Here’s a little info for what’s to come for Naomi Elizabeth Photography!

MATERNITY LEAVE As of NOW (July 2021) I am on maternity leave-YAY!!! Baby will be arriving any day & it’s time to rest & be ready for his arrival!!! I’ll be stepping away from answering any emails or messages BUT I will save them for looking at after Little Brother Wilcox arrives.

GET ON THE LIST! I have a list of clients that have already reached out to me regarding fall sessions. Those on that list will be who I reach out to first when it’s time to schedule sessions starting in September!!! If you want me to add you to the list for doing a session anytime Sept-Nov, please email me at naomi@naomielizabethphotography.com & I’ll add your name as well & get back to you late August 🙂

SESSIONS I plan to be back to doing sessions at the end of September. And Back-2-School Mini Sessions WILL be happening!!! Probably the last two weekends in September.

ADDING TO THE TEAM I’m very thankful a dear old friend is going to be helping me on the editing side of NEP for Sept & Oct. Oh & when I say “adding to the team” please know the team is me, Eric (does all the bookwork things) & my mom & sister (who help watch our kids). I don’t do this alone!

SEASONS Just like there are seasons in life, there are seasons in motherhood & in businesses. Thank you for being a part of NEP through so many seasons. Especially thru a pregnancy, covid & then another pregnancy 🙂 We can’t wait to meet our Little Lad who will be the perfect addition & complete our family. And I can’t wait to show off all the pictures of him to you all when I see your faces IN person this fall!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Sharing your story & your smile,
Naomi

Hello friends, I’m here to share a family update & ask for your prayers for our family. Some of you already know from being friends with me on facebook but life has changed quite a bit for us in the past 2 weeks.

First of all, we “accidentally” found out the gender of our Little Wilcox #3 at 24 Weeks. It’s a whole unique story that has turned into the most precious gift to know. Elizabeth & Ruth have a Little Baby Brother & we are all THRILLED!!!

Secondly, Memorial Day I was airlifted to St. Francis Hospital in Peoria with our little guy inside me. My water broke early that Monday morning at 29 weeks, 1 day & the best place for us to be is at St. Francis where they have an amazing NICU & healthcare team. I’m currently still here on monitored bedrest & being taken care of by high risk doctors. By the grace of God, our Mighty Creator, Little Wilcox at this point has been as content as can be inside me growing & very much enjoying his one on one time with his momma. I will be here at St. Francis until he is born, which we’re praying he stays in until 34 weeks & around that time I will be induced. Once he is born he will more then likely need to be in the NICU here for several weeks.

This has been the both the hardest season for our family & the season where we’ve heard & felt the Lord the most. Because of the corona virus, I can only have one visitor & that of course is my husband. I’m not able to leave my room other then to walk the hall twice a day for 15 minutes. I also have not held or touched our girls since I put them to bed the evening before Memorial Day & at this point it will be 5 weeks until I kiss them. And it’s been that long since I’ve been able to be outside. I’ve never mentally gone through anything like this before. BUT our son is healthy & growing & I/we would do anything for him.

Please pray Little Brother Wilcox stays inside me until the desired 34 weeks. Please pray against infection for him & I-since my water has broke we are at a high risk for that. Pray for Eric & I as we lead our family in this season & for Eric as he’s home with our girls. Please pray for my mental health.

I’m not getting all my emails with having a bit slower internet here at the hospital so if you respond, please don’t worry if you don’t hear back. You can always send me a message on my personal facebook account.

Many of you are like dear friends to me & my family. You’ve celebrated WITH us & I know now you’ll be praying FOR us & that means more to me then you know. I look forward to telling you our son’s entire birth story & sharing an update sometime when he’s HOME with us. I can’t wait to show off pictures of him to you all when we meet up for photo sessions this fall.

We appreciate all your prayers!  

Naomi, Eric, Elizabeth, Ruth & Little Brother Wilcox

Our second child, Ruth Hannah Wilcox is here!!! On the morning of May 7 we arrived at OSF St Joseph a little before 8AM. Shortly after, at 8:59AM our Ruth was born. She was 6 lbs & 4 oz & 20 inches long. We were SO excited to find out she was a girl! She’s a true gift from the Lord to our family & to say we love her bunches is an understatement

Here she is less then 24 hours old!

