Showing all posts in aly dawn personal

Monday, November 12, 2018

To my little peanut,

I love you. I just love you. You are such a special blessing to me. Recently your little personality is starting to come out and I want to write it down and never forget it! Like when we call you cute and you blink at us excessively! It never fails. You also fake laugh at different things. You love your dada…I say that all the time but it really is true. You have a special bond with your daddy that just melts my heart. And when he comes home from work and you run to him yelling. ‘DADA!’ and point at him and fling into his arms….it just melts my heart to pieces. You’re slowly starting to point at me and say ‘mama’ and I know one day you will say mama more. So, for now, I will just soak up the snuggles I get that daddy doesn’t get since he’s away at work.

We took you trick or treating on Halloween and you were adorable. At the first house, we told you to say ‘trick or treat’ then get your candy, then say ‘thank you’ and then wave goodbye. By the last house, you did all by yourself! You never did say trick or treat, but you did say please (by placing your elbow into your face) and you said ‘tank’ and ‘bi’. I love how polite you are and I love that you say thanks!

At one of the houses you even got your candy and then shut the door and walked away! Everyone loved having you come get candy and even gave us some extra candy. Sweet for me!

I think it is adorable when you give me something, and you say ‘tank’ and then you shake your head once, aggressively. It’s adorable! You also say mama and pat your chest. You are also now saying ‘bobo’ for booboo (although I much prefer to call it milk!) and you know that the sheep says ‘baaa’. You are so smart and you amaze me everyday. Your smile melts my heart and I love to get you to laugh!

I can’t believe you’ve been with us for 16 months…it felt like just the other day that we welcomed you into this world. And it feels so strange that I went so long without you in my life…that might sound silly to some, but it’s true. I love being your mommy. I love being able to stay home with you and see you do all these cute things. I love watching you try to form new words. I love watching you stubbornly use your utensils to feed yourself. I love watching you figure out how to stack blocks. I love watching you read books. I feel so proud of how often you bring a book to me to read. I go to the library for my toddler, and leave with big kid books. But you sit there and (mostly) let us read them to you. So, I will always stop what I am doing to read you a book. Right now as I type this out, you are looking at books all by yourself, looking at the pictures.

I love how much you love dinosaurs and that you know they say ‘roar!’. Your favorite types of books are dinosaur books. We just recently got new dinosaur books and you love learning about the different types. You literally just brought me a dinosaur book to read!! So I’ll take a little break to read to you. 🙂 Worth the break!! Snuggles and giggles and intent listening just happened! I love how much you love to read!!

Another sweet thing you do right now is hug me and daddy and then say, ‘ohhhh’. It’s probably because I’m saying ‘oh’ and squeezing you more when you hug me. But it’s still adorable. You also love to give me a kiss and then daddy a kiss and then me a kiss…and so on. You are literally one of the sweetest. Everyone always tells me how good you are and I can’t help but agree. You are such a good 16 month old! You are obedient (for the most part) helpful, and very smart.

Last thing I want to update is that you now have 13 teeth. THIRTEEN!! Maybe it’s me being a new mom, but I feel like that’s a lot of teeth to have at 16 months. Oh well! Oh! And you are still breastfeeding and happy. You’re slowly eating more solids than breast milk, but at the moment I don’t see an end to breastfeeding any time soon. And why would I? I love it’ too much. And you do, too! And I am very much a ‘fed is best’ type gal, but I do really enjoy breastfeeding you and that I have that opportunity to breast feed you.

This next months goal is to take pictures of you breastfeeding, because I know one day, I will miss these days.

I love you so much!

Love, mommy

read month 1 here

read month 2 here

read month 3 here

read month 4 here

read month 5 here

read month 6 here

read month 7 here

read month 8 here

read month 9 here

read month 10 here

read month 11 here

read month 12 here

 

Hey everyone! I have a huge announcement to make about my website! For the longest time, I was under the impression that my blog needed to have only one topic. And for the longest time, I chose for that topic to be photography. While I have really enjoyed writing about photography, it’s not the only thing I’d like to write about.

