#BabyOlivia's Maternity Pictures

#BabyOlivia's Maternity Pictures

A month ago we spent the day with our dear friend and photographer +Sasha de Almagro capturing the wonder that is pregnancy, a magical miracle that happens in life. Hubby and I always prefer a simply way of capturing our major milestones, and since we both love nature, we knew we wanted to incorporate that into our session. We decided the day before as is our style, to go to a nearby park to start off the day, where Sasha was able to make us look like we were somewhere other than Miami. I seriously love all the park pictures, but I had to narrow it down for you guys. The day turned out to be perfect, in Miami you never know when you'll get rained on, but the weather gods were in our favor. 

The day was dewy, you could smell the moister still settled on the tree leaves, sun rays were beginning to hit our skins and the park was desolated except from the critters that call it their home. We had the park to ourselves for a good amount of time, undisturbed from pedestrian life. Once we were able to capture enough pictures, we then drove back home where Sasha did an at home session as well, to just capture the very real life of where we will spend most of our time in, in our room. Some of you may not know but my in laws were kind to let us move in with them for the time being and they gave us their master bedroom, which turned out to be the best thing, since we got plenty of space for our own little area and a corner for our baby girl's nursery. It was during the time that Sasha x I were able to recreate a picture I had been wanting to take for so long, and that was the +Vogue maternity shoot of Emily Blunt that they did for an interview for the April 2014 issue, which I posted on my Instagram last night. It's the twelfth picture down, and not to toot my own horn but I loved the way it came out, we took it in the backyard against a beautiful overgrowth of leaves that my in laws actually had the landscaper remove the next day.

The best part of it all is that we were able to have our fur baby Barney with us, a few months back before we got news that we would be coming back to Miami, we thought we would do our session while visiting in July, which was the original plan and we were a bit sad that we wouldn't be able to have memories of this special moment with our first baby (yes we are those crazy dog parents), but it all worked out in the end and we couldn't be happier that he will forever be part of our pictures, after all he was part of our engagement pictures as well. Thank you Sasha for always making us feel comfortable and giving us such beautiful memories.

| PHOTOS by | Sasha de Almagro

Bébé Olivia | My French Countryside Themed Baby Shower

My Baby Shower

Oh this was one for the record books, why? well some of you may know that I moved back to Miami back in mid September all the way from Germany x seven months pregnant, so you can imagine the exhaustion and the many tasks we had on our to do list in order to close our chapter in Germany and restart again in Miami. This was one of the major to do list, we all know how time consuming preparing for any kind of event can be, so I had about two weeks to really put everything in to action. By End of the first week I had doubts of the venue my best friend Katie had secured for me, the place was cute but for some reason they had decided to put Finding Nemo stickers all over each of the walls of the hall, why, I have no clue but it took away from the look and made it no so cute. I didn't want to panic, so I just began my search for a venue once again,which had proven to be a mission, I needed something inexpensive and indoors due to the Zika craze, no easy solution as Miami is known for being overpriced on just about anything. I was starting to feel a bit annoyed, but still not frantic, which was good. 

Fast forward to the following week and we were looking at a major hurricane, expected to hit us precisely two days before my baby shower, that is when I started to worry, I didn't know if to cancel or keep the date. Mid week I ended up  postponing it to the following weekend, only to have mild rain the day the hurricane was suppose to hit us, I then had to think whether to change it back to do some family members who would have missed out if I kept it for the following weekend, so changed it back to the original date, which only gave me one day to get all the food and last minute decor. How I did it, I don't know but luckily I had a lot of hands to help me the day before and the day of my baby shower for which I am forever thankful for because honestly without them, it wouldn't have been possible. I put people in charge of certain tasks, my bestie Cassandra was in charge of games and winner gifts, bestie Lily and her sister got all the wine and champagne, sister in law Annette was in charge of most of the dessert table, my mom and mother in law were in charge of creating the floral arrangements, the hubby and I did the backdrops with a little help from sis in law, I did the eucalyptus garland that hung over the photo backdrop and the rest everyone just put a landing hand to truck everything over to the venue and put it together, we did not sleep much and were under a beautiful bath of sweat the day of, but we did it, and that's what counts. Thank you a million times to all of you who helped including my bestie Katie who helped me so much from afar and my other sis in law Genesis for coming so early on the day of to do my makeup.

The baby shower came out just the way I imagined, which if you know me is so hard to achieve, because I am a pain in the ass and I want everything the way I envision it. I wanted a french countryside feel to it, with lots of wild flowers and simple but yummy food and that's exactly how it was. I felt so happy and blessed that so many of my family and friends were able to join me on such a special day, it was more than I could have asked for and it was all because I was in loving company.

Shout out to Greg and Sabrina who were so gracious and kind to let us use their communities clubhouse in such a short notice. Also, I know I'm missing some of you in my photo repertoire but I couldn't get all the photos in time, so I'm sorry if you are missing in action here but know I love you.

We can't wait to meet you baby girl, we love you so much already.