This sweet little newborn is Penny, sister to Charlie whom I posted photos of the other day. this whole family is so sweet! They live in Golden on this beautiful ridge and have a ton of gorgeous land. I am envious, for sure, though I am happy to be in Boulder. Anyways, isn’t she so perfect? Makes me want to have another baby sooo bad.

Good news all around here-my intern, got to adopt her baby girl!!!! Some of you have met her a on photo shoots so I am sure you will be happy to hear that. I just am overjoyed.

Adam and I really want to adopt a baby or child with special needs. He doesn’t want me to have another (I am a hormonal, whiny b@#$% when I am pregnant). But, I did my master’s specializing in early attachment-especially with foster and adopted children. And Adam is a behavior analyst, so works with autism and developmental disabilities on a daily basis. So maybe we will adopt a little boy with downs or fetal alcohol syndrome. We just have to wait to move into our new, bigger house, and wait for Amelia to be a little less of a firecracker. But it is a big dream of mine and I can’t wait.

The other good news is I am feeling A LOT better today. It might help that I am now on 60mg of liquid (yuck) predizone (steriods). But I have hardly been able to move the last week, and today I am feeling a little better. Bad news-the drug that they want to put me on is $4200/month. A month. Yes. And our insurance sucks. Whatever, I guess I will have to raise all my photography prices to $4200 a session to cover it. I am just kidding, of course:) We’ll manage it.

Lots and LOTS of shoots coming up, I will try to update the blog daily now that I am doing better.

xoxo stacey

These sweet newborn boulder twins are all I can post for tonight, Mom is flying in tonight bc I need the help. More tomorrow.

xoxo stacey

Just wanted to get one sweet one up for today. I love this one because Penny is just so snuggled in there-the way a newborn should always be and feel.

Amelia is still sick so I am scrambling to get up client galleries and make phone calls while she takes her short nap and before Elijah gets home from school in 5 minutes. Sigh, the joys of working motherhood.

Though-just got an awesome phone call from a mortgage broker that sounds like our new house might FINALLY be closed upon. We shall see. Not getting my hopes up. But send me some good new-house-buying-energy if you have any to spare.

xoxo stacey

This sweet newborn is over a month now! Whew, just need to catch up on these blog posts. We did Ava’s newborn portraits at about 3 weeks, but she was still sleepy and squishy and great. So tiny, too! She really does make me want to have another little baby. Amelia will be two next week! I have no baby left! She is potty trained and weened and can talk in full sentences and count to 14-almost. I have no baby. I remember how it was when Elijah was this age-whenever I did a newborn shoot I got this crazy baby fever. It has not hit me *quite* yet but I anticipate sometime in the next year I won’t be able to stand not having a baby anymore and convince Adam to go for it. First, though, we just need to get this house closed on! The whole mortgage thing is so frustrating, and it just keeps being drawn out.

All else is going well. I am feeling better. Elijah started first grade-he is such a big boy now! We are making plans for the fall. Life is good.

xoxo stacey

For some reason I do a lot of newborn shoots in Fort Collins. Not any other kind of shoot, just newborn, which is strange, but that is fine since I love the drive and it is always worth it to photograph a newborn. Selah (beautiful name, right?!) was so sleepy and calm and her parents were so young and in love.  Those are the best kind of shoots. It reminded me of Adam and I when we first had Elijah. I was so young then (25). Those first few months were so magical and everything in the house was so calm and present. Probably the best few months of my life to date. With Amelia, it was a little different. She was colicky and did not sleep well, and I was in my busy season for photography, and we had a four year old,  so things were not calm at all.

We are staying busy trying to get everything together to close on our new house on Wednesday. There is just so much paperwork involved, and it is time consuming. But, then we get our new house! I am excited, even though we have to rent it back to the sellers until they find a new home. Just crossing my fingers that we are in there by Thanksgiving, or even Halloween would be great. At the very least Christmas. It is a good time to buy a house though, so I am glad we are getting it out of the way now. More soon. I *thought* I was going to get caught up on blogging all the shoots I have not gotten around to posting in the last few months, and now I am super busy again, so lots more photos to come!

xoxo stacey

Love little newborn toes! Always such a sweet picture. Patrick was a very mellow, happy baby, and a pleasure to photograph. I loved their dog too. I have decided this is the kind of dog I want-they are just so pretty and have so little fur.  After this photo shoot I search around for Weimaraner breeders for a couple of days, and found a few breeders with litters, but I got a “hell no!” from adam, so now we are dogless and I am sad. See, Freckles passed away last year, and all we have now is an 18 year old cat, who is awesome, but I grew up with three dogs and three cats at any given time, and love having my home filled with animals. But, I got the big hell no, just like I did with baby #3, so for now, I am just going to wait it out and try adam again on both fronts in a year. We shall see.

