Our Family Maternity Session

Six days before Addy was born we managed to get our family/maternity session done. We’ve never had a photo shoot done while I was pregnant and I really wanted some pictures to remember the belly.

Here are few of my favourites from the session…

I love being pregnant.

I don’t miss the sick and exhausted feeling, but I miss the belly. I miss falling asleep to a baby kicking. I miss the anticipation and excitement about a new life…

But I am so thankful for the family God has blessed us with.

We actually managed to get all 8 looking at the camera without photo-shopping any heads! We may have bribed them with ice cream on the way home if they co-operated.

I never dreamed of having 9 children…

A few shots of me and my hunny…

I couldn’t have asked for a better partner through my pregnancies. From late night runs for cheese burgers or slushies, and keeping a house with 8 kids pretty much silent so I could have an afternoon nap…

… to telling me I look beautiful on a daily basis, and being incredibly understanding when I just wasn’t getting things done that I normally would…

He’s pretty awesome.

Well, most of the time…

Trying to figure out where to put his hands…

I am so glad that we were able to get these done before Addy arrived. (Thanks for fitting us in, Stef!) It ended up being a lot closer than we thought!

 

I went to the OB’s a few months ago and saw another doctor because mine was on vacation. He asked me to go over my previous pregnancies and it sounded something like this,

“A 37 week girl by emergency c-section; 35 week identical triplet girls by scheduled c-section; a 40+ week boy, failed VBAC and emergency c-section; 38 week boy by scheduled c-section; 38 week girl by scheduled c-section; miscarriage at 14 weeks; 35 week girl by c-section after preterm labour; ectopic pregnancy with rupture and right tube removed; current pregnancy.”

He looked at me and said, “Wow… You have quite the prenatal history!”

It wasn’t all planned. It didn’t all go as we had hoped. But it was all a part of God’s plan, He saw us through it, and I wouldn’t trade it.

August Photo-a-Day

(click to enlarge)

 

In August…

We caught bugs

And frogs

We watched our garden bloom

We went to parks

Four different parks to be exact

We baked cookies

Lily ate flour

We painted

The dog took me for a ride

We went to the library

We read more books than I care to count

Kids camped

Parents slept in

We explored back roads

We picked flowers

Ella danced barefoot in the backyard

We made messes

We enjoyed the sunshine

We swung on swings

We ate junk food

Kids got wet

And covered in sand

We made new friends

We played with old friends

We visited family

We blew wish flowers

And bubbles

We had sleepovers

We laughed

A lot

We made memories

Beautiful Light & Baby Tantrums

When I have too many things going on in my head, I tend not to blog. It’s almost like it would be work to sort out my thoughts and decide what I should blog. Not to mention, I have been slacking with my picture-taking.

 

My photography website got a facelift and is up and running!

But I haven’t made our Christmas card yet…

I have practiced the piano for over an hour today!

But there is school work waiting for me to grade…

I have a (mostly) clean house.

But I don’t know what I’m doing for dinner tomorrow night…

I have planned the girls’ music schedule for the next two months.

But we still haven’t gone apple picking this year…

 

Isn’t that just the way it goes? It seems like I’m continually having to sacrifice something for what I believe to be more important at the moment. So here I am trying to keep my priorities in order. I’m currently sacrificing an hour of sleep… :)

God has been so good; not that it’s a huge surprise! Jeddy got baptized 3 weeks ago. He was Scott’s first baptism.

It was so hot in the pool room! My lens fogged up immediately and I didn’t have enough time to clear it before Scott started baptizing.

We have been so encouraged by everyone praying for us and by our new church family. It’s amazing how we can fee like family with people we’ve only just recently met! God has answered several specific prayers that I had leading up to the church starting; and for that I am thankful.

Proud of their school projects!

I took the kids out to a new location recently to take some pictures. It was some of the most gorgeous light I have ever seen.

I wanted to get a picture of the girls playing their instruments but couldn’t quite figure out how to fit it all in the frame.

Charity started moving her sisters around, “You stand here, and you here, and you here… and I’ll stand… here!”

As she jumped in front of them all.

I love my girls.

Ella went with me to do some shots at another spot behind our house…

I have yet to do the boys’ pictures. I had planned to do it the same day as the girls’… but Elijah was holding Justus’ leash, and Justus decided to go for a run… Elijah fell forward and our “puppy” dragged him several meters across the ground before I could stop him. It was hilarious and I kinda wish I had taken a picture before I went to help him. But I was a good Mom instead! If you can call laughing hysterically, while I try to yell at the dog- a good mom.

