Someone Found Something!

While resting last evening, Emmaline found something we weren't sure she was even interested in. Her thumb and mouth became quick friends! While it started harmlessly with her poking her nose with her thumb, her thumb quickly went south to her mouth and she seemed to enjoy it!

While it only lasted a couple minutes, and the rest of the night she never could quite guide her thumb to her mouth again, we don't think this will be the last time her mouth and thumb meet. :)

Emmaline sleeping

This afternoon Emmaline took a nap, not all that interesting, but Ab and I enjoy mimicking her arms when she is sleeping. So I decided to share this…

Of course this gave me an opportunity to play with my new (to me) tripod. (Mom gave me Dad's tripod which is fantastic). For this fun picture I took it with a shutter speed of 3" and ISO 1600. Recently I did some reading about the inverse relationship between the aperature size and the shutter speed. I thought I could just stop down my camera and shorten my shutter speed. Theory is nice isn't it? If you want to get to an f stop of say 2.8, apparently you need to shell out a very significant amount of money for a lens that can do that.

So, until I become independently wealthy, I think I'll stick with a tripod. :)

Where have I been?

This blog has been dormant for a couple weeks, so I thought I would put together a mega post of all our activities since there has been silence on the wire for so long.

We decided to take a Christmas picture for Grammy of all her grandchildren. Wilson was great. Wyatt on the other hand, well, see the smile above. He "no want to say cheese". We tried saying "watermelon" with only slightly better results.

We then visited Toledo for my birthday and for a "meet the baby" party (more pictures). Once everyone had left, Brooke and Aunt Katie got playing a game where Brooke would run but her aunt would hold on to her skirt. Brooke thought this was nearly the funniest thing she's ever been a part of in all of her 21 months.

Later the next morning, ol' Brooke found her nose. :)

Then Nana got some time with both of her granddaughters.

Then presents were broken out, and Mom decided to give to her oldest son all the junk that he never cleaned out of his room. Luckily, I found this sweet pair of sunglasses and a great hat (actually the hat was Dad's, and he looked just as ridiculous in it as I do.)

Friday (the 14th), we had a funeral to attend in Toledo. Doc, Abigail's Grandma's husband, had passed away.

Wilson and Granddad.

Granddad, his siblings, and Grandma Zechman. True to form, Grandma was not looking at the camera.

Later that evening (Friday the 14th), Ab, myself, and Emmaline went back to Mom's house and got to try Tony Packo's Pizza (see bottom left). Actually, this was Vito's pizza, but they partnered with Tony Packo's to make a pizza with Packo's toppings (Packo sauce, Packo sausage sliced on top, cheese, and mustard). I was very skeptical, but it was delicious! Brooke and I decided to snap some shots together while we were at the table.


Finally, tonight was the first night of the first annual Baker-Humphreys Christmas Extravaganza (a two night Christmas extravaganza, no less)! We watched "A Christmas Story" (filmed in Cleveland!). It was great, up until the time Vinnie Barbarino (pictured above) showed up. The kid could not keep his shirt buttoned.

Vinnie was not happy as he departed this evening, tiring day.

Finally, today we found out how fond Emmaline is of our vacuum. She was inconsolable this afternoon, and Abigail had the brilliant idea of running the vacuum to settle her down. Within 3 to 5 seconds of the vacuum being on, she had herself completely calmed down. What a blessing! (HT to the Mowery's for that little trick.)

Emmaline at 3 weeks

Just some random pictures of Emmaline on a recent outing with Mom, Aunt Kristin, & Grammy to a Pampered Chef party.

Also of note, I've decided to create a coterie. Coterie is actually a word that my sister-in-law has been using a lot as of late. I'm not convinced she's using it correctly, but that's besides the point. Now that word is forever linked in my mind to "My Favorite Pictures". Unfortunately, it means:

Coterie (co·te·rie) (kō-tə-(ˌ)rē): an intimate and often exclusive group of persons with a unifying common interest or purpose.

If you squint and clench your teeth a minute, you can see that my favorite pictures are a (very) exclusive group of people with a common interest (me)!

So check back to my coterie often for pictures. Check back here often for complete wastes of time.

At any rate, here is a webalbum of recent pictures. And here is my coterie.