A Bright Christmas

This Christmas was a benchmark for our new family. It was Paxton's first Christmas.

As a family we did several things together including driving around and seeing some pretty incredible Christmas light displays.

Which involves parking the car in front of people's house which is kind of creepy.
 

There was some photo taking of course.

We built a Gingerbread house which is ridiculously harder than it looks.

And of course there were Christmas presents.

He wasn't huge on opening presents, but we were pretty excited about some of his gifts.

Meet the Huckabas

One of my aunts asked that I take some family photos when they came up from Texas for Thanksgiving.

Jessica, Aunt Teri, Uncle Kerry and Caleb

We were planning on going to Hafer Park in Edmond but we took the pictures on Thanksgiving morning, so we didn't have a lot of time.

I wanted to do some shots that weren't so traditional, but there are not a lot of poses for a "grown up" family without getting corny. So, I focused on backgrounds to keep it a bit more modern as opposed to traditional.

It was a lot of fun.

But a reminder of how special family is... Even brothers and sisters.

And of course, Mom and Dad.

It's scary how fast he's growing

Paxton has survived his first Halloween. And for someone who will have no memory of it he sure was in costume and making lots of visits. It all started with some family pumpkin carving.

And as expected, Caitlynne took lots of pictures of him (let's hope that a study doesn't come out that announces health defects because of overexposure to being in front of a camera).

And of course we dressed him up for Halloween.

He was a pumpkin...

Actually that wasn't his costume. Since he rolls around and tries to chew on paper and eats whatever is put in front of him without question, what would be more appropriate?

He got to hang out with his friends where there was more exploitation of children in costumes.

Paxton, Dean and Grayson

We also do a work Halloween party where everyone's kids get to come up to the office.

I was Merlin.

Look at the future ad man.

Little late - 6 month pictures

This is coming in a bit late, but we finally got his 6 month pictures taken. Caitlynne and I took Paxton to Hafer Park in Edmond.

He wasn't in the best mood for it. The poor guy has some Miller sinuses going on. He's been stopped up and coughing all weekend. But despite being sick, he was smiling as usual.

And other times, not so much.

But for the most part, he was smiling. That's what happens when his Mom courageously sings "If you're hapy and you know it" in public.

And if her singing wasn't enough it may take a little dancing.

He even did some dramatic faces for us. Here is Paxton's "I have my whole life ahead of me" face.

Here is his "I need some alone time" face.

Here's his "I want to eat this grass" face

After all of his hard modeling work, it was time to just sit back and take it all in.

Here are the rest of the photos from this shoot. To see these, and more photos of Paxton (and other things believe it or not) visit my Flickr page.

Time for bed

As I continue to grow as a photographer I am finding that I enjoy candid portraits. In school I never got to the portrait classes. Of course, Paxton has been my subject a majority of the time.

Thumb in mouth - Bear in sight

We have found that Paxton doesn't always just go straight to sleep when he's put in his crib.

Foot in the mouth

He typically lays there, talks to his toys and rolls over to stare at his mobile.

Not going to be asleep any time soon

He adores his beautiful mom and handsome dad.

Hey, I know them

And when the lights go out it's not much different.

I am their sunshine. They can't get enough of me

And then he starts fighting sleep.

This actually isn't a long process. He usually is out withing 10 minutes of being put down.

To see more photos from Paxton's sleep schedule, see my Flickr page.