It started with an idea.

An ideal idea: the perfect Mother’s Day.

What would delight a mother’s heart? What would she treasure most on that day?

Time. She would want time in bed, time to look beautiful, time with her family, time being showered with love, time to be celebrated, time to not worry about time.

Being a mother is inherently selfless; one is always giving oneself up for all those special people in her life… but every so often, it is so wonderful to just give Mom a huge “thank you”.

And of course, Mom always wants some precious photos of her babies, so why not incorporate a family photo shoot throughout the day?  I wanted to see Mom in all her wonder: soft but happy colours, literally a flower that is a wonder.

I imagined soft colours, a cool morning and lots of fresh white hues.  I imagined the smell of fresh baking ruminating through the house, sun streaking through the windows on a perfect morning, the sounds of children busy at work to make her day extra special.

It was a whole day affair, but Mom is worth it, no? I loved seeing the kids get all excited about a fancy breakfast, about opening gifts, about showering Mom with kisses and spreading excitement around. That is what it’s all about!  Sure, gifts are lovely (and welcome!) but they are only icing on the cake. It’s time Mom really wants: to bottle it up and preserve it, to capture a moment of it and savour it as long as she can.

Check out my mother’s day Mini-Sessions, the perfect gift for Mom this year.

I can’t believe some of the fantastic vendors who helped me out with this!  It was such a blessing to showcase all of your skills – thank you so much for sharing! What a talented and generous bunch of people.  I would encourage you all to take a look and see what these lovely folks can do for you  I can’t wait to work with you all again!

I am having some technical difficulties at the moment, so I can’t post all my images here, but check out my Facebook album for now.  I will get them up for you to enjoy soon!

with the marvellous help from:
cake: http://buttercreamcouture.com/
dress: frocks.ca/
jewelry: http://www.carolinecalvert.com/
breakfast tray: http://yellowhoneyhouse.vpweb.ca/
diaper: http://www.littlemonkeystore.com/
flowers: alltymesflorist.com/
wrapped gifts: http://www.essentialpackagingstore.com/
card: http://www.etsy.com/listing/97839676/quilled-spring-tree-happy-mothers-day?ref=pr_shop
make-up: Ashlee Marcela

Celebrate mom by giving her your time.

30 minute “mini-sessions” are the perfect way to say “I love you like crazy!”.  They are short and sweet, timeless and memorable.  These are memories she can keep forever, whether she ends up hanging the images on her wall, or placing them on her mantle, she’ll remember mother’s day 2012 as the year you gave her your time.

We’ll choose a beautiful location together and spend a relaxed 30 minutes celebrating the relationship between mother and child/children, no matter what age.

Please book your mini-session by May 9th.  You will receive a beautifully wrapped “mini-session”, so Mom will still have something to open on Mother’s day

After our session is complete (2-4 weeks later), we’ll get together at your place to take a look at all the beautiful images (25-40), and decide where to go from there: prints, canvas, digital copies… it’s up to you.  All Mother’s Day Mini-Sessions will receive 50% off of all products (that’s a pretty awesome deal, friends).

Mini-sessions must take place before June 18th.

Feel free to call or text 778-241-0433 for more info.  I can’t wait to hear from you.

I just wanted to share some favs of my little kiddos who were part of it, and were such good sports throughout it all.  I can’t wait to show you more of what is coming up. It’s so exciting for me.  And I’m so happy with how things are looking so far.

But for now, enjoy this deliciousness.

Of course, I list the normal list of excuses “time, busy, kids, house” and once the list is out, I feel sorta embarrassed.  And lazy, and unmotivated, and all those other things moms hate feeling.  I just don’t want to make excuses anymore.  I want to be taking photos.  I want to be creating graphics. I want to be getting people to their creative destinations.  I don’t want to say “yeah, but…” anymore.

As cliche as it sounds, it really is easier said than done.

People ask if I am going to be working again, or any time soon, and I really do want to.  I am working at getting working again.  I want to be doing that.  “Working” for me is a creative outlet, not just work. It feels great.  All sorts of great.  And I want to get back at it.

I feel like I completely underestimated the toll two kids would take on my life.  It’s not like they are tons of work… honestly, I have the best baby on the planet (when is he gonna stop being so good?!), and my toddler isn’t too shabby either.  But somehow, they sap every scrap of time I have. And every scrap of energy, too.  So it is a rare event that I get an evening free to blog or update things (yeah, this has taken me days to write…).  But I want to get back at it. And be better at it!  Geesh!

I have big plans.  I always do.  Lots of exciting things are coming up soon.  I just need to make them happen.

For now, I plan on working for these two little people most of the time.  But I’m gonna be working for you, too

Anyways.  The short version:

We are moving.

We are selling our house and moving into a 987 square foot condo.

Reason: lots.

• we are looking for financial freedom
• we want to live a simpler life
• we don’t have the time (or the money) to maintain our house
• we feel we’ve been taught the wrong thing from the media that bigger is better. Because bigger is hurting us: it can’t be better!
• we want some margin in our lives. We want to be able to have fun and not fret about how much it’s costing us

Read on for the ooshy-gooshy reasons.

