DAYtwenty-six – 150 Days of Photos

So, I have been absolutely tormenting the children with my new camera yesterday and today.  So much infact that my usual happy go lucky model turned on me.  She was none-too-impressed to get her photo taken all dolled up in anticipation of Canada Day.

 

And that was as good as it got!

Happy Canada Day!

See you tomorrow for DAYtwenty-seven!

DAYtwenty-five – 150 Days of Photos

OK… so I did something.  And its a big something.  I bought a new camera.  And omgosh I absolutely totally and utterly love it.  By far my favourite investment!  What kind of camera did I break down and buy?  None other than the Canon Rebel EOS.  This Optimistic Beauty will have many many hours of discovery ahead of me as I re-learn my photography lessons… and convert my old school knowledge to the new digital SLR world!

What I love about my Canon Rebel?  Well compared to the point and click Fuji Z10 that I’ve been using the lag time is virtually non-existent.  I was able to take pictures almost immediately and they are totally awesome!  Totally gives me new motivation to keep on with my 150 days of photos!

See you tomorrow for DAYtwenty-six!

DAYtwenty-four – 150 Days of Photos

It was hard for me to pick a photo of the day today.  It seems as if we were busy doing super fun stuff all day long!

There was the yummy cantaloupe snacks this morning

There was excitement when Tala’s doll “Amen” miraculously started talking again.  She’s had Amen since she was 6 months old and absolutely adores her.  Amen is one of the Precious Moments Prayer Dolls that says the Lords Prayer.  At the end of the prayer the doll says Amen, and when Tala was about 18 months old she looks at me after the doll said Amen and was like “Amen, her names Amen!”.  The name stuck. I’m on the look out for an amazing price on this doll as Malie has long coveted Amen and would love one of her own.  They have been discontinued and while there are lots available down South at a great price, shipping up to Canada is extreme, or non-existent.

An another huge surprise came from Malie, who apparently has been rapidly absorbing in all the dance she’s seen the last 2 weeks.  I was absolutely floored when she showed me that can gallop around just like the girls on the stage.  I wasn’t sure if Malie was old enough to start taking her dance classes this year (she just turned 3), but perhaps she is!

See you tomorrow for DAYtwenty-five!

DAYtwenty-three – 150 days of Photos

Any of you who have been keeping up with this here photo series, and who are familiar with my blog Optimistic Beauty are probably in the know of just how little needs to transpire for a dance party to take place around this place.  The girls and I love nothing more then to dance around shaking our silly out.

So of course the addition of new super sparkly jewellery is no exception to this policy!

Tala, of course, still hasn’t gotten the memo that less is more… lol.  She’s since informed me that she now collects bracelets and intends on wearing them all every day.

Here’s Malie dancing up a storm.  She sure is turning into a funky little dancer!

See you tomorrow for DAYtwenty-four!

DAYtwenty-two – 150 Days of Photos

Best friends minus 1!

The girls through Mommy influence have 2 amazing awesome best friends.  This morning we had one visitor while big sister went off delivering birthday invites.  Fun was had by all!

See you tomorrow for DAYtwenty-three!

DAYtwenty-one – 150 Days of Photos

This is the official picture taken for DAYtwenty-one that accidently didn’t get posted! Oops!  Better late than never :O)

Miss Malie modelling the fake earrings that we working on.  The project: making Jem earrings.  You’ll have to check back later for the finished product as its a huge suprise!

Stay tuned for DAYtwenty-two on the way shortly!

DAYnineteen – 150 Days of Photos

Little Bo Sleep is fast asleep… all played out!

See you tomorrow for DAYtwenty.

PS… did you catch the itty bitty teeny weeny change?  I have downsized my 365 days of photos to 150 in the interest of finishing it this year come December.  Why?  Its a pretty awesome Christmas Pressie, and also I would like to start next years bright and early 2010, and so scaling this year back to make room for next year was the best option.

Enjoy!

DAYeighteen – 365 Days of Photos

My girls are no exception to the fact that kids love Fake Tattoos.  At Aboriginal Days yesterday the girls were super excited to receive very cool temporary tattoos!

Miss Malie, in fairly typical fashion, wasn’t too gung-ho to show off her tattoo to the camera, but Tala as always was more than happy to oblige!

See you tomorrow for DAYnineteen!

DAYseventeen – 365 Days of photos

Its a bird, its a plane… no its an Inuksuk!

Like our miniature Inuksuk?  Today is Aboriginal Day and the girls and I headed to the Civic Centre for the Celebrations this afternoon.  The girls each picked up a little Inuksuk Puzzle that we put together.  I couldn’t resist taking a picture!

Traditionally constructed out of stones to show weary hunters and travellers the way home, to mark places of significance, to caution danger, and also to assist with herding of Cariboo for hunting purposes the Inuksuk now stands for hope and unity.

Happy Aboriginal Day!

DAYsixteen – 365 Days of Photos

Did you think I forgot already (again)?  We actually had a pretty gosh darn late night at the Spectrum City Dance Year End Dance Recital.  Tala did awesome, and aside from her teddy being placed in the wrong place (usually she’s 2nd from the end on the left hand side, today her teddy was 3rd from the right and she couldn’t find it at first) things went wonderfully!

