Oliver turns 8 today. Have a GREAT DAY!

The second photo below shows him sporting his new watch and his new camera (for the record, my first camera was a Kodak Instamatic 44, not a Leica like his ).

Cecelia just turned one and we did a photo shoot of the whole family for them. Brian & Eric go back many, many years. Brian was a groomsman in our wedding and Eric stood up in his wedding to Carrie a couple of years ago.

We shot this at their place in Chicago and had a lot fun getting together with them.

  

  

  

                                      

While Terri is away in Denver shooting all week, Oliver and I had to find ways to cope without her. This post is our online postcard to her with a GIANT “Wish You Were Here”.

When your day starts at Soldier Field, you know it’s going to be great! On Saturday morning we started our adventure at the home of the Chicago Bears for their 5th annual “Candy Run”. Basically you line up kids and their parents on one sideline and scatter candy across the field. On the count of 3, you run across and grab all the candy you can. We had alot of fun, and came away with some cool treats. Oliver was equally excited for the candy as he was just to be standing on the same field that his favorite Bears play football on. He even found an opportunity to be on the BIG screen.

After that, it was a quick bus and elevated train ride to the Michigan Ave bridge to watch the ceremonial turning the river green. A short walk from there and we checked on the progress of the Trump Tower, one of Oliver’s favorite buildings now under construction. Lucky for us there was a McDonald’s right next door so we had a short stop for lunch and Oliver’s first ever Shamrock Shake.

Once refueled, we walked down to Millennium Park to visit the “Cloud Gate” sculpture, It was the most crowded we have ever seen the park since the St Patrick’s Day parade was just a block away. One last trip on the el train and we were heading back to our car to go home.

                          

  

  

Hard to see in this picture, but bagpipers played on the banks of the river while it was turned green.

  

Oliver toching the base of the Trump Tower, then about to eat the world’s longest french fry.

                          

Oliver took this picture of the two of us at Millennium Park.

  

The heat lamps on the el platforms give you a nice red glow, it was a littlte cold that day. But not too cold for an Icee

  

Allison had warned me that Rex was a very active, energetic dog before we had the session and she was not kidding. At all.

Rex is such a big sweetheart! At times I thought for sure that me and the lens were going to get big ole kisses from Rex-especially when I was right up in his face.

During the session he hardly ever just stayed still-it was like photographing a toddler. They both have so much energy and hardly ever stay in one spot for any length of time. It’s a good thing I am fast on my feet!

The bottom photo captures it all : ) Within moments he had run around the mailbox and was on the other side of the snowbank. If he had a longer leash he would have been halfway down the street.

                                  

  

  

Anyone who has met Oliver is not surprised that he is very tall for his age-given that I am 6″ tall and Eric is 6″3″. I’m sure he is also destined to have big feet-with my size 12 and Eric’s size 15 we can pretty much guarantee he will have a hard time finding pants that are long enough and decent shoes in his size.

He also taught himself the paint program when he was 4 years and is now learning photoshop and loves to manipulate images on the computer-he wanted me to make sure I wrote that about him. LOL.

Another not so surprising fact about Oliver is that he really enjoys taking photos-always wants to take photos or look at photos. Now he really likes to sit next to me while I am editing sessions. He loves to know all about our clients-who they are, where they live, what they do, etc. We talk about composition and why we took certain images-he is fascinated by the process.

Today while I was on the computer he wanted me to go to our blog-so I did. He demanded to know why 2 sessions had not yet been blogged. My explanation that it was on my todo list wasn’t quite what he wanted to hear. So I asked if he wanted to help me pick out photos for the blog and he jumped at the chance.

The images picked for Francesca’s & Baby Claire’s blog posts were mostly picked out by Oliver. Does this mean I now have to up his allowance? : )