Superfluous Fluff

You know what was missing from the last post?

Photos!

Fall wasn't the best for scheduling outdoor photos this year.  We waited for the leaves to change, and when they finally did, it wouldn't stop raining.  Once the rain stopped all the leaves had fallen and that was the end.  I was very sad.  But I managed to sneak in one photo shoot despite the grey outdoors...

This little cutie pie is 4 months old and DELISH!

His parents wanted some Christmas photos and his mom did an AWESOME job of having props ready for him.  We shot indoors at Grammie's house with a beautifully decorated tree.  Sadly the weather was dismal and I had to use my flash.  More sadly, cute L was teething and NOT interested in the strange lady with the annoying flash.  Have you ever seen a grumpier Santa?

Is it wrong to love that pouty face more than I would have a big smile? 

That's ok, I don't mind being wrong!

We did coax a couple of half smiles out of him for the camera with lots of help from Mom and Dad and then I packed up and said my goodbyes.  He was so happy to see the back of me that he was all giggles and grins.  Traitor!  I'm looking forward to a rematch little L!  We'll get those smiles! 

(Checking out the mistletoe.  Interesting, but nothing to smile about apparently.)

And now? Well, now that Christmas is right around the corner and snow is on the ground, I can get back outdoors, where the light and I understand each other best.

Maybe.

My friend Emma asked me if I could get a few photos of her and her sweetie sometime.  They've been dating for enough months that it adds up to YEARS now, but they don't have any photos of the two of them together.  I'm familiar with such a thing (Hubby and I have been married for years and don't have any photos other than our wedding) so I told her to hurry on out and we'd play.

Except--she didn't tell her poor sweetie that we would be playing in the SNOW.  Poor guy thought he was coming to an indoor studio.  Whoops!  I had many plans for these two but every time I looked at Patrick he was shivering.  I took pity on him and cut our session short, but we'll get together in the new year for more fun with more layers. Right guys? Put on your game faces!  

Speaking of fun, I'm still having a ton of it when playing with people and taking their photos, but the travel and the editing work are costing us time and money, so I've made the decision to stop researching and just jump.  Starting in 2010 I will be charging a session fee and providing print options instead of giving away CD's.  To go along with that, I've been researching small business information until my head spins and my eyes bleed, and I'm working on a separate and more professional looking blog.  I'll link you to it when it's ready to launch!  In the meantime; advertising and taxes and suppliers and insurance--OH MY!!  I never thought I'd be a business woman and I want to do this right, so pray for me--and if you have helpful advice, feel free to shoot off an email!  Scary and exciting! 

In the meantime, Christmas is coming and I've got to get back to my number one business: my family!

Happy Monday Bloggy Peeps!

P.S. You can see a few more photos from each session on my flickr page.

P.P.S.  I'll pick some family photos for tomorrow's post.  Farm? Hallowe'en? Christmas Mommies? What would you like to see?  I'll take requests!

Is trying to figure out how to follow people on Typepad. So far it eludes me.

AWOL

or: How to Lose Your Readers in Less than 90 Days.

I've been gone awhile--and thanks for noticing!  I've gotten a few "where'd you go?" messages in my inbox and they've warmed my heart. 

There's a long explanation, but the short version is this: my Real Life^TM got in the way of my on-line life. 

No, I'm not sick, pregnant, divorcing, moving, mad at someone, hiding, or even depressed.  I've just been busy.

I'd apologize, but it would be a lame one, because I'm not especially sorry.

It started back in October.  As I posted in my last post, I participated in Lain's LOAD Challenge--which I actually managed to complete, thank you very much!  31 days and 40 Scrapbooking Layouts and it was fantastic.  I'm sure she'll do it again in a few months time and definitely encourage all the scrappers out there to sign up.  If you're interested in seeing my pages, they're on my flickr account but only enabled to friends and family because I didn't want to have to blur my journalling for the Internets (not YOU guys of course, just the creeps and trolls).  I'd love to have new flickr friends (even if I've been over there about as much as I've been blogging lately) so add me as a contact! 

Any-who, with making time every day to scrapbook, something had to give, and blogging it was.  Not on purpose, just a "I don't have time today, I'll do it tomorrow" until it was a dozen tomorrows.  Poor blog!  Mix in volunteering at the school (I <3 Kindergarten!!!), Girl Guides, Thanksgiving, our trip to the Hunter Brother's farm, the Princess's birthday, Hallowe'en preparations, and the attempt to photograph it all...well, October seemed to get busier and busier as the month progressed.

