You would think that by now I would have put together some kind of big elaborate family portrait session for the first pics of us as a family but to be honest, trying to do a shoot with little ones scares and exhausts me. haha.  Expectations are just so high and in reality…hahaha.  So for that reason I am SO SO SO SO grateful to my friend Sarah (a local professional family photographer) for gifting us with this quick little shot taken after church on Easter Sunday.  Just to keep it real, this image was shot just seconds before Vera let a big one (read: poo-splosion) loose all over daddy’s dress shirt, pants and shoes abruptly ending the “shoot” (see 2nd sentence of paragraph). hahaha.  As for life right now, I love that we are a family of four.  I love the God gave use two little girls.  I love my husband who is an INCREDIBLE father to these two girls. My heart melts with happiness every time he refers to us as “his ladies.”

I still want to write when I find a little more “free time” but for now bullet points will just have to do…

Things that I cannot live without right now:

Babywise (Yep, I’m that mom). I get 7-8 hrs of sleep a night with an 8 week old.  Sold.

Coffee…and more than I EVER used to drink…which still only amounts to about 2 cups a day. hehe

Gripe Water (aka miracle in a bottle)

Concealer (and just makeup in general…makes me feel like a woman and not just a mom)

Maxi skirts

Friends and weekly “play dates” (read: kids go play so mommies can talk!) Being a mom is ridiculously and wonderfully hard, frustrating, challenging, exhausting (even with said 8 hrs of sleep). I could not survive without this weekly time with friends.

My glider (read – the “throne” from which I rule the home during endless feedings. haha)

The way Chloe treats her sister so sweetly and “mothers” her with kind words.  It speaks to my heart and encourages me that she is picking up something good from my own mothering of her.

Things that I could definitely live without right now:

Smelling like sweat, all the time, no matter how many times I shower.  In fact, I’m convinced I sweat IN the shower. Ugh. Hormones!

Still not fitting into my pre-pregnancy jeans and shorts.  Warning soon to be moms: your hips literally shift and it takes months for them to go back into place. Weight doesn’t matter. Ugh.

Having a 2 yr old.  haha. Ok, that sounds mean…Let’s just say that I am ready for this phase to be over.  You think having a newborn is hard?

Going to sleep and waking up to crappy children’s music stuck in my head. Stop invading my only personal space left!!! hahaha

Things that I am learning (the hard way):

I am selfish. Nothing reveals this quite like having a baby who takes over your life, time and your body with little payoff (in the beginning).  It is a beautiful but definitely sanctifying thing.

I really need God and LOTS of him for patience, energy and the right attitude to get through the day.

And there is my life in a nutshell:)

On a crazy morning like this one, I have no time to write but I have been wanting to post these two pictures!  From the beginning, Vera shared so many features with Chloe…I still sometimes look at her and catch an expression that makes it seem like we just cloned Chloe. haha. Same size, same hair, same nose…but when I put these two simple portraits side by side (both taken during their second week of life) I am just amazed at how different they actually look!  I cannot wait to see what Vera looks like as she gets older!  In the mean time, I am enjoying snuggling as much as possible while she can’t  wiggle out of my arms:) Sweet girls, I love you with every fiber of my being.

On February 24th, four hrs before her due date, our hearts grew as we welcomed into our arms and into our little family a second precious daughter, Vera Elise (Vair-ah E-leece).

After weeks of on-again-off-again early labor and loads of painful back labor in the days leading up to her birth, God showed a little mercy on me and gave me an incredibly easy delivery.  For that I am still incredibly grateful!  To be honest, it all happened so quickly that I was left feeling a little stunned. Just a push a half and all of a sudden there was a baby in my arms.  It felt like it took time for my mind and heart to catch up with what was happening around me.  When they handed her to me she looked so much like Chloe it was unreal…

During the pregnancy I think the thing that we were looking forward to the most was seeing what Vera would look like.  After you have one child it is hard to picture having a second child that looks any different from your first!  As Vera lost the initial water weight that she was born with, her unique little features began to emerge.  Mommy’s nose, just like her sister, the same dark straight hair as her sister, her daddy’s forehead (hehe) again just like her sister, but her eyes and mouth are uniquely Vera. I love her goofy little face in this picture.

