The Past Few Weeks

Cooper 5 days

Cooper 3.5 weeks

Their favorite activity together... wrestling!

Cooper 3.5 weeks


Cohen giving Cooper some love. Cooper is not happy about it!

Showing us his cut on his knee

Jeremy, Cooper (5 days), and Cohen

Cooper 2 weeks

Me Cooper, and Cohen at Nate's wedding in Wichita

Me and Cohen at Nate's wedding in Wichita

Jeremy and Cohen at Nate's wedding in Wichita

Playing catch up from the past few weeks. Cooper is now just shy of 4 weeks, Cohen is 27 months going on 17 and well Jeremy he is the same old, same old. I am as busy as ever. We went to a wedding in Wichita, KS just two weeks after having Cooper. It was our first family trip as a family of four and it went really well. Cohen is pretty much potty trained, and I had my first "official" photoshoot since having Cooper and have 4 more sessions scheduled this month before I officially come off of maternity leave. It felt good to be back at it but I am clearly still in recovery mode because I did come back and nap afterward. I left Cooper for the first time with someone other than my mom, or Jeremy. It is so different the second time around. What took me months to do with Cohen only took me weeks to do with Cooper. Granted I left him in the most trusting of hands... one of the best mom's and people I know, Sarah. Cohen had a babysitter and where was Jeremy??? Golfing... and it was much needed. He has not golfed all summer really!

Cooper is still an awesome sleeper and even sleeping well at night. He sleeps for 4 hours at a time during the day and night with the longest awake period being for about 1.5 hours so he is a sleeper and so far SO good. A total snuggler, great eater too! Cohen is a crazy kid. Obsessed with Buzz Lightyear and loves his brother bear (will post videos when I have time). Enjoy the pics for now. Will try to post an August recap soon too. Then I should be caught up.

3 Weeks

I guess it is an obvious statement when I say "I am super busy"... We are adjusting to our family of four and really things have gone really smooth. Cooper turns 3 weeks tomorrow and it is really hard to remember what it was like without him here. He is a super good baby. He went from sleeping ALL the time to staying a wake a lot more here the past few days. He is content on his own, something I did not experience with Cohen. I am able to put Cooper down and walk away from him and finish a load of laundry, take a shower, do the dishes, make Cohen lunch. So for the most part I cannot complain. Aside from an awake period in the middle of the night Cooper really is a really good boy and pretty easy.

Cooper makes the cutest little noises. My mom compares them to a gerbil, I say chipmunk. He likes to snuggle but at the same time he sleeps better by himself. He is cool natured... likes to be kept bundled up. (that is me all the way) He still has all of his hair, which we still cannot believe he has and that its dark! I think he is his own look, however he does share Cohen's profile, and has Jeremy's ears carbon copied. He does not have Cohen's lips despite puckering them when he sleeps. Cohen's lips are massive compared to Cooper's so no, I really do not see a ton of Cohen in Cooper and Jeremy and I actually see a strong mix of Jeremy and my mom's side of the family.

Cohen is adjusting well to having Cooper around. He really loves him. I find him going up to Cooper and saying "Oh, bruder (aka brother), him cute" or he is always asking where "baby bear is?" Today he did tell Cooper to be quiet when he was crying and believe it or not Cohen shares his blanket willingly with Cooper daily. Aside from being a bit rough from time-to-time Cohen really just does his own thing and does not pay too much attention to Cooper. The nursing and tending to Cohen is getting easier because Cohen does not seem to mind that I have to "make milk for Cooper?" as he says. Where at first he hated that I couldn't jump to his aid while nursing, now he doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that while I am nursing I am all Cooper's.

We move into the studio later in the week and this weekend. I am really excited. I have clients that are already booked so I am anxious to get into the space and get rolling. I promise to share pictures when I have time to post. I need to do a recap of August too. I have so many pictures from before and after Cooper's arrival that are blog worthy. So until then. Enjoy a few snaps of Cooper and Cohen that I took last week.

Another Beach Boy

#2 Has arrived! He s so stinking cute too! We decided on Cooper Michael... He was a much bigger boy than expected weighing in at 7lb 15 oz a measuring 21inches. We were expecting low 7lbs even into the 6's. I was measuring a week behind schedule as far as belly growth so we were surprised.

I labored from 9am-3:45pm, started pushing a little after 4pm and about 6 contractions & 12 or 15 deep pushes later our little guy arrived. Jeremy was a great cheerleader and I cried like a baby myself. I just cannot explain the rush of emotion that came over me when I saw him for the first time. It has to be, by far the best feeling in the world!

All fingers and toes, (skinny ones) accounted for. He makes little chipmunk noises. He is nursing well thank goodness. (I struggled with Cohen) Speaking of, he is doing great. He received a big brother gift from his little brother, napped during the main part of labor and when he woke he was so smitten acting when he met his brother, almost shy. That shyness quickly subsided and Cohen was saying things like "take baby Coop on walk with me?" " I feed baby Coop?" Hearing Cohen call the baby, baby Coop is what probably sealed the deal on his name. We were considering Ty (close second), Turner and Kennon. We have not put his name in writing so we have a little room to change it if we do not feel Cooper is right for our guy but I think that it is!

