Sunday, July 7, 2013

Some of my favorites

Kami is a wonderful photographer. So wonderful, in fact, that you should give her money to take pictures for you. Here are a few of my favorite photos from 2013:

January:


















February:


















March:


















April:


















May:


















June:

Date Night

Note: I know how shamefully behind I am in the mission of this blog. I'll do better. Maybe. 

For the first time since Emsley was born, Kami and I had the opportunity to go on a date night on Friday. Our friends Katie and Josh came over after Emsley went to bed and hung out while Kami and I went to go see Joe Firstman play his excellent album - "The War of Women" - in its entirety live at 3rd & Lindsley here in Nashville.

Now, a quick update: Emsley has been sleeping through the night since she was six weeks old. I know, for the most part, that this has nothing to do with our skills as parents and more to do with the grace of God. But she has fallen into this thing where, no matter what time she goes to bed, she wakes up between 5:30 and 6:00am. I am a morning person, but it would be awfully fun to sleep until...I don't know...maybe 7am once in a while.

So Kami and I head into Nashville. The doors are to open at 9pm, with the show starting at 9:30pm. During soundcheck I immediately thought, "Hm. I should have brought ear plugs. This is too loud," which is the most obvious sign I'm getting old - more so than the creaky left knee or the nose hair that I have to beat back with a pair of rusted garden shears every other morning.

Of course the first act didn't come on until 10pm. The second act came on at 10:30pm (everyone does need to check out John Wesley Satterfield). And then Joe Firstman came on at 11pm...and played for two solid hours.

The concert was over at 1am and, after some dawdling after the show, we were home by 1:30am. Emsley - who has not awakened in the middle of the night in at least five months - had a meltdown at 11:30pm, further enraged by the fact that neither Kami and I were there when Katie brought her in to the living room. After an hour she fell back asleep, and of course Kami and I felt awful.

Off to bed we went at 2:15, hoping that the hour-long meltdown in the middle of the night might buy us an extra 45 minutes of sleep. But HAHA HAHAHAHAAAA. Emsley was up at 5:45.

I volunteered to stay up and feed her and play with her because, you know, I'm a sweetheart and also, a mountain stage in the Tour de France. I'm so Eurotrash. (I'm watching it now, instead of taking a nap).

We were able to go back to sleep - twice - yesterday, meaning that it took two naps to recover. Oh but we haven't recovered. Kami and I both feel like we got hit by a truck.

Today is Birthday Sunday at Otter Creek, as Thursday is her first birthday. Emsley woke up at - surprise - 5:45, had some formula (which we have been phasing out as she is eating a wide variety of things. Yesterday we debuted bacon, nitrate-free of course, and she looked at us as though to say, "Why has it taken this long for you to teach me about this wonderful meat?"), ate some yogurt and bananas, and is now asleep. I'll have pictures later.

Speaking of pictures: