Meet newborn Indira. She is one of my best friend’s new baby. First baby. She tried so many times to get pregnant, and had such a difficult and sad time, and we were sure that she would adopt, which we were happy and excited about, but now look! She has created the most beautiful baby on earth with no help from the doctors.

I am so, so happy for her. And obviously this little girl is an old soul. I need to photograph most newborns asleep because when they are awake they look off, one eye half closed, arms flailing. But not Indira. She is a calm, buddha baby. My Elijah was a buddha baby, too, and is now so thoughtful and present (expect when he is incessantly whining).

I just went to my friend’s house for a few minutes to take some photos.  But I am now in love. And have caught the baby fever.  Again. It seems like EVERYONE around me is getting pregnant by accident. I love that.

xoxo stacey

Sometimes it just feels good to cry, you know? I was trying to explain that to Amelia yesterday.  But she did not understand. That was expected since I knew I was talking to a two year old, but I still tried. And this is why.  I have been on my own with the kids for a week as Adam is at a conference in Seattle. It really has been great. I have been not working much, and just hanging out with the kids.

BUT-Amelia got the stomach flu. And if you are a parent you know that the stomach flu is the hardest illness to go through with a child because there is nothing you can do to help them so YOU feel horrible and helpless, too, but also you get NO sleep at all bc you are rocking and comforting a small child while constantly being thrown up on and trying to get loads of loads of laundry in.

A friend of Elijah’s took him for the afternoon to the Boulder Creek Festival and it was going to be just “mommy and Amelia time.” And she wants me to sew her up some pink pillows and blankets so we went first to Safeway so I could get money from the bank there and pick up some much needed groceries and then go to the craft store.

Well, halfway through shopping I hear a cry from the cart (I was off in the milk area), and I went back to check in on her and Amelia held out her two little hands and they were full of spagetti. The spagetti she had eaten earlier that afternoon. What a good girl! She made it all nice and neat so I started to run the shopping cart over to the produce isle to get a platsic baggie to start cleaning up and then she just got sick all over the place.

I then ran the cart to the customer service department and sincerely mumbled my apologies to the lady there that had a really astonished look on her face and then we BOOKED it out of there.

We were *almost* home and that is when I realized a wasp was stuck behind my glasses. I realized this because the wasp stung me, while driving, and I almost got into another accident (I totalled my car about a month ago).

I was keeping it all together though. I had it handled. I am a tough mama.

So, three blocks from our home I see blinking lights behind me and I am GETTING PULLED OVER. For speeding. And yes, I was speeding. I had a throwing up child half naked in my backseat and I had just gotten stuck by a wasp.

As the police office came to the car I made a point to shake out Amelia’s spagetti-filled shirt out the window so he could see. Then I told him my little sob story. But I could not locate my lisence or my insurance card (brought the wrong wallet, of course).

So, instead of letting me get my sick child back to the house which was within viewing distance, he took his pretty little time in his police car doing whatever they do that takes so long when they pull you over.

After 15 minutes of Amelia screaming because she was hot and sick and just wanted to go home and get OUT of that carseat, I finally went around to the other side of the car and took her out and just rocked her.

The police officer finally came up to me, gave me a ticket for no insurance (which I won’t have to pay because ireally DO have insurance), and told me that he could have ticketed me for a ton of things but decided to give me a break.

And I don’t know why, but I just started crying. I guess it was bc I was grateful to him. But I think it was more bc I was so overwhlemed by everything and it just felt so good to cry.

And that is why I was trying to explain to Amelia that sometimes it just feels good to cry.

Tonight is another night where crying just feels good. I have to figure out how to teach her that while at the same time teaching her by example how to really be in touch with my strength as a woman.

These are the important moments as a parent.

So, I really HAD to get that out. Just like I had to cry tonight, because it just feels good to get it all out sometimes.

Anyways, I wrote all that and you read it so I am going to post a photo for you as a thank you.

More tomorrow when our nanny comes back and I asked her if she would come early so I could sleep in and she said ‘yes!”