I took a few newborn photos of Ruth once we got home & this was a favorite of mine 🙂

I am incredibly thankful for these next few pictures that my friend Kathleen Struss took of our new family of four. It’s quite amazing that the Lord would work it out for her to be here to do them when 3 out of every 4 years she’s in Indonesia with her family That’s God’s perfect timing! And fun fact, a portion of every Nomi Photography session I take goes to financially aid her family & what they are doing to help the people of Indonesia!

We’ve loved the name Ruth for quite awhile now. Ruth means “friend” & our prayer is that Ruth will always be a friend to all & loves everyone as Jesus would. Our hope is that she will also be a close “friend” to her big sister & that their friendship would be sweet & strong. We also loved how it connected her name to mine (Naomi) like in the Book of Ruth in the Bible. (Elizabeth’s name is “connected” to mine in that it’s my middle name.) Her middle name, Hannah, means “grace” & was given in honor of Eric’s Grandma, Hannah Adams, a strong & special woman of God, who recently passed away. Hannah has been a top favorite girl name of mine since I was 14 years old so I loved that we were able to honor Grandma Adams & use that beautiful name as Ruth’s middle name.

Oh our sweet Ruth, our little “graceful friend”, we’re SO grateful for you!

And here she is already a month old!!!!!

I took a few pictures of my girls together & I LOVE them! Nothing like seeing siblings bond! Also, I have so MUCH more understanding for taking pictures of siblings together- IT’S HARD! I’m learning little tips for myself & thinking about writing a blog post about it sometime- thoughts? 🙂

But back to this photo- I JUST LOVE IT!!!! Sisters, sisters!

I just looked over my list of pregnancy tools/resources that were my favorite during my pregnancy with Elizabeth (view that post HERE). While I am using ALL of those things in this pregnancy as well, I have a few new “favorites” this time around. I only know what I’ve personally learned to be helpful so I wanted to pass that on & share with you all! I wanted to document them so that I can remember them for the future (because let’s face it, that mommy brain IS REAL) & be able to share with other expecting momma’s. Sharing is caring I say!

This list is QUITE longer then the last list, but almost all of the resources I’m listing are FREE!

PRAYER JOURNAL My top favorite resource to use while being pregnant still remains the same as last time- the Pregnancy Prayer Journal by Val Marie Paper. I plan to have one of these journals for each pregnancy. I know I shared in my blog post while carrying Elizabeth why I love it so much & those reasons have not changed! But since that post, I’ve decided that I’ll be gifting each Pregnancy Prayer Journal to each child when they are older. I can’t wait to show them how I prayed for them while they were still in my womb & how the Lord has guided their lives from the very beginning! I also use this journal’s blank pages to keep track of fun things like my cravings, weight & even name ideas. I can’t wait for the day that I’ll hand these journals to our grown up children!

MYPLATE Not many people know this but with Elizabeth, I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia & had to be induced. With this pregnancy, I’ve been doing several things to try to stay ahead of the game & hopefully not get pre-eclampsia. One way I’ve done that is to eat protein like it’s my job. I did eat a lot of protein with Elizabeth, but not near as much as I have with this pregnancy. I’ve been using the free smart phone app MyPlate to keep track of my daily food intake. It’s actually an app used for those wanting to gain or loose weight BUT it has a protein counter in the daily summary & I’ve been using that to keep track instead of a paper chart I had on the fridge when I was pregnant with Elizabeth. I started with the paper chart this time too but soon realized that wasn’t going to keep me motivated OR help me remember to eat protein so I found this app & I’ve liked using it! And just keeping it real, I don’t use it every day BUT it’s been really helpful the days I have 😉

PRENATAL YOGA I would need a whole other blog post to share why I’ve fallen in love with yoga! My favorite youtube yoga instructor has 3 prenatal yoga videos that I rotate between & have been doing through-out this pregnancy. There’s a short one & then two longer ones. HERE they are. I LOVE THEM!!! Carolyn also has a post-natal yoga flow that I look forward to doing in just a few months from now 😉

PODCAST Another thing that would take an entire blog post of it’s own is how much I love listening to podcasts & which are my current top fav’s to listen to. One of my favorites is The Risen Motherhood & just a few months ago I went back into their older episodes & listened to their two on preparing your heart for your birth & when your birth doesn’t go as planned. I’ve linked those episodes right HERE & you can also just search them through whatever app you use to listen to podcasts & just search The Risen Motherhood for Episode 25 & 26.

