fabulous five - top five and a winner!

Judging was next to impossible this week. Wow. Everybody brought their A game and the entries were incredible. They were both inspiring and beautiful. Thank you so much to everyone who entered! Andrea and I had a really hard time picking so I had to bring in a guest judge to pick the final five (thanks Mom).

So without further ado, I give you the finalists and winner of week two of Fabulous Friday:

Tracy at Living in the Moment started this week's entries off with a bang. I LOVE this picture. It's vibrant and fun and she was kind enough to tell us exactly how she did it, first exposing for her son, then the sky and merging the two. It rocks.



Jaime at Life Real Simple entered this breathtakingly beautiful landscape. Love. It.



Tracy at Three Peas and a Bean posted this picture and I highly recommend you check her post out because it's one in a series of absolutely incredible shots she took in a field of blue bonnets. And she's a mother of triplets! I bow to you, my friend.



Rosie at Leavesnbloom Photography entered this gorgeous shot with some of the most amazing bokeh I have seen. Beautiful!




And the winner of week two of Fabulous Friday is Buckeroo Mama's capture of a water lily. Absolutely beautiful!



Congrats everyone! Please sure to grab your button below for your blog!

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fabulous five - top five and a winner!

A big thank you to everyone who participated in Fabulous Friday! I am so thankful for each and every one of your beautiful entries and I hope that you will all participate again this Friday.

We even had a tutorial in the mix. Thank you so much to Flower Photography for the Bubbly Orange Tutorial. Make sure you check it out and if you get a chance to try it, please join her link up that can be found at the bottom of the tutorial. Her shot was another one of my favourites and it's definitely on my to do list for this week.

Picking a top five definitely wasn't easy. Andrea and I had a hard time picking and my top five was different from her top five. As a result, we called Jen in for the tie breaker.

Without further delay, here are the top five:

Elena at Selfie Magic for her breathtaking beach sunset:



Rachelle at They Call Me Mommy Rachelle for her adorable capture of her son playing:



Trish at Life Through a Lens for the beautifully shallow depth of field on this capture:



And Mira at Learning the Art of Photography for her fabulous shot of a beautiful castle in Slovenia (you should also check out her incredible storm cloud picture - it's another one of my favourites):



::drum roll please::

And the winner of week one of Fabulous Friday is Keara at Now I Know What Life is All About for her absolutely stunning dandelion shot:



Congrats ladies! Please sure to grab your button below for your blog!

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day 80 - so now what

Twelve years ago I started with my company. I remember sitting in a bar a week into the job and the whole table of my new coworkers sang "Wasn't That a Party" at the top of their lungs. I'm not a singer so I didn't join in, but I remember thinking "these people are nuts". They were so much fun and I remember looking around on many an occasion in that first year thinking about just how lucky I was to be working with them.

Two years later that same group of people toilet papered my brand new (to me) Cavalier Z-24 and tied a big yellow smiley face balloon to my antenna on my birthday. Ever seen what happens to toilet paper after a thunderstorm? I would spend the next half an hour on my hands and knees, picking soggy, teeny tiny wads of toilet paper off of my car while they laughed and banged on the glass from the second floor window. It was in that moment that I realized that I belonged. They loved me just as much as I loved them.

Over the years people came and went. Fun people. People who brought their own little flavour to the group. There was Ryan who could take a three minute story and turn it into a 45-minute one. There was Sara who shared a love of Burger King whoppers and Days of Our Lives and who I would engage in the occasional game of Solitaire Showdown with as an afternoon stress reliever. There was Charlene who somehow knew that they served steak sandwiches at The Manor on Tuesdays. She would later go on to become a brilliant lawyer and I would put my money on her every single time.

Most importantly there were the people who became lifers like me. Jane and I didn't have much in common early on, but I came to have a ton in common with her once I grew up a bit. Old movies, golden retrievers and a love of Colin Firth were just some of the things we had in common. She encouraged me to take my blog from just photos to photos and stories and for that and all of the above I thank her.

Three years in, Checco arrived. The entire landscape changed and things got even better. The laughing got louder and everything was kicked up a notch. We all had to bring our A-game to keep up with him and we got an education in return. I would list some of the terms he taught us but my mom might google them and that wouldn't be good. A master of storytelling, it didn't matter that we didn't know who Mr. Anderson was. The story of a light fixture falling on his head while sitting on the toilet on Thanksgiving and his family breaking down the bathroom door down to find him lying unconscious with his pants around his ankles was still hilarious. He came in at a time where I was seriously considering leaving and made me want to stay. For that I thank him because he has become one of the best friends I have in this world.

