M Milk Bath Maternity

Hey 2021, long time no blog!
That was lame, sorry, I rely on the fact that nobody ever reads these! So this blog was drafted in June, I haven’t blogged since Mayish of last year but I have about 30 blogs drafted so the next few weeks will be me attempting to write blogs. Fun stuff.
But at least there’s tons to say about this fun milk bath photoshoot I did with a then very pregnant Mama M!
Mama M special requested a milk bath for her rainbow baby and I’ll admit I didn’t realize just how challenging it would be.

All the maternity milk baths you see on Pinterest take place in an actual bathtub, but, I have to big as dramatic as possible and had to shoot it in an actual full length blow up pool! Now, it’s been so long ago but I’m pretty sure when we did this shoot it was about two months after that 15 day flatten the curve so all pools were either sold out or they were $80 on amazon, because everyone was stuck home with their kids and was just trying to find a way to keep them busy.
Thankfully one of my long time clients/buddies had a blow up pool available for us to use, but the only hold up was I had to drive 45m out to the country to get it, ducks had been using it so it was extra dirty, andddd there was a small hole in the side. I can’t complain at all though, I was super fortunate she was even allowing me to use it! (and she had cleaned it up quiet a bit before I picked it up so I’m really not complaining, just getting those 1000 words lol)
The pool was so big we also had to set it up outside, instead of in my home studio, and we had to keep filling it with water, because of the small leak, AND it was threatening to rain the whole time we were shooting, BUT it was well worth it though to bring our vision to life.

Mama M was and always is the most complying model and was absolutely amazing when the water started getting cold and her neck started hurting. I can’t thank her enough for going out of her comfort zone to bring both of our visions to life, and I’d say I can’t wait to meet her sweet baby girl but I’m planning her first birthday cake smash next month!

L Graduation Session

I’m finally fully in the month of October in the catch up process to blogging form last year!
It’s not often I get to work with adults, much less adults by themselves, but thankfully this Russian princess felt obligated from our years of knowing one another to have me take her gradation photos!
I’ve forced L to model for me before but it was wonderful to photograph her in a more natural setting. We both realized how out of shape we were (more so me) after our hike to this location, which has become one of my favorites, and thankfully made it there before the other 4 photographers behind us! Despite not having worked together for years L jumped right back into pro model mode. She’s one of those people who it’s almost hard to get a photo of. She’s beautiful at ever angle and could wear a potato sac and still look like a movie star.

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Baby S Sunflower Milk Bath

Today is Mama J’s, otherwise known as Baby S, first Birthday and we’re all over here crying! I remember Mama M and I discussing her first birthday before she was born and sharing all the ideas we had for her first birthday photoshoot and Cake smash! One year later we definitely didn’t do any of them, however we’ve basically done everything else under the sun. I think she’s been on my blog, published and unpublished posts, more than anyone this year and next year we’ll be adding her baby sister B into the fix so you can expect to be heavily spammed by this family for many years to come!!!

After weeks of being torn between doing a fruit bath or a milk bath we compromised and are going to do both. Seeing as it’s August and basically Fall we decided to try and keep the florals away from the pastel realm and does it really matter what I type? Is anyone still reading? I care though, gotta hit those google keywords! Sunflowers! We decided on sunflowers and thankfully I have an abundance of fake ones and Mama M had some dollar store sunflowers she’s had for over 4 years to add to the mix! We went out to the same park we did her sisters gender reveal/pregnancy announcement and set up near the creek! J hates headbands so we were really worried about her keeping it on throughout her session but thankfully all the sunflowers and splashing around in the milk was enough to keep her distracted for about 5 minutes! Still haven’t gotten the smiling down, even after a year of modeling, but we have the smoldering down to a T! We’ll work on it next year, and hopefully next week we’ll be sharing her Cake Smash!

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T & M Engagement Session

So here’s a blog out of the norm for me, we’ve got some engagement photos!!!! I’m known as Nashville’s family/newborn photographer, which I love, but I don’t get to see just adults often! (Sorry I’m trying to hit all those google keywords guys) This blog is actually some months old, at this point, these two knockouts are already married and have been on their honeymoon and came home!

These guys drove probably an hour to meet me way out in the country, an hour or so before the sun went down and we bust

After years of watching ID, every unknown person in an unfamiliar area or noise in the woods makes you hyper vigilant. For us, while we were already shooting in the spooky/skeptical barn, far away from our cars, there was someone driving around in the forest on a four wheeler, hooting and hollering. While I had shot on this property before and had no issue what so ever, I kept expecting them to come out at some point and block us off from the ladder that lead to our only escape and we’d just all die there, in the field in a barn, and they’d steal all my camera gear (Which would have been more upsetting). These guys toughed it out though, despite all my complaining and made the best models! No matter what silly prompt I gave them or stupid joke I told them, they laughed, they did whatever, and they made the shoot so much fun!