MAMA NATURAL My last but certainly not least pregnancy resource that I’ve been using this pregnancy are my favorite weekly “bump” emails that I receive from Mama Natural aka Genevieve! I probably will buy her book for my next pregnancy as I’ve enjoyed her weekly emails SO much & how she hits each week of the 3 trimesters by looking at it from a Spiritual, Physical & Emotional perspective. I look forward to this email every week that comes with a personal video of Genevieve herself as she went through her second pregnancy. Click HERE to signup for her weekly enewsletter & HERE to check out her very informative site.

And for a bonus “resource”, if you’re into reading birth stories, especially from a Christian perspective, these stories from Surrender Birth have been very interesting to read!

How about you? What resources/items can you not live without during your pregnancy or highly recommend? I’d love to hear what they are! And here’s the info regarding my Maternity Leave & when I’ll be back to taking sessions if you haven’t read it yet!

34 weeks here! Currently 35 when posting this blog post 🙂

Something I did last year that turned into a precious thing was to take a photo of Elizabeth on her “monthly birthday” each month. When I looked back at her monthly photos from being a newborn & on to 12 months, what I LOVED was seeing her facial features change. I could look from month to month & see her look more like her dada in some months, more like me or just more of her own little person & personality.

Knowing how precious those photos from 0-12 months became to us as a family, inspired me to do something along the same lines, but simpler for her months leading up to 2 years. I knew again that what I wanted to focus on was her changing face. My goal was to get one good photo of her smiling face every month on or right by the 19th of each month. I didn’t always have good lighting & I didn’t always get to take RIGHT on the 19th (for most months I did though!) But I loved the challenge & simplicity of this project. Capturing my girl at that time of her life each month was truly fun.

I did plan on taking just one photo of Elizabeth each month starting at 13 months, buttttttt I kind of ended up taking way more each time 😉 For this blogpost though, I wanted to keep it simple & just post the big smile photo I had intended to get. Next time you come to my house though, you can see the Shutterfly book I put together of them all 😉

My best tip for anyone else wanting to do a photo project similar to this is to set a reminder on your phone a few days before you need to take the picture/s. This will help prepare you mentally for it & remind you to have your camera charged & ready to go! I also would remind myself to make sure I dressed her in a certain outfit for that day if there was a particular favorite that fit her at the time.

Honestly, looking back, in some ways these photos are even MORE precious to me then the first year! I see her personality REALLY coming out in these photos. Whenever I look at them, they make me want to do something for 25 months & on! But I know that with a newborn coming sometime in May, it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to commit to “two” photoshoots every month 😉 I do plan on taking photos of her at the half year mark. And hey, may this year I’ll do like every 3 months with her or something. We’ll see 🙂

Here’s our Elizabeth’s second year!

13 Months

14 Months – She was JUST starting to walk here! 15 Months – Look at those tooties in her mouth!!! 16 Months 17 Months – This photo was taken right on May 19 when she spent her first night overnight at Grandma & Grandpa Close’s! 18 Months – I actually blogged more of Elizabeth’s 18 Month session over HERE with a few tips on how to take photos of her your own kids 🙂 19 Months – We had just moved into our new house so this photo has that extra specialness to me because of that! 20 Months – I took this photo outside of her Great Grandma’s house in Minnesota! 21 Months 22 Months – I wish I could blog all the pictures from this month because I LOVE them all! 23 Months24 Months – And we’re at the 2 year mark!!! Look at my precious big girl! (There’s more of her 2 year photos HERE if you’d like to see more!)

Friends, thanks for coming along for this quick ride down memory lane! I love this girl & I love these photos!

Photos MEAN SO MUCH! I’d love to capture your kiddos & your entire family! Email me at naomi@nomi-photography.com & we’ll get you on my calendar for a photography session in 2018!!!

We announced to our family & close friends this past fall the news that Little Wilcox #2 is on the way! Come May! And yes I know that rhymes 😉

We are THRILLED & very much looking forward to this little one joining us sometime in May. Elizabeth LOVES babies (I can tell you a story about how even today she was wanting to kiss a stranger’s baby in Aldi 😉 haha) & loves talking about our new baby & going to appointments to see “pictures of the baby” aka ultrasounds 😉

We love telling people in person our special news versus social media & I’ve tried to tell as many of you in person as possible! But since the year is ending I knew I needed to finally blog about our news 🙂 I shared recently on Instagram my take on how everyone says being pregnant with the second is different. It is yes, but I have my own thoughts on why 🙂

I’ve been taking bi-weekly baby bump pictures same as I did with Elizabeth (I mean, who has time for weekly ones? 😉 ) & Elizabeth had to join in the photo 😉 She’s super excited to be a big sister!!!

