Archive for the 'Alana' Category

Alana Mackenzie: six months old!!!

Yesterday morning we had the extreme honor of another session with the excessively talented Amber Holritz. Alana is six months old now, and we were due for our next shoot! Alana has undergone significant changes since our last session (at six weeks old), so it took on such a fresh, fun, and unexpected feel!

Here are just a few of the myriad wonderful images from our time together, but please check out the Holritz’s blog here to see more of our photos as well as an incredible slideshow!!!

Each morning, Rich goes in the nursery once Alana wakes up, changes her diaper, and brings her to me for our feeding. It is our special little routine, and we love it. Here, Rich is getting Alana from her crib and showering her with kisses. He is such an incredible dad!

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Learning to sit! As long as she has something to hold onto, she can stay balanced for a while. Remove her prop, and she topples!

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Book time! I read to Alana everyday, but she consistently finds it more fascinating to chew on the book’s tag. This time, the book seemed to maintain her interest! I love this photo because it is in our living room, where we spend most of our family time.

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Tummy time!

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Amber always manages to get amazing photos of Alana on the ottoman while Rich and I snuggle in the background.

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Family love!

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Take a few minutes and head on over to the Holritz’s blog, and if you aren’t already subscribed, sign up to receive blog updates! You will be blown away and inspired!

Also, if you want to check out older sessions, you can check out Alana’s Birth Story, or her Newborn Session, or her Six Week Session!

Baby and Pregnancy Tips

All too often, we as new parents have no idea what we’re doing. If you think about it, neither does a baby. It’s a brand new world for them and they’ve only had experience being a baby as long as you’ve had experience being a parent. Add on top of that, as parents you are dealing with a little person who can only communicate with one word — and that’s “Wah”. It’s like trying to communicate with someone who only says “dude.” It’s doable but you’re definitely going to struggle through it and be frustrated along the way.

That’s why I got excited when I found these extremely helpful tips for new parents. I knew there was hope for us new parents. These can be found in a book called Safe Baby Handling Tips that could be a great gift to a new parent that you know, or a great shower gift. I was reading these tips and just smacking myself on the forehead and saying more often than not “So, THAT’S how you do it!”

I think Alana will be a much happier baby since I’ve read this book. Check these out:

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Here’s a shout out to Erin and Tim who recently had a baby. And to Sara and Ben — who just had a baby yesterday. And Steve and Shannon who also had a baby last week. And Melody and Josh — who just had their second baby. Now with the tips above, you can get it right this time around. And finally Scott and Kristy, who just had a baby, but this is their fourth one — so they should be WRITING these tips.

Now for those friends of ours that are still pregnant, I have a few tips for you. You can find these tips and more in a book by the same people called Safe Baby Pregnancy Tips. Jeff and Jackie are going to be having their new baby soon. And Jennifer and Chris — also about to have their first (Chris will definitely need to read this post). Kyle and Heidi — those crazy kids who got pregnant again while their little son Avery is like what — 4 1/2 months old? One word that comes to mind with that — “masochistic.”

These tips are for you guys:

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Alana’s Birth Story…

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!

Introducing… Alana Smith

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!

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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.

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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.

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Here’s Amber with Alana and the new mom — my babe — Heather:

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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!