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M Family Session

This year has been the year of Baby number two for many families and none took me by surprise as much as the M families!

(A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one)

To see Baby E’s newborn session with his big sister and Mama check out the link below!

http://www.chelseameadowsphotography.com/blog/2019/4/26/e-newborn-session

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E & J Elopement

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B Family Tea Party

Over the last few months I’ve been expected to keep lots of big secrets but this one might have been one of the hardest!!! It took about 15 weeks for Mama M & Papa D to spill the beans that they were expecting again but dang was the payoff worth it!!!!! Mama M & I struggled for a little while trying to pick the perfect theme for their gender reveal and after going weeks of thinking Baby #2 was going to be a boy Mama and having that planned in our minds, she finally got the great news that it was another girl and we just had to bust out the pink frill!

With her first pregnancy she took away the joy of me being able to share in all the splendor (just kidding guys) so throughout this pregnancy we’ve made the plans to go all out!

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S & T Maternity Session

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of marking something off my bucket list that I never thought I’d get the chance to because, one, horses and their giant people teeth freak me out, and two, no animal ever listens like you need it to for photos. When S told me her horses would do everything we needed them to and were very well behaved I didn’t believe her and just figured we’d wing it but boy was I wrong!!! This session exceeded every expectation I would have ever had and I am soooo thrilled and in love with every images!

Like seriously, this session is something out of a fairytale and everything just fell together so nicely I am still amazed that some of these images are even mine! Mama S and I had been discussing her session for weeks but her Sister in law, my friend B, had been planning her session for much longer and had contacted months before! I had met Mama S and her soon to be husband T at the beginning of her pregnancy and she was just as cute as could be and I knew from that first meeting I wanted to do her maternity photos (No one actually books me, I just go out scouting people and bully them into a session). Seven months later I was driving around the Harpeth trying to figure out where the hell she lived. We were already about 30 minutes behind seeing as I lost track of time at my previous session (which was easy to because they were so wonderful) and THANK GOD her ultra sound ran over, so it wasn’t totally fault. After calling her ten times in a panic, because I hate getting lost, I finally found her house and we immediately headed towards her grandmothers. I was at the tail end of the line of 3 cars we had created and fell behind. For some reason the undercover cop that I passed decided to flash me (though Papa T was going WAYYY faster than I was) and if he had actually turned around to come get me, I’ll never know, because right when I went into the turn I saw the back of B’s car going down a driveway and immediately sped in behind her.

S’s grandparents home was incredibly beautiful, there were wild flowers growing everywhere, tons of horses, dogs, and two cats so I was in animal heaven. Mama S has such natural beauty that B only had to spend about 10 minutes fixing her hair and Papa T was so handsome he didn’t even have to take off his hat and sunglasses…. but we made him anyways.

I had the exact opposite problem I thought I would have for this session, I thought we’d be having to chase the horses down to make them stand still for two seconds but I was literally having to make horses leave because they kept getting into everything! I turned around at one point and one of them was in my camera bag and took a few steps back throughout our session and bumped into a horse that was standing very close by. They were all so amazingly sweet and kept nuzzling up to Mama S the whole session. Their dogs were just as bad and were literally on our heels the whole shoot! They even chased us down to the creek whenever we got on the golf cart and were into everything. I kept thinking that I would just edit them out of a lot of the shots when I got home but them being in the photos is what makes a lot of the shots!

The big horse in the photos is her prize horse and the other horse is their daughter, who mind you, hasn’t even been born yet, pony!!! Growing up we all dream of having a pony, hell I still want one, but soon to be Baby R already has one!!!

For a couple that never has their photos made I barely had to direct the two, they made my job soooo incredibly easy and if it wasn’t getting dark I would have kept them out all night! S was just beautiful no mater what she did and all of her movements with T were so natural it made for some incredibly genuine photos, which are hard to fake. You always know how much a couple truly loves each other based on their interactions together and seeing S & T together will make any girl hate her boyfriend! T and S are going to make amazing parents and not only did Baby R win the genetic lottery but she’s lucky enough to have born into a family where she’ll grow up knowing her parents were truly made for one another! I so look forward to doing her newborn photos and seeing this family again!

