My heart glows...

...with love for this little, baby girl.

One of the best gifts I got at my baby shower was from my good friend Kia. She gave Maura, Paul and I a session with Connecticut-based professional wedding and portrait photographer Sarah Lehberger of Afterglow Photos! What a wonderful, unexpected surprise...the ability to capture this special time in our lives and forever preserve exactly how Maura was just at this moment. Thank you, Kia (and Jon and Brady)!

Sarah drove up from Connecticut in late November to hang out with us for the afternoon (Maura was 10 weeks). Now, to back track just for a bit...Sarah is one of Kia's best friends and so I have myself become friends with her over the years as we were both in Kia's wedding and even helped plan her baby shower together. But even if I didn't already know Sarah, she is so friendly and warm that she would immediately make you feel right at home. As a mother of two kids, she is completely amazing around children and knows exactly what to do or say to make them smile or feel safe. And well, she's just really talented at what she does. And you can tell she loves it.

Sarah came carting a suitcase full of props and blankets and cute hats! I had assembled a couple of accessories myself, and between us we had so much fun dressing Maura up (all the while stopping to take nursing breaks and clean up poop blowouts). Here are some of my favorite shots:

{Maura's dress from Sears}

{the periwinkle hat was made by our friend's mom, the multi-colored blanket was knit by my aunt, both were gifts for Maura when she was born}

{cream diaper cover from etsy seller Oops I Knit It Again...highly recommended}

{red knit dress and ruffled onesie from baby Gap}

I can't thank you enough, Sarah, for such fantastic photos! Thanks for taking the time to come all this way, for your patience while my girl had some cranky moments, for actually making Paul like the way he looks in these (he hates every picture of himself), for documenting a special time that I will never get back but will always have a beautiful record of.

PS. Remember this photo from our Christmas cards? Sarah took it, and worked extra fast to get it processed in time for us to send out!


PPS. We made it into the Afterglow Photos blog...check out the post Sarah wrote on our time together here:)