Our kitchen was small and as the office grew, the space around the table was limited. People used to race to the kitchen at lunch to get in on the action. We'd tell the same stories over and over and laugh like it was the first time we had heard them. They were tales that were told with just the right amount of bullshit peppered in. I learned to tell tales and went to the local paper for many of mine -- I won't repeat them here as some of you could be related to the perps or quite possibly are the perps themselves. Anyway, there were a couple of crowd pleasers in there so keep up the good work people. At one point the town was on a real roll and the stories were so insane I regularly brought the weekly paper to work to back them up.

We had fun. I was excited to go to work. I was happy to go to work. It seemed insane to go to work and get paid for having this much fun. Surely I should be paying them.

On many occasions I had people ask me if we actually did any work. The truth was we did. We got a pile of work done. We worked crazy hours and it wasn't a big deal. Most of us didn't have any kids at the time. We had nowhere to be and we were dedicated to the job and getting it done and there were never any complaints as we did it. We loved our boss, he appreciated us and we loved the company.

Over the years, things changed. The company merged with two others and became much larger. Lots more people came and quickly went. The culture shifted and things changed. The super cool vibe that we had slowly slipped away. It was still alive in the dealings I had with my friends, but by and large it died for the group as a whole. It had gotten to the point where I didn't recognize it as the same place anymore.

So I leave this company today with all of my personal effects in a box and I am sad. Sad because I have been there so long that I really don't know anything but it and it's hard to start all over again. Sad because I am leaving behind two of my best friends. Two people that I have spent more time with over the years than my own family and who have shown me an incredible amount of support, especially in the past two weeks. Sad because I gave twelve years of my life to a company that couldn't keep me. But most of all I am sad because at one time not so long ago, this office used to kick ass. I wish everybody could have experienced it because it truly was a place of wonder. I would know best of all. I started as the 22 year old kid who occupied the cubicle in the "enchanted grotto" (right beside the bathroom) and left the 34 year old mother of three.

day 76 - the luck of the irish my ass

I lost my job today.



We had a large client leave and as a result five people lost their jobs. I was one of them.

I really don't have much to say other than that.

rest in peace dear sparkles $

Freckles (or Sparkles as Ava calls her) passed away this week at the age of 27. She was a kind and gentle horse who was very patient and great with kids. She will be missed terribly.

Project 365 {thoughts on an incredible year}

Three hundred and sixty five days. 31,358 pictures taken and moments captured that will last a lifetime. It was a huge project and it ruled my life the entire year. My house was more unorganized than usual and my other hobbies like card making and scrapbooking took a hit with me having a lot less time in my day to work with. I also found myself watching a lot less tv than usual (which is probably a good thing).

On the flip side, I learned to love my camera even more than I already did. I forced myself to be creative and I challenged myself to try new things and overcome my hatred of my flash. I tried to make 2009 a year full of activities and fun and to capture every moment that I could so my kids would have a record of the year. I think I was able to achieve that and then some.

I didn't write a word in any of the three baby books that are collecting dust on the bookcase. Instead I have 31,358 images backed up on 51 DVDs and an external hard drive. I have plans to make a coffee table book as well as a scrapbook containing 52 weeks of the stories behind the images. I might also make a book of my blog posts if I can figure out how to do it without it being as long as War & Peace. I plan to put pictures up around the house and the possibilities of other projects is endless.

As I type this it is now day three of 2010 and it's the third day in a row I have taken pictures. I'm not sure if I will be able to stick with it, but I am going to try because everywhere I look there are moments to capture. Moments that I never would have thought to capture before and moments that I can't not capture now having done Project 365.

Anyway, blah blah blah about me. Here are some random thoughts and recommendations I have upon completing this project. Maybe it will help you if you are already doing Project 365 or are thinking about doing it.

Blogger
Blogger has been great for hosting my blog but if I were just starting my photo blog, it wouldn't be my first choice. If you are going to be posting multiple photos every day, Blogger is not the best choice. You have to add the pictures one at a time and in batches of five. When you are posting 10 images or more a day, this process takes forever. It became a major pain and a time waster. I would recommend looking for a blogging platform that has a Java uploader that works like Facebook where you can upload multiple photos at a time. It will save you a ton of time in the long run.