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T, N, & R Announcement!

I’ve been having to keep lots of secrets for lots of people recently but I can FINALLY share the big news that the H family is growing by 1! Mama T is pregnant with Baby number 2 and told me when she was around 8 or so weeks I didn’t think I’d be able to keep it to myself… thankfully she also shared the big secret with some mutual friends so we could gossip about how excited we were about it!

It’s been forever since I’ve been able to do a gender reveal and somehow Mama T always manages to make things 10 times more glamourous. Between their incredibly coordinated outfits for Family photos and the amazing props she brought along with her I just basically had to show up and they did the rest of the work, I always feel very guilty working with them!

Capturing R’s first year was so amazing, I still have some of his Newborn Cake Smash photos in my portfolio today, I’m so honored they’ve stuck with me over the years and hope Baby number 2 likes me as much as R does!!! (Sometimes) I also hope they know that I’m going to be bullying my way into every part of her pregnancy now… maybe even the delivery room for Birth Photos… get ready T

Ballon - Vroom Vroom Balloon

Cards- Blossom and Pear

Wooden Rattle - Bannor Toys

Can anyone guess what she’s having?… All of you already know, I’m weeks late! The H family is expecting another little boy!!!

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E Newborn Session

I have had a few people who I started my newborn photography journey with contact me this year expecting their second child and that’s seriously the best compliment! Being a family photographer and newborn photographer has been so rewarding and the fact that there are those who started with me, when I wasn’t so good, and have continued to put their trust in me has been amazing. It’s been wonderful having them grown with me… but this one took me by COMPLETE surprise! Though Mama L and I are friends on FB I have not seen one post from here for at least a year so I completely missed this pregnancy and birth! (Even though she’s posted about it, thanks FB algorithm)  
I was lucky enough that she contacted me pretty soon after though and just a few days later she brought the Handsome Baby E to me along with his Big Sister C! I was completely taken back by how big C had gotten, how well spoken and polite she was, and the fact that she'll be 4 this year (which is actually much better than I thought because I could have sworn she was 5 and I was wondering how so much time had passed)! I think I was just in denial at how much time had passed because it makes me think of how old I actually am! I can’t tell you how wonderful it was that she was VERY big on saying thank you/yes ma’am, which is such a huge relief because it seems like we’re all sadly falling away form that! All of you who move to the south need to adapt to our manners…
Sadly Papa R couldn't make it to this session but Mama L came looking like a super model with a full nights sleep. I remember she was the same after giving birth to C, she came in full makeup, hair done, and in her Sunday best, which I can't even manage with zero kids...
Enough of my rambling, these might be some of my favorite sibling photos ever, I can't tell you how many times I said 'Oh my God' or 'Awwwwwww' during this session. Mama L told me when they got to my home studio that he had a safari themed nursery and had brought him an adorable elephant outfit to be photographed in by sadly it was slightly too big… but that gave me the chance to bring out a newborn prop I haven’t used in years!!! Last time I used the Elephant hat/doll was probably almost 4 years ago now but it has been lying in wait for this exact moment and it was so worth it!!!!

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E First Birthday

I used to pride myself on being able to write super descriptive blogs where I spilled every detail of my shoot and how they came to be but I think with age I’ve lost that ability (6 months makes a big difference guys!!!!) So I’m going to attempt to bring blogs back, and bring them back with a vengeance! Don’t go back and READ prior blogs, you can look… that way I won’t be judged off previous work

ANYWAYS!!! This session was seriously one to write home about and as much as I would like to take credit I literally have to thank this beautiful little ladies Mama for making it all happen! Mama B and I became friends about the time she found out the gender of this sweet little lady. We did her gender reveal together, she dropped off some nude cupcakes for a stylized shoot I was doing, and the rest is history! I’ve had the privilege of getting to experience so many special moments in their lives with them and the chance to watch her two children grow!!! She’s a wonderful friend and a very very talented artist and baker (Two Peas and Sweets Bakery)

Okay, back to the blog, I’m getting ahead of myself. This little ladies first birthday session was planned before she was born. Mama is basically a gypsy and has lived everywhere but her roots are in Arizona (don’t kill me if I get your families history wrong B, I’m not a stalker) and her Grand….mother used to have an alpaca farm (that sounds right). Her uncle even makes cactus art!!! Definitely a desert rat. When E was born she even had an extra special Aplaca/cactus swaddle!

