Rich, Heather and Alana’s Blog

Last week brought another fabulous session by the incredibly talented Amber Holritz, and another set of priceless images! 

Alana is ten months and oh, so busy! Amber was able to take some photos while Alana was in her highchair and contained, but once lunchtime was over and Alana was free, there was not a moment of calm! 

 

Alana is standing, and has even mastered clapping or waving while she balances…

 

And she tastes everything, of course! 

 

Daddy time! 

 

Family time! (note the canvas on the wall: the photo below is a picture of a picture of a picture!!!) 

 

We tried to put Alana on the Ottoman for a scale shot, but she was much too active. So, Amber caught this shot of us attempting to keep her from falling

 

We attempted to snuggle on the bed, and this was what happened. There was no snuggling going on! 

 

Mommy time. She was getting sleepy, so things calmed down a bit…

 

Important self portrait with Amber! 

 

Be sure to check out the Holritz Blog for a ton more photos and an amazing slideshow as well!

Once again, thank you so much to Amber for her expertise in capturing the everyday, natural moments that happen in our home! We love you and we love our memories!!! 

Last night, Rich and I decided to enjoy the beautiful evening by taking Alana to our neighborhood park. We thought It would be fun to take a few photos while we were there, taking advantage of the gorgeous evening light and documenting rapidly changing Alana! Rich brought his camera along and captured these wonderful memories! Thank you so much, honey!!!

We arrived to a nice cool breeze, which made Alana’s peach fuzz stand straight up, resulting in a little blonde mohawk ;) I love it! 

And here we are at the playground!

Gorgeous sun flare! 

Alana caught right on and grabbed the bar like she was about to catapult herself down the slide! 

I decided I wanted to be the one to take Alana down a slide for the first time ever! 

Sweet Pea:

This set of pictures have to be some of my favorites to date! I set Alana down in the sand, fully assuming she’d enjoy it and play…when instead, she immediately started bawling; screaming like I’d completely traumatized her. Check out how cute she is!

Clearly, she hated the feel of the sand on her legs and feet, and refused to touch the sand with her hands. She kept them up the whole 60 seconds that Rich took pictures

Happy again! Once I picked her up, brushed the sand off her hands and snuggled with her for a moment, she forgave us for the severe injustice! 

 

Have a great week everyone! Go to the park, go down a slide, and sit in the sand. Unless it makes you cry, of course

I have been terribly inconsistent with my blogging lately, and frankly, I am placing the blame on Facebook. I signed up about a month ago, and now, rather than sitting down at the end of the day to post about recent happenings on my trusty old blog, I tend to gravitate toward my Facebook page to update my status and connect with friends!

Being on Facebook has it’s advantages; namely, I’ve been able to connect with loads of people who I would not be able to connect with otherwise. 

But to me, Facebook could never replace blogging. I love the entire process of blogging. I love this personal space in which to share, vent, confess and just be. I love it, and feel sad when I’m negligent.

Rich has continued to juggle too much work (but has managed to do so beautifully) and I am enjoying collaboration with him and life with a ten month old. Alana changes daily, and daily I laugh at her antics.

She’s passionate, sweet, super busy, and hilarious!

{I’ll just apologize in advance for the lack of continuity in this post…it’s late, I’m tired, and I really want to get these photos up for my family to see. So while the photos are chronological from the past couple of weeks, I do not promise much of a story-line this time! These are just tidbits from recent day-to-day life} 

 

 

Here she is “helping” me with the dishwasher… 

 

 

Her sleepy, serious face:  

 

Every day she empties her hamper all over her nursery floor, and every day I pick it all back up when she’s not looking

 

 

She empties toys off their shelves…

 

And she has found the toilet! She reaches in to touch the water if I can’t get to her fast enough, and today she decided to throw a few items in there! 

 

My dear friend Kellie sent this photo to me. Alana and I were at Kellie’s house when Alana began climbing the stairs and then struck this little gymnast pose! With lightening fast reflexes and a great eye, Kellie managed to capture this moment! I love it! 

 

Excitement…

 

Alana’s first spaghetti dinner: 

 

A few days ago I tried to bite off tiny apple pieces to give to her, and she decided that was too inefficient. It would be much more productive to just take the whole apple…

 

Rich and Alana. She’s LOVES her daddy and she’s obsessed with waving

 

And clapping…

 

And pulling DVD’s off the entertainment center…

 

And throwing my coasters on the floor…

 

And once in a long while she stops long enough to just sit and be cute. 

 

 

Hanging out at Red Robin! 

 

 

 

I bought Alana a new car seat last week and this is her first time in it. It’s a convertible car seat, which means we’ve graduated from the infant car seat. Wow.

This was a huge blessing since a group of my mom’s dear friends contributed to a car seat fund and spared us the expense completely! 

 

She didn’t prefer her first ride…

 

But soon she acclimated. I just feel so bad for her since it’s so much more upright than the one we’ve been using. I think we will have to figure out a way to prop it so that her little neck doesn’t do this: 

 

Just yesterday Alana discovered the Ziplock container cabinet. She looked at me as if to say, “What? Cool! I can’t believe you’ve been hiding these from me all this time!” 

 

And her most recent scheme is to insist on standing in shopping carts while I attempt to be productive. And yes, of course I hold on to her while pushing the cart!

I can’t resist because it makes her SO happy to be standing while we shop. I discipline when I need to, but I’m a softie about things that she gets really excited about. 

 

 

And I’ll end with a photo of me and my honey. lovebugs. 

Labor day weekend began with a trip to Keith and Becca’s home…but sadly, Rich stayed home to work on an album design. We missed him very much, but Alana and I enjoyed good friends, glorious sunshine, and delicious food. 

