We want to take a minute to send our blog audience to the Holritz’s blog to check out the most special photos of our lives.
As we mentioned earlier, our dear friend Amber Holritz came to document Alana’s “birth story” for us. Click here to watch the slideshow, and let Amber know what an incredible job she did capturing our joy and emotion at Alana’s birth.
We are so blessed!
It’s 5:18 in the morning, so this blog is going to be brief. The full story will be told in a couple of days!
But here is her picture! I know I’m biased but my goodness, that’s a cute baby!
Baby Alana was born on November 19th at 2:43am. She was 6 lbs 9 oz and 19.5 inches long!
She LOVES to stick her tongue out. And super chill. She’s amazing.
Our amazing — I want to emphasize the word “amazing” — friend Amber Holritz documented the whole experience. She put one beautiful photo of Alana on their blog before she even left the hospital! She’ll be posting more later so keep checking back on their blog for that. In fact, just subscribe to their blog since it’s so incredible!
Since Amber took photos of us, my job before she left was to take a few of her with the baby. You can tell how excited she is for us and how much she already loves Alana. So cool.
Here’s Amber with Alana and the new mom — my babe — Heather:
Thank you for the wonderful family that came to support us. You guys are wonderful! I’m now going to jump into bed before the day starts again and more friends come! Again, more details are to follow soon!
To God be the glory — great things He has done!
Heather wants to have the baby… like now. I’m “suggesting” that she wait until her family comes because of the support we’ll have. Like we have a choice. Okay, read that sentence as “because of the support I’ll have” because Heather will be fine but I have NOOOOOO idea what I’m doing or how to do it. As the youngest of three boys, I haven’t had too much exposure to babies. If you add all the time I’ve ever held a newborn, it would probably add up to 5 minutes. And any time someone puts (forces) a baby in my arms, all muscles tense up. Heather gets on me because I refer to “babies” as “kids”… as in “uh, babe, I don’t feel comfortable about holding the kid”. So I have no idea how I’m going to be with my new daughter. I’m sure I’ll be fine but that doesn’t mean I’ll know what to do when it’s just me, Heather, and Alana… alone. That’s why I’m glad that I’ll be eased into it by Heather’s family staying with us for a week.
I think the reality hit me when I went out to my car the other day to put something in it and saw this object invading my space. It was the extra carseat base that we installed that day. The crib didn’t do it, the baby showers didn’t do it, Heather’s nesting didn’t do it… it was the object in my space that made reality hit home for me.
Life is about to change forever.
So, I’m in this weird place. I love Alana but I don’t take change very well. There is an air of excitement around here. For me, it’s excitement mixed with a large dash of nervousness. So, as you’re praying for Heather and Alana, don’t forget to pray for the first time papa, would ya?
Thanks to my buddy Matt for taking this pic of me pushing Heather’s “button”. heheh
Well, Rich and I just wanted to keep everyone updated, so here’s the latest baby news! I am 39 weeks this weekend, which means we have one week until Alana’s due date.
At our appointment this past Monday, we scheduled an induction for Monday the 19th, which is one day after her due date. We are praying that she comes sometime on or before the 18th so that we won’t have the need for an induction, but my family will be driving up (and flying out) for the week of Thanksgiving, and it’s very important to us to have them here to meet her. They will have to leave the weekend after Thanksgiving, and won’t be back until Christmas, so that is what drove our decision to (possibly) induce.
So, between now and then I will be doing lots of walking, cleaning, and scrubbing, hoping that the activity will be enough to encourage Alana to enter the world 
We would appreciate your prayers for a safe delivery and healthy little one!
And to answer all of you sweet friends who have been asking how I am…let me try to respond without sounding outright whiny! I am very tired, very absent-minded, having loads of lower back pain, not sleeping well, and I can think of hardly anything but when I will go into labor and how ready I am to have this baby! Now I know exactly what 9-month pregnant women mean when they say they are “so ready!” Nonetheless, I am trying to stay sane and Rich has been wonderfully patient with me!
Now that is not to say that I think things will be easy once I give birth! I know it will have it’s challenges, yet it is time. We are as ready as we will ever be to enter the wide world of parenthood, even though we have much to learn.
And so, we will keep you all updated via phone calls and the trusty old blog! We will probably even post when I go into labor and we are about to leave for the hospital. Ya, we’re blog addicts!
Hey everyone in cyberland that reads our blog! This is Rich. Heather writes so many blog posts that you all probably don’t think I even know how to write. Heather’s still in bed and I wanted to sneak on here to put on a fun video of us going to Lamaze class a couple of weeks ago. Heather is super cute in it!
I got a cool point-n-shoot camera for my b-day this year that’s waterproof, freezeproof, shockproof, and crushproof. “COOL!”, you say. Yes, yes, I know. The coolest thing about it is that it also does video. So every once in a while you’ll not only be able to see us in pics but also hear us also. That will be a nice change for our friends in California that haven’t even met us in person yet and also some of Heather’s old friends that haven’t seen her in a long time!
(you may want to hit the play button and then hit the “pause” button to let it load fully first for those people with a DSL connection)
If you watch this video, you HAVE to put a comment on how cute Heather looks!
Last night, Rich and I had the wonderful opportunity to go to our local PUG meeting (Pictage User Group) at John and Lindsey Bamber’s studio in Dayton, TN. We met up with several other photographers who we’ve known, and met several new friends! It was an awesome time of food, fun, and great information, and the Bamber studio is beautiful and so impressive!
Here is the fabulous group, with the exception of our buddy Matt Dunmore, who had to head out a bit early! We also missed Amber, who is traversing the globe lately! She has been in New York, is now in Asheville, and will soon be heading to New Orleans to speak at an OSP conference there! In the meantime, Nathan has done an incredible job keeping Holritz Photography running smoothly while taking care of their precious kids, doing photo shoots, and facilitating PUG meetings!!! He is one of the most capable dads I have ever seen and I love to watch him in action…the man can seriously multi task!
After the meeting was over, Rich and I stayed (much too late!) and chatted and laughed with John and Lindsey, and our new friend Meggie Velasco! These three were so much fun to talk to, and I didn’t have a chance to ask half the questions I would have liked! We are just looking forward to the next time we get to hang out, and maybe next time we can all get to bed at a decent hour!
Here we are with John, Lindsey, and Meggie…
Since Rich and Meggie were both using their cameras to self portrait at the same time, our attention was divided! Apparently, John and Meggie were drawn to her camera, while Rich, Lindsey and I wanted the Smith’s to have the better picture! Sorry, Meggie, we win!!!
It was so great to meet you guys, and we look forward to many more times together! John and Lindsey, thank you guys so much for having us, and your studio and work is stunning!
Just be sure to let us know when you decide to “pull the trigger!” wink wink
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