Julie Harrell: Photographer

I wouldn’t describe myself as someone who specializes in newborn photography, but I do love each opportunity I get to photograph a brand new baby! If I had my own studio and my own babies were a little bit more self sufficient I think I could shoot babies for the rest of my days. There are a few times I feel genuinely blessed as a photographer, and being asked to shoot a brand new baby and a wedding are the two times I am humbly honored with every inquiry. Noah was a joy to nuggle, I could have held him all day. His big sister, grandparents and mom and dad won’t deny how perfect he is. Congratulations Glass family on the new addition! I’m excited for your growing family.

Cheers,
jewels

Justine’s baby shower is featured on Life and Baby! Thanks Evelyn for the lovely post! Check out her blog for all kinds of fun parities and raising young ones wisdom.

Cheers,
jewels

Looking through the images brought back great memories, and now Justine’s baby, Ava, is almost 1. What I find kinda neat is that even the name Justine chose for her daughter totally fit the theme of the shower!… so here is an old post, hope you enjoy it the same, even if it should have been posted a year ago.

OK, so I posted about a baby shower my friend Dee and I were planning, and I never shared the results. I did post photos on facebook, but after a few emails, I realized I should have still posted on the blog, since I did share the inspiration for it here!! Ooops! The shower was perfect. Justine, the mom-to-be flew out from Ohio, and since she had very little space in her suitcase home, we asked if people would consider bringing a gift card to any place they thought would be special. We attached these to what we called the “gift card tree.” This tree was composed of 4 feet of blossoming branches that we (aka our dear husbands) cut dow. It was beautiful!! We put silver glittered birds on the branches, and let guests attach their giftcards with mini paperclips. For drinks, a virgin Sangria, with sugar rimmed glasses. For eats, an Italian/Mediterranean spread (Justine’s family is from the beautiful island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples), and nest inspired cupcakes. For party favors, we sent guests home with homemade granola, and yes, we even played a couple games. Most of all we just enjoyed time with our wonderful friend!

Cheers,
jewels

One of Justine’s cousin’s twins… they were only a few days old!

Each water bottle and glass held a numbered silver bird for a prize drawing.

Dee, Justine, Jennie, and myself. I’ve been best friends with these girls since I was 13!! Dee and Justine have known each other since they were barely 2.

Dee and I made clippies for the baby. The frame was one I picked up at goodwill, painted a light grey, framed some cute paper, and attached ribbon on the outside as a home for the clippies. You can see a before photo of the frame in this post!

Homemade granola, I’ll blog the recipe sometime. It makes a huge batch, and kids love it.

The day before the shower, Justine and I headed out to do some maternity photos. Then we printed and framed a few for the shower.

Dee and me, after the shower. We totally planned to wear the same shirt, not really, but this wasn’t the first time we’ve coordinated for parties!

SURPRISE!! And not just for you, but for us too. We are waiting till birth to find out if we have a boy or girl. With both Madeline and Clara we found out the sex at 20 weeks, and I thought it would be fun to see if I actually could wait. I didn’t think it was possible, but when the ultra sound tech told me the times not to look at the screen, I turned my head and didn’t peek!! So in the mean time we’ll be thinking of boy and girl names (neither of which we can agree on) and readying ourselves for a lot of green and yellow I do, however, prefer greys, neutrals, and stripes.

Chris and I took both girls with us to the appointment and Clara was a little restless as usual. Towards the end of our session, Clara looked at the screen showing the whole baby’s profile and said “Ba Beh,” (Baby). I loved it, and I love looking forward to being a family of FIVE!! Holy cow, how did that happen? So forgive me if I don’t have fantasticly exciting news to share, but the baby is healthy and everything is where and how it should be. The due date is October 31 by the ultrasound today, and October 30 by my ultrasound at 11 weeks. I guess we’ll have to call this our little punkin. Or is that too cliche? However it does sound better than calling the baby “gourdy.” Let me know if you have a “great” name for our growing babe and, we promise you will know in approximately 20 weeks if punkin is a boy or girl!

Cheers,
jewels

These images are incredible to me. No, not because I was the person behind the lens, but because it shows this powerful idea of an expectant mother about to hold in her arms what she carries inside. The perfect transformation and renewing from the inside to the outside. I wish I could take credit for these poses, but I cannot. I was inspired by one of my favorite photographers, Carrie Sandoval. When I saw her do a before baby after baby photo series, I just had to give it a try. Stay tuned for more newborn photos of little miss Abbie in the next few days!

Cheers,
jewels

Monday night was a fun “Bellingham (and surrounding areas) Photographer’s meetup.” We hung out at the lake and enjoyed dinner with all our kids, spouses, and significant others! Afterwards I asked Aaron to snag a quick pic of my pregnant belly b/c I haven’t shared one yet! I’m HUGE. Another photographer is due soon with TWINS, and I am seriously about as big as she is. I guess with your 3rd child, there are no more muscles (or in my case flab) to hold things in! For compairason I’ll post photos of me pregnant at 17 and 23 weeks with with Clara and you can see the BIG difference! Anyways, here I am posing like I’m trying not to be a poser!