I am going to miss just spending the day with the kids now that our nanny is back, but sleeping in is like gold to a parent with a child that has the stomach flu.

xoxo stacey

ps, “just one” turned into “just three” as I pulled up fthese photos from a new disk to my computer from that session the other night. I liked these-they were sweet. But the photos of her three other children are my favorites, I will post those soon, too.

pps. It is now 5:30am and having our nanny come in early so I could sleep in was futile-I told her 7am and amelia woke up bright and shiny (and loud) at 5am.

…i am putting up a few photos from Sammy’s birth of him breastfeeding for the first time, which (to me) is one of the most beautiful things to witness (next to the actual birth itself).

I am a huge breastfeeding advocate, for the many obvious reasons, and was fortunate enough to be able to breastfeed both of mine until they were two years old. Amelia, almost three now, still likes to sneak into my shirt and find a nipple and try to squeeze the milk out. Is this was too much information to share with my clients? Maybe so. Hopefully the dads don’t read this blog.

That is it for tonight, I am going to get some well earned rest. I spent the day just hanging out with my kids, it was so nice to not worry about business and just chill in the backyard with them, sidewalk chalking, treerope swinging, and sandbox water tunnel making. A relaxing day, for sure. Then I spent all evening working on photos, so a perfect end to a perfect day.

xoxo stacey

ps, I will post more of newborn Sammy’s birth photos soon! Just wanted to get a couple photos up tonight…

pps, I always “go” to my own blog and read the post and look at the photos right after I publish it to make sure it looks ok. And I do have to say what you are probably thinking right now-that is one big breast on my computer screen:)

pps,I meant because the photo is so large on the screen, I was NOT commenting on the size of the breast itself, like you were.

I know, this is a super heavy photo post. I am up at 1:30am, that is not too late, editing photos, after just getting back from visiting my dear friend, Kim, and her family and doing a little portrait session at this gorgeous location she found in Englewood.

Of course, I DID bring my two little ones, and the first two photos are of them. How freaking sweet are they? I LOVE them. I brought along another Kim, who is mentoring with me and helping out, and I was teaching on shooting into the sun. And Elijah and Amelia just love to ham it up, so we could not help but get photos of them, too.

Ok, so I have not posted newborn Sammy’s birth photos yet, but will soon. They are really grainy bc he was born at night and in the hospital, and I do NOT use flash, especially at a birth (what birthing mother would tolerate THAT?). So, I just need Kim to run the photos through her spiffy little noise program and then I will put them up on the blog.

So Sam is now 13 days old, and apparently he does NOT like to be photographed. He was just not a happy newborn tonight. But, what we got was sweet, and I still love all the photos, even when he is crying. He can do what he wants.

The last set of photos is of me. Me, me. Kim took photos and video while I was shooting and hanging out with all the little ones. So, this is just a behind the scenes peak.  Can not wait to show you all what the video is for! It is going to be fabulous.

Ok, off to bed at a decent hour tonight.After having the best day just chilling out with my own kids, not working, then spending time doing what I love (being a photographer), I can really rest well tonight. It was a good day.

xoxo stacey

It is a beautiful day in Boulder, and I am  inside, trying to catch up on (VERY old and some new) emails and galleries and print orders and training my new office manager, Denise, who rocks. I think I may just skip the whole day of work thing and go lay out in the sun and soak it up just to feel. better.  To make me happy today and also because I am trilled with the new slideshow feature I have on my blog, I am going to post this amazing session with Elijah and Avery. I have been photographing Elijah since he was a newborn, and he is almost three now!  I love this family. They are so sweet and this photo session was perfect. So here’s to me having a sweeter, more relaxing day.

Okay, to break it down and for sun, because it is always awesome to see my clients grow:

Newborn

Six months

1 year

And this is 2 years, and we should be planning a three year portrait session soon, right G and H?  Let’s come up with something even more fabulous for three years!

xoxo stacey

So sleepy. Why do I blog? oh, bc it is fun and I KNOW people read it and mostly bc I love photography and love when I take a really good photo and can show it off.

What is even better than that is when a whole shoot is awesome. And Ms. Heather over at The Dark Room Diva has created a way for me to now display not just a few of the photos from a session, but ALL of them. How fantastic is that?

I know with the blog images you just get a little sneak peak of some of the photos that I personally liked from a session. Inevitably, the family that I am photographing chooses others as their favorites. and then friends and family chose yet other photos as their favorites.

