Friday, April 4, 2014

A MASSIVE Photodump

I had the best intentions of taking photos of Ellie on the first day of every month. Or maybe every week. Or maybe every day. I was going to document her tiny life and make sure we had photos of her as she grew from a tiny baby into a beautiful little girl.

Like I said, I had good intentions...and then I did what I normally do and procrastinated. So, the super cute "1 Month" photos I imagined doing are actually really cute "Six and a Half Weeks" photos, but I put "1 Month" on the chalkboard so I would feel better.

This post is just going to be a massive photo dump, so be prepared for the onslaught of cuteness!

E and I have been watching a lot of the British show "Top Gear" on Netflix recently, so we were thrilled to discover that at the beginning of each month there is an exotic car show held less than two miles from our apartment. E and I had tons of fun checking out all the fun cars and I snapped a cute photo of Ellie Belle and E on her official "1 Month" day.

I'm going to put little captions on the car photos instead of boring you with long explanations.

Ariel Atom
Tesla Roadster
Lamborghini Superleggera
We found this cute old car all by its lonesome and thought we should take some photos of its classic lines.




Then the next day, Ellie went to church for the first time. She did really well and slept most of the service, but by the time we got home for photos she was done cooperating.












Ellie's Nana K and Auntie Leneigh came to visit a few weeks later and helped me re-stage her "1 Month" photoshoot. It was much easier with their help and by that time Ellie had gotten much more expressive.






They also painted my dining room for me. The color is Valspar Frosty and it makes the whole house look prettier and more spacious!



E and I have been enjoying getting to know our little lady. E has been working hard at being a good daddy, but some of his parenting moments are more hysterical and some are more adorable.



We're getting better at family selfies too!



After E's mom and sister left, Ellie's Auntie Kayla came to visit. We had lots of fun with her and tried to convince her to stay, but apparently Uncle Zech missed her. While she was here, she took lots of photos of Ellie Belle. We even went to the park and she took some photos of Ellie and I together. I'm just going to go ahead and count the park photos and the bluebonnet photos as Ellie's "2 Month" photos. 

This girl is starting to make the darnedest faces! Check out some of the adorableness that Kayla captured.








I may have called E while he was playing video games and then sent this to him to "prove" that it was Ellie calling him instead of me ;)







She wasn't being a very smiley baby, so I tried to help her out a little...No such luck!





This is my "Look What I Made" pose ;)



She started fussing so we put her in her stroller and turned on some music with a good beat. She calmed right down when she started listening to the music!










I had to go to the doctor for another checkup on the 2nd, so afterward I went to a nearby park that has bluebonnets. I didn't get a lot of good ones since she was asleep when I started and I was using my iPhone, but I am really happy with one or two of them.









And last but not least, a few random photos...




And THAT, my patient friends, is the end of this post. Hope you enjoyed it!
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Thursday, March 13, 2014

Newborn Photos

We had our Memorial Day photoshoot with Crystal from Gilded Sun Photography right after we found out that we were expecting Ellie. We loved working with Crystal and loved how she captured such sweet and playful pictures of us. I knew that I wanted Crystal to do a newborn session for our little one when the time came. It's been so great working with her. She's sweet, funny, imaginative, and we love how the photos turn out every time!

She came over on Valentine's Day for Ellie Belle's newborn session. We were literally still in bed when she got here (rough night with the baby), but she managed to capture our little girl perfectly.
I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I did!


Her shirt in this one says "Daddy's Valentine" so, of course, she needed a picture with her daddy too!




I imagine her saying "What do you mean MORE pictures?!"






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Saturday, February 15, 2014

Ellie Belle

These past two weeks have been some of the best days of my life so far. Eleanor Belle Hennigan was born on February 1st, 2014 and has brought us immense joy every day since.

Before you have kids you hear things like "You'll wake up every time your kid makes a noise" and you think "Nah, I sleep like the dead" or you hear "You'll be more upset when you hear about things happening to kids because you'll think about yours" and you think "Not possible. My heart already breaks over things like that. Having a kid won't change that!"

Let me tell you something.

Your heart will break. You will wake up when they breath funny. You will find patience you didn't know you had when your baby screams almost nonstop until four in the morning. The world will suddenly seem far more scary and evil and yet it will also seem far more full of wonder and hope. Your protective instincts will be thrown into overdrive. You will think every smile is groundbreaking.

All of that and so much more will happen when you have a baby.

Here are some of the photos from her birth. Our photographer Crystal was a rock star for staying and taking pictures for several hours during Ellie's drug-free birth. Let's just say that she has no choice but to be friends with us now...she's seen too much. o_O

Here are a few highlights...

This photo is from right after she was born. Apparently she was upset that she had been evicted from her former home.


She kept her eyes closed and a sad expression until her daddy started talking to her. As soon as she heard his voice, she turned towards his voice and opened her eyes. She hadn't even had her cord cut yet and she was working on wrapping her daddy around her little finger. Crystal managed to get a photo of that exact moment and it's one of our favorite photos.


Ellie started responding to Esquire's voice when I was between 16-20 weeks pregnant with her so it's not surprising that she recognized his voice. Sometimes he's the only one who can calm her down. His secret weapon? Elvis Presley songs. Yup. That's right. She's definitely ours!







She recognized my voice as well. I think this is her "Hey, Mom, where's my food?" face. Either that or her "Hey, Mom, looks like we survived. High five!" face.




Without a doubt, this little girl has changed me and I wouldn't have it any other way.



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Saturday, January 4, 2014

37 Weeks and Counting...

Esquire and I were excited and a little terrified when we found out that we were having a baby.
I was convinced we were having a little boy and set out to find a boy name as soon as possible.
We had a boy name picked out when we went in for the gender sonogram, but still didn't have any girl names that we could agree on. When the ultrasound technician told us it was definitely a girl, we were back at square one of the “Name That Baby” game. We started all over with surveying family and friends, bouncing names off each other, looking up name meanings, and ruling out names that made us cringe.



We finally decided on a first name for our little girl not too long ago. We decided to name her Eleanor and call her Ellie. Eleanor means “shining light” and is a very classic name. The first Eleanor that probably came to mind was our former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, but what you may not know is that there were also several queens named Eleanor (the earliest of them were probably spelled differently). If you've ever seen the movie “Up” then you’ll remember the precocious little girl in the beginning of the movie was named Ellie. We didn't name her Eleanor because of “Up”, but I imagine our Ellie could very well resemble that little bubble of crazy joy. We are still discussing middle names, but I’m sure that we’ll figure it out before we have to submit her birth certificate.



We recently had the opportunity to see our little girl again. We opted to get a 3D ultrasound done at the same time as her regular ultrasound. We were able to see the shape of her little eyes, nose, and mouth. Can I just say that (in my completely biased opinion) she’s pretty stinking cute! This will probably be the last ultrasound that we’ll get before she’s born and I’m so glad we have these photos of her sweet little self.



Today marks 37 weeks of pregnancy. It’s scary to think that in a month or less Esquire and I will be card-carrying parents of a little girl. All the theoretical “my child will NEVER…” and “I won’t let my kid do THAT” statements will be put to the test. We decided to commemorate today by getting out my studio lighting and taking some photos of the baby bump. Even the dogs got in on the action!




The dogs were not really sure what we were doing but they behaved really well for the whole portrait process. Mairi was really concerned that she wasn't in possession of her favorite bone, so she looks a little anxious in my photo with them, but she was much happier with Esquire!




We can't wait to meet our little girl!





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