To catch up with us, please go read about Desiree in these other posts.
I would like to introduce you to Briar Rose.
Desiree owned a dance studio, Elite Ballroom, in San Jose and ran an amazing adult formation team. I was on it for a year before getting pregnant with my 3rd. When we all found out about Aurora’s death, my friend Maria organized for the dance team members to contribute so that we could provide Desiree with a little tea cup arrangement of flowers each week. Once a week, Desiree gets the tea cup arrangement, and, once the flowers have wilted, keeps the tea cup. When I went to take Briar Rose’s pictures, we decided to use them in the photos. Desiree’s sister-in-law created the arrangements. The pictures were taken in Aurora’s garden, a garden she loved working in with mom.
We wanted to use roses as much as possible. The hard thing about traveling to take newborn photos is that you can’t bring all of your props with you. I asked Desiree to get a bouquet or two of roses. She bought 4 buckets worth of flowers. 🙂 Needless to say, we had plenty to work with.
Butterflies are very important to this family. Big sister, Aurora’s, grave is decorated with butterflies.
I wanted to do a little nod to our pictures from Hawaii when Desiree was pregnant. Briar Rose is a rainbow baby.
Briar Rose was having a rough day the day I was there to photograph. She just wouldn’t settle down. Finally, I told Desiree to go upstairs and do something else, and I took Briar Rose outside. She screamed at me for a few minutes, but we bounced and sang, and she finally settled to the point where I could pose her.
This is Big Sister Aurora’s swing.
When we were done with the photos, I looked around at all of the left over flowers. I asked, “Do you have a gallon of milk? Let’s do a milk bath.” I think that was the first time Desiree had really been able to relax all day. I also should mention that her sister-in-law was visiting with her boyfriend. They both got put to work helping me that day, including dropping rose petals into the bathtub. Nothing says “Nice to meet you!” like sprinkling rose petals on your girlfriend’s sister-in-law in the bathtub! Hahaha!
When we were done with pictures, I took Briar Rose and let Desiree actually relax in the bath. When she came out, she said, “You know what, the water and milk actually turned pink from all of the roses.” How fun is that! Oh, and the smell was heavenly! I love working with real flowers!
Welcome, welcome, Briar Rose. You are such a sweet girl!
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