I think Ellie is going to be the best big sister ever!  She’s been waiting for this day as long as mom and dad!

beautiful!

sweet little feet…

Aralyn Rayne

She loves swinging her arms around… maybe she’ll be a dancer like her aunt Bronwyn!

and a little sneeze…

Welcome to the world Aralyn Rayne!!

If you’re anything like me, you haven’t been informed simply because you haven’t needed it or known anyone whose needed it.  Well, that changed last Saturday when I met this young girl named Alysha.  She is a 6 year old girl who was diagnosed with Leukemia at age 4.  Long story short, Alysha has gone through chemo, radiation, the whole bit. Last year she had a stem cell transplant from a cord blood donor at Sick Kids. It didn’t ‘take’ like the doctors wanted, but it put her in remission and she has stayed in remission since then!  And as of now, she is actually doing fantastic. (Thanks God!)

Anyway, I have a friend Lauren who messaged me about taking photos for a blood clinic she was running in honour of Alysha.  It was going to be their 3rd clinic but had no photos to show of the previous events.  I said “yes” with the thought that “it’ll be great to help them out”.  Well, needless to say, my eyes were opened to the need of these donations… and with the upcoming birth of Eli, I realized I needed to inform myself a lot more about donating the cord blood.  Even though, it is way to expensive for most of us to store our own baby’s cord blood stem cells, I also know that if our little guy needed some of that in the future I’d be real glad that I donated…

To sum it up, I learned that donating blood is really not a “horrible” procedure.  I had thought that for so long.  But after asking many questions and seeing so many people do it that day, my previous thoughts/fear went away.

Thanks to everyone who came out to give blood… I’m sure it matters to people like Alysha more than we could possible know!

Here’s Alysha showing us her dance moves!

Alysha & her sister Amy helped the nurses… it was so cute to see how seriously they were taking their “job”

Yummy snacks provided for everyone donating. I may have had some baking… maybe.

It was a big deal for me to see everyone giving away their blood… but for Alysha it’s such a common thing.

Here’s Amy holding all of Alysha’s beads.  Every bead represents a “procedure” that Alysha has gone through.

So inspired by this man who’s given blood 25 times!

I think I ate enough chocolate eggs that morning!

Here is my friend Lauren just about ready to donate

me and the sweetie

This photo makes me laugh!  Alysha: “No Justin you can’t have anymore chocolate”.

Lauren & Sarah… the amazing girls who helped put this clinic together!

This is Sharon Delisle.  She works at the Guelph Blood Donor Clinic and can definitely help answer any of your questions (519) 837-4564.   She was so awesome in answering all of mine!

Alysha, Mark, Amy & Karen… what a lovely family

Thanks to Lauren, Sarah, Alysha & family, and the Guelph Blood Donor Clinic for letting me be part of this special day!

If you’d like to know more about blood donation, bone marrow donors and cord blood donors than you can check out their organization: Operation Alysha.

We have our own APP… and it’s free!! Justin & I have been working on this for awhile now because we wanted all of our iphone / ipod touch clients to be able to download this app so that you can share our photography with your friends and family.  I’m sure you’ll find yourself somewhere on the app… which makes this such a convenient way for you to show off your sweet photos

Let me share a few photos of the actual app.

1. this is my iphone with our app on the first page … When you open it, you’ll see the HOME page.

2. I am so happy with our PHOTO page.  The people at SMUGMUG really help make this page GREAT! …. And the BLOG page (so you can read our posts on the GO).

3. There’s also a VIDEO page & a MORE page (which includes our twitter feed and facebook fanpage).  You can download it to see more of those

4.  And here’s a screenshot of the itunes store… (you’ll notice that I only have $0.01 in my account, but that’s OK, the app’s FREE!) ** You can click on the image and download yours today **

Lastly I must thank 2 people: Justin (myownphotoapp.com) and Adrian (Visual Though Communication).

Of course this was Justin’s idea (from last APRIL), but he couldn’t have done it without our developers at Visual Thought Communications, especially Adrian.  So THANK YOU!

** Also for you PHOTOGRAPHERS out there, Justin & Adrian worked really hard to make this app customizable for any other photographer who would like to have their own app for their clients to share with their sphere of people (at a way lower price than it would to have yours done on your own = sweet).  Head on over to myownphotoapp.com, where you’ll find more info on how to do that!

Back in January we were hanging out with Aaron & Kariann watching the superbowl with some of our old school wedding clients and friends Jesse & Sarah (well THEY are NOT old-school, but we’ve known them for a long time now ).  Of course, Olivia was so small and only 2 months.  Sarah talked to me then about setting up a time to take some beautiful photos of their first child.  So last night, Olivia arrived awake and ready with her big smile and blue eyes.  She did wonderfully, as you can see from the following photos!

I love when babies are cute

oh oh… I see a few tears!!

I SO love father-daughter photos!

And now, they’re 3

definitely a few of my favourites!

there are NO WORDS…

The first few months of a baby’s life are so precious… Thanks Sarah & Jesse for trusting me with capturing some memories of Olivia!