Tala was none t0o impressed with me when I got dressed in Jeans and a Tshirt for the performance, and quickly herded me back into the bedroom to get dressed up all pretty.  The end result wasn’t too shabby!

See you tomorrow for DAYseventeen!

DAYfifteen – 365 Days of Photos

It was a rainy day today, perfect for indoor shenanigans!

Where oh where can Tala be?  Oh where oh where can she be?  All I see is a pile of towels!

And for doing the chicken dance!

See you tomorrow for DAYsixteen!

Dance Recital Excitement

Tala's first ever Dance Recital! She's the one second to the end on the left hand side with the huge puppy teddy. Please excuse the shaky camera work towards the end when Tala let out the biggest yawn imaginable! LOL... I couldn't help but laugh.

DAYfourteen – 365 Days of Photos

Back on track… I promise… oopsies!

The Grand-daughter of all Grand-Father’s Day Pressies!  Miss Tala was busy at work creating this masterpiece for her Grandpaw’s present this weekend.  She got the idea that she was going to make him a picture of a deer… I suggested she take a page out of Mister Maker’s Book and create a picture with beads.  This was the result, she cannot wait to show Grandpaw!

See you tomorrow for DAYfifteen!

Dancing Queen

I know, I know, another post featuring my little dancing girl.  Yesterday was Tala’s first rehearsal on the big stage for her dance recital this weekend.  The class as a whole was a tad disorganized the first time through, Tala got a huge laugh when she stood in the middle of the stage and pulled her skirt up to her neck, and then back down, and up again, and then down again.  Thankfully the second time through went a whole lot more fluidly.  The little ones got the biggest round of applause out of all the acts that we saw…. mostly from the older dancers, as I’m sure most of us parents were a tad weepy.

As I’m on vacation through the end of this weekend, we decided to do a run through on makeup this morning, along with a set of photos.  Putting makeup on a 4 year old tough, but I think we did pretty good.  And of course Miss Malie had to get in on the action as well.The girls are doing a Teddy Bear routine where they are heading off to bed, hence the wardrobe of a housecoat.

Aside from the running around to get her to her rehearsals in time, and the daunting task of doing her makeup, the hardest part of the process is taming her wild mane into a dancers bun.  Thankfully after years and years of dancing myself I know that the trick is hairnets.  All in all not too shabby for a first time through!  Tala’s hair is pretty short, and without the use of a hairnet this bun never would have happened.  The store had only white or black, and I figured the white would be a better match for her blonde curls. Curious about Miss Malie’s Makeover?  Since her sister was getting her makeup done, and having her picture taken in costume Miss Malie absolutely had to follow suit.

Of course Malie took this opportunity to let her personality shine (she'’ll be a class clown I’m sure!)

…and shine……and then shine some more…

Very Mickey and the Sorcerer’s Hat, don’t you think?

…and then finally success getting a zinger of a great picture…

Seafest 2009

My first year at a new job and I decided to make a splash in the company, and also within the community.  So I launched a huge project to participate in the 2009 Seafest Parade.  After a couple months of non-commitment from my coworkers everyone finally jumped on the band wagon in the  last week.  I had plans to put forth a float regardless of how many people actively participated, albeit it would have been on a much much smaller scale than what we did create.  A huge thank you to my wonderful coworkers who truly came together to make an amazing float that was fun for everyone, especially our work children who rode in the back of the float.

What Happens when you have a float decorating potluck supper at your home the night before Seafest and end up storing the balloons for the night… lol.

Seafest 2009 had an interesting theme, that was actually quite hard to come up with an original float idea for. 

A Whale of a Good Time. 

The obvious choice was a whale.  However, how to stand out in a sea of Whales?  Pinocchio?  Moby Dick?  Killer Whales?

When I heard that we would have use of  a trailer my immediate thought was to create a bathtub, and with team input we decided on transforming the trailer into a beluga shaped bath tub, full of balloon bubbles, and give out bubbles to the kids in the audience.  Things with the trailer didn’t pan out, but thankfully our manager has a pick up truck and we transformed that into a bathtub… complete with an amazing wonderful Paper-Mache' Grey Whale courtesy of the guys at work.  It was absolutely amazing, and was set up to look like the Whale was having “A Splashing Good Time” in the tub.  Surrounded by balloon bubbles and our children it was awesome.  We also added a bubble blower to the float to add to the whole bathtub theme.  As an added plus the staff showed up in their pj’s & robes just like they were getting ready for a bath.

Great fun for everyone involved.  We got amazing feedback and are already planning for next years parade!  Our organization definitely has the parade fever.

DAYthirteen – 365 Days of Photos

Hiding from the afternoon heat.  It was absolutely gorgeous again today, and 28 degrees in the city!  Insane, crazy weather for Prince Rupert.  Tala took to an afternoon art project today to hide from the heat.

Tomorrow its supposed to be even hotter!