Donna Harris Photography

Walking, Talking, and just plain Gettin’ into Mischief makes months 9 – 11 so much more fun!

Welcome back! If you’ve been following along, this week I’ve been sharing Milo’s 1st year of life. His birthday is coming up and I wanted to show off some of his cute moments.

 

Since Milo’s birthday, I’ve taken a photo every day. I’ve had people say, “Surely, you haven’t been with him every day for a whole year… What do you do on those days?”
You’re right. I’ve made pretty creative choices when we aren’t together. Either way, it’s always about making memories and telling the story of his young life.

This was when we went to Florida for our anniversary and we made a Skype call back home to the boys!

Here he is with his favorite plush animals. As you’ve been reading along this week, you’ve seen the monkey and his ‘backup’ is the doggie. I’m very thankful for that backup as sometimes we leave the monkey behind at Grammie’s house!

One of Roman’s favorite things to do is to crawl into Milo’s crib and play with him just after Milo has woken up from a nap.

And sometimes, if we don’t get there quickly enough, he takes ALL of his stuffed animals and throws them onto the floor in protest.

While we’re on the subject of toys, these toys dance, sing, and talk. I don’t know what it is about talking toys that freak kids out but Roman was always scared of Wubbzy (right) and now Milo is freaked out by Brobee (left). You can see Roman sympathizes with Milo’s fears as he is trying to console him while I cruelly just take a photo of it all.

 

First time in a forward facing carseat!  

The kid hardley ever, EVER wears shoes.

Exploring…

Peek a Boo!

 

When he’s finished with his food, he raises his arms and says, “All Done!”

What a doll-baby with his bottle. I’ve shared my feelings on this before. So strange for me to have a child that holds his own bottle!

 

 

Out of the 365 days that I’ve taken a photo, this is truly one of my favorites. This is Milo and all his cousins playing with bubbles at Grammie’s house.

Smush face!

 

In case you were wondering, we do ‘fizzy tub colors’.  ….That’s why the bath is pink. 😉

 So we’ve pretty much caught up to this “not- so- little- anymore” baby’s first year.

I’m getting teary-eyed to think that it’s just days away from his birthdate and he’s growing so fast!

Hello Again!

Milo is growing right before your eyes this week. As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, this week is dedicated to Milo since we’ll be celebrating his 1st birthday in just a few short days. As part of my efforts to take a photo everyday for 365 days, I’ve captured some really fun Milo moments. 

 In the second installment of Milo’s Birth-week, today you’ll enjoy photos from Milo’s life during 5 months to 8 months old. This period of babyhood means all sorts of fun things like teething, sitting up, crawling, and first foods!

So here’s a disclaimer: This is my real life, my real house, and we don’t have a maid. IGNORE the dirt, the clutter, and the messy kitchen.

Hopefully the cute smiling face is a big enough distraction.

Teething means chewing on anything within reach…even socks.

Milo has always loved stuffed animals. For awhile, he really loved this yellow cartoon giraffe looking thing. (There was a

family argument about WHAT the animal actually was, we settled on giraffe.)

…But currently he loves sleeping with his monkey. He’ll be sure to make another appearance later this week.

 

Look how he used to hold himself up. He’d bend his little hand backwards just like a gorilla.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Airplane!

Daddy’s up to his tricks again!

 

Yes, he’s under there. 1st of all it’s February. Secondly, it was the best way to put him to sleep and keep him asleep when

we were going out. Most of the time, sadly, this is what my friends would see when we’d meet for playdates. Roman played

with his buddies while “little bits” slept in his carseat.

Doesn’t his sleeper remind you of sweetpea?

Oh, how’d this one get in here?! Not a Milo highlight but just too darn cute not to share!

That tongue. I loved that little tongue. He’d run his tongue in and out of his mouth. I’m sure his gums were just itchin’ for some teeth to come out.

On the move!

Love those baby back wrinkles!

Crawling means there’s all new things to discover…

…and stairs to climb.

