Blake is here!

My first grand baby was born yesterday at 2:11 PM. I took over 300 pictures, but here are just a couple for starters. I want to watermark them before I put them up on my blog. Let me introduce you to Blake Warren:

I guess I could have made that watermark a little bigger. Oh, well.


He weighs in at 6 pounds, 5 ounces and I think he is 19.5 inches long. He is a natural nurser....he took right to it. That makes Katrina one proud aunt and sister (of Ashley). Kat is a bit, ummmm....obsessed, I guess with breast feeding. Let's just say that I breast fed her for way too long. I had to forcefully wean her because there was no way on Earth that kid was going to give it up on her own.  

I was so worried about the pictures. I could not find my gray card so out of desperation, I decided to take a piece of gray cardstock from my stash (I honestly think the kids probably hid it from me because they think it's stupid). It actually worked out perfectly! Different lights in the room kept going off and on so I probably had to customize the white balance five or so times. While Ashley had her knees up and was pushing, I set the gray card right there in front of her leg. I had to make sure the shots of her pushing came out correctly! You would have done the same thing. Admit it. Lucky for me, the nurse knew what I was doing and kind of laughed.

I had spent the morning taking practice shots and playing with the ISO, etc. When the time did come for Ashley to start pushing, the batteries on my external flash died. I couldn't believe it!! I had to quickly switch lenses and try to find correct settings. It's not an easy task when you're nervous as heck and it's not like you can say, "hang on, Ashley! I have to take some test shots first."  So, the pictures of Blake in the doctor's hands are nothing but big blurs. However, the color is nice. I had no intention of taking pictures of Ashley below the waist but I really, really wanted those first three to four seconds of life.

This morning I changed the batteries in my flash. One of them was actually leaking! I had just pulled those batteries out of the fridge yesterday. I'm ready now for more pictures. You will be bombarded with pictures. Trust me.

This has got to be the longest day in history. The kids haven't met little Baby Blake and they can't wait. I can't wait for them to meet him, too. The hospital has strict rules about allowing kids under 16 to visit so all I've heard for almost 24 hours is, "When are we going to see Blake?"

In other news, my sweet friend, Carole, made this darling wall hanging for Kat for her birthday.  Kat LOVES it and was so excited when she saw it. She says she is going to hang it on her door knob.

 Thank you so very much, Carole!!

Thank you everyone for all of your sweet comments and for all the Congrats!!