365 - days 20 - 26

I'm a whole 7% of the way through this project! ;) Some days it seems daunting to think I'm going to be chasing after a good photo every day for so much longer, and yet... I'm really enjoying this so far. I've been getting a lot of photos I really like and that I feel really proud of.

Day 20
This little monkey has us on our toes...


Day 21
There is something about this photo that I love. I want to frame it.


Day 22
I got a great compliment on this photo - that it looked like it could be a in a catalogue. I think he looks sweet and handsome.


Day 23
Baking late at night. And still no 365 photo to be found ;)


Day 24
Driving home in the rain. It was fun to play with the reflections of the light on the rain drops on the windshield.


Day 25
On one of my many drives through the backcountry of the East of Ottawa to keep babies quiet... this is a church in Sarsfield.


Day 26
A fabulous day at the cottage. This photo makes me smile. I also want to frame it. We are going to have a lot of frames I think :)


Day 27
Splashing in puddles in an after dinner walk. I'm enjoying playing around with angles and getting down on the ground.


I'm still working on not being shy with my camera, which I think is going to be key in this project. I don't want to be too intrusive with my camera, but I think I just need to get more comfortable walking with my camera in hand wherever I go!

I wonder what I'll get next week!

A perfect summer day

Yesterday I asked Eric to take the day off so we could go to the cottage. Kiernan is going into a summer program that starts on Monday that lasts for FIVE weeks, so we won't be able to do anything other than on weekends until August. With the weather forecast promising great weather we decided to have a day in the sun. And it was awesome!

The weather was perfect. Eric's parents always make things easy, helping to take the burden off from chasing three kids around. The babies loved the water and Kiernan was far less hesitant getting back in the water than he has been in previous years.

And, shockingly, I took some photos :)


Fishing is serious business

From cottage june 25

From cottage june 25

We had a ton of fun with a water squirting toy. We made is rain, we squirted things, and... I made Eric shoot it in the air 20 times so I could try to get a photo I liked of the water in the air ;)

From cottage june 25

From cottage june 25

From cottage june 25

From cottage june 25

From cottage june 25

From cottage june 25

One day I'll manage to get them all to look at the camera at the same time, right?

From cottage june 25

Bedtime stories a la Kiernan

"What kind of story would you like tonight?"

"A juice story"

"A juice story.... ok..."

"Not the one where I turn into an apple"

"Ok... well, what kind of a juice story?"

"The kind where the juice is on fire"

"Right.... can you give me an idea of how that one goes?"

"Ok. There was some juice, and it was one fire. And it ran around the house saying "HELP!!!! HELPP!!!! I'M ON FIRE!!! SOMEONE UNFIRE ME!!! HELPPP!! And then Kiernan came and unfired the juice. And then there was some water and it was on fire and it ran around the house yelling HELPP!! HEEEELLLLPPPP!! I'M ON FIRE!!! SOMEONE UNFIRE ME!!! and then Kiernan unfired the water. And then there was was a table and it was on fire and it ran around the house YELLING HEELLPP HELPPP I'M ON FIRE!!! And Kiernan unfired the table and then it went home"

"Wow. Is that the end?"

"NO! And then there was a chair and it was on fire and it was yelling HEEEELPP HELPPPP I'M ON FIRE! And then Kiernan unfired it and it went home.

so. Can you tell me that story?"

"Well... you just told it, so maybe I don't need to tell it back to you."

"Mommy, I couldn't hear it when I was telling it. You tell it now"

"Once upon a time there was some juice. And it was on fire.....

With two feet firmly planted on the ground

Right around the 13 month mark Juliette started taking steps and is walking more and more. It took Kiernan about a month to go from stepping to full time walking so I think we're probably well on our way towards that with her. It's so cute to see her walking! She flaps to keep her balance.





Quinn is starting to realize it's time for a change too...




He's just not convinced it's safe to take his hands off the ground ;)

BONUS VIDEO - dancing girl

Chomp

Little did I know when I was given the glorious gift of a full 7.5 hours of solid sleep on Sunday night that it was simply to make up for what was coming.

