I hope that all of you had a very Merry Christmas (or a happy Hanukkah or just a restful holiday, if you don't celebrate any particular festivity)! My daughter was old enough this year to be excited for Santa and to understand a little what was going on. She started the holidays helping Mummy bake cookies (and what a good little helper she was!) and she continued to "help" with decorating and food preparations throughout. She was delighted to celebrate our Polish Christmas Eve feast (Wigilia) together with her Grand-maman, Grand-papa, her great grandparents and her marraine (all on my husband's side) and then to wake up the next morning to gifts from Santa. If I hadn't been sick, it likely would have been perfect.

So, our first Christmas with just our small family was a success, though the excitement was still a bit much for our little munchkin at times and she turned into a little bit of a bougonnette (grump). I think our cats were happy to finally get to spend a Christmas at home and to not be overwhelmed with all the usual goings-on of the season (which didn't stop them from taking up their usual hiding spot under the tree, however).  The little monkey quite liked the idea of Christmas stockings and was very happy with the wonderful gifts dear old Santa left.  She was also quite happy to see that even the cats had got and given gifts (and, like a good girl, she did remember to thank the kitties and give them lots of hugs and kisses - lucky kitties :-D).  Maman and Papa didn't do too bad, either, so I guess we all must have been pretty good this year.  Now we get to relax a little, play with our new toys, and enjoy yummy home-baked treats, with that little extra bit of love that only a toddler can put in.

I hope you all had many wonderful times this past year and that you have a lovely holiday time.  I wish you many more wonderful memories in the coming year and all the best for 2011!

Sabrina

After a hectic couple of weeks, I decided it was time to spend a quality day with my wonderful little girl.  As such, a friend and I planned a day to the Ecomuseum in Ste. Anne de Bellevue with our daughters and his son.  The weather wasn't fantastic, but we did have a good time and I had fun photographing not just the animals there (all animals native to the region), but also my daughter and her friend running around, giggling their heads off.

I love going places where I have a variety of things to shoot, although my favourite is still definitely taking pictures of kids being kids.  Kids always have such imagination and do such fun, silly things, one can't help but love capturing those moments on camera. My daughter and her friend were busy being cute holding hands and running around everywhere together, while the little boy insisted on trying to climb over everything while his Dad had the joy of keeping him from falling into the water, with the animals, etc. Yep, gotta love kids and their ultimate trust that we won't let anything bad happen. Too bad life doesn't always stay like that.

Anyways, here are some of the pictures of the kids being kids, playing in whatever they can find and just plain old having fun.  I hope you like the pictures! 

                          

With Fall drawing near comes apple season.  As one of my husband's fond memories from growing up was of apple picking, we decided it would be fun to gather up some family members and take our daughter on her first apple picking experience.  We packed ourselves into two separate cars, got on a ferry (which my daughter was thrilled about), and off we went to Oka (like the cheese) for fresh picked apples (along with some freshly made apple pies and apple butter - yum!).  The weather was pleasantly warm, although it started to rain part way through.  I'll admit that I didn't do much apple picking, as I took the opportunity to snap some pictures of the beautiful scenery.  It amazes me just how many apples an apple tree produces and how beautiful fruit orchards tend to look.  And of course, having young ones picking apples lent for some fun photo opportunities.  Being in the trees also allowed me to gather some "peek-a-boo" style photos, which I was happy with the style of.

Our bags were quickly full of apples and, of course, everyone decided they had to try the various types before knowing which ones to pick.  My daughter thought this was fantastic - picking an apple right off the tree and munching away - she was very possessive of any apples that she picked :-D. My husband's cousin and her friend were quite happy to climb the ladders to find the biggest, best apples, while the munchkin obviously had to pick the apples from the lowest branches. I enjoyed watching and trying to find creative, fun shots, although admittedly, I made sure to try the apples, too, and give my input as to which apples my husband should pick. The apples were quite yummy and we gathered quite a range of sizes of apples.  My daughter insisted that we pick big apples (she's apparently decided that bigger is better), although we personally prefer the apples that are most tart, which generally tend to be the smaller ones. My husband's cousin found some monster apples, while his aunt chose a nice small, crisp apple as her apple of choice. The picture to the right gives an idea of just how big some of the apples were!

