The Photo Shoots from The List...Check!

There were a few photo shoots I had on The List to accomplish before Jackson arrives. Both have now been checked off The List! I thought you might want to see a few of the shots from these accomplishments. (FYI-It’s an accomplishment because it was on The List.)

The first was to take some pics for my cousin Brittany who is turning 16!!!! I was really excited to do these and it was just as fun as I was hoping. She is such a beautiful lady! She is quite a bit taller than I am and so I had to use the step stool for almost all of the shots! Hehe.

I was glad she brought along a friend. It always helps to have someone else to get real smiles out of the one having to pose and Sam was more than willing to help carry props for this rather large pregnant woman. :) It worked out nicely.

I still can hardly believe Brittany is sixteen. She was the first baby I got to watch being born. I was nine years old. The age at which I first watched a baby being born only occurred to me this year. Seems a little young but I loved every second of it. I wasn’t in the room alone either there was a small cheerleading squad of about 17 of us including nurses. It was definitely an experience I will never forget! I really feel as though a lot of the reason I open my labor and delivery rooms to so many people is because of the experiences I had watching babies be born-starting with Brittany. I also feel as though it just fueled my fire even more to want to be into the nursing field. To this day I still have dreams of going back to school to get my RN (later in life). Labor and delivery is still a field of great interest that I would love to work in.

It is perfectly understandable that not all women are comfortable with having a peanut gallery in the room but I am comfortable with it so I try to take the opportunities to give people who might not otherwise have the chance, the opportunity to watch the awesome miracle of birth.  (I’m interested to know how many of you are thinking “Oh, Rachael, that’s just weird letting lots of people in the delivery room. Birth should be a private event.” vs “That’s really cool to let others have that experience.  I might do the same thing.”  I am fully aware both sides are out there but I will refrain from taking a poll. J )

Anyways, Happy 16^th Brittany! Love you bunches!!! Don’t forget in your 16^th year of life. Think before you act…you don’t get do-overs. Just do right! (As my mom always says.J)

The other photo shoot was a final maternity shoot for me. I also wanted to include some family shots.  My friend Morgan came out to take the pictures and it was lots of fun! The weather was AMAZING!!! We got some fun shots and, of course as with all of my photo shoots, learned along the way. Practice, practice, make adjustments and then practice again. Here are a few shots from that day.

Brandon wasn’t the most thrilled about taking part in our “fun” photo shoot. Therefore I had to put up with attitudes like this...

But he was a good sport and complied with my requests to get into sweet poseslike this: J

And here are some more shots from the evening...

Here are some of the photos edited a bit differnetly...

And then after all of the posed pictures let's just keep things real. This is the parents this child is really getting. Classy...quality...good parents are hard to find these days! :)

Will our children survive us? TBA!