The boys are getting more and more alert every day and more of their personalities are coming out! So far Kian is a night owl and Griffin happily goes to sleep at 8pm. They are both loving their siblings and spend a lot of time just staring at the silly things the older kids do to keep them entertained. I keep telling them not to grow up too fast, but they certainly aren’t listening!

Dana and Mark got married yesterday at the beautiful Hidden Valley camp over in PA. I haven’t finished downloading all the images yet, but here’s a couple of shots that I fell in love with! More to come… (And enjoy your honeymoon – wish I could fit in your suitcase!!)

It’s easy – just tell your friends about us! Just tell them to use your name when they book their paid session and you’ll both get a FREE 8×10 print! The referral must be from a new client, but we know you have a ton of friends anyway, right?

I can’t believe they are seniors already! That’s incredible! For those of you who don’t know, Kourtnie is my little sister. She was born when I was 14 (actually, she was born the day before my 14th birthday if one day matters). All of a sudden in the past few years she has grown into a beautiful young woman! She’s off to college in the fall and we’ll definitely miss her! But for now she’s still in high school and as a senior she and her boyfriend Evan went to the prom together.

There’s nothing sweeter than a father snuggling with his baby. I haven’t gotten Drew to do pictures with the babies yet (it’s on my to-do list) but I thought this was a really cute image that I took last night.

I have a feeling the boys’ first year is going to fly by! I’m trying very hard to commemorate each month and so far am loving working with tiny babies! So many people call for sessions at 3 months or beyond, but those first few weeks are so precious – that’s what you really should be capturing! You know, those days when they sleep a lot, are so snuggly and have that squishy newborn look? Even now I’m amazed at how much the boys have changed and how much of that newborn look they have lost. Sure, they still are little and still love to snuggle, but now stick out their legs instead of curling them up, wake up when they are moved and are awake for a lot longer.

Here’s a few pictures from their first few days…

And their 1 month pictures…

You can see how much more awake and alert they are in the individual 1 month pictures than the newborn shots (taken at 5 days old). I absolutely love the picture of the boys with their umbilical stumps still on because they look fresh from the hospital (which they were!) That’s the beauty of a custom photographer over a studio – I come to you! I know those first few weeks can be tough enough to get through without worrying about traveling to get pictures done. So this way you can capture those precious first few days of life without leaving the house! All I need is a good source of light (a patio door or large window works great!)

We also found out that the boys are identical! What are the odds of that? The girls are fraternal (and VERY much fraternal – they look so different) so we were really shocked to get the results of the twin DNA test (they swab the inside of their cheeks and compare them.)

…or trying to at least! Now that the boys are a month old and I’m starting to get back into the groove of real life (and it’s been a while- I’ve been out of the loop since January) I have a few things I want to share. Of course while on bedrest I didn’t do any sessions, but did pick up my camera once or twice.

Here’s my sister Kellie with her fiance Mike (they are getting married in December!) They just needed a few quick shots for their Save-the-Date cards, so we went outside and took a couple!

One thing I wanted going into this pregnancy was some nice maternity pictures. During the last 2 pregnancies I had wanted the same thing but had given birth earlier than expected and never got them. So this time at 31 weeks I set up the self timer and took a few. And let me tell you, it’s so much harder taking them of yourself than it is taking them of others! I especially loved this one of my husband and I (it’s now on canvas in our living room). Here’s my 31 week twin belly!

Everyone keeps saying how great we’re doing with the kids and how surprised they are at how much we’re doing and getting out. But really, after 15 weeks of bedrest I was certainly ready to get out of the house! A person can only watch TV and surf the web for so long before they go absolutely batty! I’m starting to book sessions again (my first post-pregnancy wedding is next Saturday and I can’t wait) but I will be conservative with the amount that I book. So if you want a summer session, give me a call or e-mail me and we’ll see what we can do!

We’re proud to announce that our beautiful boys were born into the world on April 26! After months of bedrest, meds to stop preterm labor, many, many, many hospital visits and weekly ultrasounds, Kian and Griffin decided they wanted out. I have to say, it was a challenging pregnancy, but in the end we got 2 beautiful, healthy little boys and that’s all that matters. It’s pretty surreal to look back on now and think that these 2 were both in my belly together. They are so mellow and just very cool kids.

