Recent Family Shoot

I had the pleasure recently of shooting this wonderful family; Angie, James & Chazz. They wanted a photo for their holiday card. It was absolutely freezing the day of the shoot so we did just a quick walk-around and took just a few photos. We connected over the fact that we both have babies just two months apart and are stay at home mums. They have just moved to the area and she was all excited to hang out with another mum and have a playdate. We have just hang out once since the shoot but it was a really fun time and I'm excited to get to know her more and hang out some more! So fun to have a new friend from a photo shoot.

Here are some pix from the shoot (my favourite is the one where they're kissing their son on each cheek!):

Venice...

I married my wonderful husband almost 4 years ago, on December 16, 2006. We spent our first week of honeymoon in Hawaii and then flew to Europe. We spent two days in London, three weeks in Venice, and one week in Switzerland. I had a one last professional black and white film in my old Konica-Minolta SLR and I had tons of fun taking photos of one of the most amazing cities, Venice. We loved the canals, the narrow, windy alleyways, the fact that there were no roads, and therefore no cars in the city. We got a three week "bus" pass and spent days on the boat-buses touring and viewing the city from the canals and surrounding water. We loved all the churches, cathedrals and old palazzi, as well as all the mainstream tourist spots, such as the Ponte di Rialto and the Piazza San Marco. We loved eating salami and brie sandwiches for lunch and pizza for dinner, and finding those hole-in-the-wall restaurants with amazing lasagne and spaghetti. I think our favourite night, for both of us, was New Year's Eve, which started with following a Cuban drumming band from one piazza to Piazza San Marco, where they served free champagne and had amazing fireworks at midnight. Beautiful!

Anyway, it took me a while to develop the photos as I had to take them to a special photography store, but when I did, man was I happy with the results! What an amazing film of photos, if I may say so myself. Here are my favourites that we have on our walls (these are scans of my photos, so not the best quality, but you get the idea!):

In Memory of...

On November 19, 2001, my dear mum passed away after battling breast, bone, lung and finally brain cancer for 2 years. Her name, Francine, means triumphant or free, and that is how we think of her today.

She touched so many lives. She was a great listener, a right goof, loyal, kind, gentle and full of peace. I try to tell John as many stories as I can to keep her memory alive and allow him to feel like he knew her in a small way. I'd like to do the same for Sophie, so she can have an idea of what kind of woman she was.

My mum's wishes was to have her ashes scattered in the Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) in Switzerland. She grew up a stone's throw away from it's shores her whole life. After she passed away, we flew to Switzerland to have a funeral there for all her Swiss family and friends. On one of the days there, we went out onto the lake, the four of us, with my grandpa on his sailing boat. He had tied a bouquet of yellow flowers to one of the masts. After we scattered the ashes, we also scattered the flowers out onto the lake. To remember her now, John and I scatter flowers out on to a body of water, and pray and think of her.

Last night, we realised it was the anniversary of her passing and so John, dad and I cut some roses from our rose-bush and headed back to our pool. We definitely still feel the lack of her in our lives, particularly with the arrival of our baby girl, but yet we are grateful for all that we have received these last 9 years - three spouses, a plethora of babies, a greater closeness in our family. We'll still always think of her and work to keep her memory alive.

Introducing... Sophie Burtness

Fifty minutes after midnight on September 20, 2010, Sophie Francine Burtness was born! We long anticipated her arrival and it has been wonderful to have her with us. She is now almost 8 weeks old and is doing really well. She is sleeping amazingly at night-time and is a happy baby during the day. We have really enjoyed being a little family and going on little outings together and introducing her to all our friends. Neither of us realised how much we would enjoy being parents and having a little one to care for and hang out with.

We are glad to have made it through the first six weeks. Man, they were and hard! Lack of sleep and post-partum hormones are not a good combination. Add to that, figuring out her cues, learning breastfeeding, working through the pain of breastfeeding and waiting for the healing of, you know, down there, it definitely was a challenging time. Lots of ups and downs, joys and frustrations, laughter and crying! Moments where we loved it, and moments that are some of the hardest I've gone through!

However, we made it through and feel like we know her cues, know how to help her get to sleep, have got breastfeeding figured out, have her sleeping for longer and longer stints at nighttime. More sleep for her means more sleep for us means we're all just happier!

Anyway, I did a mini-shoot with her a couple of weeks ago and here are some of the photos:

Final Pregnancy Photos

We did our final pregnancy shoot two days before our due date, and I started having pre-labor contractions the night of my due date (she was born two days later). I've obviously been very busy with a new baby! Sophie Francine Burtness was born at 12:50am, on September 20, 2010, just over 2 days past her due date (photos to come in another blog post). She is now 6 weeks and we're just about to the point where we have a bit more of a schedule and I can find some time to blog!

I wanted to upload a few of our final shoot - they really are my favourite photos of all our shoots: