So since we try to alternate holiday locations, this year we headed south to bask in the warm Fort Lauderdale sun! We had an all-too-brief (but very wonderful) Christmas celebration with Rich’s wonderful parents and then left the next morning for 11 hours in the Pilot with our little ones. And let me just say that we are SO proud of these two! The trip from Chattanooga to Fort Lauderdale can often be 12-13 hours depending on the number of stops we make, and of course the traffic, but we actually made a beeline there and arrived in just under 11 hours! The girls did an amazing job of tolerating the drive, and are turning out to be fabulous little travelers.

It’s actually been a little over a week since we have been back in town from our 3 weeks in Florida (yes, 3 whole weeks. Running our own business requires a ton of hard work, but it also allows for some flexibility in the off-season). The latter half of our week home has been spent sick. Well, let me rephrase: the girls have been sick and Rich and I have been waking up in the middle of the night for 3 nights straight to clean up vomit So I’m feeling sorry for the girls and going a bit stir crazy myself. And if I do another load of nasty laundry, it is highly likely that I will go completely insane.

So hopefully I’ll get through this blog post: it’s the kind of mommy day that makes me feel the need to go to the loony bin. Sierra is soooo fussy, clingy, needy, and clearly just doesn’t feel completely back to normal yet. As I type, she is loudly fighting a nap in her crib. Give in, baby, just give in. Mommy wants to blog. An overdue blog, at that.

Most of our Christmas vacation was spent in absolutely beautiful weather, in the 60′s, 70′s, even 80′s, which allowed the girls to play outside and have a blast. The pool water itself is actually really cold in the “Florida winter” even when it’s warm outside, so the girls mainly played with the sand and water table and enjoyed all of the pool toys.

Examining the sand…

And deciding to eat some. 

And deciding that it doesn’t actually taste good at all.

Alana has an absolute blast hanging out by the pool, even when she doesn’t go in the water. She has always loved it out here.

Her own little pink net for cleaning the pool – she loves it and hey, she helps the pool stay clean. Nana is brilliant  

Go Miami Heat  

Thank you so much to Rich for these photos of the girls (minus Aunt Pixie, whom we eagerly awaited the arrival of on Christmas Eve)!!!

I loooooove this series…

This was Sierra’s adorable little Christmas Eve dress – too cute

Thank you for the Christmas Eve family photo, mom! 

Christmas Day was just the sweetest thing. Since it was Sierra’s first Christmas, Alana wanted to properly introduce her to the wonderful presents. She was a little smothered, but hopefully she felt loved

Since Aunt Pixie had flown in late the night before, the girls had not seen her yet. So when we’d all waited as along as we could handle, we snuck in with the girls and let them crawl onto Amber to wake her up. It was so cute. Sierra was only 6 months old when Amber moved to South Dakota, so it had been 6 months, but her reaction was adorable and we all deduced that she totally remembered Aunt Pixie

We ate a delicious Christmas morning breakfast together and then began opening presents. 

I love my “I’m taking a picture of her taking a picture of her taking a picture of him” image  

Sierra didn’t actually make it too far before she needed her morning nap. So most of our gift opening was spent sans Sierra. But at least we had a happy baby later on! 

I put Sierra down for a nap and the opening continued! 

I made fun of my mom for getting dad – among other things – socks for Christmas. But dad reeeeaaalllly wanted some new socks. And the fact that he’s rubbing them on his face, well, that’s a really funny family joke going back a few Christmases  

Dad surprised mom with an iPad for Christmas – so cute! She was so excited! Mom and I found the MOST hilarious slippers for Amber – they looked like the abominable snowman – we were pretty happy with ourselves. Sadly, they shed like crazy! Might as well have a pet!

Gifting dad some happiness:

Ya, you really can’t go wrong with cash.

Alana sporting Aunt Pixie’s new slippers  

Yep, Rich got the coal in his stocking – I think he may have gotten it last year as well He and my mom have a special (i.e. feisty) relationship. But don’t feel bad for him, he can dish it out!

Stockings!My adorable mom, checking out her new work toy! 

Sierra woke up in time to have stocking fun – she kept putting candy canes in her mouth with the wrapper on, probably wondering why in the world we like them  

Then we let Sierra open her Christmas gifts that had been left unopened while she napped. Oh, she did not disappoint. I’ve come to expect babies to have more fun with the paper and boxes than their gifts, but Sierra, on Christmas Day, was an exception. She let Alana help her with the opening, but then she would hold up her gifts, give Nana a HUGE smile, and then proceed to play with and enjoy her new toys. Really, I was so impressed with her! It was the most rewarding baby gift opening episode I’ve ever seen  We might be the last young family on earth who did not yet have Sophie the Giraffe, but Nana got her for Sierra!

Both girls LOVE to be on Papa’s shoulders, mess up his hair, slap his head, giggle while he runs around the house…

And giggle when Nana comes to get them!

Then, once Amber was in town, we needed to take a few more photos with all 3 girls! Thank you again to Rich for these photos! They make me so happy  

Soon I will be able to blog Sierra’s first birthday party because the one and only Amber Holritz flew down to document it! We are so excited to share those photos as well!

Last year, we went to a really adorable and quirky local Christmas Tree farm to take some photos, have some family time, and cut down our own tree. This year, we didn’t need our own tree since we were going to be spending the holidays in Fort Lauderdale with my family. But we still wanted the festive family time and the holiday photos for our Christmas card, so we went anyway

It’s surreal to look at the photos from last year when I was 9 months pregnant with Sierra, and now we’ve known her for almost a year! This Christmas I’ve found myself constantly reminded just how blessed I am. I love my family!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

We continued to get together weekly while Alana was a toddler and we shot together quite a bit while honing our skills and learning our cameras. We learned (mostly from Rich) how to shoot in Manual and how to get a proper exposure in any lighting situation.

But when I had Sierra last December, both of our lives both got much busier, and not only have we not had many chances to shoot together in the past year, but we haven’t had too many opportunities to even SEE each other in the past year!

Life has been seriously BUSY.

But last week, we got together AND we shot together for the first time in a long time! We took the girls to a park near Kellie’s house and let them play while we spent time together and grabbed some shots. It was a blast, and Kellie, I miss shooting with you!

Here are a few of my favorites! Here’s my little 11 month old cherub

She’s walking all over the place. Like a pro! Will be funny to have her walking all over my parents house this Christmas…and for her first birthday on December 28th!

Her first two teeth are FINALLY making an appearance! 

Time for the baby swings! At this age, Alana would have screamed her head off in fear…but Sierra likes it  

This next series is unbelievably entertaining to me. I perched Sierra at the top of a little slide with Alana to see how she’d react. She was SO distressed.

So I got the shots and THEN rescued her Cause that’s how I roll…

Don’t worry, Alana went down the slide alone! I love this photo more than most of the photos I’ve ever taken Ha!

And this one…Then we were off to the next thing…

Eating mulch! 

A short stint at the climbing wall! 

Back to the swings for Alana! (One of my favorites from the session)

I grabbed this shot of Kellie photographing Alana…I’m so thankful for this friend! 

Thank you to Kellie for this shot of me and the girls! 

And we ended with some more slide time for Alana…

And that is that! We had so much fun with you, kellie girl! Thanks for hanging out with me and my crazy girls

How you have gotten away from me this year.

Our amazing friend Amber Holritz (The Lifestyle Baby Photographer) came to document Sierra at ten months for us last month (yes, it’s been an entire month since we had these photos taken!) and I am just now getting around to blogging them!

Sierra is 11 months old now, and has changed drastically even since this session! But for now I’ll talk about her ten-month-old self reflected in these images!

When Amber came for our session, Sierra was just starting to wave, thus the photo below: family time in the living room centered around waving at each other. When Amber captured this photo, Sierra was only obliging us some of the time, but now, at 11 months, she waves liberally. Pretty much any time we enter a room with a person in it, she flaps her arm up and down like she’s trying to take flight. It’s oh so entertaining. We all love it to death.

Funny, funny face…

This was a morning session, so we stayed in our jammies. Except for Rich. He didn’t get the memo. 

Alana cracks me up. 

Alana is mostly awesome with her little sister, but sometimes we can’t anticipate what fabulous thing is going to come into her head…and then, before we know it, she’s executing some hair brained idea, like holding her sister this way:

Sierra is mostly very tolerant with an occasional grunt or shriek to define her boundaries.  

This photo is so funny to me! I don’t remember exactly what was happening here, but Sierra doesn’t look very thrilled I love how Amber is the photo ninja. In every session, she captures moments that I didn’t even know were happening  

I love this image that Amber captured while Sierra was eating. Typically she’s very intense as it relates to food, but this photo makes it look like she’s just hanging out, calmly waiting for her next bite! Don’t be deceived! 

