I'm an aunt!!!

Sloane Christine Reilly

5:38, January 7th, 2009

7lbs, 4oz

20 inches long

Her dad unwrapped her from her "baby burrito" to show us how long her legs are, and she was not havin' it.  She really likes the baby burrito.  But...she's even cute crying, isn't she?

Dad re-wrapping the baby burrito.

Meeting her PaPa for the first time.  Grandma and grandpa are MiMi and PaPa.  I'm not actually sure if both Ms and Ps are capitalized, but you get the idea.  :)  She wasn't terrified of him...she was recovering from the unwrapping.  She calmed down pretty fast.  

See?  Sleeping just seconds later, after meeting Aunt Katharine.  She's already gotten a taste of how she's going to be among the world's most photographed children.

Meeting her MiMi for the first time.  She's trying to figure out how to thank her for spoiling her before she was even born.  But...it's hard when you can't speak, can only focus on things a couple of inches in front of your face, and have no idea how you were swimming around in the dark one minute and in this incredibly bright place being wrapped up and passed around the next.

Adjusting to new surroundings is exhausting.  So is learning all of these names.

Her tiny toes are so cute.  A couple of them were sorta' smooshed (appropriate when her nickname in utero was "Smooshy"), and they cross a little bit.  It's like she couldn't figure out how to cross her fingers when she was hoping for a smooth birth.  Crossed toes are the next best thing.  :)  Evidently they'll un-smoosh well before she has to worry about walking.

Look how tiny they are next to my mom's hand.

More examining of the tootsies.

Sloane and I having our first conversation outside of Amy's belly.  She's fascinating.  Even though she can only talk with spit bubbles and blinking eyes.

She's demonstrating how she kicked Amy for the past few months.

Sleepy.

Sorta'.  There's interesting stuff going on.  She's trying to stay awake for it.

The proud dad getting some photos for facebook.  :)

Awww.  Even yawns are insanely cute.

Amy looked amazing.  The first thing Kevin said when he came out to get us was "Amy's a rockstar."  Evidently she was pretty good at the whole "having a baby" thing.  :)

Sweet.

This was the delivery room.

This is the room they were moved to a couple hours after Sloane was born.  This place is incredibly nice.  So are the people.  It's the West Allis Women's Pavilion, if you're interested.

This is Sloane after her first bath.  Even cuter.  Didn't know it was possible.

The adorable new family.

Speaking of family...I took a couple of Sloane's blankets back to their house so Rosy and Reteif could get used to their sister's scent.  They were all about it.

But then they seemed to feel a little guilty.  Wait.  Is it ok that we're really excited about sniffing a blanket?  It seems weird, but we can't get enough.  That's cool, right?

Rosy likes to be dressed up, so I let her wear them for a little while.  They're such cute (and good!) dogs.  Sloane is very lucky to have such great siblings waiting for her when she gets home.  Reteif has actually been really protective of Amy over the last few months.  He seemed to know what was going on, and wouldn't leave her side for a second.  Adorable.

That's all for now.  I apologize in advance for the number of niece-related blog posts that could be appearing here.  I kinda' love her a lot, and I barely know her.  Just wait until I've seen her a few more times...

Yay!!!!

Colin & Christina

Colin & Christina had a beautiful wedding at St. Sebastian and a very cool reception at Alverno College. They found me through Angelique, who was a guest at my friend Heather & Stuart's wedding that I photographed last year. It turns out Colin & Christina live just a few blocks from me. Small world, huh? Or Smallwaukee, as my friends and I like to call it.

So these two are huge baseball fans. The entire reception had a baseball theme. From the centerpieces (baseballs stacked in vases) to the cakes (baseball stitching on the large one, team logos on the smaller ones) to the table names (each table was a different team). Very cool.

Below are the photos I put in a mini album for them to take on their honeymoon. Another posting with additional photos to come. Enjoy!

Christina and her dad

I love this church. It's absolutely amazing.

The ring exchange. Also...you can see Colin's super-cool shoes in this photo.

Yaaay!

The happy couple with Christina's grandmother

Christina's entire family

Christina's immediate family

Colin's family

The wedding party

In front of the church

The cocktail hour was in this really cool rotunda at Alverno

More baseball-related details

See what I mean about the cool cakes?

Colin's dad was his best man. I think that's so cool. My brother had our dad as his best man, too. It's gotta' be such a great feeling to know your son considers you his best friend.

A very funny maid of honor speech

Colin joking with Christina's parents during his speech

Christina's dad toasting the couple

Christina & Colin had company on the dancefloor during their first dance. I just love kids in their pajamas on the dancefloor. It cracks me up.