So, fyi, I have a hard week coming up. No nanny. no husband, last day of school, and lots of emails to get back to, photo sessions to set up if you wrote about a mini session or a full session in the last few weeks I WILL get back to you soon, I promise! I know, I am taking WAY too long, it is just an email, right? No, bc I like to write a ton and put in a lot of info for my clients and chat back and forth so it just ends up taking me a long time, so I mark the email as unread and try to come back to it later. So now I have 165 unread messages. And none of them are spam. They are all emails I have to respond to.
I am not complaining here, just explaining.

So, as far as the blog, I put up the photos that I love, and the rest are never seen (except by the clients). Now that Heather has given me this really simple way to display the entire gallery, I get to, for the first time, show you ALL the photos from a shoot. So, while I won’t do this every time, I will for certain shoots here and there. Basically, that means when I have time. Which is never. But I will make the time anyways.

The picture below is a glimpse into MY world. I am sitting up in bed on my laptop while my two little ones are sleeping soundly right next to me. Ah, that is a good life right there. And above is a slideshow of a gorgeous senior. Just wanted to get *something* up before I fell asleep by accident.
xoxo stacey

This is Boulder, Colorado, right? Yes, I am posting photos of a beautiful mother doing the thing that can be the most natural thing to do-breastfeeding her sweet little baby boy. I know this mama does attachment parenting and that is a concept that is near and dear to my heart.

My husband and I both have our mater’s in counseling psychology from Naropa University (a school, by the way, that I can not say enough good things about). I focused on early attachment. Yeah, I know. I am a photographer now. But it WAS worth the $60k I took out in loans (and am still slowly paying and will be for a long time) simply for the fact that it made me a better mother. And I found the father to my beautiful children there. And the spark that later became Karma Baby Slings sprang from it. And it helps me as a doula, a birth photographer, a friend, a sibling, a daughter-it impacted all my roles in life in a way you would never begin to understand unless you actually went to Naropa.

So my husband and I  had a long talk years ago about how Dr. Sears (the father and guru of attachment parenting) should have named his concept attunement parenting. It is NOT all about breastfeeding on demand. Some mother’s just can’t. So babies just won’t. It is NOT all about co-sleeping. Some babies prefer their own crib in their own room. It is NOT all about babywearing, either. Some babies just can not stand being wrapped up.

What it IS is knowing what it IS for YOUR baby. Being attuned to him or her. Spending your days in such a present way with your children that you are attuned to their needs. So you rarely skip a beat. Well, THAT statement I just made is a bunch of baloney, why did I even think to write that? Oh yeah, it is 2 am again-and I am still struggling to be super mom:)

Anyways, you miss a lot of beats, because your are a good mama but not a perfect mama.  You CAN NOT (repeat after me) “I CAN NOT hit ALL the beats, EVER. Period.”

But, it IS about being with your baby, knowing what that tiny inflection in his cry at that specific moment during minute 7 of his crying means. And it is about knowing when to challenge him to reach a little further for that toy in front of him. It is about knowing that boo-boos need to be kissed before anything else in world can happen.  It is all about taking the time to find rhythm with your baby, and then going with it.

And, of course, we are off our rhythms all the time. That is what meditation is for-to help us stay present enough that we can be very fluid in this rhythm, this dance with our baby. There are good days,there are bad days, but what is most important is that we try to stay attuned to our baby.

One of my best friends just had a baby a few days ago. I want to tell her all about what it is like to be a parent and I want to MAKE her take my advice. When really, there is no advice, it is just you and your baby. *If* I had to say I had some advice to give, it would be to take these first few months to get to know your baby, stay close to your baby, get in sync with your baby. It does not happen right away. You don’t know if you should wake your newborn baby up in the middle of the night to feed if she is sleeping through the night already. You are unsure what different cries means. It hurts YOU way more than it hurts her to push the belly time a little longer.

This is all natural. Those first few months are meant to be a time for mama and baby to nest in, be close to each other throughout the day, and really get to know and understand each other, because, yes, your baby is learning as much about YOU  and you are about HER.

