Lily is here!

These people mean a lot to me.  My cousin, AJ, married a really awesome lady and they had a baby.  And she is seriously adorable.  They had a really great birth story, and now they get to spend a couple weeks just enjoying being a family of three.  I remember those first weeks with my babies being such sweet times.  One of the things I love most about these two is how easy they laugh.  Lily Clare is going to grow up in house of joy and laughter.  

I'm thrilled that Sarah is going to be the vice principal at my kids school this year.  In the past, She has always been such a encouraging listener when I was struggling with my kids learning.  CFI2 students are going to have such a great advocate in her.  

I'm a little chipmunk six days old.

I took the months of December and January off, and winter is always my slowest time of year.  But I finally had an opportunity to get my camera out and photograph someone very new.  I listened to podcasts of Fresh Air on the way to and from my client's house.  As I was driving home, I realized how amazingly nice it was to escape my home and role as mom and venture out as Melissa for a couple of hours.  That's why I do this.  Not to be super busy or make a lot of money.  I do it to be Melissa, to meet new people, and be invited into their home and family for an hour or two and capture light falling on their faces.

Plus, it's fifty degrees outside, a temperature we haven't seen in three months.  We are on spring's doorstep.

This baby boy was born on Monday.  Here are a few shots from my time with him.  The black and white close up of mom and baby is my favorite.

Adrian and Evelyn share the same birthday.

Leslie and Ray are friends from high school.  This has been a big year for them.  Ray brews beer and opened Indiana City Beer officially in May.  Lily, their first child, is about the same age as Maggie.  Leslie and I had talked about the fact that we might be pregnant at the same time again.  Her with her second and me with my fifth.  I saw her last October after their kickstarter campaign.  We told her I was pregnant and she said, "That's right!  We need to get on that."
We met for breakfast one winter morning.  She was pregnant and we talked about midwives.  She had just had her first appointment and the midwife thought she was measuring big.  I just assumed she was growing faster since it was her second baby, but an ultrasound found something different.  Leslie was having twins.  I found out it runs in her family.  Her grandma had twins and her aunt had them, too.
So they spent the first half of 2013 looking for a bigger car, a bigger house, opening a brewery, raising Lily, and growing twins.  Little Evelyn Rose and Adrian José were born in July at 34 weeks, but both were strong and healthy and were able to come home after a few weeks.
Here they are in all their sweet, small beauty.