Yesterday I had a baby. I swear it was yesterday. He wanted me, he needed me. He wanted suggles, love, attention. 1/2 a day a go he was running up to me for everything. Kisses, hugs, he didn’t care who was around. The other day I was a big deal.

Today I am the one who he will hold hands with after he makes a quick check to see if any of his friends are around. Today he tells me I can NOT kiss him at school. Today friends are in. Mommy is out. Unless, of course he is hungry, thirsty, or hurts himself.

Today I watch my little boy and am so proud of who he is becoming. But sad that he has to grow up so fast. Because every tomorrow seems to come too fast these days. Now the worries have moved from when to change a sippy to a cup, when to lose the soother, when to stop holding them and let them soothe themselves to how to be responsible. A nice, kind and caring little boy. How to get him to learn to play with others. To get him to learn patience. To be nice to his sister. To STOP saying poop every 2 minutes. Life becomes more difficult every day. But it is the absolute BEST to sit back and watch him do something he loves. And know that he is still going to hug me tightly before bed, and smile and say ‘good night mommy. I love you.’

Agility and Dexterity. Things we have to work on. Look at him doing jumping jacks.

Look at this kid’s face. He is so happy to be out playing.

They sit around cracking jokes. Absurd jokes to us. But they laugh like crazy all the same. Funny stuff.

There is a puppy dog that one of the girls on Rohan’s team has. Kade is in love with Finnigan. She spend most of the game petting this puppy. Today he was late. So she spent a bit more time standing in front of me while I was trying to take pictures. Who can resist a face like this!!!

He had a really great game tonight. He was going after the ball and most times getting it away from the other team. *insert mushy proud mommy momment*

Just wanted to say. Spring is here. I have the mosquito bites to prove it. And the buds on the trees too!!

Spring is here. Can’t you tell? Interesting. Neither can I.

And apparently, we just have to roll with it. Our children have gotten more toboganning in in the last few weeks than I thought possible in a whole year in Calgary. So.. well… we just keep rolling with it. And praying. Because really, summer DOES have to show up, right? Like everyone else… I am totally suffering from spring withdrawl. And so are the kids. The constant fighting. Tired of playing in snow. They want to be biking, playing in the yard… not digging up ski pants and mitts.

ENOUGH is ENOUGH SPRINTER! You’re killing us!

Hard at work. I love this little face.

She thought is was pretty cool that we were both getting very very dirty playing with chalk in the melting snowy mess. It was totally worth it! We did have fun. And clothes? Well they wash!

Love how she’s holding her hair out of the chalky mess. LOL.

Ahhhh the arrival of grandma. Complete with timbits and coffee. Which make for the perfect wintry, snowy day!

A winning combination to bring me to the point of officially being frazzled.

It’s the end of February and we are enjoying temperatures on -35 with the windchill.
It has been cold for FOREVER. No really it has. Don’t argue me on this. I have 2 kids desperate to run, ply, to be outside. And I do take them whenever I can. But to be locked in a house with them day after day… and see their endless energy NOT being being spent, it feels like it has been cold FOREVER. To always be searching for that ONE missing mitt. The hat he has to have. The struggle to put boots on. To get hats on. To walk outside with one child who bravely wants to go play in the cold, and the other to be a whining sobbing mess who needs to be carried it it’s too cold. To be strapping kids in and out of seatbelts in winter gear. To realize you forgot milk after making the trek to the store in a blizzard.

Being sick.

Having my sister move to what feels like the other side of the world. To wish with all my heart that I will hear the front door fly open and hear ‘Aunty Kaffy!!!’. Comforting Kade when she just wants to see her Aunty or play with her cousins.

The usual craziness of kids. Who dumped ANOTHER toilet paper roll in water? Who painted the cupboards in green paint? Why is Kadence’s face covered in marker? STOP FIGHTING! Who lost the wii remote? Don’t torture the dogs! No really that’s not loving, she is telling you she is going to bite you. take a hint! Where is my makeup? WHY do both you have a pound of silver sparkles in your hair? Who took my contact case? Where are your drink cups? Kade, you CAN NOT wear all your clothes in one day!! PLEASE STOP FIGHTING!!!

Combine all this fun stuff with

My blog switch. Working my butt of trying to get a new blog all set up and pretty, getting my new branding all together. ONLY to run into problem after problem. People can see it. Now they can’t. This person can, This one can’t. Contacting my host, relaying messages. Contacting again.

My website. Proofing galleries are not allowing me to upload.

My camera. stopped focusing at my last shoot, I got some excellent practice with manual focus!

My studio lights…. battery in my remote stopped working DURING a shoot.

Learning a new computer, backing it up, redoing my actions.

