Milestones

Finally, Cassidy has no training wheels.
This seems like such a huge milestone. Aidan has been ripping around with no training wheels since he was 4. We worked with Cassidy last summer but she was just not confident enough. The other night, Steve and I went out to help her try and we became beyond frustrated with the whole situation and I didn't think she was ready. To my amazment, a minute later it just seemed to click and she was off.
Here are the kids biking in a nearby parking lot. Granny was here to join us (she is pushing Liam on his bike in the back of this photo.) The kids had Grandparents day at school and were so excited she came out for the celebration.

Cassidy also lost her first tooth yesterday. She lost it at school, we don't know where or how. She wrote a note to the tooth fairy last night since she had no tooth to put under her pillow.

As for some disapointing news, I think I will have to withdraw from the manitoba marathon this year. Nope, I am not injured. If anything I think I could crush my last years time. I have a wedding lined up for the day before, out of town and we could make it home if we drived through the night, but I have to be up by 5am the next morning so I would be going on an hour or two of sleep........I am trying to rack my brain, looking for a way to do both but I just don't think it is feasible this year. What a bummer! Steve suggested I go run a 'mock' marathon and buy myself a trophy with the entry fee money! I am not totally commited to the fact of giving it up this year, so we will see.

As for kitty, she is still kicking. She went last week for her first kitty check up and got her shots. We also trimmed her nails and after a good discussion with the vet, I have decided not to declaw but trim her nails regularly.

Anyways, I am off to shoot a large family this afternoon, hopefully the weather holds up. Its been a tad chilly this weekend. Starting this week and am completely booked up till the end of May, we don't even have a weekend free to Liam's birthday party. We probably will have a small party just with us on the evening of his birthday.

Easter and spring weather

Happy Belated Easter. I have started to blog several times in the last week but have been very easily distracted....so here it goes again.
We have had a busy last few weeks. Our carpet was installed, wow what a difference!After much debate and shopping, we invested in a brand new 2009 Palomino Yearling Tent trailer. Now if anyone of you knew what we had camped in the last few years, you would agree it is an enormous upgrade. The 'green beast' had to be put to rest, Steve turned it into a utility trailer. Steve picked it up last week and once put in the garage, we now realize we need to clean out all our junk so the van can fit.
Easter weekend we headed to Boissevain to spend some time on the farm. We haven't been this way since Christmas and the kids have been asking to go. We brough Kailyn & Josh along with us, because Noah ended up back in the hospital.
As well, we brought our cat. The ride there was alot better then I thought. We had a busy filled weekend, Joel and Laura brought there crew over and Liam was extremely excited to see Maddy. He talks about Maddy all the time and becomes attached to her when they are together.

Story time with Auntie Laura.

Craft time with Auntie Laura.

To see more from easter click here
We arrived home to almost no snow. After a week of warm temperatures (hitting almost 20 degrees celcius) we have NO snow left. I have enjoyed breaking out the shorts and sandles and although today was a chilly day, we are relieved spring is finally here to stay.
Cassidy enjoyed a field trip to the childrens museum on tuesday and I got to come along. Tomorow I have a busy day with the trade show.

Come out and visit my booth at the....

SPRING S.O.S. {some outstanding shopping} Trade show

Saturday, April 18th
9:00 am - 4:30 pm
Holiday Inn Fort Garry
(1330 Pembina Hwy)

Admission is free. Anyone who books a session during that day, or from my site that entire weekend will recieve one free 8x10 print with there session.

Some other vendors joining me will be pampered chef, mary kay, norwex, epicure, tupperware....and more. Get your shopping done all in one place!

Visit http://www.springsos.com/ for more info or email me.

Winter Fair

Spring break is over! What a relief. I was very glad to send the kids back to school. Steve was off last week as well so it was nice to get back into normal schedule.

Last week we took a trip out to Brandon to enjoy the winter fair. These are a few of the animals. View HERE for more pics of the kids and the fair. I was super dark in the building so I got to experiment with crazy high iso speeds. (no flash/speedlight used in any of my fair photos) Besides a little grain in the photos, the 40D holds up quite well!

My book is famous! Like I had mentioned a while ago, back on my photoblog, I had a book made by Photobook Canada.
I am offering these books in all my portrait packages as well as I had one created a while back for a display I had to put together. I also have a trade show coming up in a couple weeks so I knew something like this would come in handy.
A while back they asked for permission to use my book. Check out the link...my book is on the first page! As well, scroll down the page to click on 'see our full promo here' or click on this link for more pictures.

New addition to the family...

I am very excited to have another nephew, Silas Paul! The boys continue to take over my side of the family! This is the 13 grandchild on my side, and the kids 12th cousin.

My sister Jamie and her husband Erik welcomed this little guy on March 28. He was defiantly 'well done' and weighed in at 8 lbs 14 oz, 23 in. He is a little brother to Micah and Keziah. Congrats guys. Welcome to the 'uneven' world of 5. We only wish we lived closer or we had the money to come visit so I could have a baby fix.

I guess I will just stick to cuddling the cat!

