2 Years.

After a few attempts he has mastered climbing onto his very own birthday bike (thanks to Harv and Helene!) and spent the entire evening and next day, and the next, climbing up and just sitting - or else shouting, "Look Mom! I'm on my motorcycle!"
Yesterday he let Derek push him around the house on it and now he asks for a push from Daddy every five minutes. I refuse to push a bike that has pedals, so I keep trying to teach him how to use the pedals. He'll get it eventually.

Our first fire of the summer was on Luke's birthday. A wonderful day to break in our new fire pit and set the children free in our newly fenced in yard!
His birthday gift from me and Derek is still in the works. We told Luke that we are planning on building him a sandbox this week. Luke keeps running to Derek and saying, "Do you wanna build me a birthday sandbox?"

Who knew that cupcakes would be such a headache?! I thought it would be easier than a cake, but it turns out that cupcakes have to stay out on the counter (because how do you stack cupcakes?) where beasts of all shapes and sizes can lay their sticky little fingers on them! I had to redo the writing on individual cupcakes five times. FIVE. He's definitely a two-year old now. And Asha, you better believe he followed your advice and had TWO cupcakes, because he's two like you! He's going to be abusing that line, I can already tell. "I need two pieces of cake. I need two bowls of ice cream. I need two race cars."

Photography Featured!

I can't stop grinning after my trip to the Art Centre this morning. I stopped in just to pick up my 9x13 pan and ended up getting a glimpse of the brochure that I did a photo shoot for a few weeks ago. Seeing my photos in print gave me goosebumps! What a thrill. As soon as I can I will get a full scan so you can see what they've done with these photos. Apparently there was some debate over the photo of the girl with the beaded necklaces. The question was, "Is this photo too attractive, the girl too captivating, and does it detract from the purpose of the flyer which is to attract people to the art centre?" I was flattered, to say the least.

This photo just made my day.

Click the photo to enlarge my backyard and see what mayhem my few dependents can stir up.

What's your name?

A few weeks ago the mother of a friend of mine watched Luke for a couple hours in the afternoon while I did a photo shoot. When I got home the first thing she asked me was, "So...what's his name again? We've been asking him, 'what's your name?' and he just says, 'what's your name?' " I laughed out loud, told her his name (which she remembered right away), and then felt much better about my own lapses of memory.

Later that evening we practiced with Daddy. I asked Derek, "What's your name?" and Derek responded, "My name's Derek." He turned to Luke,"What's your name?" Luke responded with the expected repetition, "What's your name?" Derek said, "No, say 'My name's Luke'". Luke shook his head. "No daddy, your name's Derek. My name's Me."

Funniest. Ever.

Derek, Luke and Laura sit outside on the deck in the sunshine enjoying their grilled cheese, tuna sandwiches and yogurt. Luke finishes his sandwich and says, "I want my boon, please!" which is translated by Laura aloud, "You want your spoon? To eat yogurt?" "Yeah," Luke agrees. Laura reaches to hand Luke his spoon, but before she does Derek says, "Luke, you can say spoon. Say sssssss-POON. Ssssss-poon." Luke repeats, "Ssssssss......" and breaks into hysterical laughter. Derek repeats, "Sssssssss-poon. Ssspoon. Spoon."
"Good job, Daddy! Boon!" and Luke claps his hands.

I told you I'd tell you

So I'm telling you.
It has been very hard to get around to blogging this week and next week looks like it's going to be crazy too. I will try to get some pictures in every now and then, but with the advent of busy-business and growing garden I will take my official hiatus and stop stressing when I don't get to the blog today...or tomorrow...beginning now.

It's movie time

Luke walked up to me this morning and said, "It's movie time! It's movie time! It's movie time!" and handed me a DVD. He said, "Let's put the DVD in", and proceeded to employ his considerable skill at pestering. When I looked at the DVD Luke brought me, I realized that even if I wanted it to be movie time (which I almost never consent to), it would be a terribly dull movie. Luke had brought me, "Actiontec wireless DSL modem installation cd-rom".

The Sunshine Room

Yesterday I was back in the sunshine room - the great outdoors. I had a booth set up at the Back 40 Festival and let me tell you, it could not have been more fun! I got so many encouraging comments and made so many sales, and when I think back on the day I can't think of anything I would change. Such a good feeling. I got an offer from a woman in Winnipeg who owns a boutique to sell my note cards in her shop. I sold about 20 notecards and printed around 30 photo booth cards (some were reprints when people came back for more!).After I took this photo of our booth there wasn't much time to take another. We were busy. You can see the white screen and my tripod set up off to the left.

This was our view from the tent. We were up on the edge of the bowl looking down. This picture was taken first thing in the morning (11am) and this crowd tripled or maybe quadrupled before the day was done! It was the biggest crowd EVER at the Back 40 Festival.
And look at that sky. It rained while we were setting up, but the weather could not have been better. Wendy said she kept looking at the sky thinking, "Okay, now it's going to rain", but it never did. It was gorgeous with those big clouds.

Initially I had hoped that this weekend would just be about letting people know I exist, and visiting with my friend Wendy who came along to help me run the booth. But there wasn't much visiting time. We were kept on our toes. After yesterday's success, I feel like I've established myself as a respectable photo business with an entirely new customer base all at once! I am just thrilled. And the photo booth idea was a blast. I got suggestions from customers about all kinds of places they'd like to see me set up: the Morden Corn and Apple Festival, the Farmer's Market, even church youth group! We'll see what pans out this Summer, but it sure feels good to have made these contacts, and had such success with my photography. Wow. This is what it feels like!

friday morning

who's in the booth?

Photo Booth

Please come to the Back 40 Festival this Sunday in the Morden Bowl and have your picture taken by yours truly. I will take good pictures, and you will look good - maybe even as good as I do in these pictures. Totally. You will not regret it.

It may rain, but we have goggles so it's all good.

Fence progress

The fence is not coming along as fast as we had hoped because we've had such a ridiculous amount of rain. Thankfully the rain hasn't flooded our basement or backed up our sewer, as it has done to many, but it's incessant dripping has kept us out of the mud hole that will someday be our enclosed yard.
Derek told me that in Emerson (about 45 minutes away), 80% of homeowners had three feet of water in their basement last Saturday because they got over 7 inches of rain in 24 hours and the storm was so powerful it knocked out the power, which turned off everybody's sump pumps, and as you can imagine - lots of people woke up to wet basements.
We are lucky not to be so inconvenienced.

stealing screws

Oh yes, we all worked very hard.
Some of us worked on the fence.

notice the mosquito bites Luke suffers for his dedication to the task.

Baby Abuga

We've had a bit of a dry spell as far as posting videos goes, so here's another video.

playdough

Just after I stopped recording this video I made a little person out of playdough and showed it to Luke. "No, that's not a person," he said, "That's a penis!" Not yet sure if I'm proud.