But I did not forget you, my beloved bloggy peeps! In fact, near the end of October I TRIED to blog...but my browser was behaving badly.  The post I composed didn't want to accept photos and then it crashed and was lost.  I cursed it and complained to Hubby, but I wasn't online enough to figure out what was going on.  My uploader from LR to flickr was working for LOAD and that was my main online concern at the time.  Once LOAD ended though, I stopped scrapbooking (you can get a little burned out you know!) and started trying to catch up with my online endeavors.  TRYING. 

The Internet, it was broken.  Or not completely broken, but seriously ill for sure.

Ok, maybe not for YOU, but for me it definitely was.  It seemed I only had so many clicks before a crash.  I could log into facebook but it often went wonky, refusing to load applications or photos, giving me the first page of my news feed and not letting me look at older posts.  Reader wouldn't let me see any photos.  I could log in to my favourite forum (SNC), but I couldn't load photos and after two or three posts it would crash...and then it wouldn't let me post anything ever.  Typepad wouldn't even let me log in.  Flickr?  Forget it (though my uploader tool was still working--go figure!).  By the second week in November my online life had come to a screeching halt.  I could sometimes get on facebook to update my status and that was it. I tried switching from firefox to explorer and back again, but ran into the same trouble with both. 

It felt like part of me was broken.

You'd better believe I made lots of noise to poor Hubby, my resident fixer of all things computer, but HE wasn't having any problems.  HIS sites were working fine.  It finally occurred to me that all the trouble started when he upgraded our virus protection software.  The firewall was too hard for me to scale! (or something) I asked him to tone down the security a bit and he refused.  Did I mention that he wasn't having trouble any problems with HIS sites?  He finally sat me down and made me show him my websites and what was happening, and then he fiddled and fuddled and deleted a couple of toolbars and bippidy-bobbity-boo, ALL FIXED!!!  Miracle man! Yay!

(I still wonder why MY sites wouldn't work and his would though.  What's up with that?  Why did my stuff set off security alarms and his didn't?  Because, yes, the security was involved! I think the computer gremlins have it out for me.)

So now November is more than half over and my computer is finally working again.  Except that NOVEMBER IS MORE THAN HALF OVER.  Christmas is barrelling towards us, Cantata practices and Christmas fireside practices are in full swing, shopping and decorating and planning need to be done, photos need editing, the Olympic torch is coming to town, and the Kindergarteners (who may be the cutest class of Kindergarteners to ever live anywhere, EVER) are presenting their enrichment projects at the end of the month and need help. 

Guess what Internets?  I have dreamt of being a class helper for YEARS and I'm not passing up this chance!  I spent most of November in and out of the school and one memorable week at school every single day.  It was exhilarating.  It was exhausting.  It was heaven.  I loved it.  I even enjoyed the internet hiatus. 

So now it's December and life hasn't slowed down a bit, but I am missing you guys.  I'm missing the connection and the sharing.  I'm trying to catch up a bit on my favourite blogs and feel the need to reciprocate. 

I'm asking you to take me back, Internet!

I can't promise I won't wander off now and then, but let's face it: we had started spending too much time together anyway.  We're going to have to work on a more balanced relationship.  It's Christmas and my Real Life peeps need me too. 

And forgive me if I'm a little rusty at first.  I guess we'll find out if there's a muscle memory for blogging.

World Events

For members of our church (and anyone else who wishes to participate) it is General Conference weekend.  We get to listen to the Prophet and Apostles and their wise council for us. 

When I first joined the church, I would have to travel the 45 minutes to the nearest chapel to watch the Conference Broadcast.  5 two-hour sessions over two days meant no travelling home in between sessions.  The days were long and I was grateful for them.  Especially when I listened to older saints talking about how they used to have to wait for the print edition to reach them.  What a blessing to be able to see and hear an actual prophet!

Today I am further blessed by technology to be able to listen online.  My children can play in the other room and I can actually HEAR what is being said.  Tomorrow we'll all travel 45 minutes to the nearest chapel just as an exercise in getting the children to sit and listen (hard to do at home) but they're young to sit through all the sessions yet. I'm so grateful to be home. 

And as someone who has never been good at JUST sitting and listening, I'm also happy to celebrate a lesser-known holiday today....WORLD CARDMAKING DAY!!! 

(unless you're a paper crafter, you've probably never heard of it)

The very cool design team at Skrap N Chat has come up with some challenges and I'm having fun knocking out cards.  I've never really spent time making cards before and had no idea it could be so fun!

