I posted Shayla's senior images on Facebook quit a while back .  Like November 2011 a while back. Sadly, this session and several others have been camping out on a hard drive just waiting to see the light of day here on the blog. The holidays came, and our little girl was experiencing so many milestones that blog publishing took a back seat for a few months.  Even more sad is that Shayla is extended family.  Zoinks, Shaggy, you think that'd give her some kinda priority.  Guess I've been an equal opportunity procrastinator. Anyway, the other day I got her graduation open house announcement in the mail, and that was a little kick in the pants I needed to get these images posted here.  Her and her mom and my aunt came down to Texas from Ohio one weekend, so we wondered around the Deep Ellum Arts District in downtown Dallas before heading out to historic downtown McKinney the next.  Here's a few of the images we came away with.

Hey, a family session on the blog!  I know, crazy, right?  I've been terrible about blogging lately (and by lately I mean since Saige was born over a year ago), and I've got some sessions that are months old that I still haven't blogged, but I'm making a pseudo commitment to myself to be better about posting here. We'll see if it sticks, but here goes... I love photographing the Moores. Seriously.  They are so easy going and fun, and we always have a good time at our sessions.  The first time I photographed them, there were only 4 Moores. Then in late 2010 they added one Moore. [I see you rolling you're eyes at my clever use of the name Moore]  And now that little JP (or "Gippy" as mom and dad call him because, being the 3rd child, he gets gipped out of some things) is a little older, it was time to update the family artwork on the walls with new images.  We met up at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve for a mostly chigger-free session before they headed off to Disney World with the kiddos. BTW, before I get to the images, I need to apologize to the men in this family. I can't tell you how many times in the middle of all the action at the session I mixed up their names.  You'd think this being the 3rd session we've done, that I would have them down by now, but in all fairness, they don't make it easy on you with names like JC (dad), RJ (oldest son), and JP (youngest son). I'm sure I threw in a couple PJs, RCs, CJs and JRs while I was at it. Sorry guys. I'll have it down by our next session... unless you have another son/brother by then. [grin] Here's some of the images from our session.

These next 2 images were the last two things I saw before I took a soccer ball square in the lens. My fault. At 5 years old I thought surely his aim wasn't that good yet.  It wasn't until afterwards when the blood was trickling down the side of my eye that his dad informed me that oh-by-the-way RJ plays soccer year round.

Cassidy could be a superstar child model. Seriously.

I posted this image on Facebook shortly after the session because it made me laugh. This is what family life really looks like. I didn't even know until JC and Maureen came in to view their images yesterday that the reason Cassidy initially laid on her back was because she didn't want the grass to touch her legs. Feakin' hilarious.

Love this.

The thing I really like about this image is that one day little Cassidy is gonna grow up and get married, but this image tells the story about how her daddy will always be her first love.

Cassidy spots mountain bikers on the bike trail coming their way!

Had a contest with RJ to see who could go the longest without smiling. I won.

The great thing about the next couple images is how much the kids will treasure when they're grown,

I'm fine. I'm not fine. I'm fine. I'm not fine...

Today is a big day for us. Not only is it Easter and my dad's birthday, but it's also our little girl's first birthday. I love her beyond the words I could put here on a page, and it's very difficult to imagine a life without her now.  Not a lot of words today... just a lot of images.  Here's a quick trip through Saige's first year in 4 minutes.