Love. Her. So. Much.

At the time of this session, Sierra was walking with assistance from her little sit & ride car. Now she’s actually walking unassisted. It’s clumsy walking, but it’s walking nonetheless! 

It’s hard to be almost four years old. 

Reading on the couch! Reading a book to Alana while Sierra is awake looks EXACTLY like this…

First she might sit back and listen for a minute…

(such a sweet photo – holding hands)

But inevitably, she decides she really wants to rip the pages out of the book, or at least touch the pages, or eat them. And she gets upset if we hold her back. She’s crazy. And Rich’s face is perfect. 

No idea what was happening here, but it probably has something to do with the fact that Alana loves Amber and gets really goofy when she’s here  

She steals my heart every day. 

Scrunchynose face! 

I don’t remember what was going on here…family hugs with a side of slobber? 

Yay for self portraits with Amber!

Amber, Amber, Amber! I am having the hardest time EVER trying to describe how monumentally thankful we are that you’ve captured yet ANOTHER year of life for our family. It’s hard to believe that this crazy whirlwind of a year is drawing to a close. Thank you for every one of these cherished memories. And thank you for being part of our family. We love you.

This year has, without question, felt like it has passed more quickly than any other year of my life. I turned 30, had Sierra, and here we are ten months later and I’m wondering what just happened to 2011.

It’s been a year full of blessings, laughter, love, growth, and family bonding, and there have definitely been some stress and some challenges along the way. But we are so very thankful for this little girl and so honored that God saw fit to put her into our family and ask us to raise her to love Him.

We are doing the best we can, and some days that feels like enough, other days it feels like our “best” isn’t very great at all. But we know that God has plans for this little one, and so we pray for her. We pray that as she grows, God will help her to glean whatever wisdom we can offer and we pray that He will give us grace in the areas that we fail.

Here are some photos that I took of Alana – a little 4th birthday portrait session in the backyard. Maybe it’ll be a tradition, to keep taking photos at each birthday in the backyard like I did last year when she turned three. It’s all I can manage to actually get some photos of her during Sierra’s natime (otherwise she’d be in the backyard with us, crawling around and eaitng dirt, bugs, and leaves, no doubt). So anything beyond our yard, at this point in time, seems unlikely

Here are some that I loved, primarily because Alana’s personality really comes through in these photos!

We walked onto the back porch and she was so excited about all the leaves that had fallen lately. She is so girly, but also such a tomboy! She wants to wear nothing but sweater dresses every day yet loves to play in the dirt, with sticks and leaves. Something about this simplicity of life makes me want for her never to grow up

This photo is definitely one of my favorites from the session. I love her expression and the way she’s sitting. Argh. Too cute.

Can you be a ballerina while flinging around a stick???

Then a change of sweater dresses was in order. After all, she can’t decide which is her favorite. And this session doesn’t even include her purple sweater dress that she wears almost every single day. I’ll have to be sure to get some of her in that one, too

And as you will see in the photos below, I am really, super, outrageously funny At least my little buddy thinks so.

Happy, happy birthday baby. We love you more than the words we could possibly type.

And I hope you never forget the game we play almost every day.

You say to me “I love you mom. How much do you love me?”

And then I say to you, “I love you all the way from Chattanooga, down to Fort Lauderdale, out to South Dakota, back down to Fort Lauderdale, and all the way back up to Chattanooga.”

And then you say to me. “Wow, mom! That’s a lot of love!” 

The really fun part is that Meghan then photographed us as well! Here are a few of my favorites, but head on over to her blog at Soli Photography to see even more! Meg, we love you, appreciate you, and are so thankful for these images of our family! We will treasure them FOREVER!!!

After a few crazy weeks with Rich in and out of town and very busy schedules, we enjoyed some great family time today. It’s the first year that Alana was fully aware of Halloween and got extremely excited about dressing up and getting candy

We went trick-or-treating for a short time at Publix, which was completely adorable, and then we headed to Randy and Susan’s house to be with family. It was a perfect evening and we enjoyed every second. Alana went trick or treating tonight for the first time and had an absolute blast. We took some videos for posterity and all in all, it was a fabulous day full of smiles, laughs, hugs, kisses, family, and candy

Here are a few photos that Rich and I took of the girls before we left for our adventures. I’m biased, I know, but holy cuteness.

Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope you got to enjoy the day with friends and family and see the world through the eyes of a child.