Photo a Day vs. A Day in the Life
I made my Project 365 into a much bigger project than I originally intended. It's supposed to be one picture a day for a year but I found myself capturing far more than that on my blog. Then halfway through the year I started posting them to Facebook and I ended up liking the simplicity of one photo per day and found it much easier and less overwhelming to navigate through. Anyway, at the end of the day, I find the day in the life approach better for me because I have three very active kids to keep up with and have no shortage of stories to tell. You have to pick what method is best for you.

Weekly Layouts
If you are a scrapbooker, don't get hung up on the weekly layouts. I crashed and burned on those halfway through and I was okay with that. As long as you are posting your pictures or keeping a record of the story behind the images somewhere on a regular basis, the stories will be waiting for you when you finally get around to it.

Learn Your Camera
Learn how to work with low light. Learn to make a tripod out of just about anything. There were many nights where I used the footboard on Ava's bed as a tripod or balanced my camera against my steering wheel to take a picture of my odometer. Don't be afraid to crank your iso as high as it goes. Sure the pictures might be a little bit grainy, but better grainy than blurry.

Inspiration
Look to other blogs for inspiration and see what other people are doing:

• Shannon gave instructions on her blog on how to do a sunflare. I found that very inspiring and I had a lot of fun with those over the course of 2009.
  

• Rochelle took beautiful pictures and her writing is both beautiful and fascinating.
  

• Erika took a lot of really cool pictures in low light and took a lot of awesome pictures of food. Erika's partner also did Project 365 and it was fascinating to see how different their pictures were during the same time period.
  

• Mari took many beautiful landscape shots and one day she posted a picture that her son took instead. It is absolutely stunning.
  

• Suzy H did something very cool that I loved. Every day she posted her picture along with the time, place and subject. She also posted a quote that related to her picture. I loved this so much that I have decided that is a part of the modification I am going forward make this year. I will be posting the time and place with my pictures this year. Thanks Suzy for the inspiration!
  

• Benton Flocke took one of the coolest shots ever of somebody blowing dandelions. You can see it in her blog header.
  

• Sheri did the "a day in the life" format like I did and created many beautiful layouts showcasing her photos. Like many Project 365ers, she is thinking of doing it again this year.
  

• Flohbock did Project 365 and is doing it again this year. It's a prime example that you don't have so speak the same language to appreciate photography. Thanks to Google translate, I also get to enjoy her stories.
  

• Mara did Project 365 and although she didn't complete it, she is giving it another shot this year and I know she is going to rock it.
  

• Tammy took beautiful pictures of her adorable kids. They have such personality and her pictures with flash had a beautiful, even light.
  

• List Girl's pictures were awesome and the stories were inspirational. Most days she posted multiple pictures but she always made it clear what her favourite picture was because it had a note in the corner of the picture with a title and the date. I loved this. It's another thing I am looking at doing this year. Thanks for the inspiration!

Anyway, I could go on and on all day here. There were so many great Project 365 blogs this year so look around and see what you can find. The big thing to remember is to look at the big picture. Don't just go out and make the same picture. Make it your own.

Anyway, I've gone on for too long. I hope that somebody finds this helpful. I'll leave you with a layout I did last night using one of Chrissy W's newer templates:



Template: Sample pack 16 by Chrissy W at Elemental Scraps
Kit: Life is Good, Life 365 and various add ons by Gina Marie Huff at Weeds & Wildflowers
Alphabet: Life 365 by Gina Marie Huff at Weeds & Wildflowers
Font: Amertype BT Md

Thanks for looking!

Catching up and some announcements

First things first. Debra asked for the Mille Feuilles recipe. Here it is!



Mille Feuilles

1 large box graham wafers
1 large box vanilla pudding and pie filling (the one you cook)
1 large container of 35% whipping cream
1/4 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup sifted icing sugar (you may need more)
1/8 cup milk (you may need less)
2 squares Baker's Semi Sweet chocolate

Cook pudding (you can use microwave instructions). Cool pudding by placing bowl in a sink full cold water and ice to chill faster. (Note from my mom: I have used instant pudding and it works just fine.)

Whip cream with sugar and refrigerate.

Line a 9 x 13" glass pyrex dish with graham wafers. Next layer pudding, then wafers. At this point you can refrigerate (one hour) to solidify the layer.