Spring is officially here as of yesterday. Last week we enjoyed some wonderful weather. The snow is melting super fast. Today we spent outside, even walked to 7-11 for slurpees. I have yet to upload my pictures from the kids playing in all the puddles. I am just so relieved we got through another winter. Cassidy and Aidan start soccer in May. Liam is still too young, since he doesn't turn 4 till May.

Last week the kids cousins Kailyn and Josh came with Granny to play. They had so much fun on the 'little' hill with the sled. The kids love when the visit and were sad to see the day end.

They even got Granny to play twister with them.

Today we also started ripping up the spare bedroom carpet and scraping the glued down underlay. What a huge mess and the task of doing the rest to the rec room seems next to impossible. I am so glad that we hired someone to do the install. Steve picked up all the trim today that will go in once the carpet is installed. Hopeing this is done soon, we have prepaid but the contractors are so busy we are not sure when they will get to us.

As well I have to ask peoples opinions on the declawing of cats. I have heard all kinds of things from different people and how cruel it is. We plan on bringing Daisy in to get fixed once she is about 7 months, which is in July and then I plan on discussing the whole declawing thing with the vet. The kids are extremely attached to her. She is the first thing they look for when they get home, but they fight over her constantly.

Spring is sprung??

I am working on a new blog template, just need to find the time to finish it. But for the mean time, I have bigger pictures on my blog. I like it so much better.

Life is still busy here. We are so anxiously awaiting spring and today it is going to be +5. Melt snow melt!! Last week was so cold, January cold. It was hard to think it was March and winter feels neverending.

I have loads of pics I still need to go through. This past two weeks I have been doing lots of reading and practising on my on camera and post processing skills. I still have so much to learn. I have to stop looking at my pictures a year ago because I am my hardest critic. But it is always good to continue to learn because I know I can only get better and better. I just got two new big softboxes in the mail yesterday for my studio. I am thrilled about these since my shoot through umbrellas were so hard to work with. I also scored an amazing antique chair, with green velvet. I love it! I haven't used it in a shoot yet and can hardly wait.

Now for the kids, they have had birthday parties every weekend since January. Last weekend, Cassidy enjoyed a tea party at her friends party. She got to get all dressed up for it and was very excited to wear a dress I wore when I was a kid. I must say it was a bit snug so it will be the only chance she will have. Aidan enjoyed a sled ride up at birds hill park yesterday at a party.

Yes, our cat is still kicking around. She defiantly loves to play but is great with the kids. She lets them drag her around, dress her up and play baby with her.

We are done our income tax, which is a relief. Things went very well this year, we were worried about the house we had sold and being taxed on it. Thankfully the money we saved to pay them, we don't need to and still ended up with a great return, thanx to loads of write offs. We are planning to pay the kids tuition for next year so we don't have that big payment every month.

As well, NEW BASEMENT CARPET! Yes, the flowered red 70s carpet will be gone. We had talked about doing this when last week I noticed on the Home depot website that they had a $199 installation promo so I sent Steve in since we had looked at carpet a while back and we knew what we wanted. Tomorow, the carpet guy is coming to measure and hopefully in the next few weeks they will come and install. We will recarpet the entire basement, stairs and spare bedroom. The second sparebedroom is going to be my studio and we have special flooring plans for that, which I am SO excited about. Once the carpet is in we will start on that room.

Now, let the snow melt, let the slush and muck begin. Bring it all on!

I am so behind in going through my pictures, just dumped my camera....here is a quick one of Liam, there are more of Cass on my photo blog!

Off to a newborn shoot, will blog more later!

Another busy week as flown by.....loads of pictures to post. I am trying to pick up the camera as much as possible lately to jam in as many shots of the kids as I can. As well, lots of our new kitty.....we have learned she loves playing and sleeping in the oddest places, as you can see by this picture.
As well, here is a picture of a few of my cute hats I have created!

Last weekend we did some rearranging of furniture in the kids rooms. The boys dresser has bit the dust and we decided to give them one of Cassidy's, since she really didn't need two. Steve moved up his old little desk for her which she loves. I plan on refinishing it and painting it white to match her furniture. She spends hours drawing and writing.

Today Liam and I brought little Daisy to school to visit Aidan and Cassidy's class. The kids were very excited to meet her.


Some other new news.....I have recently signed up as a Mary Kay consultant. I LOVE there stuff and have been addicted to the makeup and skin care line for a while now. I get an awesome discount this way so it saves me money, and I can hook those up who love the products.
Honestly.....i was never a big makeup fan but I LOVE experimenting with colors now, wearing BLUE, GREEN and even PURPLE eyeshadow! Plus there skin care rocks, did I mention I have actually seen wrinkles disappear? So let me know if you wanna try some stuff. I am not pushing to sell it, since I am considered a 'personal use' consultant, but I still can if I choose.
Even Liam uses the stuff.......they have an amazing cream that does wonders for excema.

This is a quick shot of the canvas that Steve and I built. I will not make one myself again, I plan to order a few more to display in the studio. This is currently hanging in our rec room.




Not much else new.......so glad March is almost here. Praying it brings warming temperatures that will melt our snow. So excited that summer is just around the corner. I am tired of snowsuits and boots, mitts and touques!