Little Jack Corcoran :: One Year Baby Pictures - Covington GA

It is always so surreal to me how fast time passes between maternity sessions and their little offspring turning one. It honestly feels just like yesterday I was taking pictures of little Jack in utero and now he's a year old. 

He is seriously a pretty little boy. Not just cute or handsome, but downright pretty. 

I know that is an adjective normally reserved only for girls but in some cases it is more than applicable to boys as well. See for yourself:

 I LOVE little dimpled hands. . .

 He was very much enamored with the color yellow during our session.

 See what I mean? PRETTY!

 Love this one a LOT!

 I brought this cool abacus along to see how it would work out. I like the result. . .

and as you can see, he again is drawn to the color yellow. Too cute.

Mommy and Gabby joined for a few images.

 What an adorable little expression.

 Yellow. . .nuff said.

 I was sitting in his way as we was cruising around and he gave me this look. Priceless!

 An absolute and complete favorite. EVERY mother should have an image like this with her child.

Now I really do love portrait images like the one above but I would be hard pressed to say which I like more, images like above or images like what are coming next. . .

 I adore when I am let into someone's home to document a little piece of their everyday life.

 This one makes me giggle inside. I love Spencer's big ol' grin.

Gabby and Jack have a very special relationship. His mom firmly believes that one of the reasons he walked so early was because he wanted to get to Gabby. She is one of the sweetest dogs with him. Jack pulls on her and gets on top of her and she just takes it. It is rare and wonderful to find a dog like that.

 Heehee!

 And the mom is pretty darn gorgeous too! 

The look of happiness on her face from watching her son makes me very happy.

See what I mean by capturing a little piece of their everyday life?

I think Jack wants some more, what about you?

 Seriously? Too cute for words. . .

 He was a happy camper one millisecond later. . .honestly. I am just glad that mom likes unhappy face pictures as much as I do. She totally understood me snapping this shot.

One thing that moms worried about me coming into their homes need to realize is that most every home looks great in black and white. ;D Seriously, and even though the images will be a little grainy and sometimes even slightly out of focus, I think they are priceless memories.

 Just like this one. What a happy little guy wandering around in nothing but his diaper. Wish I was unabashedly happy as he was in his skivvies.

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Challenges of Motherhood

Being a mother is a lot more challenging and plain out HARDER than I ever thought it would be. A baby is a walk in the park compared to when they get to be around 6-7 years old in MY book. I will not make this blog post a list of all of the things I have found challenging in the past year. . .

Instead, I will discuss one thing that has been a thorn in mine and Spencer's side. Teaching Liam how to ride a bike.

{{SIGH}}

Now I will admit that I had my own challenges when learning to ride a bike. But, honestly, those challenges came once my training wheels were off the bike. Hmmmm, whereas Liam's have come from the time he started riding a tricycle.

First, his legs were too short, then it was just too hard for him to push the pedals, then his legs were too long for a trike and they kept hitting the handlebars.

Okay, then he inherited a bike from a good buddy of his. Spencer and I went out and got training wheels to put on it. Somehow he never could ride it though. I don't blame him on that one though. I tried riding it myself and the pedals really seemed stuck.

(Feel free to go ahead and picture me on a kid's bike now)

NEXT, I tried him on a bike at Wal-Mart to see if the situation were hopeless.

He rode it fine. Good news. So my mom and dad got him the bike he wanted for a gift

on Spencer's and my wedding anniversary.

Well. . .my dear, dear, DEAR boy has fears. Fears that his Transformer helmet and shoulder and knee pads can't seem to fend off. This could be because I made the mistake of letting him ride it one time without the knee pads and he scraped his knee. Or it could be due to my misguided effort to make him feel better about falling by telling him about my own war wound.

When I had learned to ride my bike I had issues making U-turns while riding. Instead, I would stop the bike, turn it around, and then keep going. Well, one day I thought I had conquered this inability and decided to show my dad. Well, let's just say my U-turn was more like an L-turn. . .right into a tree. Long story short, one trip to the emergency room, eight stitches, and about 20 years later I am fine and have a fine scar to show for it. But the important thing is I survived.

(I also didn't ride my bike again for years after that, at which time I got stung by a paper wasp that had built its nest under my seat,

but I left that part out of the story to Liam)

Unfortunately, the only thing Liam got from this story was that I fell and hurt myself badly and he does NOT want that to happen to him.

Inadvertently I made it more challenging to teach him to ride a bike.