We’re all adjusting wonderfully and there hasn’t been any jealousy from the kids at all. In fact, they are so in love with their little brothers that many times we have to tell them to back up a little. Especially Teagan, who loves to get in their faces and kiss them!

And since I know these are what you’ve been waiting for, here’s a few pictures of our little cuties!
The boys only an hour old!

And one of my absolute favorites. The 2 boys snuggled together when they were only a couple of days old.

I could write all day about them, but I hear them waking up, which means they will want to eat! So I have to cut this short. But rest assured you’ll see more pictures and hear more stories about them as they grow up along with the rest of our clan. Wow. 5 kids. I still can’t quite believe it! Are we blessed or what?

So… it’s been a while! Things have been busy here – and not photography related in the least! In my last post I talked about the fact that we’re expecting twins (again) in May. Well in December we found out that they are both boys! We’re absolutely thrilled about it! Both are growing well and are big for singletons (which is a big deal in the world of multiples).

But here’s the catch – the other twins were early. Very early. The girls were born at 29.5 weeks and while they are healthy little girls today, it was a rough beginning for them. And rough for us too. So we’re doing everything we can to prevent another preterm delivery. Our goal is to get to 34 weeks (36 would be awesome, but I can’t even let myself dream about having take-home babies because it would be too disappointing not to have it happen.) Right now we’re at 25 weeks and everything looks great. I’ve been on preventative bedrest for 4 weeks now and it seems to be helping a lot. But even before that I was taking it very easy as per my Dr. I’m definitely suffering from photography withdrawal though! I can’t wait to pick up my cameras again! We have a lot of wonderful clients and weddings planned for the rest of 2010, but we need to get through the next 2.5 months first.

I will definitely try to be better about posting here though! And of course once the boys are here I’ll be posting LOTS of pictures to make up for the 6 months of nothing! For any of you interested in following our pregnancy and family journey, we have a personal blog over at http://the-prochazkas.blogspot.com. I’ve been better at updating that one lately, only because it seems like most of my life has been so focused on the pregnancy (of course the fact that I have 2 squirmy aliens in my belly really keeps my attention!) But feel free to drop by that blog! And if you’re on Facebook, look me up! I have a personal page as well as a fan page.

Here’s the fan page: http://www.facebook.com/prochazkaphotography

And my personal page: http://www.facebook.com/kimclarkprochazka#!/kimprochazka

And what would a post be without some pics? Here are the boys at 24 weeks!

Baby A

And Baby B!

Wow – a lot has happened since I posted last! Some of you may know that we’re expecting in May (which we’re super excited about). And to top it off, our first ultrasound showed another set of spontaneous twins!! (Drew keeps saying we should start playing the lottery!) It’s still too early to know genders (we’re at the beginning of the 2nd trimester now) but the u/s tech said she’s thinking whatever they end up being that they will be the same gender. We’ll see! Hopefully we’ll know before Christmas! The kids are beyond themselves with excitement and say they can’t wait to play with the new additions (I didn’t tell them that newborns really don’t play much!)

Of course while battling morning sickness, we somehow managed to pick up the h1n1 flu. Colin, Meg, Teagan and I all had it at the same time. It definitely hit me harder than the kids, but we expected that since being pregnant puts me at a higher risk, and being pregnant with twins meant that it would be even harder than normal. After a week of living on the couch, I’m finally back to normal. The kids all bounced back quickly (the girls still have lingering fevers, preventing them from going to school, but feel totally fine other than that.) I feel like we need a bumper sticker that says “we survived h1n1″.

So between the awful morning sickness (it was never this bad with the other pregnancies so it took me totally by surprise) and the flu attacking our house, things have been a bit… well, crazy.

A few people have asked if I will be continuing to photograph. And I certainly will – after this pregnancy is over. My pregnancies are high risk due to the fact that I tend to go into preterm labor. Luckily, I knew we were going to start trying for a baby in advance and cleared my schedule in anticipation of it. So from now until June I’m off. Of course you can still order prints and cards if your session has already happened. But I won’t be doing any new sessions for a while.

For now we’re just going day by day and praying for full term, healthy, happy, fat babies. Or at least 34 weeks – that would be awesome.