pictured.

so.... tuesday was the big day.

it was chaotic. emotional. stressful. exciting. surreal. 

basically, every emotion that i ever have even thought about feeling, i felt that day... and every day leading up to that day. 

there were SO many people. people everywhere. people we love. people who were strangers. people who want my husband's ear. 

and then there were my children. my precious little ones who are so resilient and have been thrown into this life, having known nothing else. my awesome bug who could care less about daddy working at the capitol, but cares deeply about the buttons on daddy's desk. that's his favorite part about the whole thing. 

my sweet charlotte, who stole the show {the nbc news & the front page of the dallas morning news} with her cute nieman marcus for target dress. she stressed. me. out. 

she screamed and cried the entire walk from j's office to the house floor. we had to wait for what seemed like forever for the elevator up. i was drenched in sweat and halfway to a temper tantrum myself when we walked out onto the floor. it was so overwhelming.

and then we sat down. they gavelled in. and it was magical. 

both of my babies were quiet. {there was technology that aided in that feat, i must admit}.  and a very kind man sat on the house floor with his large camera right in front of us. he asked us if he could just park there for a moment. of course we said yes, we'd never done this before. he was from the dallas morning news. i thought "great, he's going to do everything he can to get a horrible picture of my family - my kids screaming during the swearing in...". but no, he was awesome. he tried to make c. laugh when she started to get wiggly and was incredibly kind.

and then... oh, and then.

wednesday morning at 5:00 AM we started getting text messages. i thought to myself, "what in the world has happened now?"

finally after our phones beeped for about an hour i picked it up. 

we were in the paper. wow. on the front page. wow. 

but here's the thing - the paper is fun and all, but i don't really care. i do, however, care that we are going to have these amazing photographs from this sweet man on this monumental day for our family. we will have these pictures forever.

i am forever and ever grateful to Louis DeLuca of the Dallas Morning News. 

he captured sweet moments up close and personal of this day. moments that my kids may not remember, but i will. 

i am so thankful. 

{all pictures seen here are c/o louis deluca of the dallas morning news.}