I am super busy shooting again. This weekend alone I have four photo shoots, which is a lot when I am trying to find time to squeeze in with my family. But, I love it! I did a gorgeous maternity session Friday night, then a wild two and a half year old last night, and then two families tonight. Off to the movies for now!

xoxo stacey

Rainy Boulder day. I am working on a super secret project at the moment. Well, it is not totally a secret, but I want to wait until I am *almost* done with it to make an announcement. I have heard it is important to contain the energy about something you are excited about so that it holds it’s power. Yes, I live in Boulder. Yes, I went to Naropa. Yes, I believe in harnessing the power of excitement. This is about one year of ideas and brainstorming in the making, and I am glad I got a rainy day to work on it!

One photo of beautiful baby Patrick for now, more to come!

xoxo stacey

Such a beautiful little newborn baby. I first photographed him on the darkest, gloomiest Boulder day yet this year, but somehow (because he is gorgeous) I still got really great photos. Since his parents live close, I stopped by a week later to take a few outdoor photos. So the first four photos were done at 2 weeks, and the last two photos were at 3 weeks. Look at how much more awake and aware he is at three weeks! I honestly love photos of awake newborns just as much if not more as the sleepy, squishy ones. The problem is, when a newborn baby is awake, their arms are flailing all over the place, their eyes are often crossed, usually one eye is closed or half closed, and those type of photographs do make you feel as cozy and warm and blissful as the ones where they are all curled up on their bellies and sleeping soundly. But Luke was so calm while he was awake, and it was easy to get him to look at the camera, which is unusual for a newborn.

Happy Father’s day to all! I am happily spending the weekend camping with my family in the mountains above Boulder. Hope you all have a beautiful day!

xoxo stacey

Expect me to be posting a ton of newborn photography in the next few weeks. It seems like everyone in the Boulder area had a new baby last month! What was going on like 10 months ago that I don’t know about? This is newborn Trea, pronounced like Tree-a, which I think is so pretty, simple, and unique for a little girl. I heard a program on NPR a few years ago that said that girls tend to excel more often on average when they have unique names, but boys tend to be less successful in life when they have unique names. There were other factors, too, like if the name was phonetically easy to pronounce, or if the name sounded too foreign, etc… I guess it is good, then, that we named our son Elijah, rather then what we gave him for his middle name, which is Sirius, and I think a little to far out there for people. Though, if you live in Boulder Colorado then it would probably seem pretty normal anyways.

This is such a beautiful little family. They live up in the mountains above Golden, in a great mountain home. I personally could never live there. Coming from Illinois, it just really freaks me out driving in the mountains. I was so nervous getting to their house, and it was summer. Imagine how I am when it is winter, or even if it is just raining. To be honest, I hate driving at night too. I also just don’t like driving period. So I stay home a lot. Which is fine, because other than photography sessions I don’t really have to get out that much.

But anyways, they were young and sweet and all totally in love with each other. I love shooting families like that. Well, the young part doesn’t matter. But they were just so happy and calm and in love with little Trea, who was also so happy and calm. Mom had a really great birth, too-a lot like my own. You can read my full birth story here and also see the gorgeous professional photos from Amelia’s birth, or even watch the video. Yeah, I put it all out there on my blog (don’t worry, it is all tasteful and beautiful).

Dad runs an awesome bluegrass festival in Portland if you want to check it out, www.stringsummit.com. They have the sweetest life. Dad gets to do exactly what he wants and stays home with the newborn until festival time, mom is a first grade teacher, they live up in the mountains in Golden in a beautiful home. Life is good.

Well, technically Amelia is not a newborn. She was born 6 weeks early, spent some time in the NICU, but is home now and doing so well. We did her newborn photos around the time of her actual due date, so she is the *size* of a newborn, though she has been here much longer. She is such a sweet little trooper! Imagine going through all that? Mama is so strong, too. She went into labor not too long after I did her maternity photography. But now Amelia is doing well and is home with mom and dad. Her photo session was perfect too, the photos of her were all so beautiful. It was hard to choose which images to show on the blog, but here are a few favorites. Don’t you love her name, too?  I am a bit biased, as I named my baby Amelia as well. But I do just love those old lady names that are classic but a little different. Amelia, Azalea, Adaline, Eva, Emma, etc…

So, the weather here in Boulder is so beautiful this week! I could not be happier. It reminds me of being on vacation-only missing the salty smell of the ocean. My Amelia and Elijah are doing better (see my last crazy post). Amelia’s two year molars are coming in, though, so it is not the easiest of times with her. Especially after just weening her. I had to break down and pump yesterday-my breasts were about to explode. I could literally feel the skin stretching because they were so full. I do NOT want to see what they are going to look like in a few months here. But still, a small price to pay for getting to breastfeed my daughter for almost two years.  Am I sharing way too much information here? Oh well.  I figure if I talk about it to my mom clients on a shoot, why not declare it to the whole world, right? Either way, I am turning some heads with my new double d’s.

I am working on father’s day plans today. Adam has been the best with the baby lately that I want to make it really great. So, we are going to go camping for the first time in 8 years this weekend. I think both kids will do fabulously, but we shall see. I will take some great photos to post next week. Then, the kids have made him cards and crafts, and we will make him a big breakfast Sunday morning, then I scheduled him a deep tissue massage for the afternoon. I also made him an appointment to get his tatoo filled in more with color (He has a huge dragon on his arm). Then, a nice dinner. Sounds perfect, right?

xoxo stacey