Banff Adventures

Currently, my mother-in-law (Ruth J), Linnea and I are in Banff. We left Edmonton at 10:45am and didn't roll in to our accommodation until 4pm. It was a long day driving for me and the traffic was very heavy with tons of motor homes. We stopped in Red Deer so I could nurse Linnea and we ate donuts from the Donut Mill. We then drove straight through to Banff. By the time we arrived Linnea was starving and crying until I nursed her again. This evening she was just wonderful while I photographed my client and friends wedding BBQ. Ruth came along and took her for a long walk while I visited with the guests and took candids. It was a lovely, warm evening in the mountains. Simply gorgeous. Tomorrow it's supposed to be a hot and sunny day (high of 29 C). I will post some photos soon from this weekend...I recently booked a few more weddings and today confirmed a gig shooting for Alberta Milk's new brochure on pregnancy. So I get to shoot a pregnant lady in a couple weeks. :) I also am getting to shoot stock for the City of St Albert again which was a blast last year. I get to work with my friend Leanne McBean again so I am looking forward to that. She recently had another baby as well so I'm sure our conversations will be filled with baby talk. Our mom's group from Shared Care has decided to meet once a week (every Monday) so this works well for me. I'm quite excited and I've invited my friend Carmen to join our group too. This will be nice for her as well because she can hang out with all of us mom's who've had babies in the same month as her. My friend Carmen had her daughter Alina 4 days before I had Linnea. I'm excited for them to get to know each other well. I'm killing some time here typing before I wake Linnea at midnight and give the little gal her final feeding. Well, I better sign off now and shut my eyes for a bit. I'm soooo tired today!

Linnea 8 Weeks Old

Linnea is changing by the day it seems...new things crop up all the time. A new expression, a new sound, a new movement...It's all so exciting to see and I just love every moment. Last night she slept for over 7 hours which is the longest she's slept at night since she was born. Jeff and I stayed up to watch another episode of Grey's Anatomy on DVD after we put her down so we didn't get to bed until late. This morning Jeff left Linnea and I for a Jazz City Festival Tour with Jerrold Dubyk until Sunday. We'll miss him terribly. He's playing in Calgary, Victoria, Vancouver and Montreal. I'm jealous as he's going to see my grandparents and mom on Thursday afternoon on Granville Island.

Something exciting for us that happened yesterday is that I've asked Aaron Au, one of our studio photographers, to work for me and he said yes! I'm thrilled that he's willing to help us out and to be a part of the studio. I'm also thrilled that that I've booked another 3 weddings for next year in the last couple weeks so I've already got 5 booked and 2 more that I wasn't counting on for this year which makes a total of 14 weddings for this year. Well, Linnea is sleeping so I should probably be too. I am going to sign off now and upload a whole bunch of photos I took of Linnea yesterday trying to show how much she is changing including yawns, different expressions and smiles. I also included a self portrait of our family that is fun! Cheers!!

Linnea - 7 weeks old

Linnea has had some interesting days the last couple weeks. For example: Yesterday she was awake pretty much the ENTIRE day with lots of smiles and happy awake time. Then she became very unhappy all evening until I put her down to bed at 2am wide awake. She eventually fell asleep and woke up at 6:45am. Today has been better with a good mix of some good napping times and some happy awake time. I didn't get much work done today. I was going to shoot an E-session tonight but in came a huge thunderstorm and thus we postponed the session. Lia brought Jeff and I lunch today which was fabulous and we had a quick visit. Perry is over tonight with us for supper and I'm trying to clean and organize my office. The process is taking a very long time so hopefully I complete this tomorrow so I feel better about getting other work done. Today Kuypers Construction arrived at 7:10am and stayed until 5pm working on putting in weeping tile. There were 5 guys working and doing everything by hand. They are already half done and are working very fast!! I want to include some photos of Linnea that I took today. Her face is getting rounder I think. She is smiling a lot more which is fun and she rolled from her front to her back today (although the way the blankets were sitting gave her a pretty good angle).

Special Cuddles

Below is a photo of my dad and Linnea. He came to visit us three in May. We had a lovely time and ate some great food and drank some yummy coffee too. Thanks for helping us out too Dad! I don't think our lawn has been mowed since you left!! (just kidding). The next photo is of my mom and Linnea taken at the hospital the day she was born. Mom stayed with us for almost 2 weeks and her help was indispensable. Thanks Mom for everything!! It was awesome to have you here especially that first week with the really long nights...I'm so happy she has her days and nights figured out now. :) The third photo is of Jeff's mom and Linnea taken the day she was born at the hospital. You're a fantastic mom-in-law and thanks for helping us out a lot with kitchen clean up and looking after Linnea when we are busy.

SMILES SMILES SMILES

What a fun evening we had! Great Auntie Joyce, Grandma and Uncle Perry were over to enjoy some of Jeff's yummy pizza and see Linnea. Linnea spent a lot of the time sleeping but the last hour was spent wide awake playing in her bassinet smiling for us and giving us some marvelous expressions!! Enjoy the photos!!

Out with the Great Grandparents

Today Gramma and Grandpa, Jeff, Linnea and I went to Culina (a favorite restaurant of mine) for lunch. We then went to Transcend coffee roastery for coffee/espresso and to pick up some freshly roasted beans. We had a lovely visit and time and here are some shots from today. The other shot that isn't of grandma and grandpa is of Jeff holding Linnea earlier this morning. I love her expression! She has just started to smile in the last 2 days. So precious!!

Almost 6 weeks

Today was a fantastic day! Linnea and I had our 6 week post natal check-up and both passed with a clean bill of health! Linnea is now 9 lbs 10 ozs and 23 inches long. She's very healthy and growing well. I'm supposed to still take it easy but I'm healing really well. Last Saturday I photographed another wedding and it was one of the best weddings ever. I had so much fun and felt like my photography passion was burning inside me all day. I felt like I was on fire, full of ideas and truly had a great time. My clients are having me design them an 80 page album which is the largest album ordered to date. I can't wait. I've had 2 wedding consultations this week and have been able to get a lot of work done. The three weddings in May that I photographed went very well and I'm thrilled with how Linnea has been. She hasn't had a problem with taking a bottle from anyone and pumping has been going really well during the weddings and throughout my working/home life day. I've even started to go back to train at the Panther Gym and have been enjoying my karate class. I have an exhibition opening at the University of Alberta hospital on Monday for a couple months of some of my fine art images. This weekend I have to write up a biography which won't be very exciting. Linnea's great-grandparents are here visiting us and we're all going to Culina tomorrow for brunch and hang out in the afternoon together. I hope Linnea is as good tomorrow as she was with me today. She slept so much today that I'm a little nervous about how she'll sleep tonight...Enjoy the photos of Linnea's first bath where she didn't shed a tear and afterwards on her new hooded towel our friend made for her and a couple photos of her with Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Horch.