Portrait of a Newborn {Jones at 6 days old}

It made me laugh that I only gave myself 30 minutes for my official newborn shoot with baby Jones, and I give clients around 2 hours for a full newborn shoot. Believe me when I tell you I could post 50 more. Because I could. He's pretty cute, if I do say so myself.














The first one reminds me of Plato/DaVinci in Raphael's School of Athens and it totally cracked me up when he pointed heavenward for this shot. Art history humor. Sorry.

Perfection {Jones at 3 days old}

I can't believe how much our little Jones has grown in the last few weeks (and how far behind I am at blogging!). Things have been a little crazy, but it's been amazing to have my husband at home 24/7 for a few weeks before the big move and starting work. I honestly don't know how I'm going to take care of two kids without him.

Here are a few pictures from our 10 minute impromptu shoot at the hospital just before we went home.I know it's hard to believe, but other than these portraits I've only done one "photo shoot" with baby Jones since we brought him home. Stay tuned for more cuteness...












and even at 4 days old he knows when to tell mom "enough is enough..." and we just love his porcupine hair:

Old Town Imports Warehouse Sale {amazing prices!}

This is the last weekend to shop the Old Town Imports Fall Pre-Sale... all the warehouse sale items are 40-50% off and range from $2.99-$89.99. You place your order and put 50% down now, and then you get to pick up your items and pay the balance just in time for holiday gift-giving. If you aren't local (SLC, UT), you can have your items shipped to you for 15% of your total purchase price (a steal) especially since this stuff is heavy indeed.

The prices are incredible, and you can even afford them if you're on a student budget like we are.

Go ahead, get all your Christmas shopping done... your mom, your sisters, your mother-in-law, and your dining room table will thank me later. See parties I've thrown with my amazing Old Town Imports serveware here, here, here here and most recently here.

Seriously, people! You just swap out the table linens and and add a few decorative details and you have a completely different look with the same 10 pieces of serveware- timeless, seasonless, fabulous indeed. And if you've shopped Nambe or Wilton Armetale lately, you'll know these prices are unreal...

Here are a few pieces that I've picked out:

Small Beaded Bowl $4.99


Tiny Serving Spoon Set $2.99 (so cute!)


Symphony Punch Bowl $79.99




Long Boat Bowl $17.99


Square Fruit Bowl Medium $24.99


Shallow Bowl Large $39.99

Room Update {for our little girl}

When we brought our son home from the hospital, I wanted to do something special for Ella... so I planned ahead and made her a quilt, a doll, and a doll quilt. I didn't even know if she'd notice the change, but she certainly did. She was elated, and immediately picked up her doll and wrapped her in the baby blanket. She's been dragging her "dollie" around ever since we gave it to her, and she only wants to sleep with her "yellow blanket" as she calls it.

I'm sure it didn't make much difference to her, but it made a big difference to me to know the time and effort that went into those gifts. Hopefully she felt our love and felt special too (not that baby was getting all the attention and presents) It made our son's homecoming even more special.

Here's the before and after (both are missing some of her cute throw pillows, and I should have ironed the bed-skirt- hindsight is 20/20 people).

Baby Boy's Birth Story

My husband was in NY taking the bar exam during the labor and delivery of my son. Kyle and I didn't originally plan to have anyone present at the birth, but since I wanted to have Kyle feel as much a part of the birth as possible, I asked my sister to come document our baby boy's birth story. I am so grateful that I did. I didn't really notice what she was taking pictures of, and it was such a treat to look back and have memories triggered by the images I saw. I took a few from my perspective looking up at IV's and my mom took the pics where Erin is present, and in the OR, but almost all of these were taken by her (and edited/converted to B&W by me). Thank you Erin, we love every single one.

I wrote out our entire birth story and posted it on our family blog, but as it would take about 3 days to read, I'll quickly post "the man's version" as my father says, but with lots of details women like to hear.

• The intense, consistent contractions started around midnight on the 27th
• I willed myself to not be in labor since my husband was in NY taking the bar exam... tried laying down, taking a shower, etc., but nothing worked
• at 3am I gave up on trying to stop labor and decided that I should probably have my mom drive me to the hospital in Provo where I was planning to deliver (just in case it was go-time)
• arrived at the hospital around 4 am after a crazy car ride in the back seat with no seat belt (really clever, I know, but you would have done the same thing if you were trying to cope with back labor)
• Found out I was dilated to a 7 - who would have thought?!
• Decided that I was probably the only woman on the planet who would have rather gone home instead.
• Called my husband on his way to day 2 of the bar exam to tell him the baby was coming. After a tearful exchange I felt at peace, even though he couldn't be there with me.
• Got hooked up to all the monitors and got prepped for a C-section (just in case), including an epidural, iv, and they gave me an oxygen mask to wear for the duration of labor to help give my son as much oxygen as possible
• Blogged :)
• My sister Erin showed up to take portraits
• Baby was struggling after contractions, but I finally made it to 10cm and fully effaced.
• Pushed for 1 hour, 45 minutes only to arrive at a 1+ station
• Got prepped for OR to attempt forceps, and if failed, Cesarean-section. My Mama came with me to the OR to be with me and document the birth.
• Determined that the shape of my pelvis would not allow the baby's head to descend, so they performed a Cesarean
• It was a good thing they got him out fast because he wasn't breathing and had no heartbeat initially... but after CPR he rebounded quickly from an apgar score of 0 to a 7 (the nurse said she's never seen a baby rebound so quickly)
• I got to meet my son and nurse for a few minutes before the NICU team took him to be monitored- such a sweet moment.
• And once they brought him back and got him bathed and fluffed up that hair there was no hope for us- we were all smitten.

If you are even considering having someone document your birth story, do it. You won't regret it.

All photos (except for three by me and four that my Mama took, noted below) were taken by Erin and edited by me.

above three taken from my hospital bed

My Mom took the next three:


This shot of Jones my Mom took when I saw him for the first time is one of my favorites- its so scary to think that he wasn't breathing and his heart wasn't beating at this point.... Erin took the next one of me holding him for the first time:
 

These two were also taken by my mama:

taken by my Mom: