Wedding Bells - Jen and Corey

My friends Jen and Corey tied the knot on June 4th and I was lucky enough to be their photographer.  I did their engagement session last fall and had so much fun.

Jen is such a good friend and since it was only my second wedding I was pretty nervous about shooting it.  Plus I was 36 weeks pregnant and it was the hottest day of the year up until that point!!  BUT I think that the pictures turned out wonderful.  It is so hard to pick my favorites.  I ended up with so many great shots.  So I have put together a few storyboards to share with you all.

Colton Fix

Colton is 5 weeks old today!  Where has the time gone.  I know here soon I am going to be saying 5 months and then blink and it will be 5 years.  :) 

Sleeping through the fireworks on the Fourth of July

Just because he is so darn cute!

Sleeping on my Dad's arm.  My dad has massive hands and they make Colton look so tiny when he holds him. 

Getting ready to go on our first official family walk. 

And we like to start them young!  Here is Colton posing on Aunt Mollie's horse Peach.  Lauren loves horses so we ride frequently so I am sure that he will enjoy them just as much.  He kinda has to being put on one at only 4 weeks old!!

Crying Over Spilled Milk

Or in my case...dumped out milk.

The day Colton was born he started feeding like a champ.  We didn't have too many problems, just the basic latch issues that I had with Lauren and since I had done this once before I thought it was going to be smooth sailing this time around.  Boy I could not have been more wrong. 

The first three days were great.  He fed for long periods of time and was doing so well and then it happened.  I started getting sore and then all of a sudden he didn't want to latch anymore.  He would fuss and clamp down and just be extremely rough.  I tried my hardest to tough it out, even biting on a towel while bawling my eyes out trying to get him to feed.  I was so sore on one side that I was in excruciating pain everytime he would latch on that side.  It was like fire and nails going through my breast.   I was cracked, bleeding and had a really hard lump that ended up being a clogged duct.  {ended up getting 4 of those in less than a 2 week time period}  Then I got mastitis on that same side and was pretty miserable.  After finishing my antibiotic the mastitis came back a couple of days later.  I couldn't figure out why I wasn't healing so I went to the doctor to get it checked out.  They took a culture and I ended up with MRSA, which is a nasty staph infection.

I was out with my sister in law treating myself to a pedicure when I got the call from the doctor's office  Brian was so sweet and stayed home with Colton so I could get out for a relaxing couple of hours.  So here I am sitting in the nail place with tears streaming down my face after being told that I was not to nurse for at least the next ten days.  I would have to "pump and dump" because the antibiotic they were putting me on to treat the MRSA is not reccommended while breastfeeding.  I was devistated.  Here I had been working so hard to get myself healed, feeding and pumping and being a milk machine and now I was not only going to have to stop but I was more than likely going to have to throw away all the milk I had banked in the freezer because chances are it was contaminated.  They weren't sure if I could pass the infection to Colton through the milk but strongly suggested that I not feed him the milk.

After careful consideration I decided that it would be best to just switch to formula.  Normally one round of antibiotic does not clear up the infection so who knows how long I would have to throw out my milk.  Plus  I would feel awful if I did pass it to Colton and he got really sick from it.  I wouldn't be able to live with that...so formula it is.  :(

So each time I have to dump a bottle of milk down the sink I cry.  Whoever said "no crying over spilled milk" obviously never had to throw away hard earned breastmilk!

S'mores Cheesecake

S'mores Cheesecake

Ingredients

18 Graham Crackers, divided
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
3 tablespoons sugar
4 packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 tablespoon flour
4 eggs
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chunks, divided

1 cup mini marshmallows

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.  Line 13x9 inch baking pan with foil, with the ends of the foil extending over the sides of the pan.  Crush 14 of the graham crackers. {should be about 2 cups} Mix crumbs with 3 tablespoons sugar and butter.  Press firmly onto the bottom of the pan.  Coarsley chop the remaining 4 graham crackers.

Beat cream cheese, 1 cup sugar and the vanilla in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until well blended.  Add flour and mix well.  Next add eggs, one at a time, mixing on low after each addition until just blended.  Chop 1/2 cup of the chocolate chunks and stir into the cream cheese mixture.  Pour over crust.  Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup chocolate chunks, the marshmallows and then the reserved chopped graham crackers. 

