Let's be clear, you are entitled to think for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

If you've been reading my blog very long, you'll know that I have had three of my babies at home. I'm not interested in convincing anybody to hire a midwife and birth from home instead of a hospital. The location of birth is unimportant. I'm not anti-induction or anti-cesarean. I have a respect that these interventions can save lives. I'm not even anti-epidural. However, I strongly believe that a woman's body is well made for birth, that home birth is a valid, safe option for healthy woman experiencing an uncomplicated pregnancy, and that we have a bad habit of intervening unnecessarily. I hope to always share information from credible sources that promote these beliefs.

I'm particularly invested in promoting the idea that normal pregnancy typically lasts 37-42 weeks. Although we know that to be true, women (including myself) are prepared to host a child for only 37-40 weeks. Due dates are no longer a median date for the babies birth, but instead are the last day that a woman is willing to be pregnant. The perpetuation of this new normal has personally brought me a lot of grief. With every pregnancy I have found myself working extremely hard to get past this current trend and embrace the scientific truth. Since we learn so much of what to expect from other women's experiences, it has been helpful for me to get to know other moms who have made similar decisions to refuse induction and wait for labor to start (mostly) spontaneously. My experiences don't seem as uncommon when compared with theirs.

Here are a few articles that I wanted to share in regards to this topic.

I just realized that this is my second blog post in a row about babies or childbirth. I might be giving the wrong impression, but just to clear it up, I'm not pregnant.

An NPR article that suggests Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait .

A USA Today article that suggests home births can be just as safe as hospital ones.

A personal story from an OB who chose homebirth.

I went to a baby shower today which explains the content of this blog.

As soon as Maggie turned one, D'arcy declared that it was time for us to have another baby. If it was up to her we would end up with 10 kids and counting. I don't know exactly when we came up with the number five, but at some point that's the number that stuck. It's enough kids to give us this big not quite perfectly balanced family. We have to break this girls and boys tie. It's small enough that we can drive a regular mini van and not lose our minds. Each kid is not just one more mouth to feed but another heart to shepherd. I definitely felt overwhelmed with four, but we went from three to four so quickly. That fifth kid is already in our hearts and we needed to make room for him or her in our lives. Now that Maggie is becoming a big kid, I can see space becoming available for our finale. Now I'm just waiting for Mary Neukam's house to sell. That's when she is free to get pregnant. We've had our last three kids in the same month. Why stop now?

I've noticed that it's become popular for parents to keep their babies name secret. They announce the gender but don't disclose the name. I think 8 out of 10 friends who have delivered in the last year have done this. Maybe it's to protect the name from being made fun of or maybe it's just fun to have something just between mom and dad. Stephen and I have never been able to do this. We can't keep a secret for very long. So in planning for baby 5 I've decided we should do the following. We are going to have the doctor put the gender in an envelope that we won't look at. Then anyone who comes to the house must look in the envelope but not tell us. We will tell our pastor at church to announce it to the congregation. We'll step out for a minute so we don't hear anything. He'll instruct everyone to keep it a secret from us but not to be afraid to mess with our heads a bit.

That's all on this subject until Mary's house sells.

Oh, January, how I love you.

It's almost embarrassing to admit that I have this tiny photography business. How cliché. I'm a stay-a-home mom with a photography business. Who isn't? Photography is as popular these days as baby hair bows and blogging. I do that too. No, not the baby hair bows.

January is sweeping in though and saving me from melancholy thoughts like these. I love that the coldest month of the year, when the sun shines the least, and depression could flourish is saved by the fact that it is the first of a new year. And a new year brings, for me, the ability to reflect and dream. The fact that it is typically filled with below freezing temperatures gives us all an excuse to pause our busy lives.

I've sort of paused mine. I'm not taking clients in January. I'm not painting any rooms. I'm not shopping or spending money. I'm simply tying up loose ends from last year, and thinking about what I want for 2012. I'm working on my website which needs a touch of something new. Thanks as always to my beloved geek who helps me out. I'm rethinking how many clients I want to take each month, and how much I want to charge. Prices for weddings booked in 2013 will go up a bit. Don't worry, a six hour wedding will still cost less than a $1000.

I'm also pondering what I want to study in my bible. I think I'm going to read all about Saul and David and about David beyond Saul. I'm coming up with a word I want to focus on for 2012. My word for 2011 was peace. I was hoping to have insight on how to have a peaceful home with four kids seven and under. I feel like I gained some insight and now I need to live it out. This year, I'm going to focus on the word inspire. My hope is to be inspired by others; other moms, other families, other christians, other photographers, other bloggers, other women. I don't want to copy or imitate, I just want to see others doing awesome things and leave with vision of how I can do awesome things. I'm surrounded by people doing awesome things. My mom is living through cancer with grace and poise. My sister is surviving twins with grace and poise. My small group, my church peeps, my MOPS friends, my neighbors, my husband are all doing awesome stuff. Hopefully their awesomeness will inspire awesomeness from me which will inspire...

