So here were are 10 days into the new year and I have entirely given up on the whole “2011 recap” blog post…and the whole “2012-big-things-ahead” post for that matter. haha  At the moment the only  big thing around here is my growing belly! But  the truth of the matter is that when I look ahead at the coming year I feel like I am in that moment at the top of the roller coaster, holding my breath about to take the plunge, not exactly sure what to expect,  both scared and excited at the same time. Ready. Set…

In just a few weeks (Lord willing) I will become “mommy” to a second little girl.  Two and a half years now into being a mommy to Chloe I more fully understand the weight of that task and the mere thought of the “bigness” of it is so overwhelming that it literally takes my breath away.  There just is nothing as {hard.amazing.challenging.exhausting.overwhelming.wonderful} as being a mom.  One resolve that I have for this year is that I am not going to attempt to “balance” everything.  It can’t be done.  You have to choose your priorities and the scale will and should tip in that direction.  Practically speaking for me that means there are a few changes that I am making for the coming year as it relates to photography.

1)I am taking a few months off for maternity leave, February-May. For those of you who are not yet mothers…this can easily be misunderstood as taking some much needed vacation time to sleep in and sit around in stretchy pants smiling at your new little bundle of joy.  For those of you who are mothers…you know that maternity leave is more of a necessity than an option.  As in…for the next few moths I will be running on 2-4 hours of sleep a night.  All of my clothes will be covered in either poop, vomit or breastmilk (sorry guys) making a “professional” appearance laughable.  I will be functioning essentially as a fridge…or 24 hour buffet.  My available hours for e-mail will be between 2am-4am but I will not be able to guarantee that they will be coherent, let alone sweet.  I may or may not know where my phone is to answer your call, and if I can answer I will likely have to lock myself in the bathroom to secure any silence or privacy. Just saying.haha. And yes, there will still definitely be stretchy pants and smiling at my new little bundle of joy involved.

2) I am not taking any weddings in 2012. I am actually really excited about this. haha. I have been planning this for awhile but my pride has kept me from making it “official”. But honestly,  I need the break.  I need to give myself time to figure out what it is going to look like being a mom of two.  I need to make sure that weddings are where I want to be focusing my business.  I need to have a year free from the pressure of keeping up with the wedding industry. I need to give my business and myself some time to breath, regroup, and gain some clarity before I charge ahead.  I literally do not even know what it means to just be a mom without business related “work” that I need to get done each day.  Thankfully, I am blessed with the opportunity to even do this without my family relying on my income.  I am really excited to take the pressure off of myself and see where things go.  I also really want to pour more of my time into teaching and mentoring other photographers, which leads to me to the next new change…

3) In addition to continuing to do workshops (the next ones will likely be in the late Spring) I will be focusing my efforts on one-on-one mentor sessions for beginner professional photographers. I am REALLY excited about this and if you are interested in hearing more you can check it out here!

Well, my husband just walked into my office looking incredibly handsome and said that he is taking “his ladies” out to dinner. haha.I don’t turn down things like that, so, I am off to doll myself up…in whatever outfit I can still manage to fit into…and join my sweet husband and precious daughter to soak up every last minute of “just the three of us.”

**Photo courtesy of Sarah Sandel Photography!

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.)

I just wanted to share a few pics from my commercial shoot with Ashlee Proffitt Design for her 2011 Christmas card series!  I especially loved this first set up for her tented cards!   If only you could have been there to see the reality of the situation…kids screaming and crying everywhere, kids running off with our props, kids trying to get into the frame of the pictures to “help”…such is life for us business-owner mommies:)  All of these gorgeous Christmas cards and more can be found in her Etsy shop!  Check it out!

Don’t you just love this fun take on address labels!?

***Additional photo prints, high res digital negatives as well as additional Christmas cards can all be ordered separately for those of you with lots of friends on your list!

Ok friends, I need your help!  With Chloe we didn’t choose to find out what we were having so I never actually got to have the fun of putting together a nursery specifically for a little girl.  So, of course, now that we will be welcoming sweet little baby Vera into the family and Chloe’s room will become the “girls” room I cannot wait to get to painting and decorating!!!  They will be sharing a relatively small room that doesn’t have a lot of natural light so I want to open it up with nice light colors in a palette that is airy and sweet…but I just cannot decide which palette I like better…I love them both!  Will you help me choose? You can vote at the bottom!

Palette #1: Peach, Pink and Gray

The walls would be a very light gray, almost white with white furniture and peach and pink bedding and accents.

Palette #2: Peach, Lavender and White

With this palette the walls would be a very light grayish lavender (as pictured), furniture would be white, accents would be peach.

Those of you who know my husband and I know how long it took us to pick a name for Chloe.  We just weren’t good at the whole committing-to-a-name thing and although we only had two names in the running we didn’t actually make the decision about the first name until we were on our way to the hospital (the middle name we settled on after she was born!). So it is funny to me that we knew so “early” (to us) and with so much certainty that this name was perfect for this little one due in February.   Vera Elise Cochrane (phonetically – “Varah Eleece”…Chloe’s translation – “Bera Eleece Quockrane”.  Vera is from the latin root verus and means “truth” and Elise means “consecrated to God.”  I am not much of a crier but when we were considering the name and looked into the meanings I definitely burst into tears knowing that this was the one:)

We cannot wait to meet baby Vera and finally hold her in our arms.  We are beyond excited that Chloe will have a little sister and our prayer already is that they will become the best of friends.

