Miss A was such a good sleeper, and I just adored her dark curls and perfect little mouth.

I love how strong she looks in this one because of her flexed arms. Big yawn!

Even when she woke up, she was so content and very alert for a newborn.

K, it was so nice meeting you and your beautiful little girl.

Mr. C was the newest of three little cutie pies, and I’m so glad I got to meet him and his adorable family. He was so teeny tiny and sweet. Here is a little sneak peek for the C family.

I have always loved September. We just celebrated our second wedding anniversary on September 14th and Nathan’s 29th birthday on the 17th. I have two portrait sessions coming up next week that I am very excited about. What a great month!

Noah is growing and learning new things and getting into everything. I love watching him explore his environment. Especially when he stands on tip toes!

Is there anything better than a baby’s toothy smile?

Noah learned to blow kisses yesterday. I’ll try to catch it on camera soon.

I’ve wanted to take some bath time pictures before, but I was really afraid Noah would splash and soak my camera! Today I bit the bullet and brought my camera in while he was in the tub. He splashed a lot, but I made sure to avoid the water flying through the air.

Here are a few photos of my water baby. He looooves bath time. His least favorite part? Getting out!

But I was just too lazy. It was a beautiful day – blue sky, puffy white clouds, the perfect temperature – but we didn’t go out.

Notice he’s still wearing his pajamas and chewing on my camera cap.

Because sometimes that’s just the kind of mom I am.

Here is another photo from the farm on Sunday. Kaitlyn is Noah’s cousin – she was born three weeks before him. I just love her perfect little mouth!

I can’t believe my niece Isabella is five years old. I remember when she first started saying my name. She would say “Uh! Uh!” whenever she saw me. Then she learned my name had two syllables, so she called me “Eye-uh” for a while, until she learned the E sound and started saying “Eee-uh!” Finally she learned the L and how to say Leah. I remember her birth, her first steps, and her first birthday party. I can’t believe she started kindergarden this year!

Right after I took these pictures, she laid down on her back on the floor with her hands under her head and asked me if I knew what she was doing. I said, “You’re lying down.” She said, “Nope, I’m chillaxing.”

Sigh. They grow up too fast…

We went to the farm tonight (Nate’s grandpa’s farm; everyone just calls it “the farm”) and had delicious food. We let Noah play with the other babies in the grass. In Nate’s family there were a ton of babies born last year, so Noah had several playmates. Here’s one of Nathan’s cousin’s daughters. She is just GORGEOUS. I love the dark brownish red color of her hair. Seriously, women spend money trying to get this hair color…

She was so cuddly and huggable, not shy at all! She kept coming up to me trying to touch my camera. I just adore her!

Noah had a follow-up appointment last Friday with the surgeon who did his pullthrough for Hirschsprung’s Disease. Dr. L said that Noah looked wonderful; he is eating, growing, and most importantly – in the realm of this disease – pooping on his own. Noah is no longer on any kind of baby food. 99% of the time he eats the same breakfast, lunch and dinner we are eating, although I do cut his up into smaller pieces than ours, of course, and we still don’t feed him bananas or rice. We haven’t irrigated him since March. Dr. L said that Noah’s abdominal X-ray is the real proof of how well he’s doing; there is no damage, no blockage, and everything looked great on the film. Dr. L said that he wants to know when we start to potty train, since children with HD can have issues with toilet training, but if everything continues to go this well, Noah won’t ever have to have another checkup with him. We were so excited to hear this great news! I can’t believe that this time one year ago we were dealing with hospitalizations, biopsies, X-rays, contrast studies, daily irrigations, and surgery. Staring in the face of that kind of whirlwind, I felt like we would never see the other side of it. Thank God for modern medicine and fantastic doctors like Dr. L!

Hirshsprung’s Disease obviously had a huge impact on our lives, and it may still rear its ugly head later with Noah or any other children we may have in the future. We will keep praying for all the babies, children and families who are living with this disease.

Noah with his daddy, Nathan. My two HD survivors.