Ezra's 4th Birthday

Monday was Ezra's 4th birthday.

We usually go to a coffee shop on Mondays, and so we asked Ezra where he'd like to go. He picked Kopplins Coffee. Here he is with the owner, Andrew Kopplin:
In the afternoon, we had an outdoor party with neighbors and some family. There was a kid pool (which Ezra was born in...), a slip and slide, and a greased watermelon.







Note: All of these pictures were taken on Arista Premium 400 film using either my Nikon EM with a 28-105 Vivitar lens, or my new Zeiss Ikon Contaflex with a 50mm Carl Zeiss Tessar lens.

Welcome to Gibbie's 5th Birthday

Gibbie didn't land on a single theme for his birthday party this year. He ended up inviting a handful of friends over for a little Robin Hood Oo-de-lally sing along and St. George and the Dragon reenactment. I didn't manage to photograph all of the various characters, but here are a few:
Here's Robin Hood and Maid Marian.
Ezra was the Sheriff of Nottingham.
I think this is a wood fairy.

At Gibbie's request, we all had personal apple pie "cupcakes."

As a side note, I loaded-up my old Nikon FE2 35mm SLR for the event. I haven't used one of my film cameras since Ezra was a newborn (over 3 years). It still feels much more natural to me than the digital Nikon I use all the time. We'll see how long it takes for me to finish the 36 frames of HP5 and get the negatives developed. I'll keep you posted. Speaking of keeping you posted, I'm on Twitter. I don't know how long that will last... but as long as it is I'll keep a little twitter widget on The Full Cup sidebar so you can follow along... if you want to.

Happy birthday Gib.

Backtrack to a Birthday

Back in August we had a birthday. We had a simple and very fun backyard party here in our very own backyard. As you can see, the birthday boy wore his superhero costume. Above, he has just opened what turned out to be the specialest present of all, a little paper mache box shaped like a cat, containing three guitar picks. Guitar picks are very special things to Ezra. He carries them around and benevolently dispenses them. He loves having this sweet box that looks like "his cat" to keep his picks in.
We had a puppet show, totally kid-run.
It was a costume party. I believe Gibbie was a pirate, Gabe a lion, Helen a queen, Natalie and Janine fairies, and Kaleb wore a dazzling white suit. Friends, neighbors, family, and cousin Fiona were also in attendance. Above we see the duck pond. Kids fished for plastic ducks with a net to win a cookie.

One of the real treats of Ezra's birthday was having our friend Kaleb with us. He knows Ezra well and gave him a special present which Ezra is opening in the last picture here. You can also see the hand-decorated birthday signage and wrapping paper.