Cheers,
jewels

Me now, at 17 weeks. Maternity jeans, a joy really (not).

17 weeks from previous pregnancy, normal size jeans…

23 weeks from previous pregnancy, still wearing normal jeans, a size bigger….

I’m 15 weeks pregnant! I don’t have a photo of my belly yet, but I will get one up soon–as I am clearly showing. I have popped out faster than I thought I would–even with #3 Most of that is leftovers from the last pregnancy I do believe.

At first I had no clue I was pregnant. It started with a stomach flu. I was sick for 5 days with things that are TMI, and so my continued nausea that lingered for a couple weeks was clearly my recovering from a horrid stomach bug. A couple weeks later while spending the weekend with friends, we came home to learn that some of them ended up with a similar stomach flu. I spent the whole next day dead to the world on the couch, sleepy and ill. I somehow thought I had re-contracted this awful sickness and I was doomed for my hourly dates with mr. kohler. Since I had loads of work to finish by the following evening I told Chris I should take a pregnancy test. If it was negative I knew I’d be throwing up all night, and needed to accomplish all I could ASAP. BUT if it was positive, I figured I could curl up in bed and be the great procrastinator I’m known as and finish the work in the AM.

I opened up the opaque wrapper , visited mr. kohler, and was oddly surprised to see two pink lines on the test strip. My first thought, “Phew, I don’t have to work tonight.” My second thought, “Tell Chris!” And for the record, the second thought was almost a tie with the first thought, this was a close race people!

Yes, we were a bit skeptical not just because I had Chris buy the least expensive test on the market (because we all know if you pay more the test results increase in accuracy), but it was the HOW part that made me wonder. OK, so I know HOW how, but I was trying to pinpoint where things went array…. And it turns out one needs to use preventive measures even in the shower. I know, huh?

Looking back I had all the typical 1st trimester symptoms too, I just had found ways to justify their cause.

Frequent Urination: I was breastfeeding Clara still, and drinking lots. (Drinking lots of water)
Tender areas: I was in the process of weaning from breast feeding, I assumed this caused any tenderness (AND not to mention, Clara decided to use “them” as teethers… being bitten while breastfeeding SUCKS!!)
Fatigue: I was only sleeping broken sleep 4-6 hours a night, as Clara would still not sleep at night.
Headaches: Lack of sleep
Nausea: I had the stomach flu (some bug huh?!)
lack of appetite: stress (and residual flu side effects)
And the obvious being 4 weeks late, well I chalked that up to breastfeeding as well!

SO, there you have it–the beginning of baby #3. Things so far have been running perfectly, and I’m soooo excited to finally feel all those tiny fleeting flutters of that little doodle growing inside of me.

AND since I don’t have a photo of my incredible (not) 15 week body, here is an image from our first ultrasound at 11 weeks. I seriously can’t wait to meet him/her!

Cheers,
jewels

Chris and I met Jayme and Kristin almost 7 years ago in Bellingham, we were all in the same small group together. We were dear friends and when the time came for them to move closer to the Seattle area we were all sad to see them go. After their move we kept in touch, but as years went by, I ended up using her blog to keep up on her family rather than to do the good friend thing and call or even email. Fast forward to a few months ago: I get super excited to see an email from Kristin asking about Maternity photos! I was excited to hear from her, and to know she was expecting #2, excited to meet their little darling princess Emma AND of course to take Kristin’s photos (she’s gorgeous and has a perfect little bump). Now I can hardly wait to meet her baby girl and do some squishy newborn photos with #2. If #2 is as darling as her big sister (which will be the case), Dad (Jayme) is in for it–but that’s OK since he is a Police Officer. Ok, on with the images

Cheers,
jewels

This cute pup wanted his photo taken too, despite his owner’s calls to “Come”

Ha ha, nice try Jayme

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!!

A couple weeks ago Dee and I hosted a baby shower for our dear friend Justine. She is due with her baby girl at the end of May. Although I prefer to do maternity sessions at 34-36 weeks, Justine was only out here for the weekend, so I had to get what I could (which was super easy since her belly is perfect and beautiful). We started shooting our session in Buckley, WA, where we both went to high school (Go White River Hornets), and finished the session in the neighboring town of Enumclaw. Oh to be back in our old stomping grounds… Justine you are beautiful, thanks for being willing to do whatever I told you to do But I guess that’s how our friendship has always been–unless we are cooking together, right?! (Inside knowledge, Justine a little bit of a kitchen control freak-ha)!

Cheers,
jewels

I was trying to decide what I thought the “best” thing about this session was, but I couldn’t choose. For one thing–Christy and Kyle are gorgeous; another thing, they braved the wet and cold, wandered through mud (I lost a shoe in a mud hole), and dodged the apparent doggy potty grounds we were shooting in–oops!! AND, they radiated love for each other and excitement for their baby girl due in January! What could be better? Christy and Kyle, I can’t wait to meet your little doodlebug princess in a few weeks! Hope you enjoy these.

Cheers,
jewels