Maya McRae Hamilton

Here are photos of my brother Bret's new daughter, Maya. My parents were up in Tallahassee for the birth. She was born on January 11 at 11:00 (that's a lot of ones).

She's a little thing - 6 pounds 4 oz. That's my dad's hand.



Grandmother and Maya - I love this picture!


This is my FAVORITE shot - I love the looks on Bret and my mom's faces! So priceless!





When we talked to Bret that day, he was the epitome of the proud first time dad, it was so sweet Alex and I were both teary-eyed listening to him!

i am second

This is an awesome website. Makes me wonder - am I second enough of the time?

this is just amazing - check out the testimony of the former bassist of the heavy metal band Korn - Brian Welch

And Stephen Baldwin.

A cleaning lady and a realtor - talk about eternal significance.

i am second - have to say that I found this from Jeff's blog.

Real Weddings

One of Alex's weddings from earlier this year was selected by The Knot Bridal Magazine to be featured as a Real Wedding. This is always great news. This is the wedding of Melissa and Chris. It was such a wonderful wedding - everything was beautiful.

Check out the online version of what they printed in the magazine. I will say that magazines choose pictures for specific reasons - like whatever details it is that they want to talk about. They aren't always OUR favorite pictures.

To get the whole story of their wedding, here is a slideshow of their wedding album.

My wonderful baby shower

Here are the long overdue pictures from my shower which was just before Christmas - bad timing I know. Lourdes, Ann Marie and my sister-in-law, Baby hosted the shower for me at Baby's house.

me w/ Ann Marie and Lourdes...


My awesome cake...It's like an Ace of Cakes cake!




My mom made those runners - I love them!


Isn't this gorgeous!?


The obligatory baby shower games...they had to dress the baby with one hand while holding a cell phone in the other.




Alex's niece, Isabella, playing with Sienna. Isabella and Nicholas are VERY excited about getting a baby cousin!


Me and my mom


Me and Alex's family and family friends

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009 everyone!

I just finished reading my best friend Jenn's blog, and I feel like I should put some thought into making a new year's resolution list. I have never actually made new year's resolutions before. I guess for a couple of years I've thought that I would try REALLY hard to remember people's names when I first meet them. That hasn't worked out too well, as I just discovered on Tuesday that I've been calling this new guy in my company by the wrong name. I thought I knew it so I made an extra effort to say "Good morning Gil." - When in fact his name is something else - which I've already forgotten. Apparently, Gil is another new guy who works in a different department. Good job Shaleen.

I guess that my only resolutions are also post-baby projects. Like losing the weight that I've gained since I've been pregnant, but I could add on a new year's reso and say that I'd like to lose the weight I've gained since I got married - now THAT would be nice!

I can't believe that I will have a baby in two and half months. It's really crazy. For new year's eve we had dinner with Lourdes, Jamie and their daughter Sienna. Afterward we played board games. It was fun, but so wild to think that in just a short while, we will have this constant (for lack of a better word) distraction of a baby. They just change the flow of things, I'm sure that will be an adjustment.

Two weeks ago, Lourdes, Ann Marie, and Alex's sister threw me a shower - it was SO gorgeous. It was absolutely perfect. I think that we are pretty much stocked with baby supplies except for some things that we'll pick up later. I did take a lot of pictures, but Alex very nicely informed me that they are horrible. So I can't post them until he has corrected the colors some - and he's WAY too busy designing wedding albums now to adjust my pictures. I did try really hard to take good shots, but it was sunset and the contrast of the light makes things really tricky! Hopefully I'll post them at some point.

not even apologizing

I'm going to stop apologizing for not blogging. I'm sure that people are tired of the apologies anyway. Here's what I've been up to-

1) weddings have finally ended (yay!) but last Saturday my company's Board of Director's had a planning retreat - so I was there most of the day. We got done an hour early at 3:30 - so I used that time (wisely) to go Christmas shopping.

2) I am trying to fit Christmas shopping into any free time. I am pretty much done except for Alex and his dad. I tried shopping online a lot this year - that worked out well. Although I learned a valuable lesson. That is, if you buy online for people who are out of town - just have the items shipped directly to them. I didn't think about that until I received the 2.5' wide x 10" high x 3' long box containing the gift for Bret's step-kids at my house. Yeah, they live in Tallahassee - so now I have to get it there somehow. Smart, Shaleen.

3) Baking things. I can't help myself, I love to bake at Christmas time. I tried some new things this year. I covered a pound of pretzels in white chocolate and sprinkles. I also made peanut buttery rice krispies which i rolled into balls and dipped in milk chocolate. I'm going to fill tins with each of those cookies for some friends, co-workers and the majority will go to the teachers at our preschool - they LOVE food and candies.

4) Cleaning my house - about a month ago we fired our cleaning lady and I've yet to replace her. So I have been cleaning a lot more often. Tomorrow a woman is coming to check out my house and give me a price. So today I had to thoroughly vacuum and mop in preparation. I know that sounds crazy. But seriously, my floor was gross, I refused to even walk on it barefoot b/c of the dirt on the tile (caused by the dogs, but mostly Miles). I honestly think that if she saw my house the way that it looked about 3 hours ago that she would charge us more to clean. We only have someone come twice a month - but it's a big help so that I only have to do the maintenance cleaning in between. That means that I usually vacuum twice a week on my own, swiffer once and do a real mopping once a week. If that sounds like a lot of cleaning - you're right. I think in part b/c we just like our house to be clean and also b/c Miles gets the floor so dirty that it is really necessary.

So there you have it - nothing too exciting.

Thanksgiving Update

This is my most shamefully long absence from blogging. Who knew that taking a week off of work would wreak so much havoc. It may not have really been the week off, but for whatever reason, since Thanksgiving Alex and I have been SO busy. My work is super busy - and Alex just finished our winter wedding season and now he has to do post-production on all of those weddings.

However, we actually took pictures while we were away - so I definitely want to post them. We took a couple of days to drive up to Asheville for Thanksgiving w/ my mom's family. We left on Friday headed to Greenville where we saw one of my oldest friends, Emily. We met her at the Greenville zoo and had a nice day out. Then we went to my cousin's house and had lunch with my sisters in law (who took a break from shopping) and my cousin and their daughter, Ashley.

So it was kind of a speedy trip, but we felt like we still got to have lots of quality time with friends and family.


Aaron and Bret with our cousin Paul - they were headed out to go 4-wheeling. We are obviously a squinty-eyed family...


Me, Aaron and Bret


my brother Aaron and Alex


Me with my mom


Me with my oldest friend, Emily and her husband Jody.


Emily's son, Silas


Baby Millie


Emily's son, Silas - looking at snakes.


A Madagascar - we think he might be pentecostal...


Emily's daughter, Hattie w/ Jody.


Hattie again


Emily, Jody and Millie


Me, Alex and Caleb