The past month has been a little crazy, but I’m not complaining! I have managed to visit 4 provinces, see some old friends, visit with family, enjoy new sights and learn from some amazing teachers. Needless to say I have a lot of blogs lined up to go along with the rather full calendar of sessions I have lined up for May. Bare with me!
My first adventure was a fabulous mini-holiday to Montreal with my sister-in-law (thanks Kim!!!) and the kiddos. The weather was unseasonably warm and we took advantage of walking everywhere. We also learned that we both navigate far better above ground than below! 😉
Old Montreal is absolutely beautiful and I think Kim was sick of hearing me say, “Oh this would be an amazing spot for a session!” or “Can you wait a minute while I take a picture?” {of no doubt some obscure thing that I’m sure she thought I was nutso for taking a picture of in the first place} Thankfully she is as patient and forgiving of me as she is with the kids!
If you haven’t been to Montreal, Notre-Dame Basilica is a must. It’s just stunning!
We also visited the Biodome, Insectarium & Botanical Gardens to see the beautiful butterflies flying around us. The kids were quite impressed, but also a little disappointed that they wouldn’t just come and land on their hands like the chickadees at home! And as luck would have it, one did land on Auntie Kim so that just added fuel to the fire!
Thank you again Auntie Kim for a most wonderful birthday present! We had such a great time 🙂
…I miss my babies. I mean REALLY miss my babies. That’s a good thing though. A little separation can make us appreciate each other more, now can’t it?
Since one of the downsides of being a photographer is never processing your own work, I thought I would take some time to look at older images and get to work on them. These darlin’ images were taken back in January. That’s actually not bad for me as I have some from last summer that I still haven’t got to!! Yikes!
My little Mermaid…
He looks like he’s practicing that GQ pose in the first image…
And I promise, no photoshop voodoo on those beautiful blues. They really are like that!!
Only problem is looking at pics of them, makes me miss them more!! See you soon babies!
xoxox
My “baby” is 3.
He says he’s a big boy…until he’s tired and would like to be carried around. Secretly I’m okay with this as he’s such a snugly kid when he’s not getting into mischief and I know this will not last forever.
Capturing images of him at this age is also a challenge. I can’t stand the “say cheese” looks he gives me and much prefer natural smiles, mischievous looks and knowing smirks in my photography. He’s also learned all my “photographer mom” tricks and will engage with me and my antics, but keep his head down. Thanks son.
I was therefore thrilled to capture him in his element. Wearing his “piderman underwears”, jumping on the bed and stomping like a dinosaur. This is what being a boy is all about isn’t it?
Earlier this year, he also discovered how to give me a “thumbs up” with excellent coaching by his big sister. He was so proud of himself, it was cute 😉
And after an afternoon of silliness, he lay down for a rest….NOT! He is soooo faking it here.
He is there, I am here and I am feeling sorry for myself 🙁 However, he was two weeks overdue and had to be induced (both my babies refused to be evicted…), so I’m thinking of this as payback! We will have his requested blue cake (?) birthday party when I return!
Happy Birthday, baby boy!! xoxoxoxo Mwah!
Mommy
Yup, I did. It was a painful day for me. I will never forget standing in the hall of the old CS building, finding my student number, sloooowly dragging my finger across and seeing that big ol’ F there. WHAT? Are you kidding me? I knew I wasn’t doing well (especially on the final exam when I truly had no idea of what they were talking about…maybe that should have been my first clue??), but I was essentially an A student, so I figured I could pull off a pass!
Oh, how wrong I was!
Now in my defense, I signed up for the wrong class that I needed to satisfy my BSc in Geography. Instead of the all around CS class that had a smattering of pascal programming, I signed up for the “lets-weed-out-as-many-people-as-humanly-possible-from-a-computer-science-degree-by-making-them-solve-all-problems-related-to-man-kind-with-pascal-programming” class. Oh ya, it was awesome! Apparently I don’t take hints well as on the first class in this massive lecture hall they outlined how 1/2 the class would drop out by the legal drop date (REALLY should have paid attention here…). Then of the people remaining, 1/2 of them would fail the midterm (by some miracle I passed…barely). And then of those stubborn folks remaining, 1/2 of them would fail the final. Presto! Giant human CS sieve would solve their enrollment problem!
But wait! I’m stubborn and I really couldn’t believe it would be THAT hard. I’m no genius, but I have always done well in school because I busted my butt. Why would this be any different? Um, because it involves PROGRAMMING! Apparently my big brother got ALL of the brain cells involving computers…lucky guy!
