Winter Wonderland

We had a lovely Christmas. A green one, but lovely nonetheless. Our snow came two days late, full of thick, fluffy wonder that only arrives with that first heavy snow of the season. It clung to everything, and transformed the sodden, brown land into a thick white frosting.

I wanted to capture it, so I asked my cousin-slash-best-friend, Kris, to help me out. It's a lot easier to practice exposure and manual focus on a twentysomething woman than a three-year-old boy. Doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous, extremely photogenic, and willing to traipse through foot-deep snow for me. She even hopped on Charlie's GT racer and hit the hill for a round or two.

A snow angel indeed.

Salt Dough Ornaments

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not the least bit crafty. I don't sew, I have no patience for scrapbooking anymore, I tried and failed at knitting, I don't crochet, etc. So when I saw this ad in a Canadian Living magazine (which, by the way, is an awesome magazine), I thought it sounded like it was in my range of abilities:


Incidentally, my range of abilities is about the same as my three year old's. ;) It was very easy to do, so I thought I'd share. First you dump two cups of flour and a cup of salt in a bowl. Mix them together, or get someone else to do it if you have little people wanting to help:

Then you add 1 cup (plus a bit more) of warm water and stir it with a wooden spoon until it makes a dough. Plop it on a floured surface and knead until it's smooth:

Roll it out. It said to a 5mm thickness, but I think mine was a bit thicker.

Use cookie cutters of your choice. It was a Christmas craft for us, so snowflakes, bells, gingerbread men, and stars were our choice. (Thanks, Patti, for loaning us your cookie cutters and paint!) Use a straw to poke a hole in them where the string/ribbon will go.

Put them on parchment paper on cookie sheets and bake them at 300F for 1-1.5 hours.

Then? PAINT! Whee! Fun for the whole family.

They're not fancy, but they're fun and your little one will think it's the coolest thing in the world.

Sixty years.

I have been married for a little over six years.

My grandparents have been married for ten times that.

That, to me, is all kinds of amazing. Our immediate family had a small, private party for them last Saturday at Oakland Lodge in New Maryland. It was intimate and relaxed and fun. The adults visited, the children played, and my grandparents were quietly honoured with a special guest and some gifts and certificates. We also all signed an anniversary book for them. I took some pictures of the event and thought I'd share. Note: it was snowing that day and the entire (beautiful) lodge was a rather bright wood, making most of my pictures very orange. But I still like them. There's a whole lot of gorgeousness in these. Happy 60th to two of my favourite people ever.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Halloween has come and gone for another year. It was a bit of a snowy day here--I don't remember it snowing on Halloween before, to be honest. As any good Canadian does, I dressed my kid in long johns and a turtleneck before his faded jeans, western shirt, black vest, kerchief, cowboy hat, and boots. He made a pretty cute little cowboy, and got quite a haul of candy which he is happily sharing with us. I think he figures that as long as he enthusiastically approves of it, we will enthusiastically allow him to gorge on candy. Doesn't quite work that way, but none of us are on a sugar high quite yet. ;)

He had a blast trick-or-treating, although he was quite serious about the whole thing. Strangely enough, this morning he didn't ask for candy until a few hours after he woke up. First thing he wanted? An apple. I must be doing something right!

And now it is November. As a kid, I hated November. It was cold and grey and drizzly. The pretty leaves were gone and everything was ugly. But now? I love it. I like the cool blues and browns, the frosty air, the first snowfall. I love the celebrations (husband's birthday, grandparents' anniversary). I love the lead-up to Christmas, because Christmas is one of my favourite things in the world. Bring it on, November!

I also managed to take Charlie's Christmas card pictures. I have a couple of layouts done up but I won't bother sharing them quite yet since nothing is finalized. It was very cold the day we did them, so I snapped less than ten minutes' worth of pictures and we wrapped it up. The things I put my poor kid through! I think he had fun, though, since I let him drink hot chocolate.

And now I shall sign off, since I have felt rotten all day and am not even sure if this post is entirely coherent.

More sessions!

October has been a busy month for me. Last Sunday I had two sessions--a family session with my friend Lisa and her gorgeous family, and one with a group of four teenagers who are close friends. Both were at the same place; both were pretty different! These sessions teach me so much, which is why I do them (that, and I love to do it). I am still learning so much about light and colour and focus. Someday I'll manage to properly expose every single picture, instead of underexposing most of them. ;) And I learn things like a jillion orangey brown leaves will make a colour cast that is very difficult to work with. In any event, I am grateful for the opportunity to keep on learning.

Next up: Christmas card picture with the kidlet. I need to think of a monumental bribe and some props. Anyone have an antique sofa with scarlet upholstery? No? Didn't think so...

Here are a few pics from the weekend. They're kind of jumbled about but I'm sure you can figure out which one belongs to which session. There was a whole lot of beautiful in those two sessions. I'm spoiled in that I am constantly photographing extremely photogenic people!