Ok, that is enough of my 2am parenting rant. Good night!

xoxo stacey

ps. btw, this shoot is another 6 moth old one from the mini sessions i did last fall. I WILL catch up someday, soon, I think. Actually, I think there are going to be a ton of shoots that I forget to post. So, if you are reading this and are wondering why I never blogged about your session, it was not bc you have an ugly baby (there is no such thing in my book), but bc I went on medical leave fore six months and have no idea where all those portrait sessions I did right before i left still stand (did you get your photos, did you SEE them, are you waiting for me to get a computer guy in here to work on my computer so I can speed things up? If so, I *promise* it will all be taken care of soon, and well, by my new office manager, Denise, who is a AMAZING and can do AMAZING things to organize the creative tornado that I call my art.

Just a few before  bed…lots more to come! Will post more in the morning when I wake up at a DECENT hour and get some work done. First of all, I have more photos to post from the Tofeeze shoot (the best teether in the world AND it was created by a local mama and her daughter!) and some MORE Baby Hawk.

These photos are over 6 months old! I have SO many old shoots to blog before I took my 6 month medical leave. I can’t wait to get them all up-and then all the new family photo/portrait sessions I have been doing lately. AND maternity, AND births. Oooooh, how I love photographing births! So, more to come. You may get multiple blog posts in one day, which is a leap for me.

As a side note, I have so many AMAZING projects I am working on right now, and can not wait to share them all. For starters, I am creating a new photo portfolio site AND a workshop website. I have been teaching every day of the week-and love it. I think my passion really lies in not only taking beautiful photos (there is nothing like captureing that PERFECT image for someone-especially if it is of their children or baby), but also teaching other photographers-especially moms.
So, I had to hire a new office manager for Karma Baby and Stacey Potter Photography, and I found THE perfect person for the position and Kellie is busy training her right now. Kellie, who has been with me for what? Five years? Has to leave to work for her husband’s new business (boo), but I am really happy for their successes. He runs a non profit called Teens for Oceans and kellie’s new job description includes weeks of snorkeling in the Cayman Islands. I just can’t compete with that,

But I did post the job on Boulder Rock’n Moms (if you are not a part of this group you MUST join-it is 3000+ Boulder-area mothers and the info and support on there is invaluable). Anyways, I got a ton of responses. I chose not to post on Craigslist or Monster.com bc I really wanted to give the job to a mom that needs to work and needs to stay at home. And over the years Kellie and I have really perfected our system whereby she has been able to do everything for both businesses on her own time (even if that means at 2am in the morning) and in her own house (which means pj’s for sure, yay!). So, I feel like it is a nice offering to make sure I hire another mom to work with. And I found Denise, who is perfect. It really was a tough choice, I interviewed so many great mamas.

So, if your order is behind or if you are emailing me and I am slacking, it is because I lost my office manager and nanny in the same week. We did find the most wonderful nanny in the world though, so now all is good.

Anyways, can’t wait to share  all these great photo sessions I have been doing and tell you all about the workshop ideas and the other two things I am working on. Oh yeah, and if you are a web designer and want family photos done, I really need a revamp of karmababy.com. It is super easy-I have drawn it all out and it mostly just color changes (that hot pink is SO 2005). So contact me if you want to trade.

xoxo stacey

Just one photo for tonight (or this morning? It IS 3am after all), because it is too late and I really should get to bed. Bad news: my husband has to leave at 5:30am to go to work today. Good news? Our wonderful, beautiful, perfect new nanny is coming in early to help, so I can sleep.

With my oldevilwoman’s witch disease (crohn’s-autoimmune), sleep has to be the #1 priority for my health-and you all know how I overdo it with getting excited about work and neglecting my health.. So, I do NOT feel bad paying someone fun and young and loving to take my kids to school tomorrow. I WILL be home with them and done with work at 2:30pm, so I am not neglecting them or anything for the sake of working late and sleeping in every once in awhile.

I AM this incredible tornado of creative energy lately. In fact, there is so much happening that I can’t keep up with it and need to hire out even more help. I am so, so ecited to share with you all the projects I am working on. For now, you’ll have to be satisfied with one very beautiful maternity photo of one extremely gorgeous pregnant mama. Can you believe she is 35 weeks? This is Chataqua, btw, in southwest Boulder, I will post the Flatiron photos from this shoots soon, I promise!!!

xoxo stacey

nite’