Ashlee Nicole

Ashlee Nicole Martin was born on December 26, 2012. She was born in McKinney, TX at a birth center with a wonderful midwife, Kathleen Mayorga.
I had been having contractions on and off throughout the month of December. On December 23rd Lois Perks and her husband Steve, our good friends from DC came to spend Christmas with us. Lois was also here in hopes to help with the birth of Ashlee if she should decide to arrive during their visit. Lois had been our Doula during Samantha's birth and we were excited by the thought that she could be with us for Ashlee's birth as well.
On Christmas day we had a low pressure front come rattling through Dallas bringing with it a beautiful layer of snow, which Samantha loved playing in and eating. This also caused an exciting display of contractions, but no baby. However that night around 2am I woke up with some pretty good contractions that lasted for a couple of hours and then subsided, again.
I decided that I would wake up and cook a nice breakfast for everyone. Egg and ham bake with rolls and such. We got through with breakfast and Lois looked at me and said, "are you contracting?" to which I replied, "yes.". Apparently I had been making some interesting faces during the contractions. She recommended that I begin to track these to see how regular they were. About 1-1/2 hours later we were on our way to the birth center. And about 2-1/2 hours after that I was holding Ashlee in my arms.

Capturvating.com

I have been really excited about working with Robert here in TX to expand his photo work. We started to have a fairly consistent stream of work flowing while we were in DC. We had developed a great client base and been getting great referrals. Since moving things have been a bit slower as we have gotten ourselves settled.

We have however booked a wonderful client that we are doing engagement shots for as well as traveling to Austin in November to shoot their wedding. We are so excited to be working on this again and developing things here in the Dallas area.

We have also added some additional photo shoots and reorganized current galleries on his website. I am super excited about it. W would love it if you would check it our and let us know your thoughts.

www.capturvating.com


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Blogging from my iPad

I am super excited about having a blogging app on my iPad now. I hope that with the ease of posting photos and sitting down to write up something quick I am likely to post more. Let's hope.


I took this photo recently. We were in our back yard and I went inside quickly to grab the camera. She began to melt down when she realized I had gone inside, but as soon as I started to snap shots and she heard the sound of the camera taking photos I got this big smile. :)

Life as a Mom in a New World

So, we moved to Texas in August. :) We have almost finished unpacking our boxes and are closing in on being settled. :)

Robert is working for the parent company of the one he was with in Washington, DC. They are splitting his time between the DC office he was at and the parent company he is with here. He is enjoying his work very much but could do without the hour commute to and from work (common story so I'm told). He wakes up in the morning and has about 15 minutes with Samantha before he heads out to work. Usually he will return home around 6:30 in time to have about 30-45 minutes with her in the evenings. He enjoys this time, but as I am sure you can imagine he wishes there was more of it. 

I am working as a consultant for the organization I was with in Washington, DC. They hired me on to train up my replacement in the DC office, as well as to work on some of their U.S. based programs. I took three days in September to travel to Denver for a set of meetings. Sue, Robert's mom drove up to Dallas from Houston to

watch Samantha while I was gone. She loved the extra time with S.J., though I am fairly certain she was glad when I returned so that she didn't have to wake up at 5am for the sleepy feeding. :)

I am traveling to Chicago this month for another three days of meetings for which I have been coordinating the hotel, travel and logistics. Mom(M) will be coming to Dallas again in order to look after S.J.. I am absolutely sure she will be glad to find out that S.J. has cut out the early feeding and now wakes up around 7am. :)

Samantha is has cut her second tooth and has a steady trickle running from her lower lip. Its actually kind of cute. I bet that will change around tooth #12. :) She is wearing her 12m clothing at 10-1/2 months, though she isn't quite filling them out yet.