Here are some cards I've made today:

This one has what's called a "gate fold" (just learned that today!) so I'll show it to you open and shut:

And lest you think I'd given up scrapping all-together AU CONTRAIRE!!!

I just happen to think that summer is the time for making memories and the cold of winter is the time for preserving them. 

It's not a world event per se, but there are participants from around the world in Lain Ehmann's LOAD (LayOut A Day) contest happening this month.  That's right, a scrapbook page every day! 31 Layouts by the end of the month.  I'm already up to 4 (but there's no sense rushing ahead because the point is to MAKE a LO every day--get those creative juices flowing!).

So fun!

Here are a few I've done so far:

(I think I'll have to do one of the Boy tomorrow!)

As you can see, I'm having fun with the 1-photo LO right now, but don't worry, I'm sure I'll be doing plenty of multis this month!  I actually already did one for October 1st of the Princess and her cross country meet (I was that excited) but you don't get to see that one unless you're part of the LOAD group (too much personal info on the LO).

Now if you'll excuse me, I still have a Birthday card to make!

****

And yes--I know that there are much more important and devastating events happening in the world right now.  My heart goes out to all those in the South Pacific who are suffering so much this week.  They are not forgotten, even as I choose to highlight the fun things that are happening in my life right now.

Flashback Friday: Bye-bye Baby!

Has anyone seen my baby?  He was just here a minute ago...

(though, wow, check out that tired skinny hag in the background.  someone should get her some help.)

(that would be me, for anyone who is now upset that i'm insulting a friend.  no, it's friends entertaining my baby while I sit in a daze in the corner.  thanks friends!)

Where'd the chubby baby go?

It seems he grew when I blinked.  He grew and grew and grew. 

  

On Tuesday I kissed my sweet little 4 year old good-bye and welcomed a 5 year old in his place.

I miss 4. 

I'm sorry, but with all of my kids, 4 has been my absolute favourite.  4 is a great year.  Anyone out there with a 3 year old?  3 is great, but WAIT FOR FOUR.  Four is freaking fantastic.

And now it's gone.

I have nothing against 5, five is fine, its just not four.

Sigh.

Anyway, the five year old requested story time and cupcakes for his class.  I brought in my sprinkles and let the kids go crazy (I'm sure that endears me to the custodial staff). 

Then it was the usual in the evening: meal chosen by the birthday kid (hamburgers, sour cream and onion chips, and applesauce), cake, presents.  Except it all had to be done in triple time because all the girls in the family had Guides/Brownies/Sparks that night.  So the birthday boy got to enjoy Daddy time until bed.

It was fun to party, and we have more than enough cake to go around, but I'm afraid I was a little melancholy for this one.  Wasn't I just a stressed out mother of 3 under 3?  Wasn't he that little cherub with the infectious giggle and the ear-piercing scream?  Where's the toddler who wrapped his arms so tightly around my neck and never wanted to let go? 

He let go.

And now I'm the SAHM with no kids at home.  I'm the one having trouble letting go.

My babies are gone. 

I love the children they have become, but I wasn't ready to say goodbye to the last of babyhood.

That might be okay though, because that crazy 5 year old?

He used his birthday wish to wish for a baby brother.

Lord give me strength! 

We'll have to count on Hubby hold firm against temptation.  I'm feeling too weak right now.

(maybe I should keep looking at the exhausted woman in the first photo?)

I Spy

Wow, this girl has totally been the blog hog lately, hasn't she?  I actually have a Flashback Friday post planned starring a DIFFERENT kid (finally!) but I'm having the hardest time choosing photos.  I'm just not sure I'm going to be able to knock it out today.  We'll see!

In the meantime, we'll let this one rule the place a little longer.

Pride with a Disney-esque Twist

Today our Princess ran in her very first Cross Country meet. 

To say she was nervous would be an understatement. 

To say *I* was nervous would be an understatement.

I gave her the pep talk.  You know the one, the "I'm proud of you no matter where you place, just for getting out there and doing your best".  And you'd better believe that I meant every word.  She's so much tinier than everyone else her age--and did I mention that she's the only Grade 3 from her school running this season?  As far as I was concerned, she was already a winner and I was already crazy proud of her. 

The day started gray and rainy.  I wasn't sure of the exact location of her meet.  I mean, I know how to get to the town, but after that I had NO idea where I was going.  I tried Google Maps but "campground in X-town" didn't yield me any directions.  I figured I'd get to town and drive around a bit.  If I got really lost I could always stop at the elementary school and ask for directions.

As it turned out though, there was plenty of signage and I was there in plenty of time to wish my runner luck and find a good vantage point.

