So Sunday was spent getting to know our new little man. Our friends the Aczels came by with their cute-as-a-button daughter Arden, and Amy’s maid of honor and longtime friend Laura Najarian also dropped in before work yesterday. Noah continues to develop his personality, and seems to be enjoying his first hours on this green earth. Looks like tomorrow will be ‘going home day.’
So from what I can tell from his Flickr posting, my good friends Christopher and Erin Gibbons welcomed their daughter Lily into the world around 3am today in NYC. She’s a cute one, weighing in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces! Congratulations to the happy family. Click here for a slideshow of Chris’ photos.
Update below from Christopher:
We welcomed Lillian into the world this morning at 2:53am. Mom and baby are doing well. Both are a little pooped, but in good health. Lilly weighed in at 8 lbs 12 oz. and is just over 20 inches. Erin was amazing and I can’t say enough how proud I am of her. She and I are both so excited, and can’t wait to introduce Lily to everyone.
With Amy pulling seven gigs in three days, I 
was Mr. Mom, and looking for things to entertain Sammy. On Saturday, we headed out with Sam’s future wife and his parents to a ‘u-pick-’em’ strawberry farm near McDonough, GA. With flavor you just don’t get from supermarket specimens, and at $8.50 a bucket (around 5 pounds worth), it was well worth it. And Sammy and Sophie had an absolute blast. There is a great website (Atlanta-area farms here) that catalogs all these self-picking farms across the country - we plan to hit the blueberry and fig farms later this summer. And maybe then Sam will get to see Old McDonald - he kept asking for him! We finished the day with a wonderful lunch (shrimp and grits, mmm) at a cute place in McDonough called Truman’s - well worth the visit. More photos of the outing are here. (Photo at right of Sam’s hand with a strawberry by my friend Joel Silverman, photographer extraordinaire. See his site here).
Our neighbor’s cute-as-a-button daughter celebrated her first birthday in style this weekend. The kids had an absolute blast, including beating on the most durable pinata I’ve ever seen. That monster took at least 50 hits before giving up the goods. Click here for more photos from the party.
Our friends held a joint party for their 2-year-old daughters, Shoshanah and Amelia, who welcomed all their friends for a messy party involving bubbles, fingerpaint, potting soil and play-dough. Thank goodness it was indoors - the weather turned cold and windy Sunday. As you can see, Sam threw himself into the event with gusto, turning a cupcake into a vehicle for frosting. He was a big fan of the ‘decorate your own cupcake’ table and spent much of his time there. More photos are here.
This sweet little girl is Heather Hutmacher, the oh-so-cute daughter of our dear friends Warren and Emily. I took a portrait of her in this outfit for Emily to give to Warren as a V-Day present. Sorry about the day-late-posting. More pics from the shoot are here.
Tags: friends, Photography
So today will feature a fast update as I’ve been too darn busy with work to post any updates for some time now. Please check out these galleries, and I promise to be back soon with more and more frequent content posts.
In my most recent photo set, we headed out for a walk to the neighborhood playground with Sam in tow this past Sunday. More pictures here.
We hosted a small get-together for the Super Bowl, and Sam was gung-ho for all the action. He, like dad, is sad that we have at least another six months before we can watch football on the tube again. Click here for more photos.
On a recent sunny but chilly day, we headed to Zoo Atlanta with the Silvermans. Check out all the photos, especially this one of a lion’s breath visible as he roars from atop his habitat.
We also finally renewed our membership to the Georgia Aquarium. The pass now allows us to get in without a reservation, and is a big improvement over last year’s system. Sam and Amy have already gone several times during the day - perfect for the cold months here. Anyway, we had a great time on this visit - photos here.
Here’s a cute picture of Kate and Jay Sandhaus’ little guy, Alex. We got together for dinner a few weeks back at the local kid-friendly hangout Dakota Blue. Alex slept most of the time, but his parents were much more alert, even at the end of a long week on a Friday night. More pics here.
Finally, there is this picture from early January and a few others when Sam decided he wanted to play along with Daddy on the Xbox360. Smart little guy - I look forward to years of getting my butt kicked by his much better reflexes than my own!
Tags: aquarium, atlanta, friends, Photography, sam, xbox360, Zoo
Here’s to a healthy, safe, joyous, prosperous, and all-around great year in 2007. Click here for photos of how the Trotz family spent the evening, hanging with good friends (with a good dose of the bubbly thrown in!).
Tags: friends
In what’s become an annual tradition, Stephen hosted the gang at his midtown condo for soup, cocktails and a round of ‘Dirty Santa.’ Sam joined the party, and hung in there with all the grownups until far past his bedtime. Click her for the photo gallery.
We headed off to Blue Ridge, GA, a small community about 90 miles northwest of Atlanta the weekend of the 13th to catch some color (in terms of foliage), 
relax with some great friends, eat some great food (courtesy of Joel’s deft touch in the kitchen) and let all our kids get to know each other better. We joined three wonderful families - the Silvermans, the Newmans and the Simons - and had an awesome time. Lessons learned - Apple Festivals can be ‘apples optional’, I still don’t know what a ‘jacket of legs’ actually is, and either my GPS is faulty or I am. Click here for a photo gallery of us chillin’ by the lake in the mountains. If I ever get around to it, we plan to let the town of Ellijay know they really don’t have the whole concept of running a shuttle bus to their event working all that well -but Sam does love the little wooden car we brought home! We plan on making this an annual event - perhaps in our fave little neck of the woods (literally) around Highlands, NC - next time around.
Tags: friends, Geocaching, Travel