Lily’s pictures are also waiting. She is currently cutting 4 teeth, two of which have broken through, and she refuses to co-operate with anything.

11 months old

Her new favourite word is “Up!” Which in the middle of the night, turns into, “Uuuuuuuuuuuuup! Up!!!” She crawls over to us, reaches her arms out and demands, “up”. She also hits me in the morning and tells me “up”- which I think translates, “Get out of bed and make me breakfast. Now.”

She can stand on her own, but refuses to take a step.

 

She has learned to throw and hates sitting still. Her new favourite thing is books. She loves to look at the pictures. Just don’t try to turn the page for her- this results in screaming and her no longer being interested in the book. She kisses the phone when she hears Daddy’s voice and says, “Huuuuuuu” as she hugs her baby dolls. She has officially moved out of our room, and into a room with Ella. We will see how this goes.

This is how it went after the above photo. (The only photo I got of her even semi-looking.)

Noticing and pointing at the other cookie while yelling “Taaaaa!”

After I said, “No”…

“Is Mom still watching?”

Yep, better get even more dramatic!

 

This, was the reality of our attempted 11 month shoot… Hopefully her 1yr pictures go better.

Needless to say, she survived without the second cookie!

 

Our fall decorations are down.

We are celebrating Remembrance Day this weekend, and then the Christmas decorations will go up. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost a year in this house- we are so blessed.

A year ago- in our old living room.

The Light…

 

The light shining in my back windows, was calling my name last night…

This house it pretty amazing. Have I mentioned how much I love my 2nd floor laundry room!?!?

But back to the light…

We get sunrises out our front window in winter and now we’ll be getting sunsets out our back windows for summer!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as warm out as the sunlight appears. It was almost 0 Celsius… so we were only out there for maybe 5 minutes before we both ran in with red noses!

I am very much looking forward to taking advantage of this gorgeous lighting we have every evening once the warmer weather sticks around!

Mini Session Fail

     

So, I wanted to do a mini-session of Lily with each of her siblings.Scott was hanging out with some of the older kids, so I decided to start with Jeddy and Ella.

 

Lily was game, at first.

Ella was all ready to go as well…

Prepared with all the hugs and kisses that Lily could handle…

I had so many outtakes of these two…

Ella’s attention span lasted a whole of 3 minutes- then she was done.

Jeddy is a bit better at holding Lily and making her feel comfortable, I think.

And he adores her…

My fave shot of those two.

So, the mini sessions didn’t go as planned. After this, Lily decided to spit up all over herself, Jeddy, and my bed. I didn’t bother with the older kids!

An outtake of Lily and I- courtesy of Prayer!

Because I was bored…

With all the bare, sandy feet, with a beach in the background, pictures on facebook right now… I thought that I’d throw mine into the mix- for all of us still here in the arctic.

This is where I spent my day.

All bundled up, running from one music lesson, to the next.

But no complaints here!

I can totally handle this hovering-around-zero weather.

A little Starbucks in hand always helps…

 

While I was bored, sitting in my van and all- I decided to play around with some settings on my camera.

I’ve never really tried out the “monochrome” mode- so I did.

 

All SOOC…

(straight out of camera)

(for my Mom, who was extremely confused by the lingo when I said, “bokeh” in another post… :)

 

 

The lighting is different in B&W mode. Much easier to end up with hotspots…

I can’t wait to experiment with it some more. Possibly, when I’m not stuck in the confines of my truck van.

This cheeky little monkey, kept trying to block my lens.

Neutral was interesting as well…

Not sure how I like it yet. As I said, I can’t wait to try them out in different situations!

I’m used to shooting in “standard” or “vivid”- so it’ll be nice to change it up a bit.

Ella, was just having way too much fun trying to dodge my camera…

She can be such a little pest! :) She makes the perfect “little sister”…

My Little Man…

I have called Elijah “my little man” since the day he was born.

Though most people think he’s so serious and quiet- he definitely has a loud and crazy side.

Just ask his sisters…

Now I’m debating about whether or not to do one of Scott and I…

Then we could have one with each of our faces in it.

Hmm….

… and the dimples!

I took the advice of a friend and decided to one of these for each of my kids. Now they can’t wait for their turns!

I just told him to make some different faces for me and away he went!

The difference between Jed and Ella- he couldn’t wait to be done because this is what he really wanted to do on my bed…