So, to make a long story longer, I decided to redeem myself, many many many years later and customize my beautiful new blog. For the most part I did it, but there are still some weird glitches that no one can figure out. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but it’s probably a little space here or a blasted comma there that is messing me up. The white flag has officially gone up & I’ve hired someone to fix the issues…:(
In the meantime, if you’re looking at this on firefox, it should be perfect except for the sticky drop down menus. If you’re looking at this on Internet Explorer, those same menus work (go figure!), but other issues show up (weird spacing/font size, little icons on weird places etc.). However, the actual posts look great in both, so go with that and ignore the rest until it’s fixed!! Please forgive me for posting before it’s fixed, but I’m impatient…
Oh, and about that credit I needed? I took the appropriate class the following term and giggled the whole way through…couldn’t believe how easy it was!! DUH!
AND, because I can’t post without an image….
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Shona 🙂
EDIT: ARGH! Even the web designer said, “I’ve never seen anything like this.” Awesome!
Cows was a must this summer when we visited the beautiful island of PEI…yummy, yummy, yummy! It was great to see not only how the ice cream was made, but also the t-shirts and award-winning cheese (which I didn’t even know they made). It feels funny to blog this on December 1st, but why not!? Enjoy…and sorry for making you hungry!
I had the pleasure of photographing a couple of cuties over the weekend and man, their Mom’s got style. I mean serious style! I knew she was on the ball, but she had the kids dressed like something straight out of a Gap ad! Luckily the weather held, although it was pretty chilly for the little tykes (and their photographer!!). They were super troopers though and lasted way longer than I thought they would!
I hope you enjoy your sneak peak!! I sure enjoyed learning some hockey moves, Beaver songs, about Fancy Nancy and all the other cool stuff that’s out there!
I wonder if they make these boots in adult size? Seriously. Cute.
And this hat! Oh this hat! We had literally packed the kids up into the car when Mom realized she forgot it…so we dragged the poor girl back out for a rapid fire succession of shots!
I’m so glad we did!
Shona 🙂
Why do kids have to grow up so quickly? Really. All of a sudden my daughter’s singing songs from the radio, wanting to wear girly clothes and generally just plain old growing up. Excuse me? She’s FIVE! She’s even decided that she’s going to have a boy and girl and has even drawn a family portrait. At least she still thinks that she’s going to marry her brother which gives me some solace in the fact that she isn’t interested in boys (however, I gather from my sources that there are a few that have crushes on her…again, she’s FIVE!).
Here’s her “family” including Nicholas and Holly (don’t ask me where she got those names from):
And a photo that reminds me she’s still my baby who can pout like nobody’s business!
Sigh….
While the leaves were still on the trees we beetled over to beautiful Gatineau Park to enjoy the trees, views, and well, crowds. Boy there’s a lot of people out and about at this time of year! Ah well, it was beautiful none-the-less. Here’s a few storyboards that I’ve created of the kiddies.
Enjoy!
Remember that orders for Christmas must be placed by the 14th of November and all payments must be received prior to placing orders. Thank you!
After a lot of rain, the skies dried up and the kids were able to go trick or treating…We weren’t quite sure what was going to happen, but boy were we happy to see the rain go and the warmer weather remain! Here’s a few images from the day!
My cake pop attempt wasn’t quite as successful as last Easter as my pens were dry, but they were eaten so fast it truly didn’t matter!!
My little ham was all excited to have her nails done, hair curled and make-up applied as she was a princess this year…well, she’s a princess everyday, but she actually got to wear make-up to go with the title!
Ma Belle…
And lets not forget my little dragon who takes every opportunity to roar any old day of the week!
A little before and after for the pumpkins as well!!
I hope you had a great weekend! 🙂
Well, all of my images from PEI are all over the place and long overdue to be blogged…My goal is to get them done sooner than later (I think I may need to be more specific on that!!). It was a fantastic vacation with mostly incredible weather (except for that one storm where I honestly thought the trailer was going to flip over!!!) and with loads of beach time. Unfortunately my “models” weren’t too cooperative in the image making department, but what can you do?
So here are few and I mean a few of the images that were captured…I’ll post more as I finish them.
These few sets were taken at Basin Head…It’s a BEAUTIFUL stretch of beach that, well, squeaks! It’s because of the high silica content and we had a ball just squishing it in our hands and toes and trying to see who could make it “sing” the loudest 🙂
The beach really is this beautiful…you can walk for miles and miles and miles. I was trying so hard to get a bunch of pictures involving the grass, but I had to cut it short. The ONLY drawback to this beach were the horse flies! Oh man, did they ever take large chunks out of my behind!!
More images to follow, but until then, enjoy 😉