It has been an INSANE week. INSANE. I hope that NOW I am on the path to good again I think I have served my time being stressed out, getting no sleep and freaking out just a little.

So now. You can see this. My camera is being fixed. Things are looking up!!!

I also got this GORGEOUS mongolian fur today.. and my kids let me snap exactly 2 pics on it! Well really I took like 42, but I got 1 of each of them smiling. They were so excited for the new rug they told me I could take pics Thought this meant I could experiment with some more dramatic lighting, but really it meant they would sit still for ONE minute and THEY chose which way they would face. So it’s dramatic, just not how I was picturing

Thanks for stopping by. I am happy you can see this. Please check out the the last few posts you may have missed!

Here is from going from frazzled to refreshed in the next few days!

And now…. time for sleep!

As promised…. here is a blip on my macro droplets.

I got most of my information here #mce_temp_url#

I followed this as close as I could. But it still took some time. And trial and error.

First – I couldn’t figure out how to get the background right. I used a skirt, wrapped around a tin, leaning against a corn pops box. Which you can see in the droplets. So I would recommend using a higher box. Quite high. Much higher than the tap. If you want the background to fill the water droplet.

Second – I could figure out the angle to put my flash at. I was getting shadows, could bounce and it wasn’t freezing the motion of the droplets. So I read up on freezing motion with flash and from what I gathered the flash light has to overpower natural light to freeze motion. So I set up at flash on manual 1/4, app8, iso200, ss 1/160. Which was my best set up.

Third – I was still getting blur, or ghosting and I couldn’t figure out why the drops weren’t crisp/ So I got out the tripod and set up. That helped a ton. They were better but not quite right. Then I realized I was on AF. So I switched to manual and kept slightly moving it until the focus landed right where the drops were falling. Instead of auto focusing on the edge of the tap.

VOILA… that was my best set up of the day. Hopefully tomorrow I will get a pull back. My kitchen is a MESS. When I say I have sat at my desk for 2 days – I literally have. I look all around me and cringe at the mess. Kade even told me to take out the garbage. LOL.

So if anyone feels the might be up to dropping water from an eyedropper for me and has nothing to do tomorrow afternoon come on over! If you bring kids, even better!!!

Today I needed a break. In a big way. Check out what I’ve been working on! Between editing, cold weather (which equals too much indoor time with the kids), sessions, and learning to use the mac – this is my new blog page so far!!!!! With my new branding

I was stressing out, so… I tried something new. Something fun. Something that is harder than it looks!

Want to know how to do this? Stay tuned… I’m going to do up another post soon!

Well…. it was decidedly cold here today. And my kids were decidedly whiney. And grouchy. Sick… one has a fever and sore throat, and the other has almost lost his voice. Not enough to make us happy! Fighting all day. Nothing was good enough. Nothing was fun.
They were taking turns hitting timeout all day.

To try and break up the day I decided to take them outside. That was before I realized how cold it was outside!! Of course Ro had no issues with the cold, but Kade was having meltdown after meltdown. Then Rohan had a meltdown because I made him come inside.

It was just one of those days. One of those days where, as a parent, you are glad everyone lived, everyone ate something, and you managed to get them all to bed.

So here I sit trying to organize my computer (which my pc brain is actually having troubles with!) and revelling in its speed.

As it was quite frosty out today… it was perfect for a few macro shots. Except it turned out to be too cold. My fingers were sore and my hand was shaky from shivering. I was forced to give up! Now… I am still learning how to do this, so keep that in mind I am still learning the computer so progress is slow. This mouse kind of stinks so I will have to get another to do proper editing. I really wanted to practice and get all my actions sorted out.

LOVE LOVE this!!!

It only took about 3 seconds. In that time I took this.

I have taken many many poor man’s macro shots. So many that I decided to try out a real macro. So I decided to try the 105mm 2.8. Seriously sharp lens. Can be very slow… wouldn’t recommend to shoot someone’s soccer game… but when it’s on it is ON. Kade’s picture? iso 3200 f3. Not great lighting… I just opened it up and wanted to try. And hello lashes and eyes. That sharp at 3200? Game on.

They hate the park. Seriously.

Need a hand? Here let me stand by you and make it look like I dragged you down the slide.

These next two are my fav’s from the day. Just monkeying around. As usual.

What I get when I BEG for a shot by the blue wall.

What I get when I BEG for shots of them together. Kade is all ok, let’s hold hands Rohan. And Ro is all no freaking way! Let me shove you to the ground while I yank my hand from yours.

I don’t know how I managed to get any smiles really. 

And now… for the finale…. more reasons to love this lens……

Good times. Good times. *sigh*