Okay, everyone!
Get ready, get set, and go to the brand new Rich Smith Photography blog!
Rich has been hard at work on an awesome new blog format, and his dedication has culminated in the blogs’ launch this afternoon! Be sure to go give it a whirl, and spend a little extra time getting acquainted with the totally new, different style.
And while you are there, be sure to comment and let Rich know how incredible it looks!!!
Yesterday, the 19th, was Alana’s four month birthday! It seems like a world away that Rich and I didn’t even know her precious little face, yet it has flown by the way that time inevitably does.
Here are a few recent photos of Alana to celebrate her little four months in this crazy world!
We love you, sweet baby girl! We are so thankful that God has chosen us to keep you, protect you, love you, and teach you all about Himself! What an honor!
Yesterday was the perfect day.
Rich and I went to our wonderful church (Calvary Chattanooga) and came home to enjoy a delicious meal with Rich’s parents! We love living so close to them, as we can get together on a Sunday after church…as opposed to my parents, twelve driving hours away…sniff, sniff. Although Alana was a bit fussy from not napping too well, we were still able to thoroughly enjoy our time together and the chance to catch up.
After they left, we cleaned up the kitchen and took a divine hour long nap…all three of us.
We woke up and headed downtown to meet a friend who we had only had contact with online! Tobi Weldon of Ivey Handcrafted is a super talented business gal who we have come to know through mutual friends. Rich recently did two baby sessions in which the apparel of choice (for the wee one) was one of Tobi’s customized onesies. Check out the Hamaker’s session here, and the Moncreif’s session here. Both Baby Foy and Baby Ada are sporting Tobi’s onesies…and they are just perfect!
Tobi was showcasing her handmade goodies at an Art Till Dark show on the North Shore…and we had a blast meeting her! Rich even snagged a few photos of her aesthetically pleasing booth:
Her produts involve incredible stitching and perfectly colorful combinations of felt and buttons. It makes me so happy to look at her stuff!!! You just have to check out her blog for her latest creative projects!
Tobi manages to be both beautiful and super cute simultaneously, with great fashion sense and a FUN personality! Here she is with her brilliant logo, designed by none other than the great Steve Hamaker of Stevaker Design!
And, of course, a self-portrait with our new friend! It was fabulous to meet you, Tobi! We will be seeing you soon!
Last Monday, Rich and I had a long overdue date night with Ben and Shanika, set to be wed this August! We are so excited for them, and it’s been a trip to watch their relationship from the beginning. They are so cute together, and we know they will have so much happiness and make such an impact together!
We started off with dinner and then considered playing a game…except that the talking never stopped! We just chatted and caught up until…well, late.
Okay, we also got distracted with Rich’s photobooth…it yielded some truly scary results…
Then on Friday night we had Scott and Allie over. It was our first official time hanging out with them and we had a blast! We have so much in common and just love these two. We go to church with them and have chatted from time to time, but hadn’t gotten a date night on the calendar! It was awesome to finally get together after all of the “we-should-get-together-soon’s”!!!
We had dinner and then moved into the living room for more talking and some dessert…and then some photo fun!
And more photobooth…
Then on Saturday, we had the privilege of attending Rob and Jeminah’s wedding! Here is the lovely bride with her sisters…
And here we are…the little family of three…
All in all, it has been a great week and we’ve loved the fellowship with friends. Alana is posing quite the challenge with her fluctuating nap schedule. My days of late have been such a guessing game and it’s left me tired and frustrated. As I sit here and type, she is in her crib screaming her head off, making me feel like the worst mom ever. The girl needs to sleep, but man, she fights it. She sleeps well at night, so we have that part down! Ten hours each night, in fact. It’s our daytime routine that has undergone change and leaves me bewildered!
Rich and I have had incessant conversations lately about doing the harder thing in the short-term to yield benefits in the long-run. This includes letting her cry to sleep so that she learns to self-soothe (rather than relying on us to get her into a state of slumber) and beginning to wean her from the paci. We just really want to create an environment in which we can leave her with friends and go on a date, or leave her in the nursery without problems. Wow. Pray for us!
This mothering thing is less intuitive than I expected it to be. All that comes naturally to me is to love my little one and shower her with hugs and kisses. But other than that, I second guess myself daily and often don’t know what she needs!
What I do know is that we will be okay! We will learn and grow and we will be flexible. We will do our best, and trust that God will take care of Alana better than we ever could. We pray that in this — and in all of the future challenges that we will inevitably face — that we are faithful and that we teach Alana to see and savor the greatness of our God!
I want to begin my blog with this awesome photo of my (hot!) man, taken by the fabulous Corey McNabb at his Rockstar Workshop last week. Thank you, Corey!
Rich attended the week-long workshop while I was in Fort Lauderdale with my family. He had an amazing time, and took so many incredible photos! If you haven’t already seen them on his blog, check out a few of my favorites here!
He even won a contest with this photo:
I love you and I am SO proud of you, honey! You are such an incredible photographer, but even more importantly, you are an absolutely wonderful daddy to Alana and hubby to me!
Now to completely switch gears…
One of the most frequent comments I get as a new mom is something along these lines: “Enjoy every moment. It goes by so quickly. My son/daughter is now 16 and driving and it felt like just yesterday…”
It’s as if mothers and fathers of older children so miss the precious infant stages that they give an imperative to those of us who are still in that place.
It’s one of the pieces of unsolicited advice that I don’t mind at all. It reminds me to cherish every day, every season, every stage.
(Side Note: for those of you wondering, yes there are a few pieces of advice that do bother me! One in particular: Please don’t ever tell me to put socks on Alana’s feet. You would have no earthly idea how hard I try to keep socks on her feet. They simply don’t stay. This is why I dress her primarily in full sleepers with feet in them. She is so active and energetic, that with legs perpetually flailing, she keeps socks on her feet an average of 1.2 seconds. So, if you are a stranger reading my blog and you are tempted to stop me in the store and tell me to put socks on my daughters feet, please know that the smile I am giving you is indeed fake and obligatory and I am, in fact, annoyed. 
End of rant).
Back to the advice that I don’t mind at all. I always smile, nod, and assure the perfect stranger that I am talking to that I am, indeed, enjoying these moments. But I am beginning to realize just how fleeting they really are. I was perusing blog posts over the weekend…enjoying photos of Alana when she was a newborn, and though she is just shy of four months, she has already undergone enormous changes. The brevity of each stage has completely surprised me!
So, in the spirit of feeling nostalgic on Sunday afternoon, I asked Rich to take just a couple photos of Alana as she outgrows a couple of her cutest little outfits. Though we had freezing cold weather (and snow!) on Saturday, Sunday had warmed up, the sun came out, and it was a gorgeous March afternoon.
This sweater dress is so special to me. My dear, dear friend, Cami, bought this for Alana and mailed it from Puerto Rico. I love my dear Cami, and miss her so much! And I love the amazing little dress she bought for Alana. The girl has taste! Alana is in the process of rapidly outgrowing it, and I just had to have Rich document how cute it is on her!
This little velour jogging suit was a gift from Calen and Jerad, a bride and groom who hired Rich to shoot their beautiful wedding. They were so completely kind and totally surprised me with this adorable gift for Alana! Then they proceeded to invite me as a guest to the wedding just because they liked Rich so much! What an incredible family!
The time is flying by, just like they said it would.
Well. Yesterday was a fun and lovely celebration for Heidi, as she and Kyle expect their second child, this time, a little girl! Baby Posey is due in early June and her name will not be disclosed until Kyle and Heidi see her, decide on a fitting name, and then announce it to the world after her birth. Precious.
We are all so excited for them, and cannot wait to meet little Posey! She will be little sister to one-year-old Avery, so Heidi will have her hands FULL for a while!
Rich just shot baby Avery’s one-year session, and you can check it out here! He is such a cutie, and has grown up so much in the past year! You may remember him as a little-bitty five pound preemie!
Briana, Bethany and I planned her shower, which was held at my house yesterday morning and, as always, we had a great time! Here is the lovely food, which is always an integral part of any female gathering!!!
Rich documented the chocolate chip pound cake for me (Thanks to my sweet sister-in-law, Jackie, for this recipe! Everyone loves this!)
Heidi was so cute opening her gifts, since they were all PINK…as opposed to a year ago when everything was blue.
Here is the very impressive diaper cake that Bethany made for Heidi. She said it was her week-long project, and it was her first one! We all loved it, and Rich got a photo of it for me. Mine didn’t turn out quite like this:
My hubby also documented for me the world’s cutest and best-tasting cookies! The Signal Mountain Cookie Lady is an extremely talented “cookie artist,” who runs a local cookie company and offers over 150 cookie designs! I am so excited to have heard about her, and I will definitely use her for every shower and party I throw in the future! Note to self: Alana’s first birthday party! 
Look at how adorable these little onesies are! I offered them as favors for the shower guests.
Heidi, we love you and hope that you had a very special day! We can’t wait to meet your little princess!
Yay! Alana and I made it safely back from Fort Lauderdale earlier today, and have been resting and enjoying some much-needed time with Rich!
While Alana is napping, I wanted to go ahead and get our photos transferred, edited, uploaded, and blogged!
