Wordless Wednesday: Boys In Fog

Mosaic Monday: A Little Zen

This week’s Mosaic Monday is brought to you by the Portland Japanese Garden – one of the most beautiful places in the city. We took the opportunity to visit for a special Japanese New Year celebration on Sunday. They had calligraphy demonstrations, rice crackers and green tea.

The highlight for Thomas was when he spotted Chika Sensei, the Japanese intern in his pre-school class. It was about the same reaction that I would have if I ran into Robbie Williams on the street, but without all the screaming and fainting.

It was wonderful day to get out of the house and enjoy the gardens in winter. I really need to make an effort to go back for photo sessions during every season. The colours duiring spring and autumn would be just incredible – the photographer’s dream.

My Favourite Face

This post is primarily for the latest challenge from…

They are celebrating their first birthday this week and the challenge is to choose your favourite face photo from the last month. It provided me with the perfect opportunity to revisit a photo that was lost amongst the Christmas craziness (photo taken December 12).

This photo of Thomas just says so much about the magic of Christmas for a four year old. Santa gave him a tiny little bell on the Polar Express train ride and he was SO happy. A present. From Santa. Of course he was too scared to actually speak to the man in red, and sitting on his lap was out of the question, but when he looked at that little bell and I took this photo, I could see that it meant so much more to him than he let on.

This P365 is a Hodge Podge

Thomas in the bath. He’s always had very long lashes and he inherited them from me. His father can claim the hair, eyes, nose, skin tone and…well.. everything else. I’m clinging to the eyelashes.

This was inspired by a photo I saw on another blog. I just love the red against the white tile. Of course our house is currently being overrun by dinosaurs so it wasn’t difficult to find a subject to photograph. The hard part was deciding between the triceratops , the anchylosaur or the brontosaurus. I love that Samuel calls them simply “Suarus”.

I just love it when little girls wear fairy princess dresses for no other reason than that they want to be fairy princesses for the evening. This one was also wearing her brand new ballet shoes.

I won an award – Not quite an oscar or a Golden Globe, but nearly as prestigious. This was a Jenny Sizzler Golden Facebook award. A couple of my friends play in a band and we take the kids along to see them once a month at a local pizza place. It’s very family friendly and a great night out – especially since it starts at 6pm and includes an easy dinner. On Friday night the band handed out their inaugural Facebook awards for, I guess, people who spend way too much time on Facebook. I guess that’s why I won third place. It’s a small honor, but I am definitely worthy.

We went to the Portland Japanese gardens today – our first visit in about five years. I forgot how calm and serene it is (apart from the children calling Mummy and Daddy every two seconds – oh wait, they were my children). Every time I see a garden like this, it inspires me to grow bonsai and rake rocks. If only it weren’t so high maintenance…

More Japanese garden photos coming soon. I may use them for my Mosaic Monday post this week.

I just realized how many of my photos in this post were in a vertical format. Very unusual for me, but it shows me that I should tilt the camera more often.

Back To Nature – Portland, OR, Family Photographer

I feel like this photoshoot was a lifetime ago, when it was really only last month. The Christmas and New Year holidays seemed to have put me in some sort of time vortex where a week feels like a year.

Way back in December, I ventured out on one very cold, but very sunny, Portland day to meet up with a wonderful family to take some photos in one of their favourite places. One of the best things about the city I live in is the number of wonderful parks right in the middle of the city and inner suburbs. The park we visited for this shoot was new to me and I will definitely be going back for a visit with my family – although I may wait until the weather is a little warmer.

Another first for me was the opportunity to photograph a family with older children. It was challenging in the beginning, but once we all warmed up they had a great time running through the forest and having leaf races in the creek.

Here are a few of my favorites from the day.

I guess we know who won the leaf race.

Charity, Moose Heads and Homemade Pizza – P365

I had a working date with the girls on Monday night. A group of my very talented women friends are organizing the 2010 Iron Bartender benefit to support a local charitable organization called the Children’s Relief Nursery. We’re all mothers, so the organization’s mission to prevent abuse and neglect for at risk children is something we all support wholeheartedly.

We’re also a group of working mothers so we enjoy the monthly opportunity to get together and talk and… ok… have a drink or two. But I promise – we are extremely efficient. We have to be. The event is in about three weeks. Eeeck!

If you’re in the Portland area then I encourage you to buy a ticket. Besides feeling good about the support you are giving to this wonderful organization, you will also have the opportunity to eat great food, sample a few cocktails and have a lot of fun in the process. We’ll also be crowning the 2010 Iron Bartender from a group of Portland’s most talented drink mixers.

So what does this have to do with Moose Heads? I saw this hanging on the wall in the bar where we had the meeting last night. Isn’t he beautiful? The perfect subject for day number 4 of my P365 project.

Day number 5 has nothing to do with moose heads or charity.

Kei and I are on a quest to live a little healthier and try to save money. Enter the homemade pizza. Thomas and I made it together tonight – his side without vegetables of course. Disclaimer: I didn’t make the dough myself. I’m far too lazy for that.

A Surprise Snowy Day in Portland

Just before the end of the year, Portland decided to surprise us with a 24 hour snowstorm. Thankfully I was working from home and didn’t have to suffer through the horrible traffic that resulted – some people were on the road for hours.

Instead we were able to enjoy the short burst of frigid cold. Well, for a few minutes anyway. Friends stopped by and we had plans to walk to the park but the snow storm picked up quickly and we made it two blocks before we decided that it would be a terrible idea. I was able to see Samuel enjoy his first real snowfall and have fun for a few hours with the kids. The snow had all melted within a couple of days and that’s just fine with me.

Here are a few images I captured. You can see the early ones where it looked like a few snowflakes would be a novelty. By the time the snow stopped at around 7pm and I stepped outside to grab some photos in the moonlight, we had been blessed with about 4 inches of the white stuff.

The Beginning of P365 2010

3 days in and going strong. I am going to try and publish my P365 photos each week. It got to be too much when I tried to post them each day last year, so we’ll see how this goes.

Note: Apparently I am drawn to the photos that tell a story rather than the best photo of each day. It’s just the way I roll.

Appropriate that this is one of my first images of the year. It was some whiny combination of “Mummy” and “Uuuuuuup”. I have to say that I prefer this neediness over the Daddy obsession of a couple of months ago. Doesn’t make it easier to listen to all day though.

A new year means trying out a new local coffee shop. This one has adorable miss-matched dishes, good food, a children’s playroom AND free Wifi. I think we’ll be visiting again.

Bowling today at Thomas’ request. It’s funning how the 10 pin bowling experience remains the same regardless of where you are in the world. The same shoes in the same patterns and colours, same dingy faded “carpet”, same musty, stale smell and the same desire to liberally apply Purell as soon as you leave… Good thing we all had a great time. The most enjoyable part was waiting for Thomas’ ball to slo-o-owly travel down the lane, bouncing off bumpers along the way. In terms of the time it takes to play a game, we definitely got our money’s worth.

A Few Favourites from 2009

I prepared a post on Thursday night (yes, New Years Eve – what else did you think I’d be doing?). It included a whole bunch of favorite photos from the year and I had it prepped to post on Friday morning… or at least I thought I did. Seems the post has vanished into thin air. So I’ll try again and this will post a couple of days after the new year and will lose the poignancy of all the other “happy 2010” blog posts, but I can live with it if you can.

Here are just a few of my favorite family photos from 2oo9.