Tara Swain Photography

Today our baby is 1 week old. I can already tell that her hands are bigger than they were while we were in the hospital! I already want her to stop growing! :( I have been planning this newborn shoot for a VERY long time. A HUGE thank you to Tiff for letting me borrow her makeup studio for the session- it could not have been more perfect. Here is our baby…. leave her some blog love. This is only the first of MANY future photo shoots. :)

Briley taking a break while we get everything ready. :)

She was dancing around… I couldn’t resist. :)

FAVORITE!!!!! This WILL be HUGE in our house.

AGAIN, I could not resist.. I’m not sure what she was doing!!

She was not digging the giraffe.

OMG… those LIPS!

This entire week has felt like a dream and I still don’t think it’s completely set in. This has been the most emotionally-exhausting-insane-AMAZING experience of my life. Briley Grace was born Tuesday, December 22nd at 9:48 pm. She was 6 lbs. 13 oz. and 20 in. long. She was born with a FULL head and black hair (she gets that from her daddy… I was completely bald until the age of 3!) That day was a complete blur… we induced labor at 5 am and she was finally born via c-section at 9:48 that night. I cannot express to you the amount of respect and pure love that B and I have for Dr. Wilkerson and ALL of the nurses and staff in labor and delivery and post partum at PRMC… in particular; Anna, Wendy, Hannah and Debbie who all helped us through the labor and delivery. These women are absolutely amazing, you’ll never know just how much we appreciate everything you did for us.

This was the most unusual Christmas of our lives. Christmas Eve was spent eating Popeye’s and watching it snow out the hospital room window. The only tradition that carried on was watching “A Christmas Story” for 24 hours straight. :) Christmas Day we were finally discharged. We ate Christmas lunch at Furr’s and headed home to crash… Christmas dinner was supplied by Jack in the Box. :) Thank goodness for having a few restaurants open on Christmas. Otherwise I’m not sure what we would have done, considering we hadn’t been grocery shopping in like 2 weeks! Like I said… it was the craziest Christmas ever… but I can safely say that we will never be able to top it. You can plan all you want, but until we brought Bri home, we had no idea what to expect. The first night we had her home (Christmas night) we lay in bed and stare at her lying in her basinet. She was looking back at us with a face that said… “What ARE you people LOOKING AT!?” There are no words to describe the feeling of looking into eyes of this baby who is a stranger… yet half of YOU at the same time. Needless to say, we kind of love her. :) We are also thankful for the overwhelming love and support from all of our friends and family. I lost count of the unbelievable number of visitors we had while in the hospital. I don’t think that Briley could ever imagine just how much she is loved by so many people.. especially all of her overly excited grandparents.. (my mom in particular who hardly ever left my side.) :)

And now it’s time to brag on my husband. As much as I knew he would be an amazing father, he has surpassed my expectations already. He was at my side the entire time and has since not thought twice about having to take care of Briley AND me while I’m recovering. The best part about it is watching this 6’7″ man walking around the house carrying a pink blanket holding this tiny 6 lb. baby. :) I’ll never let anyone say that he didn’t change his share of diapers or do his share of feedings. He is my HERO!

We are slowly forming a routine and getting back into the swing of things. As soon as I can shoot her actual newborn session, I’ll get some images up… I’ve been planning this shoot for a very long time. :) But for now I had to settle with a couple of shots out of my point and shoot camera. Hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Christmas. We did finally get around to opening gifts… my favorite gift of all was from B. Another wedding band, identical to my original wedding band. It will be placed on the other side of my engagement ring so that I will now have 3 rings. In the middle is the engagement ring… on one side is my wedding band and on the other side is the new band… the THIRD band… which he gave me 3 days after our first child was born. Because NOW there are 3 of us. :)

B holding Bri on Christmas morning.. just a few hours before we got discharged from the hospital.

Me and Bri before her first Sunday at church.

The year is slowly coming to and end. I am very thankful to have been blessed by having so many wonderful clients this year. I want to thank everyone for making this year so great– busy… and great. :) Things have been absolutely crazy here lately… between preparing for Briley, the holidays, the house and work schedule- most days I believe that I’m losing my mind. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel… with only 2 weddings and a few sessions before my maternity leave, I think I just might make it. ;) It honestly doesn’t feel like the year should be over yet… it has FLOWN by!

2010 is going to bring a lot of changes… I will only be accepting a limited number of weddings each month and portrait sessions will be scheduled for Tuesday-Friday only. I am so grateful to all of my loyal clients who have kept me so busy this past year. I’ve loved working with each and every one of you and it has been a blast. As much as I’ve loved my fast paced life, I’m so excited about starting our family and with that brings the need to slow down.

I can’t say enough, just how blessed I feel to have met so many wonderful people… and I can not wait for the fabulous weddings and sessions I’ve got scheduled for 2010 already. As of right now my earliest openings are in April- I have 5 left.

I had fully intended on posting a sono pic from today but as usual, Briley wasn’t very cooperative so we were only really able to get a shot of her feet- (which are enormous by the way!!) Hopefully she will be a little more accepting to getting her picture taken when I go back in a couple of weeks. :) Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!!!