babies,  children & families,  occassions & parties

welcome home, annabella!!

April 13, 2011 /

After a very long 5 year wait my friends adopted a baby girl from China,making their family of 5 (they have 3 boys, too!) into a family of 6. Jenn was nice enough to let me crash their homecoming at Kennedy Airport two weeks ago for their baby girl’s big debut to snap some pictures of the reunited, thrilled family! What an honor it was for me, especially after following Jenn & her mom’s travels in China, watching her meet her baby girl and watching them getting to know eachother all thru Facebook updates and Jenn’s blog. There were a number of tears shed behind the camera, too!

The waiting is the hardest part (thanks, Tom Petty) but there was quite a long one from touch down to making it thru customs.

The whole gang. Three very excited big brothers! Love how they got all dressed up to meet their new sister. More waiting… (this was at around 11:30pm so there was definitely some exhaustion mixed in with the waiting. That, plus the fact they hadn’t seen their mom for just over 2 weeks just made the anticipation all the worse.)And, here they are!!Beautiful, beautiful baby. Annabella went right to her daddy and seemed quite comfortable there for the rest of the evening. Love the way he looks at her the rest of the night. Meeting her brothers and looking quite content about it. She really liked Devin’s hat. First picture of Mommy, Daddy and Annabella together. What a special moment and I am so lucky I got to capture it. And the first picture of the whole H family. Yes, I know you are crying now, too. I had noticed that she kept making this face on the pictures that Jenn posted from China, so I figured I’d make it at her and see if she would do it back. And she did! Smart and gorgeous little cookie!!Going to her forever home.  H family- wishing all of you all the happiness in the world (but, you already have that!) an easy, smooth adjustment for Annabella and all of you. And all the love you can stand!! Thank you so very much for letting me photograph this for you. I hope you and Annabella will treasure the pictures of her first meeting the rest of her family and her first time on US soil in her new homeland. xoxo