Thanks Alicia & Dylan for trusting me with some important family memories!

They were so brave for bracing the COLD!

Ellie didn’t mind the weather so much, she was having a blast!

Alicia and her gorgeous preggo self!

LOVE this series of shots!

Enough of Mom… now it’s Ellie’s turn  She’s a princess with her “real princess crown”

Look at these three… can’t wait to meet the fourth!

Ellie made us laugh with her lovely dance moves!

My favourite of the day.  Hands down.
After some hot chocolate, we headed to the studio for a few more shots.  Thanks to Ellie for helping me test my lights

beautiful moment

Loveliness.

Many blessings in the final stretch of this pregnancy!!  Can’t wait to meet Aralyn xox

We had a super fun time with our friends Chris & Christine… since we’re both expecting babies in the next 5 months (and our lives to change drastically), we figured that we would have one last “baby-less” trip  But I guess I’ll stop rubbing that in!

On another note, if you’re in the Kitchener-Waterloo area and you’re an engaged couple looking for a wedding planner, you’ve probably heard of Christine Martin from Pure Potential Weddings.  If you haven’t heard of her you may want to head to her website.  She’s usually the one behind the scenes making everything run smoothly for you… But this time around, it was her time to be in front of the camera.

One late afternoon, just before the sun went down, we headed down to the windy beach and took some beautiful maternity shots of her and hubby.  I hope you enjoy them because these two look super fab!!!

There are so many from this series.  I couldn’t narrow it down!!

On our way to the beach, I found this row of small houses.  And it so happened to be an awesome location!

LOVE it!

so fun!

As we headed towards the beach, the wind got FIERCE… so we used it to create some fun shots!

I over exposed this shot and they both really loved it!

Chris really enjoyed fishing off of this pier!

After our ‘a la carte’ dinner, we took a few more night shots to end the session!

If you’re looking to have some casual maternity shots done similar to these, send me an email!

What a better way to start the year than with a beautiful winter wedding!  Justin and I headed up to Kettleby to photograph Victoria & Brett – a lovely couple!  We connected with these two through the gorgeous Renee (Brett’s soon-to-be sister in law) who I’ve known for several years now.  As Victoria shared the vision of her wedding, I was excited to use some of the christmasy decor in their shots!  But of course with very cold weather, my eyes eagerly searched for great light since we stayed indoors the entire day…

As I went through their photos today, I couldn’t help but smile at both Brett & Victoria’s beautiful smiles.  I know you’ll enjoy these as much as I did!

such a funny moment… something “borrowed”!!

Victoria’s niece being a very big help

While I was with the ladies, Justin was taking some great shots of Brett and his guys

One of my favourites!

love love love the sparkling lights behind them!!

Cheers to the two of you… beautiful people with great hearts!

Having talked to Joanne the day before, I could tell by her voice how excited she was to have some photos taken of her and Sye and of their family.  I’m  always so happy and honoured to be chosen to capture such special, intimate moments between a couple.

I hope you enjoy these memories!!

Oh my, I couldn’t get enough of their girls

Now for some mommy and daddy time

I love everything about this photo…

Definitely my favourite wall in Guelph!

These two are such lovely people!

Here’s to many years of happiness for you two and your family!

That’s it.  Really… it’s that easy.  If you want to be one of my wedding couples next summer, I’m sending you a little early Christmas gift by giving you 15% off (but only to the first 5 to email me).  Promotion deadline is December 1st. I have only a few select dates still available so contact me soon!

That’s pretty exciting, I’d say.   So if you were sitting on the fence deciding when or if to book… jump right off and send me an email!

And now….. for some photos.  I had the privilege of doing a very last minute wedding ceremony for a lovely couple this past weekend.  When Afzia from Style & Elegance Wedding and Event Coordination emailed me on Monday desperate for help… I was glad to be available.  I had never been part of a traditional muslim ceremony before, and needless to say I learned a lot about Qayum & CJ’s family and culture in just a few short hours.  Even after the ceremony was over, Qayum’s parents insisted that Justin & I stayed for some (very spicy) indian food After every bite, I was looked at for approval “out of 1-10, how would you say you liked it?” asked his father! HA!

Thanks Afzia for the oppurtunity!  Here’s a few of my favourites of the couple:

CJ was stunning in her pink dress!

the handsome groom – Qayum

Before the bride joins the groom at the front of the room, she sits at the back with some of the women.  Then the groom brings her up the aisle.

I still can’t believe these were taken in the basement of a house.  We managed to get a really dramatic look with the little light we had!

Congratulations again to you two and your new family!

Yesterday, I dropped by theWeddingRing’s new office / loft / cool place to take photos and picked up my copies.  Of course I am so thrilled to see my photos published that I needed to share them with you!

all of my photos from the Bride’s Ball were all over the magazine as well

There you have it.  A little of bit of GREAT news
I hope you have a fantastic and warm weekend!!