We love, love, love our house.  It has been a huge project for us, and we’ve loved it all.  Well, that isn’t always true. I’ve hated lots of parts, but the pay -off has been amazing.  We essentially live in a brand new 1964 home now.  But our fun has finally caught up to us.

Now with having two kids, we barely have time to brush our teeth, let alone clean the gutters, wash the siding, mow the lawn or weed.  We would rather be spending our time playing with our kids.  We’ve found that when we do have the free time to be playing with the kids, we are almost resenting them because there are so many projects we should be doing around then house. And then vice versa.

We’ve accumulated some debt throughout the 5 years we’ve been here, and it just seems like there is no end in sight.  In the next 5 years, we’ll have to do the roof, the hot water tank, the furnace, the fence… and probably more unknowns, as anyone who owns a home understands.  We’ll never catch up. We’ll be living in the bondage of that debt and never be able to rise above it.  Or at least not for a long time.  We don’t want our kids to see us like that.  We want to quality family time where both Matt and I are fully “there”, not half our minds in our budget plan, dreaming up new ways to cut spending, or worrying about how much things are costing us.  We want to just play.  And play lots.

So, we’ve decided we want quality over quantity.  We are buying a brand new condo in our neighbourhood (seriously, only a few blocks away).  It’s lovely.  It’s been built super green and efficient, it has a flexible floorplan and a great amenities room and a really modern design overall.  We can move in and get living.  We won’t have to fix anything.  Just plug and play.  And the best feeling of all will be that we’ll have no debt other than our (small) mortgage and we’ll be living with much more wiggle room at the end of the month.  We could, if we chose, take a beautiful caribbean trip once a year: rent a boat, lounge around, dig in the sand and just play, guilt free.

We might sound crazy.  And if you know us at all, well, we kinda are.  But this is something that has been bubbling in our minds for a while now.  We’ve considered every other option, and this is the most possible right now.  And the one we’re most excited about.

Yes, we are downsizing, but we are super-sizing our life style!  We can walk to everywhere we need to be, go on adventures on the weekends (instead of maintaining the house), and save money for even bigger, better adventures!  That sounds like crazy-good fun to me.

So, that’s it.

We’re doing it.  It might be hard at first, especially the whole space thing.  But we’ll manage.  We live in the most beautiful place on the planet: we can play anywhere.  We’ve got a huge backyard: and one the city maintains (even better!)

It’s all coming together, though it’s a little more rushed than I would like.  So, we’ll be listing our home and giving away a whole lot of stuff at a garage sale.

Huge life-purge. It’s gonna feel like one of those long, hot showers after a week of camping Best feeling ever.

We’re really looking forward to it.

And yes. We do want your help, if you feel like offering it.  Come take some of our stuff, or watch the kids, or help touch up the house to sell it.  We’re not asking… but if you’re offering, we’ve got a job for you

I find I have more time to breathe, reflect and dream about where I want to be, who I want to be, and what I want to be doing.  Just as spring is inching its way up through the soil in my front garden, so my ideas and plans are starting to take shape.

I almost hate that I am a big dreamer. It gets me in trouble.  I’ve often thought my dreams are too big, too extravagant or too unattainable.  And really, some of them are.  But I can’t help myself.  They keep me up at night, get my up in the middle of the night and help me soar through the day.  Sorta like my kids.

But here in the quietness of late winter, I am eagerly awaiting what this spring will hold for me creatively. I want to photograph something new and exciting, or, I should say, I want to photograph the same things but in a new and exciting way. I want to make headway, I want to create ripples and I want to set trends.  See.  Big dreamer.

So I’ll continue filling up my notebooks with ideas and dreams and soon enough, with a little time and effort, I will start seeing things come together.

This was such a nice comfy portrait session, happening right in their own home (yes, people! It is a good idea!). We didn’t have to fight with the weather or anything, though the lovely light pouring in through the windows certainly helped.  And during the holidays, with all the decorations up and the warm-fuzzies everywhere, it was a perfect morning spent with awesome friends.

And their girls, Abigail and Sophie are growing so fast!  And only getting cuter and cuter!  Goodness gracious.  And it’s nice to get some solo shots of Sophie, as she’s really showing her unique personality, and as the second child, needs some moments in the spotlight. But they are quite the pair, together. Can’t wait to see the trouble they are going to get into!

Really.  It’s hard.

Colton and Tanja are both such fun-loving, life-giving individuals that draw people in with their personalities and make things awesome!  They are such easy-going people and lovely to photograph.  Geesh!  And this little baby (that is due to pop out in the next week or so) will be in such good hands.  And this little baby is going to have the most incredible sense of humour of all it’s friends.  These two are also funny.  I’m so glad they’re reproducing

And I don’t normally do this, but I couldn’t help it… here are some “out takes”, just so you get an idea of what kind of goof Colton is… but he is obviously not alone.