Grandma Judy and Grandpa Don

One of the many funny ways he would  pass out in his crib…

The joys of baby food

Yesterday we ended at Christmas, so today, why not Easter? Thanks for taking the time to enjoy one of the biggest joys of my life!

If you hate reading about my personal life, or think I show off my kids photos too much, and get tired of me sharing intimate things like breastfeeding or changing poopy diapers… I’m warning you:

Stop. Reading. Now.

My baby boy’s 1st birthday is coming up! Since he’s been born, I’ve taken a photo every day. Yes. EVERY day. Now I’m going through all my photos trying to figure how to best present his first year in print. I thought I wanted to do a photobook that compiled every day but then I think I want to be able to add text and stories to it. Then I thought maybe a magazine spread of just 365 photos with no words would be fun. But I’m having a hard time. I mean, do I just dedicate this year to Milo? No, I can’t do that. So do I just do a year of our family and print out several so that as the kids get older they can each own their own book? I’m not quite sure yet. When I figure it out, I’ll let you know. (or if you’ve got suugestions, comment below – just don’t give me any scrapbooking ideas – I HATE HATE HATE scrapbooking with a passion!) As usual, I’m doing things last minute so I quite haven’t gotten my final project figured out but I’m learning quickly what to do for the next time around and what NOT to do… But I’ll save all that for another post.

Anyway, as I’ve been going through the editing procsess for these photos, smiling as I travel down memory lane, I just can’t help but share Milo’s last year with you. Since that would be one long HUGE blog post, I’ve decided to dedicate this week to Milo’s first year of life. I’ve selected photos for his first few months for this post (which will still be a pretty huge post – so get comfy).

How quickly a baby grows from months 1-4!

 

This photo was the day before Milo arrived, the night I headed into the hospital. I had been in labor a few hours when this photo was taken. It was our last photo of our family of 3 (and a half – if you count my belly!).

 

And now a family of 4…   

– photo by Kelly Manno –

– photo by Kelly Manno –

Just minutes old. My squishy little man. The first thing I said when I held him was, “Hello Squish! You look like Danny DeVito!”

 

 

Those early days of just lounging around with a newborn are. the. best.

And all the fears of how Roman was going to accept his new little brother were quickly removed during moments like this…

 

First Bath at home

 

Visit To Great-Grandpa’s

Jasmine Star’s first CreativeLive seminar happened the weekend we got home from the hospital.

Do you think she’d be honored or disturbed that I am this dedicated?

 

 

Time with Grammie and Pa-Pa

 

 

Wrapped up in Daddy’s T-Shirt

Cradle Cap          …Christopher thought it was gross. I guess Milo thought it was funny! 

Speaking of Christopher, he loves using Milo as a source of tricks and goofs.

Like “Look I can stand and balance on Dad’s leg!”

and

“Hi, Mom, would you believe I just walked up all these stairs by myself at 3 weeks old!?”

This Sound Machine has worked wonders! However, Milo has always been an awesome sleeper so it makes me wonder if that’s just the way kids are born or if parents have anything to do with it. We did not have this luxury with Roman. But we were also very high-strung parents that didn’t allow the natural progression of sleep with our firstborn. While Milo loves sleep, Roman abhorrs it!

A sleeping baby makes parenting a million times better!

I have said many times, “If I could put in an order for 20 little babies that LOVE sleep, I’d do it in a heartbeat!” 🙂

Is it just because I’m a hairstylist that I love this “baby spike” so much or do you enjoy it too?

 

Getting Bigger! 

 

Sometimes a boppy makes a great pillow.

 

 

 

 

Taking care of the family: Is there anything sexier than this?! 🙂

 

I’ve had many people ask how I did this shot:

Simply put, I raked some leaves and brought them inside.

That’s right, this is our bedroom floor.

 

 

Oh Baby! Are you still here? We’ve made it to Christmas but that’s only four months old.

If you stick around, later this week you’ll see Milo’s growth from little roly baby to crawling, eating, smiling munchkin.