Well, let me clarify: I’m doing a perfectly good job of documenting with my iPhone. And there’s something to be said for that. I love taking photos and videos on my phone…after all, they say that “the best camera is the one you have with you.” But here’s my dilemma with that: I like pretty pictures. I like great quality, beautifully composed, print-it-large-and-hang-it-on-the-wall photos. I can’t help it. So…I’m really thankful for our Dauphin Island (part one & part two) photos that we took in June, and I’m so thankful for the apple orchard photos we just took last week. And I am incredibly grateful for Amber Holritz’s thorough documentation for all of Sierra’s milestones, because without those amazing sessions, poor Sierra wouldn’t know that we love her as much as we love Alana

All of this to say, I decided that I wanted to do a little project and basically crawl around the house with Sierra for a day or two, just documenting what life looks like for her at 9 months. I love her personality, and I love how BUSY she is. She’s a lot like Alana was at this age, but a little less cautious and a bit more daring.

Sierra started pulling up on furniture at 7.5 months, so now at 9 months, she’s a seasoned professional. She pulls up on everything…which is part of what I wanted to capture with this project. We randomly find her standing all over the house every day. I began my little project in the morning time last week, the girls still in their jammies, and watching some Curious George.

Now that Sierra can stand and reach Alana’s table, she constantly tries to steal Alana’s food. So I am always rushing over to pry some piece of food out of Sierra’s fist while Alana is squealing, “Mom! Mom! Sierra got my food! She will choke!!!” Gonna have to figure out a solution for this…

After Sierra has watched a few minutes of cartoons and terrorized Alana a little bit, she moves on to create lots of messes for me. She has figured out that behind cabinets and in baskets, there are lots of things that can be taken out and thrown all over the floor  

She usually watches cartoons for a couple of minutes, then moves on to other things before getting sleepy and taking her morning nap.

Sippy cup! 

Then she got tired and cried and started to cry…

…and got distracted by her reflection in the coffee table glass  

But since it was naptime, I was a terrible mother and put her in her crib to sleep. How. Could. You, Mom? 

But see, I know what I’m doing, because the nap yielded a much happier, more content baby

I love this little face. She has the same red birthmark between her eyes that Rich had as a baby. The doctor said these marks usually go away by the time baby turns 1, but I think Rich had his longer than that. So we will see…either way, obviously, I love her little face to pieces!

This Skip Hop Owl is one of our favorite toys…completely adorable!

Play time in the nursery, with her singing penguin:
Baby parts…irresistible!

Sierra is just getting to the age where she can really enjoy playing with Alana. And Alana is all too ready to entertain her little sis. Alana can make Sierra laugh more often than any of us, and it’s to die for.

Like I said, Alana likes to entertain She wears this black ballerina dress almost every day. The other days she wears her bright pink ballerina dress or her princess dress  Playing with her toy box in her room…

Looking for a ball that rolled under her crib! Ha! So cute. 

She’s a little Tasmanian devil…zipping all over the house and creating mini disasters. Here she is untying her crib bumper bows…

She loves cords. Notice the lamp cord wrapped around her thigh. The problem with her affinity for power cords is that you can’t do anything different with them! There’s nowhere else to put them to keep them away from babies! I spend a fair amount of time taking them away from Sierra

It’s hard to be a baby…you fall down a lot

And she’s off to other places! I think crawling is insanely cute. It’s crazy to think she won’t be doing it much longer!

Lunch time! 

 Not getting food to her fast enough…

Going to run some errands! Since she is about to start walking, I am trying to gradually get her used to shoes. It’s not working. I put them on, and she spends all of her time trying to get them off

But baby shoes are so darn cute!

Here are some photos of Sierra eating her first teething biscuit for an afternoon snack. I snapped a few images and then heard her choke so I set down my camera, stuck my finger in her mouth, and pulled out a much-too-large piece of the biscuit. Okay, I hate these things. I am not buying any more of them. They are not supposed to break into pieces and choke the baby. What in the world?!?!

So these will be the FIRST and ONLY photos of Sierra gnawing on a teething biscuit. Way too scary.

Both girls LOVE balloons…so we always have a balloon or two (or three!) hanging out around the house. It’s Alana’s number one priority every time we go to Publix. A free balloon. So here is Sierra playing with a recent Publix balloon…

She recently discovered the dishwasher so now I can’t load or unload it while she’s awake or this is what happens…

She’s pretty proud of herself…

Hanging out in the kitchen…

Playing!