“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when sisters live together in unity.”   -Psalm 133:1

Meet the Winn family! We met up on Saturday evening for this family’s first (gasp!) professional portrait session! hehe.  Sweet little Meredith was instantly smiles and Riggs (who is almost my daughter’s age) did not disappoint with his dashing good looks and all-boy energy level.  We had a nice long session with time to get a little  bit of everything before the sun went down…we even had time to snap a few of just mom and dad – what a concept!  A self-described “classy but fun” family, I think these images capture both in addition to heaping piles of love:) Here is a little peak at some of my favorite images from their family session!

Last week we decided to take a last minute vacation to unplug and spend some time together as a little family of three.  Words cannot even express what a blessing it was to turn off everything and just love on each other.  The chance to spend so much unscheduled, undivided quality time  with Chloe (definitely her love language!) was just so sweet to my heart and the hours spent in quiet conversation with Graham wrapped up in blankets on the balcony overlooking the ocean with cups of hot coffee in hand were like nourishment to our – still new – marriage of 6 years.

Now that I am back home and back in the office I am holding on to the feeling of sand between my toes and the warm breeze on my face but more importantly the resolve in our hearts not to get so easily caught up in the pace of life, and to be more careful not to replace genuine connection with the constant “connection” of e-mail, internet, Facebook, Twitter, texts etc etc that via for our mental space daily.  We have resolved to make some tangible changes that will hopefully make us better parents, spouses and friends to the people that God has blessed our life with.

On an unrelated note, hop on over to the Facebook page for a little giveaway for this weekend’s workshop Happy November. Connect face to face, voice to voice, heart to heart with someone God has placed in your life today:)

Allow me to introduce you to Mister Mustache. Practically irresistible, Mister Mustache brings out the kid in all of us with his silly but charming ways.  But who is the Mrs. behind Mister Mustache?  That would be Ukraine based “mustache artist” Kate Kuhar!!  Kate is AMAZING and was excited to be one of the official sponsors for my upcoming photography workshops in just two weeks here in Tampa (register for your seat!)!  Her mustaches and lips have been seen all over the world and have become a favorite among photographers as the perfect props for wedding photo booths and fun portrait sessions!  But it also just so happens to make the perfect costume accessory for your upcoming halloween party as well!  If you just have to get your hands on a pair of these lips and staches then get in on today’s giveaway for a chance to win a pair of your own, no actual facial hair required! See below for details!

AND just to show a little more love to my fellow shutter bugs (and because I am about to leave for vacation and am in an especially happy mood) TODAY ONLY you can receive 20% off a last minute seat to either of the SCP photography workshops on Nov 4th and 5th!!!  Just enter the discount code SCP20OFF when you register today!!

These mustaches and lips are awesome for weddings, photo booth props, birthdays, group photo shoots, costumes party, bridal party pics and much more!  They are all molded in plastic, which makes them strong and easy to reuse. Each element is covered with a glossy water-based lacquer, which is environmentally friendly. Mustache is mounted on a wooden bamboo stick using a hot glue. It’s size from 3.7 in (95 mm) to 2.3 in (58 mm) , each stick is 9.4 in (240 mm).  The winner will receive one of each mustache and lips (may not be identical to the ones shown – lots of fabulous varieties!) You can also purchase your own sets of mustaches and lips and all kinds of other fun props from Kate’s Etsy shop!

Here’s how to win!!!! You will have TWO days to enter this contest – Friday and Saturday.  Contest begins TODAY Friday the 21th and ends at midnight on Saturday the 22nd. The winner will be announced on the blog on Monday!

To enter to win you must do each of the following:

1) “Like” both Shay Cochrane Photography and Mister Mustache on Facebook

2) Post the following on YOUR OWN Facebook wall “I really want to win a sweet stache and lips from Shay Cochrane Photography and Mister Mustache http://tinyurl.com/42wfpzf”

3)Leave a comment here on this blog post letting us know that you entered to win!

Good luck! And don’t forget that all day today (Friday) you can still enter to win the fabulous clutch from Oatmeal Lace Design from my last post!

Here’s how to win!!!! You will have TWO days to enter – both Thursday and Friday.  Contest begins TODAY Thursday the 20th and ends at midnight on Friday the 21st. The winner will be announced on the blog on Saturday!

To enter to win you must do each of the following:

1) “Like” both Shay Cochrane Photography and Oatmeal Lace Design on Facebook

2) Post the following on YOUR OWN Facebook wall “I really want to win this clutch from Shay Cochrane Photography and Oatmeal Lace Design http://tinyurl.com/43lc5x2“

3)Leave a comment here on this blog post letting us know that you entered to win!

Good luck ladies!