Photo: Tiffany Hoylman
Tiffany Hoylman, 31, reached out to Dana on Facebook shortly after Kaleb was born. Dana and Hoylman — who lived only a few miles from Dana’s Dinwiddie home — have mutual friends and their husbands go to the same barber, Tiffany says.
“It’s a terrible feeling to not know if your children are gonna live,” says Tiffany, 31, whose twins were born at 26 weeks and spent four months in the NICU. “The NICU is just a whole different world. There’s not really a ton of people that really understand.”
Tiffany was told that her children wouldn’t be able to walk or talk. Fortunately, doctors were wrong, and today her twins are healthy and happy.
“We’re very blessed and I try to give back,” she says.
Kaleb Graves and his big brother Keelyn.Tiffany Hoylman
Tiffany Hoylman
The two moms have been Facebook friends and chatted online for the last four years. On Sunday Nov. 3, Tiffany moved her photography studio from the third floor of her home to the garage so that she could take free holiday photos of Kaleb — and have a chance to meet the Graves family face-to-face.
Photographer Tiffany Hoylman and her family.Tiffany Hoylman
When the day of the photo shoot arrived, Kaleb wasn’t feeling good and took a nap, says his mother, who admits that she wondered whether the photoshoot idea would work. Then his 17-year-old brother Keelyn, whom the Graves adopted, tickled him awake and got him laughing.
“His brother is able to get him to do anything,” Dana says. “They are truly inseparable.”
Tiffany photographed Kaleb sleeping in his brother’s arms, laughing with him and riding in a sled. The resulting images are “absolutely adorable,” Dana says.
“I wasn’t expecting them to turn out the way they did,” she adds.
Kaleb Graves.Tiffany Hoylman
Dana loves Christmas: She decorates her home with 12 full-sized Christmas trees, two of which are in the boys’ bedrooms.
source: people.com
