Ruby's Passport Photo Shoot

Apparently this is going to be our first blog post.  There are many things I (Erin) should probably write about - like Ruby's birth story, but I just haven't felt inspired quite yet to get back to blogging since I took a hiatus - oh, about 4 years ago.  But today I decided to blog about our morning in the Bowden house.

Today Ruby Evangeline Bowden is one week old.  We are SO blessed to have her in our lives!  It is also Chinese New Year break, and Kevin has the week off.  He has been totally on top of getting all the paperwork ready to get Ruby registered as a U.S. citizen, a Taiwan resident, and a U.S. passport holder.  There are a lot of hoops to jump through in a short amount of time, and I have no idea what they all are because he's been handling everything. For that, I am very thankful, because there's enough to learn and juggle being a new mom, and figuring all the paperwork out on my own would have been bad news.

Today Kev said we really needed to get Ruby's passport photo taken.   Think about getting a passport photo taken as an adult.  It must be the right size, background color, distance from camera, size of face, space at the top of the photo, etc.  For the baby photos - add more requirements.  Eyes must be open, mouth closed, both ears visible.  Um, yeah.

There's a website called epassportphoto.com, where we can upload our own photo and crop it to the specific sizes and save it to your computer or USB to print at a photo printing shop, rather than paying the $10.00 to have the photos taken at the shop.  We used this website last year when I had to renew my passport and it worked great!

So this morning while I was feeding Ruby, she was actually alert.  (My biggest challenge with her has been  to get her to eat and not sleep through feedings.)  So I took a break and laid her down a white sheet on the bed for a little photo shoot.  The lighting wasn't quite right at first, so I had to change that up a bit to minimize the shadows. And I didn't know the rule about the ears at first; so when Kevin got home from the market, we decided to get a few more shots.

Her little ears are so tiny and pressed up against her head. They're not visible behind her adorable, chubby cheeks.  So we wadded up little bits of tissue and stuck them behind her ears so they would stick out a bit.  Man, these requirements!  I hope she doesn't hate us for doing that later down the road.  I think we got an acceptable shot, finally.  But I love all her little expressions, so I'm going to include some of the the photos here.

"What's going on here?  I thought it was breakfast time." 

"Seriously?"

Too much shadow, and Ruby is very concerned about the interruption of breakfast.

"Mom, this is my good side."  

So alert! 

"Really? Still?"  

"Enough with the pictures, Mom."

"I'm only a week old!"  

"Is this necessary?" 

"This is what I think of your newborn passport photo requirements."

"AAAGGGHHH!"  

Her little ears are pressed up against her head.  Time for mom and dad to rig up something to make this passport photo happen.  In that time, Ruby decided to take a snooze.

"I'm done here ... done."

"zzzzzzzzzzzzz" 

Little Ruby with tissue balls behind her ears to make them stick out.  This is the one we actually used after we cropped it; we hope it works!