fact: alana has the best laugh ever.
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xox, andrea.
February 22, 2012
February 16, 2012
February 14, 2012
.love is all around.
pop on over to pinksugarland to see what we've been up to this valentine's day :)
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happy heart day! xox, andrea.
February 11, 2012
.leslie.
a beautiful momma to be, on a beautiful (albeit freezing cold and windy) fall evening. perfection.
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xox, andrea.
February 06, 2012
.the wallace family.
i met up with this awesome little family on a gorgeous fall evening and didn't stop laughing until long after the session ended -- so much fun.
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xox, andrea.
February 01, 2012
.natasha and tyler.
my last wedding of 2011, natasha and tyler's wedding was the perfect conclusion to an awesome season.
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xox, andrea.
January 27, 2012
January 23, 2012
.december.
thought i might as well get caught up all at once here :)
december started out a wee bit rough with some sort of mystery post partum infection but after a visit to emerg, one to the doctor, and a myriad of tests with no definitive results, i ended up on some antibiotics and life improved drastically :) 103 degrees for three days with a new baby and a three year old wasn't particularly pleasant!
in addition to spending time getting to know the new guy, making sure the little lady was also feeling extra special and visiting with friends and family, we also had a belated celebration for miss lila's third birthday, a small party to celebrate cole's arrival and enjoyed a quiet christmas at home, just the four of us.
we kept things fairly simple all around -- lila had a small party one morning with a few special friends, and then after a quick redecorate, we had a casual open house for cole later that same day. at li's party we made snowglobes with the kiddos and decorated snowflake cookies before opening presents and eating snowball cake. the kids had fun, the snacks were tasty and there were no major meltdowns. can't ask for much more than that at a three year old party ;)
sharing christmas with a three year old really reminds you of how magical the holidays really can be. we set out cookies and milk for santa, along with carrots and reindeer snacks for rudolph and friends and lila was so excited to wake up to find only remnants of the snack on christmas morning. we all slept in late, li had an absolute blast opening up gifts (hers and everyone else's), cole was in a great mood, mark and i made our first turkey dinner, and we just enjoyed snuggling and playing together all day. all in all, we couldn't have asked for a more perfect holiday.
we headed to bc for a few days after christmas to celebrate with mark's family and got to see some old friends as well, which is always awesome. the kiddos did pretty well on the eight hour drive, cole turned a month old, and we finally got the chance to enjoy some winter weather for a few days. it's been so mild and snow free in edmonton up until this past week, that it was a treat to actually have a white christmas -- even if it was a few days late ;)
december marked the end of one personal project, and the beginning of another. i wrapped up a year in the life of miss lila and have begun documenting our adventures as a family of four, along with sharing some other bits and pieces, over in pinksugarland. please feel free to stop by anytime :) (and if you want to see a bit more of our winter decor -- pop on over right now!)
what an incredible year -- can't wait to see what 2012 has in store :)
xox, andrea
January 16, 2012
.november.
at the rate i'm going, it'll be march before i start talking about this year ;) november was a bit of a blur with lila's third birthday and cole's arrival so this monthly recap is going to be pretty quick! jumping right in...
early november was spent enjoying every last minute being a family of three. we had lots of adventures and outings -- baking, park dates, swimming, aquarium, fort building, train rides, birthday parties, shopping, lunch dates, amusement park... all of things lila loves that i knew wouldn't be happening quite as frequently with the addition of a new babe.
we also spent some time preparing (and waiting) for baby. i finally finished painting the nursery and we tried without success to figure out some name options. i was 95% certain at this point that we'd be having a little boy (i had boy and girl nursery plans and decided to just go ahead with the boy ideas!) which made the naming process that much more stressful -- we could not agree on ANYTHING.
li awoke on her birthday and even before noticing the balloons everywhere, the first thing she did was reach down to touch my belly and ask why the baby hadn't come yet. i guess we'd hyped up the idea of turning three and the baby arriving at the same time that it just didn't make sense to her that she wasn't waking up to a new baby brother or sister. (i'll admit that it was a little weird for mark and i as well -- with lila arriving over three weeks early, going over due was a bit of a change for us!) needless to say though, we had a fantastic day celebrating three and i'm super happy the kiddos won't have to share a birthday.
four days later we welcomed little cole henry into the world. it was a relatively quick and complication free labour and delivery and we were back home twelve hours after he arrived. we actually had the go ahead to head home a few hours earlier but stuck around the hospital until we'd settled on a name for the little guy... it took twelve hours but we did it, and though it took a couple of days to be 100% confident with the choice, it feels absolutely perfect for him now :)
the next few days were mostly spent just snuggling and adjusting to our new life. on the last day of the month, we snuck in our first portrait as a family of four :)
hope 2012 is treating everyone great so far :) stick around for lots more news and photos very soon! happy monday. xox, andrea.
