Elevate: A Fine Art Photography Exploration | March 2012

I think it's high time I get myself posting regularly on this blog again, what do you say?  Photography is healing for me, after all.  And so is writing.  Maybe this is part of what I've been missing lately? After what we've been through for the past six months, I feel like I need to celebrate this sweet little one a little more.  My darling Charlotte.  Perfectly happy 99.5% of the time, and the other .5% she only gently fusses to let us know she needs something (usually milk or a nap).  She could never know how much her birth has meant to me.  Even through my ppd, she has remained so happy and pleasant.  Charlotte has been our angel.  She has the sweetest smile each morning.  She pushes up on her hands and gives me a wrinkled-nose grin that melts my heart.  Each night when I nurse her to sleep, she quietly holds on to me and drifts off; content, peaceful, full.

In comparison to my other two children, Charlotte and I have a lot of catching up to do in the quantity-of-photographs department.  But hopefully this is a good start toward making up the difference...

Sweet girl.  You can't possibly know how much you're loved.  But I promise to try and show you, now and every day until forever.

I'm honored to be a part of Elevate: A Fine Art Exploration with some extremely talented photographers.  Each month, these women and I have vowed to push ourselves and simply shoot for us.  I've had to skip a couple of months recently, but this month, I am ever so grateful for this project and for the healing comfort it's given my heart.  I encourage you to follow our circle, read on and discover what beauty the extremely talented Renee Popat is sharing with the world today.  Thank you so much for being here.  I so appreciate you, friends.  xo

xo

What Meeting Finn Looks Like

If you've been following along from last month, I've been asked to join eleven very talented women across the globe who have come together with a common goal: to capture our families in a real and beautiful way.  No posing.  No forced smiles.  Just come-as-you-are lifestyle photography (my favorite!).  I am honored to be a part of this group and look forward each month to seeing what they've posted and what beautiful snippets from their families' lives they've chosen to remember and share with us.  It's called "What ___ Looks Like", and each month we fill in the blank with a new subject or a different example of the same subject... our choice. This project has been both a challenge and a joy for me, as it forces me to grab my camera for reasons other than "work".  And thank goodness for that.  My kids certainly deserve it!

This month I'm sharing What Meeting Finn Looks Like.  (Edited to add two photos from my sister, below.  They really help tell the story of how meaningful this visit was to me.)

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Last summer my sister had a baby boy.  If you read this recent post about the newborn I'd never gotten to hold, then you'll know how excited I was to have my my beautiful sister Amy and my sweet nephew Finn come visit us from Kentucky after Charlotte was born!

This is what he looked like when I first met him in the NICU (I took this through the window)...

My sister took these photos from her side of the window... Parker, me and Lila.

And the smears of kisses and salty tears I left on that window, after we found out that I wasn't allowed to come into the NICU of that hospital to hold my nephew.  I nearly left my heart on that pane of glass.

This is the only way I've "seen" him since... again, through a "window"...

Huge thanks to my sweet Parker for snapping this at the airport for me... xo  (Yes, Charlotte is in there somewhere.)  :)

I finally got to hold him!!!   No more windows to separate us.  I. Love. This. Shot.  What's funnier (to me) than our babies' sweet fishy faces is that Amy and I both did this at the same time without us looking at the other one... a complete coincidence.  And we are mirroring the expressions ourselves.  We're crazy.  And very much alike, apparently!  But I think Parker has the knack for capturing the right moments, don't you??  A lifestyle photographer in training.

This was the first time we'd held each other's babies.  :)  We had a wonderful time together.  Here are a few snippets from our long (but much too short) weekend...

And of course, what is a trip to Florida without meeting the ocean for the first time?

Sweet boy.  I tried very hard to hold it together when we said goodbye at the airport.  I didn't cry in front of her, but when I got back in my car I couldn't keep in the tears any longer.  I thought I was safe since she had walked into the airport and would surely be busy with baggage and tickets and checking in, etc.  But she texted me a few minutes later saying she looked out the doors and saw me crying... and then she lost it too.  As Truvy says in Steel Magnolias, "I have a strict rule that nobody cries alone in my presence."  And that certainly applies to sisters.  Especially to sisters.

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I'd encourage you to follow this circle of women, right along with me... next up is a very talented artist named  Gina Oh |  Arroyo Grande, CA Photographer.  Last month Gina shared the beauty and laughter to be had in a simple bike ride, and I can't wait to see her sweet kids' faces again this month.  I hope you follow us.  Enjoy the journey, friends.

xo, Stacey

The luckiest girl.

So the number 8 is supposed to be very lucky, right?  According to Chinese lore.  Well, Marlow (isn't that the sweetest name?!) must be the luckiest baby in Tampa Bay.  She was born on 08.08.08.  And just take a guess at her birth weight?!  Drumroll here.....  8 lbs, 8 oz.  :)  I love it!

I don't know who is luckier... Marlow, or her sweet family.  They clearly are blessed beyond measure.  Just take a look at all this love.....

And you know me... I have to sneak some detail shots in.  ;)  I love photographing babies' hands.  The tiny fingernails that are so thin, and yet so razor sharp, lol!  Sweet little messy cuticles that you just can't bear to trim for the first time.  (Okay, speaking from personal experience here:  I was a big wimp; I made my sister cut my firstborn's fingernails for me... I was petrified of cutting off the end of his finger.  ha!) 

Ahh, Marlow... you are so adored.

And big brother Henry... oh, dear Henry.  I am smitten.  You get your own post, buddy.  :)  Tomorrow.