I have to say though… I’m as big as a house and a full day of sessions was probably not the best of ideas.  I had Colin shoot a pic of me 10 minutes before meeting my couple.  Imagine 8 hours of bending over and squatting with THIS belly hanging out of ya? haha… Ya… I guess mother nature had a better plan for me on Saturday and that included laying in bed for most of the afternoon after my 20 minutes of shooting… I was winded! haha

I seriously don’t know when this baby will make it’s entrance into the world, but I’m only 36 weeks and feel like she could greet us TODAY!  Izzy-Rae was breech so her head never got down far enough to make me waddle when I walk.  I never moaned when turning over in bed, or needed Colin’s help off of any ‘sitting’ device… yes, that would sometimes include the toilet!!! (tmi?) My legs are like jelly.  I guess everything is loosening up for labour. (tmi?) Anyways….all of this is very new and exciting, but tres, tres scary at the same time.  When you have given birth via c-section you know that it’s possible to ‘skip’ labour altogether and still wind up with a baby in the end. Um… miracle… !! And the second time you get the CHOICE of doing that again?! Choice?! But in weighing the pro’s and con’s and remembering the feeling of being a little ‘jipped’ last time, we’ve decided I’ll go ahead and try for a VBAC delivery this time.  If you haven’t had babies yet, this will all be a bit boring for you… you may be rolling your eyes, thinking why does every woman that becomes pregnant think that THEY are the first to go through it?… well, because that’s EXACTLY what it feels like.  It really does feel like it’s never been done before.  You go through 9-10 months of thinking ‘wow… i can’t believe all women DO this to have children? I can’t believe my Grandmother had SIX OF THESE things?  I can’t believe my body is capable of this…’

Everybody is different in how they deal with pregnancy.  I wish I was one of those women who LOVED it. And the whole time I am feeling the nausea and exhaustion and heartburn and body pain I feel guilty admitting to people that I really loathe it because oh-my-goodness, all we hope for his a healthy baby and oh-my-goodness, not all Mom’s get to experience pregnancy.   My mom, for instance, tried for 8 years to get pregnant before finally adopting my oldest brother… So god forbid, I complain! But here’s the thing….. Complaining is a part of it! ha! It just is.  It’s part of my birth story. Like it or not….. So many things go right in my life all the time, why would pregnancy be a breeze as well? That would be BORING….. !!! So today I’ve decided to embrace the next 4 weeks of sleepless nights, peeing every 2 minutes, waddling, braxton hicks and insanely disgusting heartburn.  It’s going to make for a great story to tell my teenage girl when she’s lipping me off! I’ll tell her about the hell I went through to bring her into this world,….I’ll become my mom and cycle of life will continue. : )

After I do give birth…. this time we are taking at least a week…. hopefully more… to bond with our baby at home with as little visitors as possible.   Baby’s are fabulous and joyous for the whole family, but honestly the most important time of all is the days right after we meet her.  I want to be able to walk around bra-less in my house (oh yes…. I said bra-less…… breast feeding is taxxxxxing *wink*) and not worry about hosting any guests.  It can be so overwhelming to have a new baby, be learning the in’s and out’s of his/her schedule, and breast feeding while trying to maintain sanity because everyone you love in the world is over oohing and ahhing him/her.  For Izzy-Rae’s birth, I was very lucky to have so much help, but I do remember feeling very overwhelmed with it all.  I remember feeling like I needed to be ‘on’ for my guests and most of the time I just wanted to cry — out of happiness, sadness, newness… ! It can be a lot.

It’s very common these days to put a lock on the door and hibernate for the first week of being home from the hospital and the couple of people I know who have done say it’s the best thing they’ve ever done! So we are taking our chance at it.  I’m sure it won’t be embraced by all, but hey…. I have done this 36 weeks all by myself and thrown up almost every single day since I found out I was pregnant so I’m entitled to call the shots! This will most likely be my last kick at the baby can so I want to make the most of it. And because I haven’t felt as connected to this pregnancy — being busy with family, work and a 2 year old — my instincts tell me I’ll need as much alone time with new one as possible before the chaos of summer engulfs us again.

In other news, I will be taking a break in May from all things photography — I will try to post some pics here and there from old sessions and maybe a couple of personal things, but starting mid-June I’ll be back into wedding season at full throttle so look forward to seeing some BEAUTIFUL brides on the blog soon.  Thanks for taking this journey with me.

