From a dozen or so shots, these were the best we could get. Here’s Emma at home with her family.
Emma in her fuzzy hat from Grandma
Annalise strikes a pose
(well, OK, so Emma’s a bit hard to see through all the bundling)
Tags: Annalise, emma, Family, Nathan, Patrick, photo, Sean, Suzy
Filed under: emma on March 28th, 2010 | No Comments »
We haven’t blogged in a while, mainly because we’re chasing three very active kids.
Nathan
Nathan is about 7 1/2 months old and is on the move. He went from barely being able to sit by himself to crawling and pulling himself up to standing in what seemed to be a blink of an eye. He just may be our earliest walker yet (and we thought Annalise was early when she took her first step on her 9 month birthday.). He wants to walk so badly! His favorite pastime nowadays is standing in front of one of us and letting go, seeing how long he can stay standing by himself.
Sean
Sean is 2 1/2 years old and is such a joy. He is quite the talker and sometimes we even understand him! He loves his baby brother and is always talking to and playing with him. He also loves his big sister Annalise and will do everything she does. He is just about as tall as her (less than an inch separates them) and we are constantly asked if they are twins. He’s a great snuggler too (that’s Mommy’s favorite part).
Annalise the Ballerina
Annalise is now 3 1/2 years old and is quite the princess — though if you actually call her “princess” she’ll deny it: “I’m not a princess, I’m Annalise”. She insists on picking out her own outfits, and if Mommy tries to help she will definitely point out if something doesn’t match. She also wants to wear all pink, all the time. Now, if only she’d let Mommy put pretty things in her hair! (Although she’s getting better with that too.) She can’t wait to start pre-school in the fall and already has picked out her “Disney Fairies” backpack (which is just about as big as she is!).
Annalise and Sean are taking a dance class over the summer (well, more of a “jump and play around while there is music in the background” class). Annalise loves her ballerina outfit and shoes! They both look so cute dancing around.
Fred and Ginger, eat your hearts out!
Tags: Annalise, dancing, learning to walk, Nathan, photo, Sean
Filed under: Annalise, Nathan, Sean on June 27th, 2009 | No Comments »
What a blast!
Last Friday, Woodcraft Magazine Editor-in-Chief Jim Harrold spent the day visiting my workshop to supervise a photo shoot of the shop for an upcoming issue. With him was Chicago-area photographer Mike Crews, his assistant John, and numerous road boxes filled with some pretty slick photography gear.
Left to right: Mike, photographer; me; Jim Harrold, Woodcraft Magazine, assistant John(?)
A Dust-free Dust Collection System
The process actually began the day before the shoot. Thursday afternoon, Jim stopped by, followed shortly by Mike. After introductions, they surveyed the space. Mike was pleasantly surprised by the lighting situation and they continued to plan for the next day. Though I had spent nearly every spare moment the previous week preparing the shop, I still found myself working late Thursday night, per their request, vacuuming dust off of my dust collection piping! Seriously.
My shop hasn’t been this clean since the day it was completed!
Shooting the drill station
Wide Angle
After a couple “welcome” shots of me standing in the entryway, Mike shot some overviews of the shop. While I’m not completely unaware of modern photography, I’d never before realized just how effective a good wide angle lens could be. My shop is only 14′ x 22′. In the past when I’ve attempted to capture a general “overview” of the space, I’d been frustrated by my inability to get much of the shop “in the shot” from within. Typically, when I think of a “wide angle” lens, highly distorted images come to mind. I think “fish-eye”. Consequently I was seriously amazed at how he could include all of the machines on the North wall in a shot with the camera aimed mainly west/northwest, with no obvious distortion. Brilliant! They then moved on to close shots highlighting some of the specific fixtures Jim plans to highlight in the article.
Outer Space
After lunch, the morning clouds had dissipated and we were enjoying a gorgeous, sunny afternoon. One of the shop’s features I’m most pleased with is its external dust collection closet. By keeping the monster in it’s own heavily-insulated cell, both me and my neighbors are spared the bulk of the noise generated by its 3HP motor and the resulting rush of air. Shots of the way the shop and this system integrate into my modest suburban home were next on our list.
Mike carelessly ignoring the high-voltage warning stickers on the side of the power box on the corner of our lot.
Dressers
From there, it was back indoors. This time, we moved Mike’s gear to the kid’s rooms to shoot some of the pieces I had built for them. Sadly we only had time for two of the three dressers — Annalise’s Butterfly Inlaid Dresser and Nathan’s Cherry and Walnut Dresser. My comment to Mike: these pictures look nicer than the pieces!
I sure do wish I could have shots like this take of everything I build. Sigh.
It’s a Wrap…
By 4PM it was “in the can” so to speak. Mike loaded his gear and Jim packed up for the airport. I had a great time with this. Jim is a very down to earth and incredibly interesting guy with a long list of accomplishments — and the stories that invariably go with them. Mike’s knowlege and skills were impressive, though what impressed me most of all was the way Jim and Mike worked together as if they were longtime partners, though they’d just met for the first time the day before.
Thanks to Jim, Mike, John and the folks at Woodcraft Magazine for this experience!
UPDATE
I forgot to mention that I was informed that the issue these shots will appear in will be out sometime in October/November timeframe.
