Oh My - How they Grow!

I remember being 16 and complaining to my Dad about how slllooooowwwwlly time passes and how I wish it would pass faster. Where I was off to in a rush or why I wanted things to hurry up and happen? ... Who knows. It obviously wasn't important enough for me to remember. What I do remember is my Dad telling me that one day I will wish time to stand still, or at least to put on the brakes, so I should just enjoy. At the time, I thought my Dad was just being a parent and not being understanding. It was only with time and age that I began to understand how wise my Dad really was (still is) and how true what he said was. I don't know where the past 14 years went. Sometimes it feels like I was only 16 a few years ago - 

Time flew by in college, the years of life after college in my early-mid 20s, getting engaged, married.... but never has time moved as fast as it has these past 8 months. And now that I'm a bit wiser, I know that it will only move even faster, impossible as it may seem. 

It has been amazing to see how much Aidan has grown these 8 months, with his 1st birthday approaching quickly. Before I know it, he will be 16 and complaining to me about how time moves so slowly and my turn to share with him the wise words of his granddad. 

And here are some images that inspired this blog post and more wishes from me for time to slow down...just a wee bit:

And my favorite:

Aidan's 6 month photo shoot w/ Monica Wharton

And she does it again...Monica took some beautiful photos for us to commemorate Aidan being half-a-year old!

There were so many taken that we want to share so we created a slideshow. Check it out:

Munchkin with the Pumpkins

Mark and I were so excited to take Aidan to a pumpkin patch this past Sunday! We were much more excited than Aidan was and went a bit overboard with the photo-taking. It was tough to get Aidan to look at the camera and even tougher to smile...there were too many wheel-barrows and running tots that captured his attention. Here are a few of many:






Trying to get both Aidan and I to look at the camera and smile at the same time was impossible:



Gotta love the facial expressions:




Aidan was much more interested in trying to move the pumpkins:

Aidan at the Airshow

Every year in the beginning of October, the roaring sounds of the F18s rattling the windows of San Francisco's skyscrapers, marks the start of Fleet Week and the arrival of the Blue Angels. The San Francisco Bay - their practicing grounds before the weekend show. Die hard fans who are lucky enough to work in the Financial District, bring their binoculars and cameras with the uber-lenses to work the Friday before the air show to watch the pre-show from their office windows. My husband is one of these fans.

Mark has been dragging me to these air shows since we met, now that we're married, I have no choice. :-) I have never seen Mark so excited about any one event than the yearly Angels air show! (I think my being from the Pensacola area - home of the Blue Angels - was really what sealed the deal...as far as Mark proposing). Aidan...ah, Aidan...he has absolutely no choice! Aidan did really well for being out all day long. He was able to make eye contact with the planes and watch some of their acrobats. And the deafening engine roars didn't scare him at all. Here are a couple of photos from his very first of many...many...maaany shows to come.




You can't see them that well - but in the pictures above, the planes are behind Aidan (these were actually the Snowbirds from Canada). Mark was trying to capture the perfect shot of the planes in the background and Aidan in the foreground.

Below, he's watching intently as Dad describes what's going on:






Trying to lessen the loud roaring sounds:



Has had enough:

Aidan discovers the pantry!

I was in the kitchen this morning making my coffee - I turned away for a quick minute and Aidan had pried the door open to our pantry cabinet and was in search of something...turns out he knew exactly what he was looking for! I had to get it on camera.






And off he goes....

Mmm, mmmm, pickles!

Mark and I grabbed a burger at our local burger joint in Alameda on Sunday, with Aidan in tow. As usual - Aidan was much more interested in what we were eating than his baby food. Since he started eating solids we've had so much fun introducing new foods to him and occasionally letting him taste "adult" foods (Grandpa Bell started it all when we went to visit him in Florida). Aidan really isn't really a picky eater though he does favor fruits of any kind to his peas and squash. He won't go near any kind of meat that comes in a jar... and since I won't go near one after the 1st time I opened the jar, these don't count. They are so disgusting you can't even count them as food. Of the various "grown-up" foods we've introduced Aidan's favorite was watermelon. He could never get enough...today's experience surpassed that. Today it is all about the pickle!

Back to our lunch at Burgermeister - Mark had Aidan try the tomato and the onion that was supposed to go in his burger, while he liked both, he loved the pickle most. Once he got a taste, he was hooked! We didn't have a camera with us so we asked for a few pickles to go... pictures are worth a thousand words so here you go (by the way - for those curious, I never craved pickles):





Like father, like son:

The Early Days

As Aidan and I took our walk today, we ran into a new mom with a brand new baby. What a cute, little "blob" he was! We started to talk and she told me she couldn't wait for her baby to be more active and awake ... I chuckled and told her I remembered feeling that way when Aidan was a week old, now I sometimes find myself wishing I had those early days back - an inactive 'blob' he is not! "Enjoy him in each stage," I said - my unsolicited advise... "as they say, 'they all grow up so fast'."

I came home and had to look at the old photos of Aidan from his days at the hospital ... I can't believe he's gotten this big! Only 7 and a half months ago, but in a sense, I can barely remember him being that little.





And of course, I had to look at the photos from our newborn photo shoot with Monica Wharton when Aidan was a week old. What a fun and nerve-wracking morning that was! I remember feeling so "new" about everything baby-related.

Backtracking

Mark and I recently bought a new Mac and we are in love! Just the boost we needed to get our photos organized, videos uploaded, etc. Seems silly that we needed to make this purchase to stop our procrastination but the new programs on Mac do make the projects we want to do much easier and thereby more fun!

In getting started with our various projects, today I went through a bunch of photos trying to organize them and realized there were a lot of past events that we should have shared but haven't yet because we were late to get started in the blogging game. So the next couple of blog posts will be dedicated to highlighting various events in the past seven/eight months. I'll start by sharing a couple of maternity photos we had taken by an amazing photographer...Monica Wharton. These photos were taken in January of this year...although only 8 months ago - it feels a lifetime away. It was fun relooking at these!