Take out of fridge and place a layer of whipped cream and another layer of wafers. Always start with a layer of wafers and end with a layer of wafers.

Refrigerate and make the icing mixture. Cream butter or margarine, slowly add icing sugar and milk to a creamy consistency. Melt the chocolate squares either in a double boiler or in the microwave. If using the microwave then be careful as chocolate heats up quickly and will burn.

Ice the pan with the butter cream icing. Take the melted chocolate and make thin vertical and
horizontal lines spacing evenly on top of the icing. Take a small fork and run through the same both ways to create a feathery look.

Chill overnight. You want to chill for a long time to give the cream and pudding a chance to soften the wafers.

--------------------

Good luck and big thanks to my mom for the recipe.

On to the announcements. Did I ever mention that I have been writing a monthly column for an online magazine called The Artisan Notebook? Back in January I was asked to write a monthly article on Project 365. Tonight I submitted my fourth article, this one for the May issue. You can read more about the Artisan Notebook here.

A few weeks ago two more exciting things happened. I was asked by Chrissy if I would like to stay on for another term on her creative team. That was an easy decision! Then later that day I was approached by {we are} storytellers to be a member of their creative team. I love their stuff and am very inspired looking at their products. I think it is going to be a lot of fun. Stay tuned because my first assignment is due this week.

And last but not least, I want to share a link with you. My friend Jason is a fantastic photographer. He is very passionate about his photography and I am continually amazed at the beautiful shots he gets of everything from peaceful country settings to wildlife to weddings. I always enjoy talking to him about photography because his energy is infectious and his ideas are fresh and very creative. Jason finally gave me the okay to share the link to his blog with you. :) Great shots, Jason! Your work is beautiful and incredibly inspiring.

And that's all I had to say. Thanks for listening!

One year ago today

As soon as the boys were born, I got to hold them for about two seconds and they were taken to the special care nursery where they would remain for 11 days. We were welcome to visit them day or night but they had to stay in there with restricted visitors and under the close watch of the nurses. After an hour and a half I felt up to going to the nursery so Jason wheeled me down so we could see them. Although these pictures weren't taken until later on the morning of the 15th, this is what they looked like snuggled up with each other in their little incubator. Ethan was always on the left and Owen was always on the right so the nurses could keep them straight without checking their ID bracelets every time.

At this point the boys still didn't have names and the nurses were calling them "Big Bear" (Ethan) and "Little Bear" (Owen).







Ethan only a few hours old.



Owen only a few hours old.



Random notes on the boys:

They are identical twins. How rare is this? Well only 0.2% of the world population is an identical twin. Identical twins only make up 8% of all twins. That's pretty rare. Only my boys are even rarer than that. They are mono/mono twins meaning that not only did they share a placenta like all identical twins do, but they also shared an amniotic sac which is very rare. Only 1-2% of identical twins share an amniotic sac.

The doctor said they were miracle babies and here is why (facts taken from wikipedia):

Mono/mono twins have an overall in-utero mortality of about 50 percent, principally due to cord entanglement prior to 32 weeks gestation. Mono twins have about a 25 percent mortality due to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (my boys didn't have this luckily). Many times, monoamniotic twins are delivered at 32 weeks electively for the safety of the babies.

When did I deliver? 37 weeks because they had no idea that they were mono mono twins. They thought there were two amniotic sacs. Had they known the sac was shared, they would have been delivered at 32 weeks by cesarian section. The doctor was shocked that I had made it to 37 weeks because he said that I probably should have lost them with it being so late in the game and with the risk of them being tangled being so high (we'd soon find out that yes they were indeed tangled and that Owen had stopped growing as a result). Anyway, it all worked out in the end but it's scary to think of what might have happened.

Just a random note on their stay in the nursery. The nurses told us that because the babies don't wear their own name on their ID bracelets, it was easier for them to remember which baby was which by naming baby A (first baby out) with the name that came first alphabetically and baby B (last out) with the name that came second alphabetically. We ended up following this by coincidence because baby A was always going to be Ethan. There was a set of fraternal girl twins born the next day and they didn't follow the alphabetical trick and the nurses found it very confusing.

I hope that wasn't boring. Just a few random things off the top of my head as we celebrate the boys' birthday.

Thanks for looking!

Thanks for looking!