We had an amazing time with my parents, and while it is always good to come home, we will miss them so SO much.
Rich and I have been married for over 3.5 years, and have managed to never be apart for more than 4 days. So, this week-long vacation topped the charts in terms of time away from each other. We took a moment at the Chattanooga Airport for a quick goodbye picture:
And here we are on Alana’s first plane ride ever! She did very well… and I was thoroughly relieved. She is so incredibly passionate and dramatic that I wondered if she’d “entertain” the passengers with some screams while on board. Thankfully, our flight coincided with her feeding time, followed by some happy wake-time and then a little fussing before falling asleep in my arms. Thank you, Lord!
Upon arriving at my mom and dad’s (still strange to think of them as grandma and grandpa!), Alana and I rested and unpacked a bit. My mom had the house all prepared for us, having borrowed an infant seat, bassinet, walker, and bought a bebe pod. That’s more than what I have for her at our house! And there was a big pack of diapers and wipes for the week! My mom is so thoughtful and considerate.
Here is Alana on the guest bed, blending in quite nicely with the lavender theme! It’s her first time at my parents house and in the house I lived in all throughout high school!
My mom had SO much fun with Alana, talking to her, laughing and singing, and playing all kinds of fun little baby games with her. Here is the mirror game!
And these are some of my favorite photos from the trip! My mom bought this bebe pod for her at Target…and Alana was so adorable in it! She is one strong little three-month-old, so this was perfect for her. My parents laugh and tell me that she is a miniature me. Alert, social, and wanting to do whatever all the big people are doing I think I am going to have my hands full!
Mommy and Alana hanging out in the “back room”…where we do most of our family time!
More grandma and grandpa time! They got so many smiles and squeals out of Alana over the week!
We are excited to see what Alana will “name” them when she gets a little older. Since she is the first grandchild for my parents, she will probably determine what future grandkids will call them!
I got to meet up with my good friend Lisa with her adorable newest addition to the family, Aiden! Her sweet hubby Matt stopped by to say hi and I grabbed this quick picture. Lisa and I go way back to our middle school days, and have tons of great memories. But the best thing is that we are still friends, now married with kids, and I truly cherish our times together. She listens so well and her faith has come to be such an encouragement to me.
Lisa, thank you for this cute shot of Alana and I!
Then Alana and I had a fun little photo shoot with Jessie and her sweet little Benjamin. Jessie, who works with my mom, told me to bring Alana by so that we could get a picture of them together, “You know, for the slideshow for their wedding,” she said
My mom and I met up almost every day at The Grill, which is the beautiful restaurant on the campus of Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale/Calvary Christian Academy, where my mom is an administrator! Since my mom is such a proud grandma, she’s been talking about Alana for a while and everyone she works with was so excited to meet her! We had so much fun wandering all over campus, introducing dozens of friends to Alana.
We ventured to Mrs. Taylor’s kindergarten room, where she excitedly welcomed Alana to the front of the room for her first math lesson. She learned to sort by tens! Thank you for the fun and educational time, Mrs. Taylor! We love you!
More fun with grandpa! Mom and I dragged dad into the fabric store while he chilled with Alana. They both look rather bored, don’t they?
Then on Friday night we picked Shawn up at the airport…here is a shot of he and his buddy, Ulysses. They are the coolest 14-year-olds that I know. And super sweet, too. They had been on a missions trip to the Bahamas and had an incredible time. Shawn said that he would never be the same because of the trip. I am so proud of my brother!
Ah, we need an Einstein Bros. Bagels in Chattanooga. I love this place, and we have them all over Fort Lauderdale. Mom and I went there for breakfast on Saturday morning and had great girl time. Thanks for the cute pic of Alana and I, mom!
And here is grandpa introducing Alana to the NBA. He and Shawn will be teaching Alana all kinds of sports when she get older…primarily basketball and football. I’m sure they’ll be gentle with her, though!
And here we are on the way back today. Alana did well on the plane again, and even made some new friends.
One of the flight attendants loved Alana so much that she asked if she could hold her. I said yes, and when I handed Alana over, she winked at me and said, “I’m gonna go show her off!” And with that, she was off, walking Alana up and down the aisle, stopping to talk to anyone who wanted to see Alana. I just sat in my seat, laughing out loud to myself. I was a bit paranoid about the germs she might pick up being walked around on the plane, but mainly I was just amused!
Here she is walking back up the aisle to return Alana to me. It was an adventure! We are back, safe and sound, and are looking forward to our next trip down!
Mom and dad, thank you so much for having us down! We loved every minute and can’t wait to see you again!
Thank you for everything…we love you!!!
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