I haven’t seen my nephew in a little over a month, so when my parents called to say they were in town for Easter and wanted us to stop by, I jumped into my car and brought my camera with me (of course!)

I’ve come to the conclusion that he should be a model/baby actor, because of his range of looks he’s able to emote to the camera. To aid potential agents looking for the perfect client to represent, I will either caption or narrate the type of look he’s giving his viewers.

Be forewarned; if you can’t handle the cuteness that is about to be displayed in this blog, kindly click the red X and keep it movin.

Still here? Great!

Look #1, of course, is Blue Steel.

Next up is the ‘Whatchoo Talkin Bout Willis,’ a very difficult move, but he pulls it off with ease :

Third is his Baby Gap look. Yes, you know, the kind where they tickle the baby to the floor and stand over them with a camera while they’re still laughing. Notice the hand position. Only seasoned pros or babies with inborn talent can do that hand thing.

My nephew is not your run of the mill cute baby. This was his reaction to the thought of divisive politics. Yes. He’s watched the debates, and only has hopes that the future POTUS can be a unifier of left and right, make a way for him to have access to better education, a reformed health plan, and an endless supply of Gerber Graduate cookies. Imagine that. The audacity of hope.

He was so moved by the political discussion we had, he had to make an important phone call. I think he has a date this Friday.

This, of course…is “The Gerber:”

 

His supermodel impression:

 

The lip pucker:

 

 

The Screwface:

The Bobbi. I regularly stalk a wedding photographer’s blog, and now, so can you!

And finally, Baby Silhouette. With spit/smear/baby sticky handprints on the window, added for emphasis.

 

See, told you he’s a master! Agents, lend me your business cards. We can make the magic happen.

As Cory and I unpacked our things in the upstairs room in my parents’ house in Charlotte, my knee bumped into the edge of the amplifier.

We’ve been blessed with some semblance of musical genius. My father, brother and I can all pick up an instrument, and after tinkering around for a few minutes, can play a few things by ear. My dad can also sing really well. Me, not so much.

My dad bought some guitars a lonnnnng time ago, and he and my brother would play ‘What’d I Say’ by Ray Charles for hours, with the amp up at its highest limit in the basement.

I remember being 7 or 8 and feeling the hum of the bass line resonate within the thin walls of our house in Colorado, and I’d come downstairs, and watch them.

They would sit facing each other with the amplifier between them. My dad’s leg would thump out the rhythm and he and my brother would compete, to see how long they could keep up ad-libbing with the guitar, making it wail out what Ray had put to wax so many moons ago. Sometimes my dad would would belt out his own invented lyrics, perhaps conjuring some memory from his days as a youth.

See the girl with the red dress on
She can do the Birdland all night long
Yeah yeah, what’d I say, all right

I was the girl, unable to penetrate this bond of boys, but to feel as though I belonged, I would drop the latest Babysitter’s Club book on the floor, push my glasses up on my nose, sit down cross-legged behind the amp, and place my hands and face near the hollow of the rear of the amplifier, to feel the cold air of sound and rhythm tickle my fingers and puff my hair out as if I were walking briskly in some faint breeze. I’d soon become bored, and retreat upstairs to the kitchen, to meet my mother pursing her lips and groaning over the steam of rice cooking away in its red pot, after hearing them play from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., worrying that they’d disturb the neighbors. But I think, deep down inside, she was happy that some family bonding was taking place.

Every time we packed up and moved, the basement would be their refuge, their place to get away from ‘The Women;’ my sister, my mother, and I.

These days, the guitars sit against the wall, untouched, gathering dust. In terms of bonding, a pool table has replaced the music sessions, whenever my father comes up from Charlotte to see all of us. We now hear the clack of pool balls and hollering, instead of an old dusty amp resurrecting Ray.

Hey, don’t quit now! (c’mon honey)
Naw, I got, I uh-uh-uh, I’m changing (stop! stop! we’ll do it again)
Wait a minute, wait a minute, oh hold it! Hold it! Hold it!

We went this weekend to SCAD-Atlanta, to check out the digs. My niece might be interested in attending for interior design and I wanted to check out the area [and the photo dept] just in case we relocate (not set in stone yet…just in pencil

We traveled to Charlotte first, and left to ATL first thing in the morning, like around 5:45. I stayed up long enough during the ride to get photos of the moon:

and the sunrise. As can you see, I had to improvise. Filters have more than one use

Um, then I fell out [like for real, my niece says I was knocked out w/my mouth wiiiiide open LOL).

We got to SCAD, ate some cookies, drank some lemonade, got a tour of the campus:

(Yes, those stairs are THAT AWESOME. Not an optical illusion.)

These are the windows of one of the SCAD dormitories. I felt like IKEA was in their brains when they designed this campus.

(AND I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH IKEA I LOVE IT SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSO MUCH. I wanted to put everything in my pocket or pack it up in the car and put it in my house.)

My niece banished me to the parent's waiting area so she could go talk to the interior design professors/students herself, b/c I'd 'make her nervous' (her words not mine). I solemnly walked back to the Hub, SCAD's super awesome cafeteria, and stumbled upon this:

Pops. He discovered one of the pool tables in the cafeteria and got into a very heavy game a SCAD student. He proceeded to whoop on poor SCAD student. I swear we can't take him anywhere.

[I'm kidding. I love my Dad!]

While waiting for him to finish up his game of pool, I snapped this:

And ate a cookie probably. My niece finally came back and we headed out to check out the neighborhood.

These were snapped in the Bankhead area of ATL.

We’ll probably be back sometime this summer and I’m sure I’ll have about 2238940238408 photos. Lemme just add that at SCAD, literally every piece of student work hanging on the walls and on display in the halls…took my breath away. paintings, photographs, concept designs, mixed media, etc. It was soooo inspiring.

I snapped these this morning before we hit the road:

All of those decorations you see have been in our family foreeeeever LOL. I always take photos of them. Nostalgia? Missing my parents? Yeah, all of that and then some

I also did most of my assignments for my large format class over again (more on that in a future blog, hopefully this week!), and also took my digital.

Let me just say I will never be a nature photographer. I’m too loud. I was chasing a little finch from branch to branch for like 20 minutes and then gave up and worked on more stationary subjects:

My parents’ house is across the street from a huuuuuuge farm. With horses!

While I had my back turned Finch-Chasing, guess who crept up on me:

I took other shots but lately I’ve been on a parts-of-the-whole kick w/my work, so I took more to this photo than the others

This weekend was great. I got to hang out w/my family, see a new place that might be a future home for us, and got to use my parents as my large format guinea pigs

I wish Charlotte wasn’t so far. Yes. Separation anxiety at its finest. I know. I’m a sap.