I feel like the best thing for my blog is to change the content of what I write about. I will be writing about motherhood and photography. Now, motherhood is a large topic and I’d like to narrow it down just a little bit more. I am interested in helping mothers learn photography, help mothers learn how to blog, learn how to use social media, as well as how to lose baby weight, how to entertain your children on rainy days, and how to get the most out of being a mother. Becoming a mother, for me, was the best thing that ever happened to me. I want to share my motherhood story with people in the hopes that I can help someone out there.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert mom. In fact, I am far from it. I only have one child (in 2018) and I am still learning all sorts of things about being a parent. But it’s a bigger part of my life than photography, so I want to share everything I learn with you.

What does this mean for the blog? You will still see photography tutorials. But more than that, you’ll see motherhood posts. Although I will be focusing on mom’s, the blog could still benefit dad’s as well. You will start to see motherhood posts mixed in there. I will still be writing posts about how to master those social media sites and how to become a better blogger. But the majority of my posts will focus on how to help mom’s do all of these things. I get it. I’m a stay at home mom, too. I want to help you learn new things and I want to uplift you. I want my blog to become a place where you will feel safe and welcome. Where we can talk about how our day was with our cute kiddos. I also want to help you feel like the best mom you can be.

The blog will under go a few changes:

• My motto will change (still in the works of that).
• New tabs with motherhood will be introduced
• New posts featuring motherhood topics

Other than that, the blog will stay mostly the same. You will still see tons of photography tutorials (because, I love photography!) but the biggest thing is that I’m taking charge of my blog and blogging what I want to blog about. What I feel like will benefit my blog and readers the most. Basically, the blog will change from a photography blog to a lifestyle blog. I’m so excited to take the blog in this new direction!

If this sounds like something you want to be a part of, please subscribe to my blog (you’ll get a freebie!!). If you have any questions, please comment on my blog and I’ll answer them for you!

XOXO,
Aly

Thursday, July 12, 2018

To my little peanut,

You’re a toddler now. Officially a toddler. I am so amazed at how quickly this first year went. It’s already been a year. This time last year, I was enjoying snuggling with you. Learning how to be a mom. Learning how to breastfeed you. Learning how to comfort you. Learning, learning, learning. And I will continue to learn from you. You have taught me so much over this past year.

You’ve taught me all about patience. I considered myself to be a patient person before, but there were so many things I need to be patient with for you. The first thing I had to be patient with was when you decided to come to this world. I waited till my due date. I knew that being induced early wasn’t the best option for you, so I waited. And then when my due date came and went, I had to be patient. I wanted you to come on your own. You made me wait almost two full weeks! But you taught me that the best things in life come with patience and love. You were worth the wait! After that you taught me to be patient when learning new things, like breastfeeding. I am thankful that it didn’t take a long time to learn how to breastfeed, but it was something I had to learn and be patient with. Now we are both pros at it and I still love it. We made it a full year of breastfeeding!

You’ve taught me how to love more. I didn’t think it was possible. My heart has grown 10 sizes since having you. When I first saw you, I couldn’t believe you were mine. You helped me love your father on a whole new level. Bringing a baby into this world made us even closer. You show love to others that I wouldn’t expect. You help me love others because of this.

You’ve taught me how to multitask! Seriously, try cooking with a baby. Try editing pictures with a baby. Try writing in your journal with a baby. And this all comes back to patience.

You’ve taught me how to snuggle better. This past month you have become quite the snuggler! Especially with your daddy, which is always so cute when you show love to him. Side note, the other day (your birthday) daddy came home and you ran to him and he picked you up and you just snuggled him so much. You also gave him a few kisses. It literally made me so happy! You have such a big heart, my son.

I never expected to learn so much from you. I was fully prepared to teach you all about this life. But, I am slowly learning, that it’s a two way street. You teach me, while I teach you. And that’s how it should be. We’ll learn how to be a mother-son duo in no time.

Happiest of birthdays, my son. One year looks really good on you!