It actually might have been worth it to get lost.  The entire drive I had to be careful not to go off the road, I was spending so much time gawking at the scenery.  Once I got there I was in love.  I MUST do some portraits here.

But I wasn't there for the scenery!  Time for the race!

They started the run by going up a hill that would have had me quitting right there.  She was cheered on by her schoolmates though and kept those little legs pumping.  Actually, the advantage to being the only representative in your race is that the entire school then gets to chant your name.  Heady stuff, though she was blushing from the attention. 

Then they were away around a big loop...

(We're the green shirts, other school is the blue shirts.)

When they finally came into view of the finish line I was shocked to see her, right there in the first pack of girls.  She'd not only run the entire course (which was frankly all I had hoped for), but she came in THIRD!!!

The buttons on my coat almost burst with pride.

I had her hold still for a moment so I could get a photo of her with her ribbons and her bright red face, then let her go be congratulated properly by her peers and guzzle some water.  I noticed that she went straight to one of the other girls who raced with her (from the other school) and that they stayed together from then on.  As I watched them talking and giggling I was so very, very proud of her for not only running a great race, but getting a new friend from the deal. 

It almost sounded like the plot for an after-school special.  You know the ones!

But then it got downright Disney:

After the races were run, I went over to see her and congratulate her yet again (still bursting with pride).  I told her she ran a truly amazing race and she told me that she actually started feeling tired about halfway through and started to slow down.  That's when her new friend, M, smiled at her, told her she could do it, and took her by the hand. 

They ran holding hands for the last half of the race.

Once they rounded the last curve and the cheers of their schoolmates rose up to meet them, with the finish line only a few meters away, her friend squeezed her hand and said "Come on!" and let go.  They sprinted to the end, coming in second and third and well ahead of the next group of runners. 

Go on, have a little sniffle and a big "Awwwwwwwwwwww".  I'll wait. 

Isn't that the sweetest thing EVER!?  I'm about as proud of M as I am of my Princess, and I'm writing her Mom a note right now to tell her so. 

Here's to races run and friendships gained.  Here's to compassion and sportsmanship and little girls that show us what true winners look like, no matter what colour their ribbons.  Here's to the Princess and M for making me cry on the drive home.

A photo for Grandma

Because she wants a print of the Goldenrod close-up from Friday.  I'll send it to you Mom, but I have to say that I like THIS one better:

The Princess loves posing for me.  I need to concentrate on Sweetpea for a while though or I'm going to have more photos of one girl than the other, and that will NEVER do!

The First Day of Fall

Actually, Autumn sounds better, doesn't it?  

Either way you say it, it sounds PERFECT to me! I want to be among the first to welcome my favourite season of them all.  Fall is a majestic lady, a feast for the senses.  The sights, the sounds, the smells, the feel in the air....

Ahhhhhhhhh.

Dear September and October:

You guys know I love you best.  You're really much too good to me.  Please, keep being you.  You bring me nothing but happiness.  You know in a perfect world I would hang out with you guys non-stop.  I dedicate every love song and sappy poem to YOU.  You rock!

Love and rainbows,

CanadaCole (especially happy about that Canada part today!)

(Ok, these are technically last morning of Summer photos, but they all say fall to me.)

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to find my fall wreath to hang on the door. And I might need some mums....because it's a little early for the pumpkins, right? Right?

Flashback Friday: My Home Studio

Around this time last month a couple of things happened at about the same time.  First, several of the photographers I follow had updated their studios and were giving blog tours of the updates.  Second, I attended a late night crop at the LSS and got talking photography with Vicki, who I've done photos for before.  We were talking fall photos and she wondered if I knew of any place that had those cool old barn boards. 

As a matter of fact....

This is our barn.  Handy, huh?  Once I started thinking about it, I took the Princess around the property with me to highlight some of the great features of my all natural home studio.

Features like the big field of goldenrod that looks so pretty near or far:

Or how about the money-sucking, headache-inducing building?  It's got to be good for something, right?

Of course life got crazy and I never got around to posting the tour of MY "studio", and now Mother Nature has redecorated it.  The goldenrod seems like some 70's flashback.  Harvest Gold appliances anyone? (I grew up with them thanks!) 

Anyway, apparently red is in right now.   I really like the new scheme, and I'm dying for an excuse to do some portraits with my new and improved backdrops.

(The above photo courtesy of my morning walk--and look--still some leftover harvest gold!)

If you're in the neighbourhood, I'd be happy to have you over any time. (Early morning and later afternoon light is the yummiest though!) It's that or trick one of my kids into being a model again!