So Thankful for Andi Stubblefield Photography!

If anyone reads this blog at all, it is immediately obvious I am not gifted in the art of photography. Despite my best attempts to document our life with pictures, I usually come up short with blurry, mis-timed shots. It can be frustrating for me because I feel like all we will have at the end of this short season of life are the pictures we take. That is why I practically begged our friend Andi Stubblefield to take some "fall" pictures of our family before our baby morphs into a girl. We were blessed by her willingness to sneak us into her busy photography shoot schedule in Novemeber. Boy are we glad we did!

 I expected at most to get 2-3 descent frames where the 3 of us were looking pleasant and in the same direction. I knew our girl would only put up with so much posing and smiling so 2 or 3 would have been a win. Therefore, it was utterly shocking when we got the pictures back and LOVED THEM ALL! I cannot say it enough. Shocked shocked shocked and pleased pleased pleased! Not only did Andi capture our family but all of us had a great time. I totally encourage anyone interested in a photo shoot in Dallas to use her.

Find her here:

http://www.facebook.com/andi.stubblefield.photography

Now without further delay...some of my favorites:

 Now what to do with all these great photos....

Nathalie

Team McClish Running Update

 Me and J after a Sat. AM run in October...

A few months ago I shared that I would be running the White Rock 1/2 Marathon on Sunday 12/4/2011. It was a goal of mine to run 13.1 miles as a Mommy and take up the hobby I missed during pregnancy and early infant raising. I trained by running many miles with baby and dog during the week, and spending all of my Saturday mornings on long runs while Andrew took care of Julianne. The training was fun, and challenging, and tiring, and annoying at times, and much harder than any of the other races I have trained for with just me, myself, and I to worry about. I was nervous about how it would all go down but eager to attempt it.....

That is....until it was clear I wouldn't be able to attempt it. As I would learn, despite my best efforts to prepare and plan for race day, my post Mommy 1/2 marathon was not meant to be. Let me explain. Saturday (the day before the race) we drove down the the race venue to pick up my bib number. This is something you have to do in order to run. On the way home, Julianne wouldn't stop crying and we had no idea why. I got in the back seat with her and realized she was warm and suspected a fever. No big deal we have had a fever before. A little Tylenol and we would be back in business....

Well it turned out not to be that easy. What was to follow was a high fever (103 was what it got up to) we couldn't get below 102.3, a miserable baby, and a long night of crying constantly and no sleep for anyone. Julianne could only be consoled by me holding her and nursing, otherwise she was crying. Somewhere around midnight we decided it would be impossible for me to run. The total exhaustion I would experience and our decision to take her to Urgent Care on Sunday morning was our ultimate reality.

It was immediately apparent to the doctor that our girl was suffering from her first ear infection. The news came as somewhat of a relief because we could treat it, and there was an explanation for all the pain she was in! She is doing much better now....and so are we! Lesson learned: baby cries all night long = EAR INFECTION...now we know.

I was sad to miss the race, but I suppose it just wasn't meant to be this time. It ended up being a terrible weather day so that made me feel a little better. Team McClish will have to run another day....