. It was awesome, as always. And we realized that Snowbird is hosting Oktoberfest right now, so in addition to sliding down the slides and swinging on the swings, E enjoyed a German beer. Pretty great day, right?
James has decided that he loves the slide, and he's big enough to go down alone.
He grins the entire time.

A beer for good measure.

Mountains on Saturday

Today we headed to the mountains. Because Salt Lake City is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, because our home is only minutes from the mountains, and because the leaves are starting to change, and for all the other reasons E and I love the outdoors.

We drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon with the windows down so I could angle my camera towards the steep slopes beyond our car and snap away at the marvelous colors.

After a very wonderful hour of glorious color, blue skies and passing what felt like a million graham crackers to the back seat to my boy, we arrived at my cabin. My family was there, all excited to hear about James's first steps the day before.

We sat down and chatted for only a moment, because James wanted to explore! So I took his hand and into the woods we went. We looked at the leaves, the grass, sticks, rocks, and the beautiful aspens that are beginning to turn gold.

Later we walked down to the meadow and caught a few tiny frogs in the stream. I also took lots of photos. Because everything was so stunningly beautiful.

It was a good day.

Prepare for photo overload:

James loves walking with help. Dare you try to sit down yourself or even pick him up, he screams, fusses and launches himself back towards the ground so he can walk.


Down in the meadow we decided to take off his shoes and socks and even pants before he stepped into the steam.



And near the water we found frogs!
They are tiny and oh so cute!
The sunlight hitting the grass in the meadow was amazing.
The forest floor was changing color.




Beautiful.

Red Butte with Melissa

Before the very exciting evening with James's first steps, I had had a wonderful day with my sister Melissa and beautiful Red Butte Garden. I love this garden so much and this time of year it never ceases to amaze me.

Melissa and I sat on the patio and ate lunch with the babe before walking all over the garden. We talked about boys, school, James, houses and everything sisters share.

And we walked all around the garden. It was a wonderful prelude to the glorious weekend ahead.

James just took his first (very wobbly) steps!

My boy can take a few unassisted steps! I'm not sure if I can say he's started to walk because he can't get to standing on his own, but this is very very exciting.

He's almost walking

Autumn has arrived

Every weekday morning, without fail, I brew coffee, bounce the baby on my hip as I mix in sugar and cream, and head outside for our walk.

Lately it has been chilly. I wrap up in a sweatshirt and put a sweatshirt on my boy. I make sure he's warm enough, give him a graham cracker and wander down my driveway, past the house on the corner, and around the block, or towards wherever I'm headed that particular morning.

I sip hot coffee. I listen to my feet hit the pavement. I listen to the birds, and the babbles of my little boy as we wander past the houses we've seen every morning this entire summer. We stop to visit friends, because I've made friends with virtually everyone I see each day.

We enjoy the changing of the seasons together, my boy and me. We've watched the sunflowers open happily, and day after day start to fade, until they turn to seed. We've watched the apples ripen on the 100 year old apple tree on the beautiful property not far from my home.

We walk and enjoy life as I see my boy changing, growing, becoming big right before my eyes.

Today I took a few photos, they are not the best quality because all I had was my cell phone. But enjoy them nonetheless.

The sunflowers up the lane are one of James's favorite stops. We stop every day for him to say hello to his friends (and pull some petals off, as well).
It is late in the season, and some are already turning to seed.
The sunlight streaming through the trees at this time of day is glorious.
Big heavy apples are almost ready to be picked.
Morning glories enjoying the cool mornings of September.
Is there anything sweeter than pajamaed feet stuffed into little baby shoes? Nope.

Zoo day

On Sunday, after James took a splendidly wonderful morning nap, my little family and I headed to the zoo (last time we went James was only four months old!). We've been waiting for the summer weather to cool off, so yesterday was perfect for a zoo day. And it being Sunday and all, it was not too busy.

The animals were adorable. We watched the baby elephant run around, trip, fall, jump up, act silly, roll over, and tickle her Mama. It was beyond adorable. We watched the tigers drink and wander around. And we saw lots of other neat animals.

James was way more interested in watching the other kids at the zoo than any of the animals, but that's ok, because it was a really great day.

James thinks the tiger is boring compared to the toddlers running around.
The sand cat is kinda interesting.
1- Cool view of Mama elephant eating. 2- Baby elephant is too cute and feisty.
3- Snuggles from Daddy. 4- Sweet tiger. This baby tiger was born last year. Can't believe how big he is already.
5- The boys watch the animals. 6- James and the burrowing owl become friends.

Learning a bit of Photoshop

I want to be a better photographer. I'm always striving for this. I read photographer's blogs, I practice practice practice. And just today I asked E to teach me some of the quick tricks in Photoshop, because all pro photographers know how to make edits in Photoshop.

I'm brand new to this. But I hope I'll get good. Here is my first enhanced photo. First one is strait from the camera. This is how I post 99% of my photos on this blog. No edits other than the occasional black and white image. Second one is the edited version. Too much saturation? Thoughts?