Lions and Tigers and BABIES, OH MY!

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY, NATALIE!!!

I can comfortably sub in the word "Babies" for "Bears" because the two are equally scary to me. I went to North Carolina two weekends ago for my friend Natalie's baby shower and got to visit with all of the babies that have been born or grown since I left NC in January!

Natalie's shower was really great - I love seeing "the girls" and spending time together. As Natalie makes the move into motherhood, I'm really glad I could be there to celebrate with her. One of the highlights from the day was spending time with Nat's husband's mom and stepmom. I have kept in touch with Nay's mom over the years (she is the one that created our very cool "heart" piece of art), but I hadn't seen his stepmom since high school. It was a true joy to see her and catch up. She is a free spirit on firm ground and I really enjoyed seeing her. Nay's mom repainted the rocking chair that Nay had as a child and they are going to put it in the nursery for their baby to use. I thought that was really sweet and cool...what a great act of love!

Natalie looks glowing as a mom-to-be and it was really wonderful to see her and Nay as they prepare for the new member of their family. There are pictures of "the girls" at the shower posted here.

The other portion of the weekend was spent hanging out and practicing my photography skills on all the aforementioned babies! I'm pretty sure each of them have no idea that I actually have a face because all they saw of me over the weekend was a big black lens in their faces, about 4 inches from their grills. They were good sports though. Here are my favorite shots:

Rives Smith, son of Elizabeth (Mann) Smith

Emerson Lisk, daughter of Nicole (DeFeo) Lisk

Elizabeth Farmer, daughter of Mary (Tripp) Farmer

Dino Pirozzi, son of Meg (Koester) Pirozzi

The rest of the photos can be seen by clicking here.

We had a great, quick, 48-hour weekend. It was a long flight from SF to Raleighwood, but well worth every moment of it.