Beautiful Saturday

It was an amazing day today here in Chelsea, the sun was shining the temperature was perfect and there was enough wind to keep the bugs away! First thing in the morning was Abby's final Gym class, so we got to enter the gym and take photos today. It's so hard to take photos in a big gym lit by fluorescent lights, but I did get a few to capture the moment. I didn't use my flash, so they aren't the sharpest.

This is Gillian look that says "I'm just looking
to see what Dad's response is to me, as I'm just about to take off
and join the gymnasts!" Basically - pure mischievousness!

After naps we spent the afternoon playing in the sun, it was so nice! A little swinging and a little sisterly love, and we were ready for supper!






Now the girls are in bed, and I'm off to catch the rest of the hockey game! Hope it doesn't rain tomorrow!! Fingers crossed.

Happy Birthday Gillian

My baby girl turned 2 today! Of course at two she didn't really have a clue what was going on, but I think by the end of the day with all the singing and ice cream at daycare and then singing and cake at home, she knew something was up! Abby had fun to, eating all the goodies and helping blow out the candles, and she is now, even more so, looking forward to her birthday in August. I'll have to plan something a little better for her as, she is now getting to the age where she will remember and know what it's all about!


Now to recap what I've been up to! Well, lots of sleeping! I try to watch the hockey games, I try to stay up "late" but I'm usually crashed out and sleeping on the couch at 8:00 pm, so it doesn't leave much time for blogging! I miss it. I miss having the energy to scrapbook (sorry Beth - I've fallen horribly behind on the scrapping challenge). I miss having the energy to take photos (mind you it's been pretty cold and rainy here... sorry Jen for not keeping up with the photo challenge!). But after the baby comes, I'll have lots of photos to take and lots to scrap!

Last weekend I attended a Baby photography workshop with Amber Shereen. She held it at her place, and there were only two of us there, so it was great to get such personal time. We had 3 baby models, each around 7 months old. Two we shot in her natural light studio and one in her basement studio with strobes. It was fun to see how she set every thing up and how she goes about getting the fabulous photos that she does. Here is a link to my other blog that I decided to set up for posting these photos: http://christinedenisphotography.blogspot.com/ I was really happy with the way my photos turned out and couldn't wait to do it again! I just have to work on the set up of the "Studio" to be able to do it successfully!

Lallow Mommy

Gillian is going to be 2 next week, which shocks me! 2 whole years! Lately her speech has been really changing from just "saying" (only we understand her!) only a handful of words, to being able to communicate so much better (caveat: just with us and Phyl, others probably have no idea what she is saying!!). Some funny things she says is: playing with dolls and you ask if she wants a dress for the doll, she will pronounce "Yeah, dress" really well. When she wants to colour, she'll ask "Lallow, Mommy" which I she picked up from the colour "Yellow" used in colouring. Then she'll say "chi choo, Mommy" which means "Thank You Mommy". Then the cutest of all she will say "Bah Bee" which is the way she says Abby. She has a tendancy to stick the sound "b" in front of many words, "buppy, buppy" means "uppy uppy". It's just so much fun seeing her develop into this beautiful little girl, who loves to talk, sing, run and scream at 2:00 am!! :)

Happy weekend everyone!

Friday Photo Challenge

Ok, this is catching up from last week. I only took a few self portraits... need to try it again, when I have time, but at least I'm posting them! I didn't use much creativity with these, I'll have to come up with something a little better next time, and incorporate the belly! :)





off to bed...

I'm not missing... really I'm not...

Jen and Beth have been wondering where I went this week. I explained to Beth today that I, unfortunately, am completely running out of steam these days. After working all day, making dinner, and putting the kids to bed, I have just enough energy to download any photos I took that day and then, basically, I'm burnt. I don't have the energy, and as a result the brain power to muster any kind of creativity or thought to think through something. So scrapping and Photo-shopping have been put on the back-burner. At least until I'm done work, on July 10th and have a couple of minutes a day to rest. It's not to say I'm doing nothing, I have been working on some images this week, it's just taken me a week to figure out what I'm doing!!

Here are some favourites:

There is just something so cute
about kids reading books, and I
love to take pictures of them when reading.

The concentration, wonderment and amazement
that each page brings. It's so cool!
(I also love kids feet!)

I love her in this funky 60's dress! Perfect on her!

more reading...not even noticing mommy
making funny noises and acting like a goof
to get her to look at the camera!

Off for a short after supper jog. This one
is a runner!

Abby laying in the grass... love this one!

I really like these two, however I'm not sure
who this child is or where she learned to pose
like that - it's kind of freaky really.

Singing "Head & Shoulders"...

Bender looking regal.

And that is it for now... off to bed!

Layout and Friday Photo Challenge

I'm falling a little behind on my challenges. I didn't post anything for last week's layout challenge of a photo one year apart, or this weeks challenge of using a photo as a background. So it's a good thing I had a 2 hour nap today, because it gave me some energy to scrap tonight!!

Here they are:

One year apart
(I'll post credits later!!)

Photo as a background.

Then for the photo challenge, Jen made it to shoot at your widest angle. I have a couple for this one:

@ 24mm (or whatever it translates to
when you don't have a full frame sensor)

@24mm

just to compare = @70mm

@24mm

For this week, both challenges will be connected. The photo challenge is to take a self portrait, and the scrapping layout challenge is to create a layout about you - could be that self portrait you took. A photo of your favourite outfit at the time or your favourite thing... but the subject must be all about you!

Bye for now!

Photo Montage

I've not been spending too much time on my computer lately, still burnt from last weekend! I now have tonsillitis which I probably caught because I was so run down. This pregnancy is really taking it's tole on me, and I still have 3 months to go. I'm at 27 weeks now, and am wondering where I'll find the energy to make it to the end.

But of the 15 min I did spend on the computer this week, I put together a photo composite montage. A technique my friend Cheryl shared with me after a workshop she did. It's so very simple, almost ridiculously simple to do. Here is the image:


Notice how it has some texture in the photograph. It's basically done by putting a texturized image (in this case I used a photo of an old brick from the market) over an image and changing that layer's blending mode to "multiply" (overlay and softlight could work too) then adjusting the opacity. Gives it a painted renaissance feel to it. Then I stuck on the "May" word art for fun.