Chloe’s response to her new baby sister has blessed us so much.  You never know how an almost three year old is going to respond to her very first sibling but Chloe has been enamored with her since the moment they met.  She tenderly refers to her as “sweet sister” or “sweet Vera” and jumps up and down when she gets to have what she calls “sister time.”  She is also very protective of her. When she first saw me burping her she told me to be careful and not “hit” Vera. haha.  She wants Vera to play with her toys and always asks for me to “lay her out” so that she can sit next to her and give her kisses…which according to Chloe must be smack on the lips. haha.  With every little noise that comes out of Vera’s mouth Chloe wants to know “what she’s saying?”.  My constant prayer is that as they grow, they would truly become “forever friends” as we say in our house.  I know that they will not always get along but the hope of my heart is that as they grow into young women they would be a sweet blessing in each other’s life.

For us, those two days in the hospital were a very special and important time.  Initially, I had wanted to be released early so that we could get settled into life in the comfort of our own home.  In retrospect, with Chloe happily staying with friends, those two days relatively alone in our quiet little hospital room proved to be the most priceless and beautiful time of smothering sweet Vera with cuddles and kisses while relishing in the miracle of this second sweet little girl entrusted to our care.  These next two images are some of my favorites and I will cherish them for the rest of my life. Graham sitting in a dark hospital room singing Vera to sleep for the first time. A precious little girl in the arms of her daddy. Her hero. Her superman.

I have so much that I want to write about.  These past four weeks have been the most surprising blessing.  My heart has been overflowing.  It has been so different than I expected it to be.  It has been so much more full of joy and peace and love than I expected in those anxious months leading up to becoming a “mom of two” (something that I was terrified of becoming to be honest).  I promise to write more but right now there is a little one who needs me and I want to soak up every moment that I get with her in my arms.

So, Vera almost had us convinced that she was going to come on Friday night but after contractions all night she eventually decided to make herself comfortable for a little longer and gave us this blessing of a Saturday to finished up a few last minute pre-Vera things like packing for the hospital (I have put off packing for too long now!).  Anyway, one of those last things on my list for the past few weeks has been to photograph the girls new nursery before it becomes a mess of diapers, dirty clothes and new baby necessities!

You might remember when I did a little poll asking for help deciding on nursery colors.  I was so happy to finally pick a gray ,peach and pink palette but had NO idea that it would be virtually IMPOSSIBLE to find anything in peach for a baby room!  Who would have thought!  Anyway with some creativity, the help of crafty friends and just plain stubborn determination to have a peach and pink room, I was finally able to pull it off and…at the moment it is definitely my favorite room of the house:)

Possibly the most painstaking labor of love was this DIY chandelier for over the dresser/changing table.  I may or may not have cleared both Home Depot and Walmart out of peach and pink paint swatches (shhhhh…).  The walls are painted in Behr Silver Drop and I could not be happier with the color!  It is so peaceful!

Previously raspberry pink lanterns were repainted in a ballet slipper pink.  Peach sheets were painstakingly procured from an obscure online retailer…seriously, I bet this year peach baby bedding will be all the rage…I am just too ahead of the trend I guess.haha

With the help of a friend, we came up with a fun design for some custom canvas art for over Vera’s crib.  TIP: If you are looking for a small amount of paint in a very specific color, just pick out the exact shade in a paint swatch at Home Depot and pay $2.95 for them to mix you a paint sample canister in that color!  We had plenty of paint for the large canvas and I was able to pick the exact color I wanted for cheap!  Way easier than trying to find or mix an acrylic paint for the job!

Almost all of the furniture is from Ikea with the exception of Chloe’s toddler bed (Craig’s list baby!) The trick was that I wanted to sell her old dark cherry nursery set and buy all new white furniture without spending any money. (Clearly that was the only way that I could convince my husband to let me re-do the entire nursery including getting rid of our still new cherry nursery set).  Success!  Not only was I able to make the swap for no extra money but the less bulky Ikea furniture opened up the room which now has to be shared by two little princesses!

It is hard to tell from this picture but this little collection of canvases was salvaged from the old room.  My mom and I had painstakingly freehand painted three designs in Chloe’s old room’s colors so instead of totally ditching or painting over them, I traced the old designs  with puff paint and then when it dried, I painted over it in the new peach shade making them new texturized versions of the old work!

Sweet little pink birdies from Target’s Valentine’s day collection and a hand made polka-dot garland that was created as a decoration for Vera’s baby shower recently!

I remember how special I felt when my mom bought me a mesh “princess” drape for over my bed as a girl and I could not resist Chloe having one as well.  There is just nothing sweeter…except maybe for Chloe’s “friends” that she sleeps with every night…”bunny” (a gift from my mom), “donkey” and “piggy” (gifts from her great uncle Steve) and “puppy” (a gift from her great grand-nanna).  Don’t you love the creativity of the names!? haha

And I could not help but share the adorable and perfectly matching baby shower invitations that Ashlee Proffitt designed for Vera’s shower…I have the best friends ever!