A quick layout

I'm trying to keep my Project 365 pretty unstructured other than my weekly layout. In between I scrap whatever I feel like, making random pages highlighting certain events from a particular week. Here is a layout I did about day 31. It was a day where lots of stuff happened so I decided to do a page about it.



Not very exciting, but that's okay. It's all about capturing the moments and not every layout has to have hours put into it.

Template: Photo a Day set by Chrissy W.
Kit: Photogenic by Paislee Press
Doodle Border: Life 365 kit
31/365: from the Project 365 embellishments #2 kit by Sugarplum Paperie
Font: Amertype BT

In other news, one of my layouts was featured today on the Daily Digi blog!

Thanks for looking!

Two years of blogging

I can't believe it, but this past week I celebrated my second anniverary of blogging. I started this blog as a way to keep my family posted on Ava's development. Anybody who knows me knows that I am terrible at replying to emails and I am not big on talking on the phone. This blog was a way for me to communicate with everyone and pass along the info with limited effort. Call me lazy but I call it efficient.

Something I didn't know was that two years later my blog would go on to contain pictures of three children - all of them my own - with our family going from this:



to this:



Here is a sampling of a few of my favourite pictures over the past two years:















* please note that the sleigh picture and picture of me lying on the ground with Ava were taken by my sister - thanks, Mel. They are two of my favourite pictures - I absolutely love them.

A big thank you to everyone who has visited and who visit on a regular basis. Your comments are greatly appreciated!

There is a very important person who never got to see my blog and I dedicate this post to her:

Layout of the day!

My recent page about Owen was picked as the layout of the day at Elemental Scraps yesterday! Big thanks to Shannon and Chrissy for encouraging me to post my layouts.



Thanks for looking!

Creative Team!

I am so excited to announce that I have been asked to be a part of Chrissy W's creative team for the month of January. I have been creating with our freebie kit for the month and I love it. The kit contains a lot of great stuff and the possibilities are endless. Stay tuned as I will be posting some new creations starting Monday.

Many of the layouts I have posted since starting digital scrapbooking have used Chrissy's templates. To see all of her available templates, here is a link to her store.

Thanks Chrissy - I look forward to the challenge. I am loving it so far!

Happy Birthday Nan

One husband, one world war, two children, one long trip across the Atlantic, three grandchildren and three great grandchildren later, my grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday this weekend. She has not aged one bit over the past twenty years. Happy birthday, Nan!



The baby in the picture is Ava at one month old - taken on Mother's Day 2006.

Happy Birthday Ava Dingle

Two years and at least 40,000 pictures later, Ava is celebrating her second birthday. She is learning and growing so fast. We are now working on getting her to learn her last name. As far as she is concerned, her name is Ava Dingle and she thinks that is the funniest thing she has ever heard. She's a real talker and she doesn't stop from the moment she gets up until the moment she goes to bed. She gets into everything lately, her most recent adventure being sneaking into the boys' room where she found the penaten cream and coated her feet in it. She loves her brothers and doesn't have a jealous bone in her body.



Of all of the pictures I have taken of Ava, my absolute favourite picture is the picture above. Her hand is cut off which bothers me, but everything else just seemed to click - the backlighting, her expression and I can't get enough of her pigtails. Here is a sampling of other favourites over the past two years.



Happy birthday, Ava Dingle.

Please be careful

Somebody is spamming my blog. They have been putting comments on my new posts asking people to follow a link. Please do not follow the link. I do not know these individuals and following the link will take you to a web site that will automatically start you downloading an XP antivirus program. Not sure what happens at that point if it infects your computer or is just a ploy to get you to buy a virus program, but whatever the case, it is bad news. Just wanted to give you a heads up. I have been deleting the comments after I am notified by email that they have been posted, but wanted to let you all know just in case I don't get to delete it right away.

Thanks!

Jen

A few pictures...

Here are a few pictures I haven't posted before. Sorry for the shortage of posts. Things have been crazy and I haven't had time to post. My photography has taken a back seat and unfortunately it is going to have to for a while. Being pregnant with twins and chasing after a very active one and a half year old is tiring me out and leaving little time for anything else.

Unfortunately I will not be taking on any sessions for the fall. My family needs to come first right now and I just don't have the time to dedicate to it. I will try to post new pictures on a regular basis as I need to catch up on my family photography and get some fall pictures of Ava. So please feel free to check back in for new stuff and I will try my best to keep posting to keep you coming back. Thanks for looking, Jen