When it came time to planning her First Birthday photoshoot Mama B somehow found an Alpaca farm, which was only about twenty minutes from Blakes house, go figure, and the women that owned it was kind enough to let us shoot there! We ended up getting lost along the way and managed to do this shoot in a record twenty minutes, which was probably for the best otherwise we would have stayed there all day. Baby E literally had zero interest in the Alpacas though and was more concerned with what they were eating and picking up as much mud as she could between her toes. The Alpacas literally had zero interest in her either and were more concerned about why this small creature was trying to shove their pellets into her mouth.

Again, this shoot was definitely like a fairytale and over the years we’re somehow going to have to one up this session. We’re already trying to figure out how we’re going to get an elephant for her 16th birthday

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T Family Session

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T Newborn Session

Baby T just turned 3 months the other day so I guess it’s time to share her Newborn Photos!!! All of the DW children are literally a carbon copy of each other, I feel like every blog I’ve ever written about them I keep telling them to have more children because they’re all so beautiful and well behaved but I think they’re finally stopping at this beautiful little lady! Sweet little Baby T was also the only child of theirs born in the fall so we made sure to incorporate some fall aspect into her session and I am utterly amazed at how hard she slept in the pumpkin!

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O & K Family Session

It always brings me such great joy when my newborns make their way back to me and I was SO happy to see Mama K and the handsome Baby O! O is now about half the size of his Mama, which isn’t a hard feat to accomplish, sorry K, wears a mans size 9 shoe, and despite what some photos might show, has lots of wisps of red in his hair! He was so well behaved for our session and even let me spend a little time solely photographing his beautiful mother while he stomped around and tried to find whatever mud puddle he could.

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J & D Engagement

I was thrilled when J asked me to take her engagement photos, but I mean… who else would she have gotten to do it?

Baby R First Birthday

My handsome little Nephew turned one last month and spent the week getting lots of ouches in preparation for his birthday photos!

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S Newborn Session

I think at home newborn sessions are becoming my favorite, one and most importantly... because I don't have to clean my house, you get to capture families in their true element with their newest addition, and, and, and sometimes other peoples homes have much better light than mine and it makes life sooooo much easier! Mama M & Papa D’s home had the biggest window ever and I think every newborn session I have from here on is going to be in their bedroom infant of their bay window…

I was fortunate enough to be one of the few people that got to see Ms. S after her birth as Mama had a pretty rough post labor and needed lots of recovery time! While Papa D was at work and Mama M took a cat nap on the couch Ms. S and I spent a few hours together and took some of what are I can only call, deceivingly sweet photos… I say deceivingly because this little lady would wake up every so often, look directly in my direction, and bust her arm or leg out of her swaddle, like she knew she wasn’t suppose to do that, never once looking away from me! Or when she was doing unswaddled photos I’d get her perfectly placed, pick my camera up, and all of a sudden shed stick that leg straight up in the air and just hold it there. Other than that she was the best and didn’t cry once!

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S Family Session

One of the most highly anticipated babies of this year was born a month ago and I feel it’s about time to share a sneak peek into their newborn session! After months of seeing Mama M & Papa D count down the days, showing off that big beautiful belly, and hearing all the sweet stories she’d tell me about Papa D anticipating his first born and his plans for their future, Baby S made her big debut! I was fortunate enough to be able to be a part of such an important event in their life and will never be able to put into words how much I appreciate being in the delivery room with them and being able to impose on their bonding time for newborn photos!

The birth of Baby S was so emotional and her Mama and Papa immediately became pros and acted as if this was their 5th child, parenthood just came so naturally to the both of them.

Watching Papa D in the delivery room would make any woman hate her man and see Mama M after (during and before) giving birth would make you wonder why you bothered trying to put on makeup today. These two are so dedicated to one another, I can’t wait to watch the 4 of them (including Weenie) grow over the next few years and see Baby S’s personality develop and I’m really bad at wrapping things up so if you’re still reading this… enjoy!

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E Fruit Bath

Did you guys know I have a child? Two at that!!! They just so happened to been birthed by another woman and are being raised by said women… Anyways, I love me some Baby E & her big brother G! It’s always such a treat getting to spend time with this adorable family and I try to exploit our time as much as possible!

I’ve been dying for months to do a fruit bath shoot and seeing as we’re creeping into fall I feel like that time was slipping away! Thankfully I had me one of the most precious chunky babies to love on and photography and she loved chewing on her lemons! Her big brother G loved the strawberries and kept picking them out of the water as we were shooting!

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Baby T 2nd Birthday Session

I can officially start marking some stuff of my bucket list and I don’t think I would or could have done this Snow White themed session with any other little lady!