november festivities and mila

well november came and went and my child is now a month and a week old.  just a glimpse at what people mean when they say time flies when you have kids - it flies anyway - but with a little baby you have a visual marker that says "look at me this week my eyebrows are growing in" or "i'm all of a sudden two inches taller!" so with that, we keep the camera handy (probably a little too handy) for every mundane little thing. and naturally, since i'm home all day long with this little wonder, my blog posts will more often than not be about her and life with her.  i'll be getting back to work on saturdays so it will be nice to get into the swing of things in the hair world again. hopefully more hair stylist related posts to come! but for now.....here is november with mila bar.

this is her second bath - it took a couple of times if you can tell by the look on her face but she's into it now :) 

we had a very intimate thanksgiving at wes's parents house.  my brother was able to join in later which was super special since my immediate family is spread out all over the country and we can't do holidays together as much anymore

more pics of all kinds of stuff here and here. 

finally, we had some close friends over for dinner.  it was a first hosting experience since mila's arrival - i do enjoy having people over.  hope to hone up my "hosting" skillz (say that five times). this time it was easy since liska did pretty much all of the cooking ;) and naturally she brought her camera(s) with her to snap a couple of shots of our little fam bam. i had to include just a couple here - they turned out so lovely. we're hoping it's not too late to use one for xmas cards this year. 

dinner and quality time followed :)

tessa with mila = cute overload

these were also taken by liska with my cam.

thanks for checking in! 

mila matchell

hey guys! 

meet my daughter mila faye matchell! this isn't the newborn pic of her but it's one of my favorites.  it was taken by anna gavrilov at tessa's 5th bday party

she decided to show up on 10/29 and it's been a whole new world since then.  she's a perfect little soul and we're so excited to have her join our little fam bam.  i have to keep it kinda short unfortch (15 minutes till her nap is over and it's time to eat!) but i'll try to make up for it with pictures - mostly from my phone since it's always with me and my finger is on the camera icon like 90% of the time ;)

when she was born we decided to allow all who wanted to visit to come and visit. i know there are "rules" about these things sometimes...i.e. no visitors other than close close fam and maybe a couple of friends - and i totally respect that...but we realized she will have all these people in her life loving on her why not meet them now! it just blows my mind the joy a newborn infant brings to peoples faces.  she's so innocent and literally counts on us for everything (other than breathing!), but yeah, i snapped pics of the family and friends who came to say hello to mila. (btw pronounced meela, not milah like miley - some folks get that confused. already)

 this pic is probably a little tmi but this is mila progressing towards her arrival. kind of not the time for pics but somehow we ended up with a couple, lol.

the moment i met her face to face was so surreal.  i thought i would be in tears and her face would be somehow familiar to me, but it was a little different.  when she came out and they placed her on my chest right away she had this angry little old lady face with one open eye and she was looking right at me. we had to stare at each other for a good minute to let it sink in and to grasp what seriously just happened.

wes's (almost)  first time holding a baby.

exhibit a (about babies making people happy) - my brother doesn't normally smile for pictures

and then we brought her home at which point wes gave her the whole tour including specific details about all the renovations we did around the house.  we bought it with her in mind after all.

she got to meet the tyannikovs and her "sisters".  it melts my heart that tessa considers herself as mila's big sister


and she met my ma (who will never be convinced that everyone is warm enough)

and wes's ma

this is the latest pic of her and i'm baffled by how quickly her features are coming in.  the receding hairline might take a minute but somehow it works on her :) 

that is all for now! thanks for checking back :) mommy hood definitely took me by storm in the best way possible.  definitely not without its challenges - which is a very loaded statement, but at the end of the day, this period is so short i always tell myself despite the tough moments/hours/nights, etc, it won't last and one day i'll miss this time.  i think.  lol.

ok, thanks again! sorry this is a bit of a sloppy post, but....you get what you get and you don't get upset (is that how the saying goes?)

flower potluck baby shower

my sweet friends olga, la ray, and jessie threw me a baby shower - it was like the baby shower i always envisioned i would have if/when i finally came around to having a babe.   they did a flower potluck theme and that was the main activity - simple! delicious finger foods, cock(mock)tails, and just all/most of my friends.  there, for me.  it was so overwhelming all the love seeping out of these women i could barely handle it.  granted, wes and i were thrown several showers - one by his work, my work, and one by my mama-in-law - and we couldn't be more appreciative of people coming around to pour out their love towards our "incoming".

anyway, here are some pics from the flower potluck.  all of the flowers made for some beautiful pictures.  my friend liska assumed the role of documenting everything with my camera which i couldn't be more thankful for.

these clowns put together my dream flower crown.

amazing bill murray onesie from truly sanctuary  included in my gift from aglassjar.

christine making her bouquet

that's about it - this was three weeks ago and i'm now full term - just awaiting our babe's arrival - not due till october 27th but we don't mind if she shows up any day now even though we're around 80% ready for her arrival.  we're still working on the name - sounds pretty sad that we don't have one picked out but whatever it'll be, it'll be so her.

peace out!