I cannot believe that I only have about 10 more weeks until we get to meet sweet little Vera and welcome her into our family!!  For some reason this pregnancy has just flown by at breathtaking pace.  I think because I was so sick during the first trimester that those first few months were just a blur of mixed emotions.  It is hard to be excited about and feel connected to something that you can’t feel or see and yet is causing you to have to pull over in your car because you cant keep your breakfast/lunch/dinner/water down. ugh.  I really was completely mentally and physically MIA as a wife, mom and friend those first few months so when I finally got into my second trimester I was just so happy to be feeling like myself (and like a normal human being again!) that I went full speed ahead trying to make up for lost time!  And then I blinked and the second trimester was over and now I am moving into what Graham calls the “endurance phase” of pregnancy. haha. Your body literally feels out of control/taken over by an alien (albeit a very cute one) and you start to become glad that you can’t see past your belly b/c honestly you dont really want to be reminded of what is going on with the bottom half. haha.  All of that to say that I am BEYOND excited to bring our second daughter into the world and I feel enormously blessed and excited with every little kick in my belly.

Last weekend we overhauled Chloe’s room and fortunately she was SO excited with the changes – literally spinning around singing “thank you, thank you, thank you!!!”  (pictures of the room transformation to come!) She loves that Vera has a crib in there now and will be sleeping with her. hehe.  I think making progress on the girls room has been as good for her as it has been for me.  It is all becoming more real and I just feel so blessed that God is giving us another girl – a sister and “forever friend” (as we say to Chloe).

I am trying to transition mentally into this next season of my life as well.  Re-prioritizing, coming to terms with how things are going to have to change a bit once I have a second little one.  I might have a million blog posts that need to go up, and they just may not ever happen, and I am learning (slowly) to be ok with that and not fight against this next season of my life the way I did when I had Chloe.  I lost too much time mentally when I first had her, trying to “balance” my photography work with being a mom.  Here’s the truth…you can’t “balance” it. You have to make some choices. You have to prioritize. The scale will tilt in the direction of where your heart is and I want my heart to be in my home with my husband and my girls. I don’t want to be bitter toward my mom responsibilities or even worse, my kids, because I “didn’t get enough done” in my business today.  That is an awful feeling that it has taken me awhile to learn to recognize and shift my thinking.

I will still do photography.  I will still run a business as much as God continues to give me work to do.  But I am learning to welcome the fact that the next few years of my life will look different than the last in terms of what I will “accomplish” with my work.  And I am ok with that. More than ok…blessed to know that my business is in God’s hands and that gives me freedom to be the wife and mom that I really want to be!

(Photo courtesy of my talented and beautiful friend Sarah of Sarah Sandel Photography.)