Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Kai Alexander Maeda

Last week Will and I made a trip to Washington DC to visit my best friend Cassie, her husband Takeshi, and their new baby Kai. Cassie is my oldest friend, we've known each other since I was in the the 2nd grade. After college we moved to Japan where we taught English, and Cassie met her husband Takeshi. It was so exciting to see them embarking on their journey as parents!



Kai is a perfect baby in every way: he's beautiful, cuddly, and only cries if he's hungry or tired or needs a diaper (all of which happen fairly often).

The visit was essentially a 5-day photo session/pajama party. We ate, laughed, took pictures, watched cable TV, and took turns entertaining each other's baby. Here's one of our favorite pics of Kai. Cassie collects gold frames, which she keeps empty and hangs on her bright red living room wall. I wanted to incorporate the frames into some of the photos, so here is what I came up with:


Will came along with me, and Ollie stayed home with Dad. I was very happy to have 5 days with Will - I have never been able to spend so much time alone with him, and we got to fit a lot of snuggling and playing into our days. He was very happy to not be bossed around by his older brother all the time!




I want to say that Kai was a very easy model to work with - newborn babies usually are. But since we were taking our time (it was after all a pajama party/photo session), he needed a lot of breaks... for diapers, meals, and r&r... fortunately for us, his naps were good photo ops too!


Here is proud dad Takeshi showing off his "shuji" calligraphy of Kai's name:
Our old friends Eric and Katie came over for dinner one night too. Eric says he's not very photogenic, but what can he expect when he makes faces like this for the camera?