Baby Bowen

Stephanie Chan October 27, 2014

It's baby season in my circle of friends! I was so close to the finish line as Moses just started Kindergarten with Chloe to follow next year and now, I, too, have one last little bun baking in my oven. Holding these fresh tiny babies feels brand new as it's been so long since Chloe was this small! I am frightened for how I will re-learn and re-adapt to this phase of motherhood, but my heart who knows all too well just how quickly time passes, is eager to cradle another delicate and precious little life in my arms one last time.

Congrats to Jess + Jared on their newest bundle of joy and trouble!

"These days, these days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do, and all the times I had the chance to"

-Nico Case

Wren Verona

Stephanie Chan July 26, 2014

After all the editing and compiling the photos for this post together, I'm at a loss of where to begin with Little Miss Wren. I've known the Schmidt sisters since Grade 8. Like many other girls, we were shuffled against our will to attend Little Flower Academy, an all girls Catholic school. Yes. I'm one of THOSE girls… The girls that attended Blessed Sacrament Elementary were a tight crew and I was introduced to Ashley Schmidt via a number of her friends. I was intimidated by her height and how she loved to play pranks on her friends. Her sister, Nicole, 2 years older terrified me all through high school. Ashley and I have continued to be friends after all these years, growing much closer in the last few. It was only until Nicole gave birth to her first little guy, Rook, 3 years ago, that we began to hang out and I learned she was much less terrifying and a lot more hilarious.

I am so grateful to have such wonderful and loving friends in my life and I'll say it a million more times, I am so honoured to photograph their life milestones and growing families. It's so special to be able to see such a long time friend welcome their first baby into the world, to share that love and wonder with them, to see the features of a face you've known forever suddenly appear in a brand new miniature version, and to see their heart transform before your very eyes as they fall in love with this tiny little person.

It is insane the things first time mothers do during their last weeks of nesting, Ashley and Ivan handmade this beautiful bird mobile.

Beautiful Wren

I look forward to seeing you grow up
and to count the many ways you will be like your Mama.

Eleanor Sky

Stephanie Chan January 27, 2014

Where does the time go? Motherhood is a crazy place to be. That first year seemingly lasts forever; we anticipate our little one's first milestones and do our best to not feel competitive when Baby Jones meets his/her milestone first. We worry when their progression does not match up with our favourite baby guidebook or worse with other babies in the same age bracket. We almost wish all that time away, eager to end the sleepless nights, eager for them to sit up, roll over, wave/hi-5/pound, hear their first word... to see whom our little one will blossom into. Their first birthday arrives out of nowhere and we wonder how those very long days went by so very fast!

It's different with the second. The first one breaks you in, teaches you the ropes. The second one arrives to calmer arms, ready to rock and soothe. There is less time for panic and adaptation, and more time to take it aaaallllllll in.

Miss Eleanor was featured a week before Christmas while still perfecting her tiny toes and lips in her Mama's belly. Back then, she was Chicadoan to Mama Rita and Big Sis Verity, today she is Eleanor Sky Sheena Beckett.

I tried to look back and capture the things I remembered when my little ones were itsy bitsy ones. The hours spent holding and comforting this very tiny being with their funny shaped body and even funnier bodily movements that would always draw a loving smile across my very tired face.

How I wish I had a few photos of me breastfeeding my kids as newborns. It seems so impossible that I don't have any considering it was what I did 50% of the time. Gazing at their tiny face, covered with down, playing and kissing with their free hand, grasping for dear life onto one of your fingers.

How fast they grow… We forget how tiny they are, how their heads could be cradled like a large grapefruit in our palms with their bodies small enough to comfortably fit the length of our thighs.

The millions upon millions of smooches, barely a whisper of a kiss on their tiny faces once finally asleep...

In the blink of an eye, it's gone. Their chubby arms and legs branch out into lean limbs and that perfectly round belly melts away and stretches itself right out.

Just like that, Verity has become a big sister.

And so begins the journey of these 3 lovely ladies.

It's a crazy beautiful life.