I love you so much!

Love, mommy

read month 1 here

read month 2 here

read month 3 here

read month 4 here

read month 5 here

read month 6 here

read month 7 here

read month 8 here

read month 9 here

read month 10 here

read month 11 here

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

To my little peanut,

This month was so exciting to watch you grow and learn new things. You have mastered the art of walking. You walk everywhere and you love it. I can see how proud you are of yourself when you walk. I love how you dangle your arms in the air and wave them around as you walk. It’s literally the cutest thing ever and I don’t want to forget you ever did it. You have also mastered the art of standing up from sitting down. Now you can get around anywhere. You still fall down…but you always get back up again. You get stronger every week! Pretty soon you will run circles around me…alright it might take awhile, but we’ll get there eventually.

You are finally starting to eat solid food. Right now you LOVE avocado. You could eat avocado all day long if I let you! You also love peanut butter. I find mixing oatmeal, water, and peanut butter together is one of your favorite treats. You’re definitely my son! Peanut butter is yummy! You have ventured off and now will eat banana, strawberries, sweet potato, crackers, and basically anything mom is eating (even if you’re not supposed to have it yet!). I can’t wait to give you cake next month for your birthday! You’ll love it. Trust me. I might love it a little too much!

You love to laugh. Seriously. You laugh at almost everything. And when we find something that makes you laugh, we do it over and over and over again so that we can see you laugh. Your laugh makes us laugh. We love it. And your smile is so handsome. I love making you smile and laugh. I do the silliest things, but I don’t care if I look stupid! You love it and so I will look stupid. Because, I mean, cute laughs. 😉

I recently purchased these spiky balls from Amazon and it was the best $12 I’ve spent since you were born. You love picking them up and throwing two at a time. You run around picking them up and throwing them, over and over again. You also love to throw them at us, and have us throw them back to you. You are starting to learn how to catch them, but that’s a work in progress. You just love to have fun. It’s adorable.

You love books! You will go pick one up and bring it to us. Then you’ll try to climb into our lap and point at the book and say ‘da’, as if saying, ‘come on! Read it!’. It’s really quite cute. I love how much you love reading. You will also sit there and look at books all on your own. Surprisingly, you’re pretty good with your books. You haven’t ripped any…yet. I hope you always treat your books with respect.

You still love your daddy. Which is fitting since father’s day is on Sunday! You could spend all day every day with your dad. You reach for him when he gets home. You play ball with him every day. You prefer dad to read you books over me. If dad is home, you prefer him. That is until you get hungry, of course. Then you want mom. But I am really not hurt about this at all, I love how much you love your daddy and want to spend time with him. It makes my little mommy heart so happy. I hope you will always love your daddy this much!

You love to dance! If there’s a good beat on, you are dancing. And it’s awesome. You don’t dance to every song, just the good ones. 😉 You sit there and just bounce your knees slightly, all while smiling and flailing your arms. So. Cute.

I am still in shock that I will have a one year old next month. How has it been a year since we welcomed you into this world? This time last year I was getting so excited (and to be honest, a little anxious) about your big debut! I wanted to meet you so bad! I wanted to see what you looked like so bad! I wanted to know if you had hair (and boy, did you have hair). I can’t imagine my life without you. You made me realize my purpose. I was meant to be your mom. I know I was. I’m so glad you were my first born. I’m so glad I got such a sweet and kind son. I’m so proud of you, my little one. You are amazing. You teach me so much every day. You bring joy into my life. You make me laugh and smile every day. I’m torn between you staying my baby (this is the last month that you’ll be considered a ‘baby’) and growing up to a toddler. They really don’t lie when they say the time goes by too quickly. I cherish the snuggles I get because I know one day, you won’t want them. But I will always want them!

You’ll always be my baby. Happy last month of babyhood.

I love you so much!

Love, mommy

read month 1 here

read month 2 here

read month 3 here

read month 4 here

read month 5 here

read month 6 here

read month 7 here

read month 8 here

read month 9 here

read month 10 here