Don't call me corny.

I'm rethinking priorities and budgets and time management. I started making these little rules for myself to help allieviate some minor household issues. For example, I'm not allowing myself to watch TV at my desk anymore (on HULU). I tell myself it helps me edit faster, but then I just get holed up at my desk watching my kids walk from one room to the next. I can still watch some TV but at least I have my hands available to pick Maggie Lu up and hug her. I also made the rule that I have to decide what we are going to eat for dinner when I'm getting breakfast for myself. That way I'm not deciding at 5:30 when I feel exhausted from the day. This has helped us reduce the amount of trips to Wendy's.

I'm also not drinking Mountain Dew which of course you already know about. So far, so good. Two days of caffeine deprivation syndrome wasn't bad. I miss the shot of sugar the most at 5:30pm and 10pm.

Here's to 2012, everyone! Happy New Year!

Melissa + Joy : SATURATED | December Gold

This is the last of our Saturated series this year. I so loved working on this. I felt like it helped me keep in touch with my great friend and pushed me to expand my subject matter. Here is our Gold bokeh style.

Christmas with the Clarks

I have no stabbing stories to tell you about my side of the family.  But I can tell you that my siblings have been fruitful and the grandkid total has increased from 5 to 8 (not including the triplets who we sadly never got to spend Christmas with).  Therefore, the stocking total increased as well.  That's the reason I focused my lens on the stockings instead of the grandkids in this first picture.  It had nothing to do with it being early and my brain not working.  Welcome Tessa, Eowyn, and Rogi to the fold.

Not-tada!

So I mentioned a while back that our church was given a old Methodist church set
deep into Fountain Square.  The church doesn't have air conditioning which we
survived, and as of early December doesn't have heat either.  Not long after
the boiler was turned on, something happened and some necessary equipment
inside the boiler melted leaving the boiler unfixable(??) and our congregation
without heat.  Our winter thus far has been mild and so we survived a couple
of Sundays wearing our coats and mittens.  Then we met in our fellowship area
with the help of space heaters.  Christmas was coming.  Our third annual
Nottada was scheduled for a Sunday evening a week before the big day.  The
Nottada is a feast of both traditional and non traditional Christmas music that was
super awesome last year.  I had been looking forward to it, but now our church
didn't have heat and it was announced that it would take place down in the dull,
damp basement. On top of that, our pastor had taken a couple of weeks off and
regular attenders had been out due to the holidays, new babies and sick babies.
 It felt as if our little church was lacking a bit of steam and energy, and I
was concerned it would be seen in the Nottada. D'arcy was asked to sing again, and
she selected the song "Do you hear what I hear".  We practiced all week
attempting to get her confident with four verses.  On Saturday, Stephen and I
went to a concert in Cincinnatti, leaving everyone to spend the night with Grammy
and Poppy.  When we showed up in the morning, D'arcy complained of a sore
throat plus she had a low grade fever.  It was, as expected, strep throat.
 D'arcy gets this twice a year.  If there is a remote chance it's strep
with her, it is.  So we took her to the minute clinic at CVS, got her tested
and picked up her pink medicine.  I asked her if she still wanted to sing.
She adamantly said yes. I hate these decisions.  I didn't want to
get anybody else sick in the process, but after conferring with the music director
etc we decided to let her sing. We were early to church for maybe the second time
in our lives and were lead downstairs to the dull, damp basement that had been
completely redone...painted...decorated with beautiful branches and falling
snowflakes.  Lights were strung all around, and oranges were everywhere.
 It was simple and beautiful and obviously required loads of energy.  It
blessed my soul.  There were sweet little programs showing the thought and
effort put into the music we would enjoy.  The room was warm and bright, and
soon was full of food and people.  People from the neighborhood.  People
with new babies.  People that we love.  The oranges, I discovered were
filled with votives that once lit, we set in front of a map of Indianapolis to
represent our prayers that truth would permeate our city.  It was beautiful.
 And my lovely daughter was able to sing again, an opportunity I know she
wouldn't have at other churches.   I felt overwhelmingly blessed to attend a
church that isn't deterred from meeting because of a silly broken boiler and for
serving a God who met us in a not so dull basement room.

Candid Photography

Candid photography is best described as un-posed and unplanned, immediate and unobtrusive.


Candid photography catches moments of life from immersion in it.


Candid photography's setup includes a photographer who is there with the "subjects" to be photographed, close, and not hidden. People photographed on candid shots either ignore or accept the close presence of the photographer's camera without posing.

The events documented are often private, they involve people in close relation to something they do, or they involve people's relation to each other.