📷: @miminguyenphoto (featuring @auniechoochoo)

We love seeing our letter boards in pregnancy announcements and maternity photoshoots. And we've seen a whole range of amazing creativity in those photos. But when we saw Trang’s maternity photo featuring her dog, Toffer, we thought the cute bump and adorable dog were the perfect combination. Add to that the hilarious message on her Poet Oak board, and we had to know more about both Toffer and the babe on the way.

So tell us the story behind this photo?

This photo was taken from our maternity session with Mimi (www.miminguyen.com). She has been our photographer since 2014 and has been capturing our biggest milestones. We realized that we didn’t have any professional photos with Toffer because our engagement session and wedding weren't local. We truly love and treat Toffer like he’s our son so we wanted to make sure to include him in our maternity photos before we became a family of 4. Since Toffer has been our baby for 10 years and loves to be in front of the camera, we thought it would be cute to make a sign for him.

Does your dog always pose on command so perfectly?

My husband, Kris, and I love taking pictures and capturing videos so much that Toffer has learned how to pose when he sees a camera. On many occasions, Toffer has included himself in group photos taken on a tripod. He would see us getting ready for the photo and make his way towards us as we counted down “3, 2, 1.” By the time we said cheese, you would find him sitting right next to us and looking straight into the camera.

How did Toffer become a part of your family? 

Kris adopted Toffer before we met. He walked into a pet shop and walked out with a dog. At the time he had no intentions of buying a dog, but Toffer reminded Kris of a dog he had growing up. Being young, poor, and in school, he did the smart thing and wiped out his savings to buy Toffer right then and there. It was the dumbest, smartest decision he’s ever made. Toffer turned out to be an amazing dog and I love him to pieces. Kris has always said that my love for Toffer tricked me into marrying him and he might be right. Toffer has increased the happiness in our lives a thousand fold.

Now lets talk about that sweet baby girl. Tell us about her.

We lucked out with Kairi. This munchkin is more than we could have ever hoped for. Our little one just recently turned 9 months old and she loves to play and eats everything we give her. The girl even burps herself! She’s quick to smile but makes us really WORK for giggles. Kairi loves being around people and has no problem falling asleep in the middle of a party. Kris always tell her how thankful he is that she’s an “easy” baby. All she wants is food and affection. Such a little cutie pie!

How did you come up with the name Kairi?

Kris is an animator in the game industry. Like a lot of other guys his age, he grew up playing games. He first heard Kairi’s name in a game he played as a kid. Ever since then he kept it on a short list of names he thought would work well for any potential kiddos.  When we found out we were having a girl he asked if I liked the name Kairi. I instantly fell in love with it. It was the first and only name we ever considered giving her.

And how is Toffer coping with no longer being the only child? 

I think Toffer knew the minute we got back from the hospital that Kairi was part of our family. In those first crazy weeks, Toffer was always there whenever Kairi cried. He too was sleep deprived and would stumble into the room completely exhausted. He would walk up to her and attempt to calm Kairi down by licking her. It was hilarious to see him just as drained as us. He went from being our “baby” to “old man Toff.” He loves Kairi and has been a great older fur-brother from the start.

And finally, we always like to ask: what is currently up on your letter board?

Our letter board currently says “WEEK 39”. Every week we take a photo of Kairi with our mini polaroid camera. We love looking back and seeing how much she has grown from week 1 to now.