Enjoy your day and I’ll do my best to do the same *wink*

I enlisted my friends to help me experiment with different locations, clothing and posing. We had so much fun.  The lovely owner of Tiger Alley Clothing Store on Main Street let us BORROW most of the clothes you see in the photos. Well…. a lot of extra’s came from Maria’s closet too. We mixed and matched and just had fun.  This is such a great example of how layering and mixing up your clothing in a shoot can really pay off.  A lot of times couples and families want all their clothes to match and because most of us don’t colour co-ordinate our families on a regular basis what usually ends up happening is they choose the safe route and wear very simple attire – white t-shirt and jeans! Don’t get me wrong… there’s def’ly a place for this, but if you want some pics with a punch…. my advice is to let your imagination roll!

These girls never once bugged me to see these photos and it’s been A LONG TIME. Sometimes the fun stuff gets pushed to the side while work stuff takes precedent. Thank you, thank you, thank you Maria, Faith and Danell. I appreciate you. I appreciate you. I appreciate you.

Tiger Alley Clothing Store is located in downtown Penticton. Please support local shop owners and check out what she has to offer.  I LOVE this store. New, used and vintage. She rocks out a particularly funky brand.   The store just moved locations, down a few blocks to the 200 block of Main Street.

Spring mini-sessions. Great for small families and couples.  Due to time limits, I won’t be accepting families greater than 5.

Only a couple spots left so email to inquire about detailed pricing and to book your time slot.

If you refer a friend to book with me, you’ll receive 10% your print/collection order after the initial sitting fee.

Go check out Heath and Jayne’s photos on Justine’s blog, here.

Here’s a small snippet of what I captured on this beautiful day…. Jayne was a classy, classy bride. Woweee… These two are as cute as any couple can get.

However….I have decided to host some mini-sessions in April for families with small children and/or couples… I want to be able to accomodate some of the folks who have asked for pics this Spring and since I will be at home napping and feeding and juggling the life of mom to two tot’s come mid-May, I want to at least offer something in April! And again…. DYING to photographer OTHER people besides my family. ha I will post more info on these sessions tomorrow.

Here are our pics from Mexico.  We practiced LOT of R & R on the beach so there’s not much more than our hotel, the sand, the sun and our heads… haha! We rented a car on a couple occasions so got the regular touristy, Tulum photos in front of the ruins.  I’ve realized that I prefer to shoot people over scenery. I wish I didn’t… but it’s true…I like to have subjects..People are SO interesting to me.  And only having Colin as my muse was sorta hilarious. Not like last year when the whole family vacationed together. You should see how many photos I have him on my harddrive. So ridiculous. But alas….I’m glad we took the time to capture this trip. It will be the last for a LONG while I imagine.  And we really enjoyed our time away together. Ah…. bliss.

Enjoy!

Mexico Vacation – Babymoon 2013 from Lindsay Gallagher on Vimeo.

7 months pregnant in Mexico
Our first vacation — just the two of us!

We just got back from a week in Mexico and while I encountered a pretty significant case of the baby blues from time to time (we left the kids at home with Grandma) we really did need the time away.  I didn’t realize how much so until we got home last night.

Today, while my little one naps, I’m taking the time to let the week away sink in.  I think we both feel inspired and recharged. Ready for the next chapter in pregnancy, parenthood, career and household.

We are soooo grateful for the year of hard work that helped to make this trip happen, to my parents generous offer to let us use their time share points in a swanky, upscale resort….(holy toledo…were we ever spoiled), to our families for really being the ones to pitch in when we need it and honestly….I’m feeling grateful to the country we were born in, where having the opportunity to even travel abroad and see the world is taken for granted.  We really are so very lucky.

Pics from our honeypreggomoon to be posted soon.

As far as crafting goes, I have great intentions but always seem to run out of time. Like all the DIY pins on pinterest I just ‘have’ to create one day…..yeah right!   I thought I was on the ball, getting all the Valentine craft ideas going on in my head and then I looked at the calendar and realized ‘i wasn’t even going to be around for Valentine’s day’…. I was stoked about printing these  anthropolgie-esque V day prints for the frames below, but resorted to 1/2 an hour of painting time with my girl…. Who needs perfection when you can have quality time?

Anyways, this will do in keeping the kiddies and Grandma visually pleased while Mommy and Daddy are baby#2moon’ing in Mexico.

PS:  You can tell that Izzy-Rae helped with some of the painting and glitter…. ha! Lines can’t always be straight and perfect, people……it’s called ‘homemade‘.  So like an ex-boyfriend used to say ‘it’s good from afar, but far from good’… hmmm wait..i hope he never said that about me *wink*

These heart patches are the most adorable thing ever… Thank you, pinterest!