Bake for 40 minutes or until the center is almost set.  Cool completely, cover and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.  Remove cheesecake from pan using foil handles before cutting into squares to serve. 

Lauren - isms

Everyone knows that kids say the funniest things. They are brutally honest and hold nothing back and Lauren is no exception!  Here is what she has recently been heard saying.

"Good girl Daddy!"

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

"I got nipples, just like Daddy"

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

"Good girl, Guinness, do you want a sucker for going poopie outside?"

{Guinness is our dog}

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

"Colton eat mommy's booby"

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

"Daddy has to poopie, I have to poopie too, let's race, I am gonna beat you"

"ha ha Daddy I beat you!"

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

 

 

Colton's Birth Story

I can't believe that my little man is almost 1 month old.  Today he is 4 weeks and I am sad that it has taken me so long to get this posted. 

We arrived at the hospital on June 23 shortly before 10am for my lunch hour scheduled c-section.  We got all checked in, got my IV, asked a million questions and all that jazz and before I knew it, it was time to go.

My last belly shot.

 

 

They gave Brian this wonderful outfit to wear.  It was extremely funny to watch him try and get it on too.  It was kind of tight.  :)

 

 

 

Us walking to the operating room.  That was really surreal.  They made Brian wait out side while I went in by myself. 

When we walked in I looked at the clock and it was 11:56.  My doctor and several other people were in there and as I was looking around I just started crying.  Part of me was excited to meet Colton and the other major part of me was scared.  They got me on the table and started to get my spinal block in.  I would have to say that was the worst thing ever.  The epidural I had with Lauren was nothing!  They had to do the spinal a couple of times because the first doctor couldn't get it in even though he tried twice and then my OB finally got fed up and made them page another guy who came in and got it on the first try. It hurt really bad.  I guess they were hitting a nerve or something and it made my right leg hurt like crazy and burn like fire.  But once they got it in I started getting numb.  They laid me back at 12:18 and Colton was born 11 minutes later at 12:29.  I couldn't believe how fast it went once they got the spinal in.  As a matter of fact they started to work before they went back to get Brian and I was already cut open and they were almost to Colton before he sat down next to me. 

Our first glimpse at our little man! 

 

He came out peeing.  :)  I hear the doctor say "here he is" and then she says "oh he's peeing" and I hear it hitting the sheet that they had up in front of me.  She lifts him up so I can see him and he is the most handsome thing ever. 

 

 

Proud Daddy who had just cut the cord. 

 

When they finally brought him over to me I was so relieved.  I had been laying on the table looking around but could hardly see anything because of the sheet.  Brian was with the Colton taking pictures and such so I was just lying there waiting, staring at the big lights on the ceiling since that was all I could see.

 

Brian and Colton were both able to stay with me while in the recovery room and that was awesome because we were able to breathe and just be together.  I got to feed Colton pretty much as soon as we got in there. 

 

Lauren is such a proud big sister.  She was immediately in love with him the second she walked in the room.  She wanted to hold him and see him and touch him and didn't really want anyone else to hold him. 

 

Daddy and his little ones. 

 

{don't mind the way I look please!}  The c-section really wasn't too bad I guess and the recovery hasn't been too awfully difficult.  I did have a bit of a reaction to the drugs that they used.  They made me itch horribly bad and I got super nauseous.  They gave me something to counteract all of that and it made me really sleepy and loopy.  Everyone that came to visit that night probably thought I was out of my mind I am sure.  :) 

 

We were in the hospital from Wednesday to Saturday. Brian was able to stay with us the entire time which was so very very nice.  I wasn't allowed to get up and walk until Thursday morning and was still pretty weak and nauseous when I would stand up so it was very helpful for him to be able to change diapers and hand him to me when he needed to eat.  Overall everything went well and we are all doing great.  I love being a family of 4!

Baa Baa

I just love it when Lauren learns something new at daycare...at least when that something new is cute or educational! This week she came home with a picture of a sheep with a bunch of black yarn glued to it. At first I wasn't sure why her sheep was black. Were they trying to tell us something?? :) But then when she started singing "baa baa black sheep" it made perfect sense. I shot this video of her last night while she was in the tub. (turn off the music player at the bottom first)

I'm in Love!