S.J. has been walking while hold

ing onto either Robert or my hands for a couple of weeks now. It is so fun to watch her grow and progress. We recently bought her a little walker cart shaped like and elephant, it is very cute. She has refused to walk without the aid of our hands. It is the funniest thing seeing as while she has our hands she barely uses them except to catch herself every few steps. It is simply the fact that they are our hands. So, just today promptly after giving her mid day bottle to her (this is when she is the happiest) I set her up at the walker and sat a few feet in front of her. She stood at her walker as happy as can be and we exchanged grunts (her favorite) and hand gestures (she has learned how to, and loves to point her finger in the air). After a while of this she realized that she could lean forward and move the cart a bit. She wasn't quite sure if she liked the feeling. :) But after more grunts and hand gestures she decided to take three steps. This was very exciting for me, and naturally I followed them but much clapping and a few "good job"s, desperately hoping that positive reinforcement takes root and we won't have to wait three weeks for a repeat performance. :)

I have found that being a mom has been very thought provoking. I find myself constantly thinking about my mom and dad; thinking about the things they did to take care of us. I think about their sacrifice and commitment to seeing us have what we need, but not let us command their lives or mistake desire for necessity. I often find myself thinking about the stupid things that I said to them that I now understand why they were shocked, and how tremendously wrong I was. I once told them, when I was asked to do a load of laundry that I didn't want to do, that I thought they had kids just so that they cold have people to boss around and slave after them. I had NO idea that the 6-8 years that they invested in me to keep me alive to the age where I could do laundry were not worth the benefits of merely having a slave. Between the dirty diapers and the money for the toys - they would have hired a live-in maid and saved their money. I love being a mom. I love the way it makes me think about my life. I love how it makes me think about my parents, my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents. I was so much more loved than I ever realized or could ever comprehend. I am so glad that I get to share those people who loved me so deeply and unfailingly with my daughter, so that she can have the luxury of saying her own dumb things to us only to have a greater understanding some day, when she finally loves someone more than her mind can comprehend. :)

Movin' Back In

Before:

Friday and Saturday we move back into the house. CRAZY 2009! More update to come.

Richer Visit after Fire

Robert and I were so grateful to have the entire Richer family here for a visit and to help after the fire. I want to tell you, if you have a friend or family member who goes through something tramatic like a house fire, the best thing you can do for them, if it is within your power to do, is to take off from work or whatever you are doing and go spend a few days with them. We needed people to be with us so that life didn't feel so lonely. When we are going through something like this it can begin to feel very isolated, like you are the only people who have ever been through a hard time, and we didn't have to go through that because our family was with us for a week and a half after the fire. We are so grateful to you. Thank you! Bruce & Nicole, we know you would have been here with us in a heart beat if you didn't live on the other side of the country. Your prayers, encouraging words and phone calls meant so much to us. Thank you too.

Disney Princess Half Marathon

13.1 Miles
2:38:43 Run Time
12:06 Average/Mile
Started Training September 1, 2009 Literally 1 Mile at a time!
Shortest Mile 11:42 (Mile 7)
Longest Mile 12:36 (Mile 12)

Better than I ever expected.



To Erin's credit (as well as Jenny and Lauren) she stayed with me up to mile twelve. She could have gotten a much better time if she hadn't been hanging with me. I am convinced I did so well because i had people to run with that I knew and could talk to.
Linda however got stuck back at the beginning due to an unfortunatel port-a-john incident. But ran a fantastic race coming from the very back of the pack to finish about two minutes after me. Rock on Aunt Linda!

ERIN RICHER #1446

EDINBORO, PA

Age: 29 Gender: F

Distance	HALF MAR
Clock Time	2:51:28
Chip Time	2:35:06
Overall Place	3029 / 6324
Gender Place	2912 / 6128
Division Place	498 / 908
Age Grade	42.4%
5K	38:03
10K	1:15:08
15K	1:52:10

LINDA PRAETZEL #6272

VALLEY CENTER, CA

Age: 49 Gender: F

Distance	HALF MAR
Clock Time	2:57:09
Chip Time	2:40:47
Overall Place	3419 / 6324
Gender Place	3290 / 6128
Division Place	334 / 640
Age Grade	47.1%
5K	39:58
10K	1:16:27
15K	1:55:29

COLLEEN MARTIN #6825

WASHINGTON, DC

Age: 27 Gender: F

Distance	HALF MAR
Clock Time	2:55:02
Chip Time	2:38:43
Overall Place	3263 / 6324
Gender Place	3138 / 6128
Division Place	533 / 908
Age Grade	41.5%
5K	38:06
10K	1:15:11
15K	1:52:14