All-in-all, it was a nice time and I'm glad we got a chance to do it this year.  I had fun taking photos and watch everyone else enjoy picking the apples. Next year, when my daughter is a bit older, we hope to go somewhere with tractor rides and activities that we can do as well, which I'm sure will make for another fun style of photo.  I'm hoping as well, to get out to a pumpkin patch at some point (preferably this year), as well as to take advantage of the beautiful colours of Fall to continue practicing my photography skills.

I hope that you are all enjoying the end of summer and coming of Fall and are finding the beauty of landscape around you. 

Take care and ciao for now!

After having spent a good chunk of time sorting through pictures from a friend's son's baptism not that long ago, I decided I wanted to try and play around a bit and see what sort of other things I could offer her. I originally used one of my typical editing sites - www.picnik.com - to play around with creating thank-yous and such, but then was given the suggestion to check out digital scrapbooking sites.  I have to say, now that I know what it's about and what I can do with various backgrounds, embellishments, and just other general accents, it definitely gives a lot more freedom for creating cards, photobooks, postcards, etc.  I'm really excited about getting to use it!   To get an idea of what digital scrapbooking is, I'm posting an example of one thing I've done.  I'm still fairly new at this, so it's nothing too exotic, but I think I could definitely get into doing more of it, just for fun.  I think the hardest trick is getting the right combination of fun, yet not too busy or taking away from the picture.  On the plus side, the picture tends to help set the tone for any given page and it takes some of the onus of the creator for figuring out where to go with it.  Obviously, however, every scrapbook or page will have an infinite number of possibilities awaiting it that just require the artist's personal touch and flavour to follow from the lead of the picture.

I look forward to working more with this and eventually having a collection of works to display.  Although working with this tool will not improve my photography technique, I think it still helps to improve creativity and to (hopefully) foster the little artist inside of me.

And with that, I shall wish you all a wonderful night! Ciao for now!

My husband and I just celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary.  To treat ourselves, we dropped the munchkin off with Grand-maman and Grand-papa and headed off for a weekend, just the two of us, at Mont Tremblant.  We stayed at a beautiful B&B called 'Au Petit Marigot', which I would highly recommend. The place had elegant hardwood throughout, beautiful rooms - all with ensuite bathrooms - a lovely setting in the woods and a breakfast to die for!  When we arrived, we could smell the homemade scones and breads baking.  The breakfast the following morning was scrumptious, with cranberry scones, banana-apricot bread and fresh-made omelets and french bread. The breakfast alone was reason to go to this B&B, nevermind all the other things it had to offer (including the possibility to book in-room massages, which we chose to take advantage of).



We had a wonderfully relaxing weekend, despite all the rain and I had a wonderful opportunity to use my tripod more and to play around with different camera settings and effects.  The scenery at Mont Tremblant is, of course, beautiful and due to the touristy nature of the area, the landscaping is gorgeous.  As such, it meant many opportunities for me to stop (much to my husband's both annoyance and amusement, as I'd stop in the middle of doing something - like tying my shoe - because I saw a picture that I really wanted to take) and get to know my camera and equipment a bit better.  One of the things that I was most thrilled to get to play around with was water movement.  I had a friend try to help me with this in the past, but I just wasn't getting it.  As well, my hands have a tendency to shake a lot (as do most people's) while taking pictures, so the pictures just never quite turned out. Now I'm happy to say, that with the help of a tripod, I think I've manage to successfully work with water and get a better feel for the different ways I can present it in my photos.   The other opportunity I was happy to have, was the opportunity to play with night-time photography.  In the city, it can be hard to get good photos due to all the light pollution (depending on the type of photos you want - sometimes that's just the effect you're going for).  After a relaxing day and satisfying dinner, we returned to 'Au Petit Marigot' and I got out the camera and tripod again while my darling husband went up to read.  I was relatively happy with the results of my time outside, particularly considering that this wasn't an area I had tons of experience with.  As with anything new, there were definitely some pictures that weren't so great, but with practice, I think I'll be able to have a better eye for what might work and what might not, given the equipment that I have.



So, with that, I will leave you with a few more of my anniversary weekend photos.  It was a wonderful time and a fantastic opportunity that I hope to be able to have a bit more of in the upcoming year.  Ciao for now!