Peter Gray | 1 Month - Annamarie Akins Photography | Virginia and Destination Wedding Photography

Somehow we are already WELL into his second month of life…time seems to be going at WARP SPEED these days and I’m trying so hard to soak up every moment with this precious little guy! I want to do monthly posts not just to share how we’ve been doing, but also to keep me accountable in organizing the literally THOUSANDS of photos I’ve been taking. Most of those are iphone photos just for the mems…but every so often I’ll bust out the real camera too! He’s changing so fast it’s unreal! More than ever I’ve wanted to take photos just for me to cherish! So here is a collection of a few of my favorite portraits as well as some of the iphone photo memories from Gray’s first month at the bottom.

Length at 1 Month Old: 22 inches (up from 20 inches at birth!)

Weight at 1 Month Old: 10 pounds 8 oz (up from 7 pounds 15 oz at birth!)

Here are a few takeaways from month 1:

We are loving being parents so much more than we even thought possible. I always knew Ryan would love being a dad, but I honestly wasn’t sure I was going to be up for the challenge…well don’t worry, mom: now I want ALL the babies. Being Gray’s mom has been the biggest honor and joy of my life and I don’t take for granted what a huge gift he is. That’s not to say there hasn’t been hard and overwhelming moments (Anxiety has been the hardest part for me…I plan to share more about my birth and motherhood experience in other posts eventually! I love hearing other people’s birth stories now!) But of all the adventures we’ve had in our nearly 7 years of marriage and 12 years together, becoming parents has by far been the best one yet!!
We got to bring Gray home on my birthday! Talk about the best birthday gift ever!! I hemorrhaged after giving birth so I had to get a blood transfusion and came home with low blood counts and basically no energy…but both our moms came in the weeks after to help take care of us and Gray and we are forever grateful for their help and the sweet memories made with Gray’s grandmas just hanging out at home!
March was such an ideal time to have a baby because it just started to get warm enough to take Gray on walks! We started to go on short walks about a week after he was born as I was up to it and seeing the flowers blooming/feeling the sunshine on my face did wonders for my recovery!
Gray must have inherited my night owl genes…he sleeps so well during the day, but not much at night! He’s got his days and nights confused! Hopefully we’ll be able to fix that soon, because the sleep deprivation is REAL. I’m pretty good at napping during the day, so the whole SLEEP WHEN THE BABY SLEEPS thing that was nailed into our heads in birth class was clutch.
Our families visited us for Easter and nothing brings my heart more joy than seeing how much friends and family adore Gray too!! We’ve been so grateful for our friends who have brought us meals!
Since the doctor told me I’d have to mostly stay in bed for a month to recover my blood levels, the only place I really went the whole first month besides outside for short walks on our street was the pediatrician! I loved bringing Gray and getting updates on his growth! He’s a good eater and he’s growing so fast!
We’ve never done so much laundry in our lives. Luckily it still doesn’t feel like a chore to fold cute, tiny baby clothes…
We tried out SO. MANY. SWADDLES. the first few weeks…Gray was so strong already that he’d bust his arms out of most of them! Finally we realized that he just liked to have his hands by his face…he always had his hands by his face in ultrasound pictures so we think that’s how he wanted to soothe himself! So we ended up finding the Love to Dream Swaddle that allowed him to keep his hands up by his face and that has been the winner! He loves it!
We aren’t generally big movie watchers..but we watched a movie almost every night the first month while I was too weak to do much else…I’ll treasure that time together as a little family of three! We’d pick out a movie, eat dinner, and snuggle with Gray! After the movie, we’d read Gray a chapter of the Bible before putting him to bed. This has me envisioning doing family devotions one day when he’s older!
When we were still in the hospital, my friend Jill sent me the lullaby “Head to Toe” by Christy Nockels. I played it for Gray that night and have been playing it for him every night since and now feel like it’s our special song (thanks Jilly!). During the nights when I’d have to be up every few hours alone to feed Gray, the lyrics were the most beautiful encouragement to me! Give it a listen! It’s such a good one!!

We put him in the outfit we bought him in Norway last summer for his one month pictures! It was still a little big…but we got this for him when I was just 6 weeks pregnant, so it was so surreal to see him actually wearing it!

This was the outfit Ryan wore home from the hospital so we had to get a shot of him in it! Ha!

These were the portraits I took when he was just a week old! So teeny and new!

Trying on his easter outfit! He also wore these for our newborn family session! I’ll share those photos in a separate post…

Snuggles with Mia!

My favorite pictures! I ended up redoing his one month photos because I found this sweet little stuffed animal for size reference to show his growth…We call him “Gray Bear” most often so it’s perfect! I think he already looks so much older in these than the ones I took first and they were just a few days later!

And here are a bunch of iphone shots from the first month! Starting in the hospital! My friend Caroline came to take photos of us the day after…some of my favorite photos ever!!