Dragon Hare Studios

We spent some time out at the farm doing something I have many fond memories of growing up: planting potatoes. I remember my grandparents and my Uncle coming out and spending the entire day cutting up potatoes. Then the next day, my four siblings, my grandparents, Uncle and parents would all grab a bucket of cut potatoes and head out to the garden to plant them. I love that we now live close enough to the farm for my children to join in these traditions. My father had gone to get the tractor and disc with my two oldest children to start working the garden. Kalla was playing with the kitties and never saw them go. When the tractor starting heading round and round the garden, Kalla ran over to watch her Poppa. She tried her hardest to get her Poppa’s attention to stop and pick her up but he was paying
attention to the tractor rather than a little miss on the side of the garden. Kalla was pretty dejected and I caught this image of her watching Poppa and her siblings go round and round. She was perfectly framed by the two trees and the moment was….well perfect. Poppa stopped shortly after I got this image and Kalla climbed up on the tractor for her ride too - she was all smiles and giggles after that! All I have left of that moment is this image.

We went home to Mannville to attend a birthday party. We had a wonderful weekend visiting with family we haven’t seen for quite awhile. My children love big family parties because it means they have lots of cousins to play with! At the party, I was able to photograph my cousin’s children, Colsen and Kaden. Having lived so far away for so long means we haven’t been able to get to know these two very well! I had a great time doing their portraits, they both have such beautiful smiles and are wonderful children!

I graduated from high school with a class of 15. 12 of us started kindergarten together! One thing I love about this, is that regardless of where I have been, or how far away I have lived, these people have always remained friends. We may not see each other on a regular basis, but when we do, we pick up where we left off. It has always been a great feeling to have such roots in my life, its something I hope to be able to give my children soon too. My classmate Jodi and I have been visiting online lately and she mentioned that she’d loved to have her daughter’s 3 year old portrait done. While we were in town, we met up with Jodi and Derek and their girls. I think they are incredibly beautiful little ladies! I had a such a great time getting to know them and we came away with some wonderful portraits.

My mom loves her grand babies. My father teases her that her “grandma buttons” just pop off her shirt when she adds another grand baby to the mix. Mom and I spent some time at Michaels recently and found a beautiful frame that features all 9 of her grandchildren. Mom needs new images for her frame and when we went to Mannville, Indira was down. I was heading out to do some portrait sessions so I had Indira come along and pose for a new portrait for Grandma’s new frame. Indira is such a busy young lady, she doesn’t sit still for long, but she was so patient and we had a blast together. Uncle Brian had her giggling but I happened to love this more serious portrait of Indira. She has incredibly beautiful eyes and I think this portrait shows them off wonderfully!

Our Kalla is full of spice and smiles. She is such a light in our lives. She loves to inform anyone she meets that “first I was two, then I was three, and now I am FOUR!”. She is so very proud of being four. She loves to pick out her outfits to wear each day. Some days, she matches but mostly she doesn’t. She thinks she looks incredibly beautiful so it doesn’t matter to me what she wears, when she feels beautiful, you can see her face glowing. She found Jorah’s pink hat one day and plopped it on her head and wore it the entire day. She loved it! She was so proud of her outfit this day that I had to take her out for portraits. She posed wonderfully for me and we had a blast running around the neighborhood taking her portraits. Here’s my little miss at FOUR!

This is my guy. He is now six and pretty pleased with himself for passing kindergarten. He also loves soccer. He giggles and jumps around the entire time he is playing. The closer he is to the ball, the louder he giggles. It is so priceless. You can’t help but smile when watching Kadin play soccer. If he is in goal, he starts jumping up and down as the ball gets close to him, when it arrives, he pounces on it like his life depends on it. I love watching my guy play soccer because it brings him such joy. I took him out to a field to kick around his ball and take his portrait. He had a blast showing me all his tricks and it was super easy to catch his laid back grin. My soccer superstar is now “six”!!