And getting sleepy again  

And more crawling…

Sierra makes this hilarious face all the time, and I finally captured it! She scrunches up her nose and breathes in and out of her nose really quickly. It is so very entertaining. Now to try to catch it on video! 

A blurry, technically imperfect photo, but a “Sierra moment” nonetheless! 

And being entertained some more by Alana! Tippy toes!

More balloon fun…

Rich is TOTALLY going to make fun of me for posting too many photos in this blog post in general, and definitely too many of this particular series. But I can’t help it. How do I narrow these gems down???

She has realized that when we put things in our mouth, she wants it too because it tastes better than baby food. So here she is, begging like a little puppy. Although, it’s possible that she just wanted Rich to pick her up. I don’t remember if there was food involved in this case. 

Evenings are tough for Sierra. She usually wants to be held, so putting her down encourages this kind of reaction: 

But we got her distracted with a new toy! I just bought this sit and ride car for her, since she is so ready to start “practice walking.”

She was tentative, but caught on pretty quickly.

And that concludes my little sierra project! I am SO excited about her ten month session with Amber Holritz that is coming up soon! And I think we are going to try to slip away from the insane busy-ness and go to a pumpkin patch as a family this weekend! So stay tuned!

Have a wonderful week, everyone!

I think we are going to try for a pumpkin patch next weekend, so hopefully there will be another installment of fall-related family fun very soon

In addition to the general busy-ness of life lately, last week I got my very first sinus infection. And oh my gosh was it a doozy. I have zero frame of reference for what a normal sinus infection is like, so I don’t know if this one was altogether typical or not. Regardless, it was absolutely unbearable!

I had an intense, scary headache for about 4 days before I knew what was going on. It was a throbbing, severe headache unlike any I’d had before, that quite frankly, made me think I was about to have a brain aneurism. I called the doctor on day 3 of my headache, and scheduled an appointment for the next day.

That night (why do all the worst symptoms always hit in the middle of the night???), I began to have a fever, chills, and nausea. The headache migrated into my face – my sinus area – and made me feel like my head was about to explode into a million pieces.

It was this combination of symptoms that made my infection so unbearable. A fever and chills, on their own, are unpleasant. Nausea, by itself, is miserable. A headache of this magnitude is terrible. But put it all together and it resulted in a crying, moaning, gasping for breath Heather. Rich was helpful, but obviously felt helpless. We were up for a while in the middle of the night, making warm compresses for my face, sipping ginger ale for the nausea, using the Netti Pot for my sinuses, getting extra blankets for my chilling, etc.

The next day at the doctor I was diagnosed with a severe sinus infection. And amid my absolute misery, somewhere in the recesses of my brain, I was incredibly thankful that I wasn’t dying of a brain aneurism. As much as I long for heaven, I feel like 30 is too young to go.

For the rest of the day I threw up. Including in the car on the way home from the doctor. You know that cloth shopping cart liner for babies to sit in? Ya, that was the ONLY thing in the car capable of catching my throw up, so that has since gotten a really, really good washing. Once we finally got my antibiotics and Sudafed, I was so hopeful that I was going to get some relief. But I couldn’t keep anything down, so I was getting a bit panicky. And can we please talk for a moment about how extraordinarily painful it is to throw up when you have a sinus headache? Oh my. Eventually, the next day, with the help of gatorade and Saltine crackers, I was able to keep my medicine down. And eventually, I could feel the effects of the antibiotic and the Sudafed. I’ve ben getting gradually better since then, and while the antiobiotic is making me feel nauseous, I’ll be done in a few days, thankfully.

Now to figure out how never to get another sinus infection Any comments on this are more than welcome!

Rich had taken Alana to spend the day with Randy and Susan so that we only had one child to care for, and the following day Rich’s parents took Alana while I was recovering. FAMILY TO THE RESCUE! Thank you so very much to Randy and Susan for allowing Alana to have a blast with her cousins and to my in-laws for taking Alana on a bunch of fun errands! She would have had NO fun here and we SOOOOO appreciate you all!

But I digress. The REAL reason for this blog post is happiness, not misery! It’s to post these awesome photos that Rich took while we were at the apple orchard yesterday! The girls are growing like crazy and some days I can’t even believe how quickly this year has passed. Here are some of our favorites from yesterday!

There were some adorable, tiny apples on the ground, just Sierra’s size  

Happy fall, everyone!