My wife, like a multitude of others, is unofficially a Pinterestaholic.  And the only reason it's "unofficial" is because Dr. Phil hasn't yet come out and explicitly said there is such a thing.  It's only a matter of time, though. Perhaps I should actually thank Pinterest.  It got my to do what nothing else has for a month and a half now... a blog post.  My blog thanks you, Pinterest.  And it thanks my wife, too.  She wanted a way to measure and document our kid(s) height(s) in a way that we can take with us whenever we leave this house. [For those reading between the lines and wondering what "kid(s)" means, number 2 is not on the way yet... just planning ahead.] So, after a quick search of Pinterest, my wife found several examples of oversized rulers as growth charts.  And then came the honey-do look in her eyes, and that's where I enter the scene stage right.  After a quick assessment of skill-level required to do our own ruler, I was confident - even with my, ahem, underwhelming handy-man skills, - that this is something I could do.  And for extra credit, we wanted to Pottery Barn-ize our version by sprucing up the numbers a bit.  Easy peasy... instead of painting them on, we just went out and bought some decent looking brushed metal finish house numbers. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I did have a little issue when sanding the 2nd coat of polyurethane where it fogged over a bit.  Still not sure why, but it wasn't terrible and it was hard to notice unless you got it in just the right light.  It does kinda bug me that something like that happens at almost the very end after all the work I put in on it, but I'd rather just try to ignore my perferctionist tendencies than start over and have to tape off those God-forsaken tick marks again. Anyway, here it is in it's final (for now) resting place in the kitchen.  And keep on reading below if you're interested in the process and wanna make your own.

Trust me.... if I can do this, surely you or any other 4th grade shop student can.  The biggest thing you need is patience.  If you're like me, I love instant gratification on projects like this, and I have a tendency to wanna rush the waiting/curing times a bit and move on to the next step.  Patience, grasshopper. Anyway, this is what I started with... a pre-cut 6' trim/molding board from Home Depot.  I had planned on having to find buy a larger piece of wood, cut it down, and sand it before I could do anything else, so I was pleasantly surprised to find this score.

The next step was to lightly sand the edges of the board to soften them up a bit since they were pretty sharp when I bought the piece of wood.

After sanding, I wiped down the board to get rid of the dust from sanding and then applied a coat of stain.  I used the "Jacobean Bean" color because I wanted something darker and a little more sophisticated.

The next stage was the worst part of the whole process.  I tried to think of every shortcut I could think of to make quick work of the tick marks, but in the end I knew I wouldn't be happy if they didn't look good.  I'm sure there's probably an easier way to do them, and if you know of one, I'm not sure I even want you to tell me because I don't wanna be annoyed by how much time I might've been able to save.  I used a ruler and a pencil to mark off tick marks at every inch and then drew each tick mark on the board with pencil. Then I used painter's tape and masked off the edge of the board exposing only the areas I wanted to paint. I'm not gonna lie... total beat-down.  I wish the NCAA men's championship game woulda been a little more exciting to distract me from the monotony of taping.

Next up, painting!  I chose an oil-based glossy black paint to make sure I got a durable finish that would stand out enough against the dark stain color. I put on 2 coats, and let dry overnight.

After letting the paint dry, I removed the tape (tons more fun than putting it on), and brushed on the first thin coat of polyurethane for a protective sealant.  I let it dry for about 4 hours, and then lightly sanded the board with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the rouch texture of the polyurethane and then wiped the board with a damp cloth to remove the dust.  Everything looked great at that point.  I wanted to put one more light coat on for a little extra protection against anything the kiddos might try and do to it, and this is where things got a little hairy.  I used the same exact process to apply the 2nd coat of polyurethane as I did the first one, but this time when I sanded the second coat and wiped it down, I got some fogging over parts of the board. Boooooo.   At this point I had 3 choices.  1) Dial down my anal perfectionist inner voice and let it ride as is.  2) Try to fix the fogging with some kind of ad-hoc, cross-my-fingers-and-hope-this-doesn't-ruin-everything rework process. 3) Start over.  Option 2 got eliminated pretty quickly after talking with a couple people about how I could and most-likely could not easily fix it.  Option 3?  Pffft... Not gonna happen.  I'd rather light my hair on fire and then throw gasoline on it before having to do all those tick marks again.  Sooo... option 1 it was.  And rather than call the slight fogging in a couple places defects, I'm calling them character.  Besides, they really are hardly noticeable once you get them the board outta the sunlight.

The last step was to attach the brushed nickel house numbers to the board and hang it.  The numbers were self adhesive, so... bonus!  I marked the board 3/4" from the opposite edge of the tick marks for my baseline for each of the numbers to make sure they lined up.

And voila!  Here's a closer shot of the final product after hanging it in the kitchen.

I think each year where going to put a small image of each kiddo on the board at the location designating their height for that year.  And I'm also marking my height on the board this year when I turn 40... so I can see if I've started shrinking yet.