Our oldest child turned eight a couple of months ago. Brian and I are still trying to wrap our heads around this fact - we certainly don’t feel old enough to have an eight year, let a lone two more and one on the way! But as she likes to inform us, she is eight, she is growing up much to our dismay, and she will continue to do so no matter how much we want to stop the progression of time.

I try to photograph my children every six months and I have a wonderful scrapbook of their portraits from infant up to current age. It amazes me to flip through the pages to see how much they have grown, even just over the last six months. I think my daughter said it best today - she was looking at her yearbook from school this year and she said “wow Mom, I hardly recognize my class from the beginning of the
year, we’ve all grown so much and changed so much”. I have to agree, even six months makes a huge difference!

So here is my Jorah, at “Eight”.

We spent a wonderful evening around a campfire with my Aunt and Uncle a little while ago. Auntie Marj owns a greenhouse and really enjoys what she does. She told me it wasn’t for the money, it was for the pure joy of doing something she loves. She invited me back to take some stock photos in the greenhouse and asked if I “took requests”. She wanted a print for her home that had her favorite colours with her favorite things. I had great fun playing with this one and came up with the following image for their home. I called this one “Marj’s Passion”.

I really admire Auntie Marj for doing what she loves in life. I also feel very fortunate that I too get to do my life’s passion every single day. I can’t call it “work” or my “job” because it doesn’t feel like work. Its been a year now since I graduated from Hallmark and I have to sit back and say “wow, this is really my life”! It’s a wonderful feeling! So, without further philosophical ramblings, here is my Auntie Marj’s Passion!

On February 16, 2008, we had the pleasure of photographing Steve and Tammy’s wedding.
They had a beautiful winter wedding and Tammy looked absolutely stunning.
Brian and I enjoyed sharing in the wedding day as it is so obvious they are deeply in love!
Congrats Tammy and Steve - thanks for letting us share your special day!

Click Here to see some more moments from the wedding.

I have the good fortune of being married to the love of my life. Brian is my best friend, my soul mate, my partner in all that we do. We just celebrated our ninth anniversary and I have to say, I am just as much in love with him now, as I was on the day we said “I do”.

Now let me just add that life does get in the way of this love. Its been a long time since we were able to go out on a “date” to celebrate “us”. We gave up going out to movies and dinners on the weekends and exchanged it for putting babies to bed and making snowmen with them, an exchange that I think far outweighs what we gave up! Our roles our now first and foremost parents and the role of wife and husband comes in a distant second. Its what we feel is important and we make the best of this. We put the babies to bed, pull out the china and have our very own dinner and a movie in the comfort of our own home! This of course doesn’t happen on that regular of a basis as let’s face it, being parents to three active young children is exhausting! But, we are stronger parents because we make sure that as a couple we nurture our commitment to each other.

Are you a parent that’s focus is on keeping up with your children? Do you often fall into bed exhausted without so much as a kiss goodnight to your partner? It happens, I know, I’ve been there frequently! So my question to you is this, how do you celebrate the love you share with your spouse? How do you put aside your parenting differences, your exhaustion from dealing with your job and life in general and dedicate time to your partner?

When I have families come to me for family portraits, I ask the parents, when was the last time you had a picture of just the two of you? The reply is always “at our wedding”. This, I want to help rectify. At your wedding, you celebrated your love, just the two of you. Now its you, him and all of the kids. How do you celebrate the love that the two of you share now? How do you remember what its like to share in each other’s time when there are constant interruptions? Why not get a portrait of just the two of you? Hang it in a room the two of you find yourself in alone frequently so that you can look at it and remind yourself of the fact that first there was your love, and then everything else followed suit.

When I have a family come to me for portraits, I work at getting portraits of them together. When the kids have tired and are ready for a new activity, I have Brian get them playing. Then I turn my focus to Mom and Dad. I take a few portraits of them so they can, even if its only for an instant, have time to reflect on what started their family story. Look at this photo of Karla and John, taken during their family session. Karla is a mom of two busy boys, John is self-employed and has to work a lot, but look at their expression. After eight years of marriage, I can still see the love that they feel for each other. This photograph will remind them of that!