{{SIGH}}

I guess the point that I need to take away from this experience is that if I don't want him to give up on learning to ride his bike then I don't need to give up on helping him get over his fears. . .but that is such a difficult thing to do when it takes time and patience that I don't necessarily possess in abundance. But aren't the things that end up being the most precious also the things that take the most out of us?

I'll leave that question up in the air and share with you some images of one of the times Spencer and I took Liam out riding.

Doesn't he look thrilled?

Spencer doing what he can to motivate him as well as assure him that he is always there in case he should call. I married a great guy. :)

One of the few times I caught him smiling.

Just look at the determination in his shoulders and his whole posture in this shot. Love it.

His expression in the middle shot just kills me. . .in a good way.

By this time, he was somewhat getting the hang of things and quite happy about it.

Thanks for listening. :D

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Motherhood :: Covington Georgia Family Photography

Being a mother is hard. Especially when your child is SO much like you in so many ways and not in so many others. My poor boy talks too much just like I did (and do) and has my stomach issues and says the most random unexplainable things out of the blue that makes you wonder just how his mind works and struggles with math. Ask my mom and dad, just like me at his age. . .and sometimes even now.

One way that he is not like me is his timidity in standing up for his religion. This is his first year being the only one of Jehovah's Witnesses in his class. It's a new experience for him and I didn't realize that.

He was telling us about how on the first day of school each student had to tell the others some unique things about themselves. He told his name and that his favorite book was "How to Train Your Dragon" and a few other things. Innocently, I asked him if he told them he was one of Jehovah's Witnesses since that is pretty unique.

"NO! I didn't just want to blurt that out."

"Well, honey, it wouldn't have been blurting it out since you were telling them things about yourself."

"Oh."

After a few more minutes of talking, I realized something.

"Liam, are you scared of telling them?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I'm the only one out of 23 students in the class!"

That's when I really thought about it and realized that this is a whole new experience for him. And it scares him. And that's how he's not like me. I was bold from a very early age about my religion. One of my friends from childhood's favorite memory of me is when she first met me in first grade and she was new in the area and also one of Jehovah's Witnesses. We were in the same class and sitting in a group discussing birthdays and I stood right up and said, "Heidi and I don't do that! We're Jehovah's Witnesses."

That same boldness carried on as I progressed in school. I argued...ahem...debated evolution with my atheist biology substitute teacher and brought my Bible to school as some classmates and I would have lengthy discussions in the school cafeteria. When kids teased me, I took it in stride and never really let it bother me.

Every day Liam talks to me about how awesome Jehovah is for creating the bugs and the flowers and everything so I never thought he would be timid in school. Now, I am just going to have to focus on helping him understand that if he truly believes in what we teach him from the Bible that courage is needed to tell others the things he is learning. That it's okay to be afraid but it's even more important to rely on Jehovah to conquer that fear.

Below is a picture that I found on one of my recent visits home of my friend from childhood whom Facebook has reconnected me with. We stayed close growing up even when we moved physically apart and I was in her wedding but then, as it often goes in life, we drifted apart. Facebook is good for some things. ;)

Since this last week was my last week before I get braces on for the next two years, I had a last-minute hair-brained scheme and was bound and determined to get some images of me with my loved ones. This started with setting up the tripod at the beach for a few family shots (which I will show you guys soon although they aren't the best) and then the Wednesday before I got them on, Spencer and I took Liam to a local park to practice riding his bike and to also get some fun shots of him and me as mother and son. Not to mention, let Spencer get some practice in. ;)

We started out goofy. . .

. . .then got really sweet.

I do believe I am in love with this shot.

These next two as well, but the top one especially, I absolutely love.

I think it's pretty safe to say that Spencer did a pretty durn good job, at least in my estimation.

I couldn't let things go without a little tickle action. :D

I absolutely love this location, however, it turned out to have quite a number of ants and we found the longer we stayed in a particular spot the more ants gravitated towards us. Very much NOT cool. I still have war wounds.

Spencer couldn't let things go without getting a few shots of

me by myself so I obliged. . .for once.

The second shot here is completely unposed.

I was stretching out as I like to do and Spencer still shot.

I think I look kinda funny, but it's one of Spencer's favorites so I included it on here.

At this point, Liam was very much tired of looking out for and avoiding ants and was ready to be done with the impromptu photo session.

For family pictures of your own, contact me or visit online to see more family pictures I've shot. . .