Author Archives: Nicole

It’s Been Too Long

6 months of silence. 6 months of too much working and not enough blogging. I miss this space where I shared adventures and recorded our family’s stories. I miss writing (and I NEVER though I’d say that).

So it’s time to start again. It’s time to take my camera out of the cupboard and re-ignite my love for photography. It’s time to get over the fact that I may have to share snowy photos in July and just share them. I’m proud of the photos and the stories behind them.

So I’m starting tonight. Welcoming 2016 just a few months later than expected. It’s been a busy six months with skiing and snow shoeing and a trip to Florida and last days of school. It’s time to start sharing again.

After 3 days of 90+ temperatures in June, Thomas said: “I wish we could go back to the old days of Portland…you know when it used to snow sometimes”.

Well my son, you got your wish.

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More to come.

Dragging Myself out of the Insanity and into the Spirit

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. You can blame a new job that is sucking up a lot of my time, Christmas just around the corner and life. Just to give you a little sneak peek into the craziness, I have FOUR work (or old work) related holiday parties next week, one birthday party for a friend and one birthday dinner for my husband, a 50-60 hours work week and, of course, Christmas preparation which is something I won’t sacrifice. Bring on the weekend with the Christmas tree hunting/decorating.

Needless to say, it’s been quite a while since I’ve put my camera to good use – and the photos I did manage to take are still sitting on memory cards. That makes me incredibly nervous so I plan to rectify it over the next few days.

The upside to this schedule is that I will have two relatively party-free weeks before Christmas so I can focus on important things like food and gifts and hot chocolate and Christmas music on repeat. Thankfully, I also have two very excited boys who are well and truly in the spirit already. Happi the elf has finally made an appearance in our house (and moved positions on both nights!) and I even managed to hang my homemade advent calendar. (Day 1 was to read two Christmas books and tonight we drink Hot chocolate and listen to Christmas tunes). I need to keep reminding myself that these years of unbridled enthusiasm for the magic of Christmas are limited and we need to enjoy them while we can.

So, that was a very long-winded way of explaining why I have one photo to share today that’s a couple of months old, but that I hope to come back with something more festive soon. Capturing the season is an important contributor to my own Christmas Spirit.

Side note: Look at these guys. No personality at all. 🙂

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Cousins, Old and New

I am way behind on photo editing and, in fact, haven’t even pulled out my camera in a few weeks. Life has been busy as I embark on a new job and a new adventure but I hope to get back in the swing of daily photography again soon. I’m lacking inspiration and feel the need to read more photography books and walk around with my camera just to remind myself about why I love it so much. I know I’ll look back on this photography drought when I pull together our 2015 photobook and yearn for the photos that are missing. I can’t let that happen.

I’m going way back to April for this post when a new cousin (and another, more familiar one) came to visit. While they only stayed for a few days, I managed to squeeze in a lot of baby snuggling time – even taking a nap while he lay on my chest. I know a lot of people don’t enjoy the new baby months with the feeding and the crying and the sleep deprivation. I choose to remember the cuddles and the way my babies moulded with my body in a way that rarely happens with a squirmy toddler or boy. I’m so grateful for this short time with Max during peak-snuggle time so I could experience it once more.

The boys appreciated time to bond with their new cousin and share more playtime with Charlie. While it had been four months since we’d seen them in Australia, they managed to pick up right where they left off.

I think I caught these two in the middle of some sort of mischief.