Okay, here I am! I am going to try this again. I am going to try and blog every month of Carters life. I am determined to sacrificing some nap time, which really I never get anyway, to capture the daily lives of my kids. I want to my kids to be in college and have thousands and thousands of images to look through with their girlfriends. I want to have something to look back on so I can remember all of the tiny details about my babies. Leaving my camera around and grabbing it when I want to capture a moment seems like an impossible task, especially when you are a one women team all day with several wedding galleries to finish before Christmas. But to me, nothing is more important than preserving memories. I am also busy working on our 2021 family yearbook which I know is going to be the most precious item that I own. This is my first year doing our family yearbook and I am so excited to continue this tradition and look back on it for years and years to come.

I didn’t want these monthly blogs to be of just Carter, I wanted them to be of our life and both of our kids during Carters first month of life. It would be kind of boring for him to just look back at pictures of himself. Instead, I decided to make sure different moments, even if carter is not in them, to be captured and blogged. It blows my mind to think how fast this month went by and how Chase and I transitioned from one to two kids. It has not been easy, as most would say, but I am so blessed beyond measure. There are a good bit of things I want to remember from carters first month so I decided to list them below.

CARTERS BIRTH STORY:

There was definitely a very particular way I wanted things to go with Carters birth. One of those being him being delivered via VBAC, which is a vaginal delivery after Cesarean. I had a VERY traumatic C-Section with Cullen when he was born and I did not want to go through that again. A baby being snatched out of you so quickly without having anytime to process what is happening to your body is not fun! Low and behold, I go into labor at BWW and within 45 minutes to an hour of leaving and getting to the hospital, my water breaks. My labor progressed slowly and painfully after that for about 3 hours when suddenly Carters heart rate began to drop and he had to be delivered via C-Section. Thankfully this C-Section was a BREAZE compared to Cullens and I was begging the nurses to let me get up afterwards. Recovery has been and was so easy! I was back shooting weddings two weeks after I had Carter, which I don’t recommend for everyone, but I trusted my body and I felt great!

DETAILS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

1. Cullen thinks Carters name is actually “Baby Carter.”
2. Whenever Carter starts to cry Cullen physically covers his ears and runs away in horror.
3. Carter is a pretty good sleeper but MAN he LOVES to eat.
4. I went into labor with Carter while we were with some friends at Buffalo Wild Wings and then my water broke 30 minutes after we left and THANK GOD it did not happen there, that would have been so embarrassing.
5. The first three weeks, I nursed carter and fed him breast milk bottles but my milk supply went away practically over night so he takes formula as of 3 1/2 weeks old.
6. I could not remember how soon Cullen smiled at me for the first time, but I know it was not at two weeks old like Carter. Carter smiled at me for the first time at 2 weeks while looking dead into my eyes. I know for a fact they were not gas smiles.
7. We were determined to get sleep training down and starting that routine at 4 weeks old so here we are, making sure MOST naps are on his back in his crib. I promise he gets LOTS of snuggles.
8. I managed to get out of bed PP day 1 in the hospital because I wanted to take my OWN hospital photos of Carter! This was NOT the case with Cullen.
9. Introducing Carter to Cullen was one of the greatest moments of my entire life!

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These next few images were taken by a sweet friend who lives in our neighborhood, Bella Baby Photography! It was so special that she was there to capture us coming home with Carter and introducing him to his baby brother!

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Okay, back to images I captured!

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Thanks for Reading! Follow along for more family updates!