Rich, Heather and Alana’s Blog

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.