Weekly photo shoot

First thing every Saturday morning, Madeline and I have our weekly photo shoot.  I do it first thing in the morning so I don't get busy and forget and also because she is usually a very happy baby first thing in the AM.  We go down to her room, put her in a white onesie, and lay her down on one of her many brightly colored blankets.  Then, I take way too many photos of her and have a hard time going through them to pick out my favorite(s).  My plan is to keep this tradition going until her first birthday, at which time it will be fun to put together a "Madeline's first year" collage and see how much she has changed.  Instead of sitting her in the same place each week, such as her crib or a specific chair, I thought it would be fun to have all different backgrounds to make it a bit more exciting.

Madeline turned 12 weeks old on Saturday, so I thought this would be a good time to share a few of my favorite weekly photos.  Here she is at 1 week old (look at those long and SKINNY legs!)...

She was starting to fill out a bit by 4 weeks...

This picture at 5 weeks is hilarious...

We thought she was very unique in practicing her "en garde" pose at 5 weeks old.  A few nights later, I was reading about baby development during the first 6 months in my handy Dr. Sears baby book, and there was a picture of a baby in the exact same position.  It turns out, this is the tonic neck reflex which is a very common position for babies at that age as this reflex helps in muscle development.  Who knew?!?

Her 6 week pictures are some of my favorites.  She was cracking herself up that morning!

For her 8 week pictures, you can see that I had a hard time getting the snaps to close on the 0-3 month onesies since she's so long...

However, I decided it's wasteful to buy another package of white onesies since the only time she ever wears them is for this 10 minute weekly photo session.  I would never dress her in one of these any other time...she has way too many cute outfits to wear!  Therefore, starting at 9 weeks, I gave up buttoning it and just let her wear it as a top and show off her cute cloth diapers...

10 weeks (this is my favorite background so far)...

And here's one from this past Saturday when she turned 12 weeks old.  We find her with her eyes wide open like they are in this picture all the time now as she is constantly checking out the world around her and taking in as much as she can.

There you have it.  Highlights of the first 12 weeks of our little Madeline!