I was sad not to have gotten a group photo, since well, you all know me…I love to document fun times for the sake of memories! I’m already getting so nostalgic when I look at photos of Alana when she was a newborn…and that was only last year! I can’t imagine how much I’ll appreciate photos years from now! 

But alas, that was a rabbit trail. I do like hopping down rabbit trails on my blog…and I comfort myself with the knowledge that at any time, you, the reader, can simply stop reading if you are bored, disinterested, or otherwise Of course, I hope you are not! 

 

It was only Alana’s second time in a pool, so we were back to square one with the apprehension. Soon she warmed up to the water (after a pensive mood and some adorable whimpering), and started to enjoy herself! 

Contrary to to the get-the-bright-sun-out-of-my-face expression she is making, she really did have fun. She splashed around, and even let me put her in a baby floating tube…thing.

Out of the water and trying to understand why there is cold wet stuff all over her body. So cute. 

 

Then on Wednesday night, Rich and I (along with Nathan and Amber) got a babysitter (thank you so much to Meleah!) and headed downtown for a Chattanooga Vendor’s Meeting.

The meeting was hosted by a fabulous new venue in town, The Mill, that we are all so excited about! Rich had the pleasure to take the photos that appear on their website as well as their recent grand opening, and we are thrilled to continue working closely with them as brides come our way! 

Tonya Lytle and Lisa Fontana have worked tirelessly to get The Mill where it is today, and I am confident that it will be bustling with activity in no time at all. Rich and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with these two ladies, and so, here is the self-portrait! 

 

Here we are with the incredible staff of Elea Blake Cosmetics! Rich loves to refer brides to Darin for their wedding day makeup, as she creates a masterpiece each time with her custom mineral makeup. Personally, I can’t wait to go have Darin do my makeup soon! 

 

Another self-portrait, this time with our dear friends, the Holritz’s! Or should I say Nathan and half of Amber! We were having issues with the point-and-shoot, which made me wish that Rich incessantly carry his pro camera for times like this! 

 

Me and my wonderful, amazing man…

Thursday was a fun and relaxing day as I got to spend time with one of my favorite people! Kristy invited Alana and I over to enjoy a delicious lunch with her wonderful family! Lily Kate is just ten days older than Alana, and it was SO cute watching the girls together. They did great and even stayed up past naptime to let Kristy and I catch up! 

This is the fabulous play room where everything is baby-proofed and completely conducive for little ones to explore. I am so jealous of this room! 

 

Laini helped so much with the babies and she and her sister Lyssa are two of the neatest girls I have ever had the pleasure to know! 

 

Alana was in toy heaven! I am sure she is tired of seeing the same toys every day at our house, so this was such a pleasant new environment for her to naviagate.

 

Thank you to Kristy for this fun picture of me with the little ones! 

 

Friday lunch was Tobi time! Originally, the plan was to get Tobi, Brittany, Shannon and myself together for a girls lunch, but then Shannon couldn’t come, and then at the last minute Brittany couldn’t make it!

So, despite missing the others, Tobi and I had a great time catching up and chatting about all things life. Tobi is such a fun, uplifting, awesome person to be around, and now due to her, I may have a lunch-at-Greenlife addiction in my future. :) 

Side note: If you haven’t already checked out Tobi’s blog and Etsy store, you must do so! She is so talented! 

 

 

Saturday afternoon brought with it a baby shower for sweet Amber Read! She and Jeff are having a baby girl soon, little Tori, and we are so excited for them! 

 

Alana enjoyed the shower, and, I do not exaggerate, had everyone’s attention the entire time with her little smiles and waves. It is becoming oh-so-apparent to Rich and I that she is a VERY social baby, who is not the least bit shy, and genuinely wants to be friends with everyone.

Along with the smile and wave, she now spits at people. It’s a game we’ve played at our house for a few months now (click here for a video), but suddenly, she is including complete strangers in the little exchange. Needless to say, I have to walk around explaining that the spitting is in fact, a good thing, and a game that we play at our house. Then I proceed to apologize for my daughter spitting at their child, and so far, thankfully, we all end up laughing about it. 

 

Okay, whew! Then on Saturday night, excited for some family time, we headed off to our brand new Red Robin at Hamilton Place Mall! We’d heard people rave about the burgers, fries, and milkshakes, but we’d never been to a Red Robin.

Since they just opened on Labor Day there were balloons everywhere. So, I grabbed one and handed it to Rich for Alana. She’d never touched one before, and we cracked up watching her try to apprehend the pesky thing! It just kept popping out of her hands and bopping her in the face! 

 

 

Family love! 

 

Then it was into the mall for shoe shopping for Rich! As a photographer, he spend hours upon hours on his feet and we are on an extensive (perhaps never-ending) quest for ultra-comfy (but still cool-looking) shoes for him!

Our first (and only) stop was Aldo, and the Canadian based company can seriously produce some sweet shoes! 

 

While Rich looked around, Alana and I played around with some self-portraits! 

  

 

Then Alana decided she would help her daddy pick out his shoes! He totally appreciated her input and got the shoes that she is picking out here: 

 

She was very helpful

 

He is such an amazing dad, and I seriously MELT watching him with Alana. He’s in love with her. 

 

Alright. That was SO fun catching up on my blogging! That’s all for now, but I’ve had all kinds of things floating around in my mind, so I am sure I will feel the need to blog more soon, pictures or not! 

Alana Mackenzie at nine months old…

I think words would just distract from the inherent cuteness of these photos

 

Thank you honey, for beautifully documenting all of the various stages and seasons of our little Alana’s life. This, the stage of exploration!