As with Elizabeth, we are not finding out the gender & will wait to be surprised at the birth. It’s the surprise of a lifetime & even though it’s hard to wait, it’s worth it! You can take a guess though! 😉 If you ask Elizabeth if she thinks the baby is a “boy or a girl” she says “Boy” & then immediately following that question I’ll ask secondly, “Do you want a brother or a sister?” & to that she always responds with “Sister!” So who knows what the baby will be 😉

I am currently one day away from 19 weeks & finding it hard to believe that we are about halfway there! Technically with Elizabeth at this point we WERE over halfway there since she came early 🙂 Once I got past the first trimester nausea life was more manageable! There were a few of you who’s sessions I did in September & October that I was sneaking snacks & drinking ginger ale in my water bottle during your photo session to keep the nausea away! 😉

I plan to share in the future my maternity leave time & as always will blog about my mini sessions coming in 2018. They will be fewer this year with having a new baby in the house so keep your eyes on your emails & if you aren’t on my e-newsletter sign up!!! Click here to do so!

It’s been a little while since I’ve shared a personal post of Elizabeth on my blog so I figured her little 18 Month Session we did the other night would be perfect to share & update everyone!

Plus, it’s a way to share that I DO offer 18 Month Sessions!!! I honestly HIGHLY encourage getting them done! There is SOOOO much difference in Elizabeth from her One Year Photo to now! And I know there’s going to be a HUGE difference again at her 2 year mark 🙂

Here’s our girl!

I had a couple locations in mind for her photo session-which literally took like 15 min total! Mostly because that’s about all she could handle 😉 When I do sessions with littles, I like to focus on their personalities & pick areas where the background will not take away from their cuteness. Places that are simple, colorful & quiet are my favorite options! This little field of flowers (& weeds 😉 ) I found was just PERFECT!!! It added pops of color in the background but yet didn’t detract away from her baby girlness. Plus she LOVED the flowers & smelling them 😉

Little kids, Elizabeth included, usually aren’t going to last a full hour long session. I always allow that much time for a session with anyone that has little kids but typically we don’t use it all up. Elizabeth was only willing to be away from momma (aka momma held camera instead of her 😉 ) for only about 15 min & then she was done (as the next picture will show!) & was totally ready to swing at the swings she had seen on our way to the flowers.

This photo is proof that even my daughter gets to a point where she’s DONE with pictures 😉

I love this backshot of Elizabeth! Even though she was totally running away from me & my camera here, it’s a beautiful shot of her full head of curls!!! Another reminder that even when we feel at a session that we’re not getting a good photo, magic & memories CAN happen!

LOVE this one of her & her eyes! Again, it’s not a picture of her SMILING BUT it IS a picture that totally shows her personality & cuteness!

I encourage my clients to bring props or items that their littles love to help them feel comfortable & have fun! Elizabeth LOVES this hat we have & I knew we HAD to bring it! Plus, it just barely fits on her head so not too sure how much longer she’ll be able to actually wear it 😉

The dress I had Elizabeth wear was one I bought from a friend off facebook. When choosing clothing for your little to wear for their session, keep in mind the weather. I knew it was going to be quite hot for her pictures, so a sleeveless dress was a must. And to be quite honest, going out & buying a new outfit was just not in the budget. So I dug thru the closet for a dress I loved on her & was classy & knew wouldn’t detract from the cutie she is. It’s simple & I knew the flower details on the dress would be fun for the session since it was by lots of flowers 🙂 Plus, I knew it was comfortable, soft & I wouldn’t mind if it got dirty somehow. Little things like that when thinking about what your child should wear can make all the difference in the world!

This is my last & favorite picture we got of Elizabeth! She has a favorite song she loves to sing where you wave your hands & at this point, I was desperate to get her to smile just ONE MORE TIME! So I started singing her song & got this gorgeous grin! What does your little like do to? Sing? Do animal noises? All those things help make a session FUN & interactive for your little.

I hope this post helped you when you take your own quick pics of your kids AND it’ll help you as we plan YOUR CHILD’S photo session with me!!!!! Can’t wait!!!!!

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