Well I cannot wait for yo all to meet our little guy!

Being Induced... In hours!

Here is a little snap from mine and Cohen's maternity portraits taken this past Saturday at 38.5 weeks. This might just be my favorite and a big thanks to Melanie Merkling for making it happen. She graciously donated her talents to me because she knows I am too cheap to pay for my own since I feel like I can simply set up a tripod and set the automatic timer, right?

I write this on the eve or now the morning of being induced with #2 or baby Frank as Cohen calls him. We will post pictures of the arrival of #2 and when I post I hope to have a name for our little guy. Until then he is #2 or baby Frank and I actually will miss calling him baby Frank but no Michaelanne we will not be naming him Frank, Frankie or Franklin. Sorry!

We will keep you all posted....

not my little guy... meet sterling

No I didn't have my little guy but I am slated to be induced on the 17th if he does not arrive sooner!

We did think he was going to too! Last Thursday we spent the evening at the triage center of our birthing facility getting evaluted. At 37 weeks I was dilated to a 3.5 with my contractions being only 2.5 minutes apart. I thought for sure that we were having the little guy with no name... but nope they sent us home at 11:30pm because my cervix never thinned throughout the contractions, etc. They considered it preterm labor. So here I have sat since Thursday with back labor and contractions just waiting for #2 to arrive.

Tos see more of the above little guy click HERE. He was perfect and had me praying I deliver early... he was just shy of 9lbs! Yikes I know. Note... I am officially on maternity leave from portrait sessions. I did my two final sessions this morning and afternoon. However, when will my maternity leave begin from editing? NEVER I would assume!

Headed into 37 Weeks

I have been really bad about posting. To be honest the blog is just not what it use to be for me. I have so much going on that I forget to blog until things have long past. I will try to be better.

So I am headed into my 37th week with baby #2. We still have no name picked out. We do have Michael set for a middle name, sticking with family members for that. My sister, for those who do not know, is Michaelanne. Cohen has Thomas as a middle name after my brother and they both share May as their birth month. Well baby #2 due August 24th, however we are being induced August 17th shares his birth month with his Aunt Michaelanne so we thought how appropriate. So That is where Michael comes from. Not to slight Jeremy's side but the kids get the Beach last name so we want to represent the Jerome's in there some where. Right now front runners for names are...

Kennon
Tate
Cooper
Turner
Ryden
Beckett

Feel free to chyme in. I would love to hear your thoughts. So I am posting a pic. from 36 weeks with #2 and providing a link to one of my very first blog posts... me at 36 weeks with Cohen. Click HERE for that. I am pretty much the same size and the exact weight. I even put on the belly mold I did with Cohen and sure enough it is the same size. I did it at this point in pregnancy with him. Strange how they are the same. With this one I am a lot lower, and more out. I was much wider and high with Cohen. I actually think #2 will arrive early seeing that I am already 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. We go to the doctor tomorrow so I should have another update then. Just to note with Cohen I never dilated. They induced me at 39 weeks at not even 1 cm so being dilated already is a great thing. Means labor should progress quicker.

Enjoy the pic. May not post anymore seeing that I am getting larger and more swollen looking :)

Why I do not have time for you or anyone!

I hope this article is able to be read if yo double click on it. A friend (and client) posted this on her facebook and I could not help but share it. I am technically a stay at home mom that some how squeezes in owning her own photography company. There may be some weeks here I may only see one client and then four the following, all while take on a few design projects and a wedding or two and somehow I still manage to not have to put my son in daycare (yes he does go to school a couple of times a week until 2 and trust me that is not long enough)... I sit at 2:30 in the morning at 8 months pregnant with #2 (still not sure what I was thinking there but know I will embrace and love it) editing, emailing, planning, paying bills and wondering why the F do I do it this way?

I thought this article was perfect! So many of my friends without kids just do not get it... they just do not get how difficult it is to maintain friendships and the life you had before kids. They think I should be able to balance and trust me I would like to. The worst part is, is that I know so many husbands to my girlfriends, especially the ones that are just now having their first kids struggle to understand why their wife is too tired or busy for them (or sex) or why they act different! Mine acted the same way and still says he misses the old me. What the size 4 or the one that got so wasted on a Saturday night out that I slept Sunday away, or the one that worked out 5 days a week, worked until I was blue in the face, always had a clean car and house but felt empty? Well news flash... the old me is forever gone and I am a new women... a better women, a happier women, a busier women and a more tired women... and there is not a day I would want to return my son for my old life. Okay well, maybe yesterday. But seriously he brings me more joy than ever imagined and that is why I am okay being tired and "no fun" :)

So friends without kids and husbands who "hate" their new life with kids read this article and understand a bit better why we "stay at home mom's" with our "free time", play dates (you think that is what I want to be doing?) and time at home eating bon bons are different and less "fun" than we were before kids. Read it and you will get why when we have 5 minutes to ourselves its not spent with our hubby or a phone call to a bf, rather its spent to yourself!

PS... as I wrote this Cohen took his entire lunch... smashed it into the floor, and rubbed his pb sandwhich on the wall. You never get a free second away from worry or work with kids!