Tags: magazine, photo, woodcraft, workshop
Filed under: Patrick on May 11th, 2009 | No Comments »
Things are a bit busy ’round the Jaromin house these days, so we’ve neglected to post some pics of Annalie’s 3rd birthday party. She received “pretty dresses,” a raincoat and a handmade bunny from Grandma (below). Happy Birthday, sweetheart!
Tags: Annalise, birthday, birthday party, photo
Filed under: Annalise on February 11th, 2009 | No Comments »
Nathan's found his smile!
Tags: Nathan, photo, smile
Filed under: Nathan on January 10th, 2009 | No Comments »
…and off to the Plane;
Flying with 2 toddlers and an infant??
We must be insane!
We had a wonderful trip to Buffalo to celebrate Christmas with Grandma and Grampa Jaromin and my sister’s families. Getting there, however, was another story.
Mad Dash
The children were nestled all snug in their bed,
Blissfully unaware of the drama ahead,
First there was the thrice-delayed flight. While the delay itself wasn’t all that long (~2.5hours), the timing was rather inconvenient. It meant that instead of heading out around 10:30am for a 1:25pm flight, we were left anxiously watching southwest.com for flight updates until around 1:30 — which was an hour into the kids naps. It suddenly became clear that there was going to be a flight afterall, sometime after 3:00pm. With this realization we immediately snatched groggy kids from their comfy beds, strapped them into their car seats and made a mad dash to Midway. With less than an hour to go, we arrived at the airport. Thanks to curbside check-in and family security gates, we made it to the gate with 15 minutes to spare…only to find that the flight had again been delayed by about an hour.
In this case the delay provided a bit of welcome “breathing room.”
Musical Chairs
With Annalise buckled in her seat and Sean in my lap,
Mama and I hoping that Nathan would nap!
There are 4 overhead air masks per seat section on your typical MD80. We acquired this tidbit many months ago when traveling with 2 “lap children.” On a very full flight, a helpful attendant informed us that we’d need to split up since the four of us plus the stranger in the third seat made 5. Now that we were five all on our own, we knew we couldn’t sit together. Through a difficult-to-reconstruct-and-even-harder-to-convey process, somehow each of us wound up sitting with the opposite of the kid(s) we began the flight with.
The Descent
When from the row behind mine, there arose such a wailin’
I knew the descent would not be smooth sailin’
Then, it was time to land. At this point, Annalise and Sean were sitting in the row behind me with their Mother, while I was content cradling a sleeping Nathan. This is when Annalise broke down. And by “broke down,” I mean that she began screaming “Daddy” so loudly that I’m not entirely uncertain the pilots couldn’t hear her. Being the perceptive person that I am, I knew that something must be done. I bravely pressed the “call” button. The response was swift and decisive — If you’ve accidentally pressed the call button, please turn it off now, thank you. I looked around to see nothing but other travelers, women mainly, looking at me with mostly empathetic eyes, at least one of them mouthing something about wanting to help.
In all fairness, the flight attendant did continue on over the intercom with something to the effect that you should press it again if it was a true emergency, but by that point, I had already propped up a now stirring Nathan in the seat next to mine, twisted around and pulled Annalise over the seat back and onto my lap. And that was how we landed, with Annalise, eyes closed and silent, on one knee and Nathan on the other.
Turns out we were lucky, for even as we were lining up for take off, the rapidly rising temperatures gave birth to fog and extremely poor visibility.
Midway was closed by 7:00pm that evening.
A Grand Visit
Then down the jet-way, our nerves raw and fried,
Well-met at the gate, Papa! Grandma! they cried;
So up to Grandma’s house- Nathan’s sleeping anew,
With the house full of new toys — and Papa!, Papa! too:
The weekend was great fun. It primarily consisted of ~3-year olds Annalise and cousin Samantha playing very enthusiastically together, while Sean tried to keep up with his much older cousins Shea and Josh. High winds off the lake resulted in an hours long power outage at G&G’s house, necessitating the move to my sister’s in Hamburg. In spite of this very minor inconvenience, a grand time was had by all!
The Cousins with Grandma
An (Thankfully) Uneventful Return
Nearly everyone slept for the entire flight home. Whew!
With the view out my window all winter-y and white,
I reflect on a great trip, and hair-raising flight!
Merry Christmas Everybody!
...and to All a Good Night!
Tags: airplane, Annalise, Buffalo, christmas, grampa, grandma, Nathan, photo, Sean, trip
Filed under: Annalise, Nathan, Sean, Suzy on January 7th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
We decided to have a family portrait taken this weekend…and that meant it was also time for Sean’s first haircut! We all loved his little curls in the back, but the locks were getting a bit too out of control. Unlike his sister, Sean took the entire process in stride…no crying, complaints or even turning away!
He was a great sport and I think he looks adorable in his new ‘do.
Tags: haircut, photo, Sean
Filed under: Sean on November 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »
Meet Nathan Kenneth. Born November 9th, 2008 at 7:15pm.
Vital statistics: 9lbs., 21 inches long.
First portrait
after the sponge bath
Nathan with Mom and Dad
Tags: birthday, Nathan, photo
Filed under: Nathan on November 10th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
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