Father-daughter dance

Mother-son dance

One of the younger single ladies catching the bouquet

The DJ made Colin do some dancing before he let him remove Christina's garter.

The garter mid-air

Outside Alverno as I was leaving the reception. There was a gorgeous moon that night.

Catch-up / Anne & Matt

So....I'm going to try to get caught up on all of the things I should have been blogging about recently. I'm going to start with the most recent and go in reverse. Ready? Ok.

This past Friday, I had the pleasure of photographing Anne & Matt's wedding at Grace Lutheran Church and their reception at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. Anne and Matt were great to hang around with all day. They're incredibly nice people, and they're refreshingly laid back. Not to the point that they didn't care, of course. You could tell a lot of thought was put into that gorgeous wedding. It's just that they weren't stressing about anything on their wedding day, and were able to genuinely enjoy sharing it with their family and friends. Speaking of family, between them they have five(!) sisters. You could tell that Anne's 3 sisters were thrilled to be getting a brother for the first time.

Ok, I know. Enough chit chat. You want to see photos. :) Here you go:

So this first photo isn't one that I took, but I think it's pretty cool. There's a website where you can make signs, concert tickets, record labels, etc. say whatever you want them to say. You can even change the colors and the logos on them. For this one, I tried to match the color of the bridesmaid dresses. The website is http://www.says-it.com/. Enjoy!


The flowers were beeeeautiful! You may be able to tell that I love the bright flowers since I used Carrie's gorgeous bright bouquet on my website. Anne's flowers actually matched some of the shoes her bridesmaids were wearing. She let each of them pick out their own shoes, and they were all different colors. Fun!

Anne getting some help from her sisters.

Anne wore Matt's grandmother's pearl necklace. Her future mother-in-law helped her put it on.

Anne's mom and sister helping her with her train.

Anne and her dad were so cute!

Speaking of cute...check out Anne and Matt during the ceremony. They look so happy!

The church is gorgeous.

Anne's family

Matt's family

Matt's entire family

The wedding party. See what I mean about the fun shoes? So cool!

The wedding party walked from the church to the Marcus Center, just a few blocks away. There were quite a few people honking horns and wishing the couple well.

We stopped and took this along the sidewalk. Aren't they adorable?

This is one of those reflections that just doesn't make any sense to me, but it looks really cool. The building reflected is north of this building, and the windows it's reflected in are curving to the south. I seriously don't get it. Maybe one of my engineer friends can explain it to me. I just know it's a cool background for a photo.

Awwww.....

The cocktail hour was along the windows facing this little courtyard, and there were tables set up for guests to sit outside. It was a beautiful day, and this is the view from the courtyard.

These boys were adorable.

This little boy was playing hard-to-get, but she was pretty persistent.

The fabulous ring bearer and his dad.

Anne and her friends from Texas.

Kris helping her sister with a slight wardrobe issue.

Anne's dad giving his speech.

Matt's dad giving his speech.

The other speech-givers and their ring leader (who made a speech of her own later).

The cakes were absolutely gorgeous (and I love that ceiling).

A huge stuffed camel made an appearance. It's an inside joke and has been evidently been a guest at other weddings before.

Instead of clinking their glasses, guests had to sink a putt to get the couple to kiss.


Some lovely ladies relaxing on the balcony between dinner and dancing.

It's always the kids who start the dancing.

This little girl was hilarious. She just kept spinning in circles on her belly. Wouldn't it be great to be that easily entertained again? I'm not sure spinning on my belly would work since I'm a little bigger than this girl. Hold on. Let me try.

Well, whaddya know? It works. And it's as much fun as she's making it look. :)

I LOVE this little boy. Already in his jammies, but still dancing and clapping along to the music.

Anne and Matt ducking under their friends arms of their wedding party during the grand march.

Anne and Matt's first dance.

I love these photos of the newlyweds dancing with Anne's parents in the background. So cute.

The father-daughter dance

The rest of the bride's family were dancing on the sidelines.

The mother-son dance.

Gettin' the party started

Dancing with Grandma

So cute.

Anne with her new sister-in-law and nephews.

This couple was insanely cute, and could seriously cut a rug. They're great dancers.

Speaking of good dancers...Anne's parents were fabulous, too.

Anne and friends

Can you spot the mid-air child? Looks like fun, doesn't it?

Another mid-air child having a grand time.

Come on baby....

...let's do the twist.

Evidently, this adorable child wasn't going to let a restrictive thing like her dress keep her from dancing. :)

Everyone was having such a great time.

The dancefloor stayed PACKED the entire time I was there. Very impressive.

Anne's mother was a dancing machine. Seriously. That woman's like the Energizer bunny.

We managed to pull her away from the dancing long enough for one last photo.