Twins teething molars.

I can only assume that that is actually what is happening. But the grabbing of mouths, the low grade fevers, the BUCKETS of drools soaking shirt after shirt and the whining that is not really decreasing despite the advil and tylenol seems to point in that direction.

Quinn won't nurse. He wants to nurse, but every time he latches on he screams and pulls off. So I'm pretty sure he's also hungry. We're downstairs now, at 4:30 in the morning, having a snack and watching some hi - 5. He has eaten some of the snack and rubbed the rest of it into his hair. Because he wishes he had spiky hair.

Anyways... those teeth better come out by tomorrow. That's all I'm sayin' And they better not be sick instead of teething because if they are I'm ripping out all the carpet in my house (don't try to understand, I realize this post probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense but 5am is NOT my time of day ;)

365 project - 19 days in!

I'm 19 days into this challenge and I'm already seeing how challenging it's going to be.

I worry all the time that the photos I'm taking aren't up to par with the 365 groups that I'm trying to be a part of. I'm hoping that by the end of the 365 I'll be a lot better, but a lot of my photos really aren't anything to write home about.

That being said I'm solidifying what I want out of this challenge. Part of it is improving my photography skills and trying to come up with new and different things to photograph. But part of it is also just as a record of a year of our life. So some days the photos may be of the mundane, but I will have chosen something that was most meaningful to me that day as opposed to the most lovely photo.

I'm also going to try to have at least one line of text accompanying each photo. Then at the end I think the whole thing will be printable! :)

Day 12

I feel like it looks like they're having a meeting over a board room table here :) It's so nice to see the kids playing so well together. I just wish I didn't have to chase after mine so much and everywhere. Mieka isn't nearly as hard to keep track of - and not just because there's only one of her! ;)


Day 13
Part of a series of photos I got Eric to take to get H is for hugging from my ABC photography challenge. Moments like these making things all worthwhile. For the few second they last until someone hits, bites, or head butts... of course.


Day 14
Some days he seems so old to me. But there's nothing like a face covered in chocolate to remind you he's still a little boy. And it's sweet.


Day 15
Quinn is an explorer. He wants to see anything and everything and so we spend our trips at the park following and exploring along with him.


Day 16
I took this at the arboretum this past week and really love it. I think it might be my favourite photos of the challenge so far.



Day 17
The babies won't sit and pose right now. Not at all. But this is a super fun and playful shot of all three kids at Parliament Hill.


Day 18
I really like photographing Miss Mieka. She's gorgeous, very photogenic, and she stays put!


Day 19
I do not have a green thumb. The fact that anything is sprouting in my garden seems like a minor miracle. We'll see if it actually produces any food though! :)

(I see the way I've posted these photos from flickr is cutting off a bit of the edge. I'm too tired to figure that out now, so just go check out the flickr set to see them all ;)

Feelin' the love

There have been a lot of hard days lately. People keep getting sick. And I'm tired. There's also a lot of "I only want mommy" moments, which can get to be too much. Just leave me be a LITTLE!

There are some days I think about how much easier it was with just one. Just imagine! Or I daydream about all the sleep I used to get before I had no children. OR, how when I used to get sick I could stay in bed all day and get better. GENIUS.

But for all the hard (and I really believe it won't stay this hard for much longer) man is there a lot of good. And even though sometimes I wish they'd give me my space, do you think it gets much better than this?

365 - an introduction

I've been thinking about taking on a 365 photo challenge for... close to a year. It's a big commitment. I was scared.

Ever since I start the ABC Photography Challenge for Kids in the Capital I've been taking a lot more photos. And I've been getting some photos I'm really proud of.

I decided that a 365 project would really push me to improve my photos even more.

What the hell is a 365 photo challenge Lara??

I'm going to take a photo a day for a year. That's pretty much it. It can be of anything I want.

What if you miss a day?

There is nobody who cares if I take a photo from a different day or not, but *I* am hoping I can manage to take a photo every day. Even if it's just a photo of my toes from my iPhone.

As much as I want this to help me improve my photography skills by working on my composition, making me figure out cool and different things to do with my camera, etc, I also want it to be a record of a year of my life.

I'm definitely going to have to be creative some days though. Day 11 was taken at 10 last night because I hadn't taken a photo. I was tempted to use a photo from a different day, but that seemed like cheating.

So, short answer... if I miss a day, I'll make it up somehow. But I don't want to miss a day and I will be disappointed.

Where can I see these photos? I love your photos and don't want to miss a single one!

Awww... that's sweet! I am posting the photos daily on Flickr. I also will do regular recap posts here. By regular I mean every week in theory and whenever I get around to it in actuality.

Day 1
There are some cardinals who live somewhere in one of our trees. There is a cat who comes into our yard and PISSES THEM OFF! Then the cardinals go nuts and buzz around the backyard landing everywhere and telling off the cat. They're beautiful. And hilarious.

Day 2
Cheeeese. As much as I try to avoid "cheese" face, I do think this photo somehow shows off a fun part of K.

Day 3
This boy poses for me so nicely regularly. Gorgeous boy, even with food in his eyebrows.

Day 4
This is a dress my mom picked up from a garage sale and although it isn't really my style I wanted to put it on her, so she wore it over to my in-laws' one day. It was cuter on her than I expected and this photo really doesn't even do it justice.

Day 5
We spend a lot of time in the swings. Quinn makes a lot of funny faces.

Day 6
Kiernan will happily sit and do crafts for long periods of time - and he amazes me. He's so good. I could have skipped him deciding to paint his face though ;)

Day 7
Mieka turned one!! And I love these cupcake toppers. You should have seen the cake pops too!

Day 8
J is for jumping. And these boys had fun helping me get this photo :)

Day 9
This is our neighbour's garden. That's our long and weedy grass. I'm sure people love having us as a neighbour. Although, I noticed all the houses with young kids have longer and weedier grass than the people with no young kids, so I feel a bit better about that. And the lawn has been mowed since this was taken :)

Day 10
Having a snack at Mieka's birthday party. Actually, having Mieka's snack at Mieka's birthday party. This girl is a bottomless pit. It's a delightful change.

Day 11
I love that I can go in and take a photo of Kiernan sleeping without risking waking him up. It's so peaceful. See that pig under his head? Eric and I won that at La Ronde when we first started dating and he has been using it as a pillow for years. It's so cheap I'm afraid to wash it, but it's also getting gross.


I'm looking for a stockpile of photo ideas to keep me inspired. Feel free to throw some out :)

Behold the magnificent play structure!

With three young kids, I REALLY REALLY wanted a backyard that my kids would want to spend a lot of time in. One I could open the door to and herd the children into while I try to get stuff done... like cook, clean, or deal with some of the other children.
It seemed like the right time to invest in a really good structure and the one at Costco called our name.
Also, it turned out that the one at Costco came in 5 gajillion pieces. That filled our two car garage.


I don't think that first photo really does it justice though... here is a close up of the size of the pieces. I saw them all lying there, not a single piece of that structure pre-put together and I have to admit.... I worried.

But I needn't have! Eric and his dad spent an entire weekend at it... but they built it and it is amazing, it is stupendous, it is magnificent!

Day 1's work - they needed to dig down and level and add gravel and all kinds of good stuff.

Day 2


BEHOLD: (please notice curb appeal details like window dormers ;)

We love it, we use it almost daily. And I get great photos on and from it! :)

Two little monkeys

I know I've said this before, but can I just say again.... these two are a lot of work...

This pane was missing when we moved in, they didn't break it or anything. But this is the door into the playroom, and they spend a lot of time hanging out this window :)

The cat door at Vicky's was a big hit. I'm pretty sure neither could actually fit through.


Oooh, a dishwasher, I love dishwashers...

Ooooh cupboards, I love cupboards, I wonder what's in here....


So... which one do I chase first?

Please send wine.