In addition to growing a little one in my belly, I am also currently growing a new area of my business in the coming year!  For the first time ever I have started offering formalized one-on-one mentor sessions! These are essentially similar to the workshops that I offer but since they are one-on-one they are personalized to fit the individualized needs of the amazing photographers that I get the pleasure of spending my time with!  Amazingly, (praise God!) without even starting to really advertise these sessions I am already booking them like crazy.  I cannot even tell you how much fun it has been to sit down with photographers like Sonal in the early stages of their business and give really personalized training not only in areas of technique that are giving them trouble but also in business basics like establishing pricing and packages, building clientele, portfolio development and even branding!

For this session I had the pleasure of spending half of the day with Sonal! A budding photographer in the Hyde Park area.  Sonal has a true creative eye and such a sweet personality.  She did a fabulous job working with our model Kortni (another local photog!) and I cannot wait to see where her business takes her this year! We spent the shoot portion of her mentor session talking about finding the right type of lighting to look for when doing an on location shoot.  I shared with her one of the lighting “equations” that I look for while out on a shoot (clean dark background, even light on the subject and a natural/neutral reflector bouncing light into the subjects face) as seen in the parking deck images.  Just lovely:)  Here are a few of my favs…

Thank you so much Kortni for your fabulous style, modeling skills and patience!

If you are interested in finding out more about SCP mentor sessions you can check them out here on the workshop website!

Also, I am looking for a “model” for another mentor session next week (Wed Feb 8th from 11:00-12:30) in the Tampa area.  Shoot me an e-mail at info@shaycochrane.com if you want to get in on the fun:)

…but there will always be a little bit of Riner, VA in Mrs. Ashlee Proffitt  Just in case I haven’t embarrassed her enough already with this week’s earlier post showing part 1 of her shoot with her sweet boys, here is another post dedicated to my beautiful friend and graphic designer extraordinaire!  This girl was in desperate need of updated pictures for her website – I will be the first to admit that the last ones that I took on the fly a few years ago  seriously did not capture her beauty or personality  So this time around we made sure to go with a look and feel that much more closely captured her fun, feminine and no-fuss style…while showing a bit of her southern roots and finding a little piece of “country” to shoot in out here in Tampa, FL (there are far more fields and cow pastures than one would expect out here actually!).  Anyway, I love them!    With the light changing so quickly during our quick shoot we were able to get two different fun looks, one a little more warm and sun washed and the other a bit cooler with a beautiful color palette. Here are my favs!

I recently did a two part shoot for my sweet friend and fabulous graphic designer Ashlee Proffitt that I have been itching to share!  As a part of some rebranding and new projects that she has on the horizon she wanted a few images that capture the half of her that her clients don’t get to see but is the driving passion behind everything that she does, and thats being a mom to her two boys (and little girl on the way!).  Ashlee is an incredible example of what it means to be a businessowner-entrepreneur-mom…the mom-ing is her first priority and everything else that she is able to accomplish flows out of that passion without disrupting her priorities.  I love her.  And I love these little boys as if they were my own:)  Here are just a few of my favs from her shoot! Enjoy!

Don’t even get me started! I have written about this before and think about it often as it relates to my work as a photographer and more importantly as a mom of an impressionable (princess and makeup enamored 2.5 yr old).

My practical advice for photographers is to know where you stand and how you feel about “modifying” your client’s images, especially if you are in the early stages of beginning your business when you are especially prone to wanting to do whatever you can to make everyone happy. I am not just talking about the the moral dilemma that it presents (what are we as photographers saying about what constitutes as beauty?) but even just practically speaking…is your bride under the impression that you are going to remove her wedding day acne out of 700 wedding images? Is mom hoping that you will take a few inches off of her in her family portraits – all 50 of them? If you do some of these more in depth edits to the “sneak peak” images that your client sees on your blog, will he/she be disappointed when she sees the rest of the images that didn’t receive that same hollywood treatment but are truer to reality? Why isn’t reality beautiful enough? Whatever options you decide to offer to your clients it is worth giving it some intentional thought and then educating your clients in a way that builds realistic expectations while helping them to see the beauty that you see in them. Learn to do the “hard work” up front of making your clients feel beautiful during the shoot which goes such a long way to getting beautiful natural images.  In addition,your compliments, coaching, outfit suggestions, lighting and posing can often do just as much as photoshop can.

On a separate note, as a mom blessed with the task of raising girls in today’s society (scary!) I want to make sure that my daughters understand the reality behind the message in this video and that they are constantly reminded of what biblical beauty looks like:

“Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Prov 31:30

“I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, and my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:14

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.