confession

Well, hi! Ya, it's been awhile.

I have a confession to make. This summer has been chaotic. Crazy. Overwhelming and challenging. It has also been full of firsts and so wonderful watching Ellia grow. It's been amazing and terribly stressful all wrapped together.

For those of you that don't know, here in Ontario, we get a full year of Maternity Leave. Yup, one full year to be a stay at home mom, spend all your time with your little bundle of joy and enjoy motherhood. I opted out of my maternity leave, because, well I love my job. I work because I love it, not because I need to. I LOVE getting out and shooting, coming up with fun concepts, meeting new people and seeing old friends.  I adore weddings. Being a part of a friends wedding, new or old and being able to capture one of the most important, wonderful days in their lives is such an honour. It blows my mind that these couples let me into their lives and wedding and I will forever be grateful to them for it.

After the fun of shooting, the laughs and the love, comes the hard part. The processing. The uploading, rating photos, emails, setting up proofing galleries and editing. And so much more. Before I was a mom, this stuff was easy and time consuming, it was my only job and I loved every minute of it. Now it's the thing that pulls me away from spending time with Ellia. When I should be making up games with her and going to the park, or for a nice walk, or to the cottage or a pool, I am stressing out and upset because I should be editing. I should be answering those 10 emails sitting in my inbox. I should be sending yesterdays client their proofing gallery or editing the photos for a mom to be with her belly photos so she can get them in a timely fashion.

This balancing act is tough. Especially when you have a baby who prefers not to nap longer than 40minutes - 2 hours in total, a day, from the time she wakes up at 7 to the time she goes to bed, a lot later than she should. The funny thing is, she's happy. Dispite the lack of sleep (she typically wakes up 2 times a night) she is smiles, giggles and love all day everyday. She is SO NOT a Papalia I tell ya (mom's side likes sleep) ...she's all Spencer in that aspect.

So on top of all that, we moved. We are building a new home and it wasn't quite ready, but we needed to move out of the rental, so we are staying at my parents. Which is lovely and hard at the same time. Plus, Ellia and I were sick for almost 2 full weeks. I hate seeing her sick...and who gets a terrible flu in the summer anyways?

So what's the point of this post anyways? There isn't really one. And if you actually read it, well thanks a bunch. I just needed to put it all out there, to admit it to myself. I'm not supermom. I'm just trying to get through this crazy season and move on. I have made the desicion to not book anymore sessions than what I already have booked until the New Year. There are still A LOT of them to be shot and edited, so I'm not off the hook, and saying NO to people is HARD. It's not really my thing. But I have to do what is right for myself and my family. And I just want to be a mom now, since I didn't have a chance to give it 100% from the beginning.  Of course I'll still shoot, I couldn't not, but it will be much more selective from now on. When we are fortunate enough to be blessed with another baby, I want to remember the first year of being a mom to two as being challenging for a different reason. I can't wait. I would not have gotten through the past few months had it not been for my amazing husband, who wakes up during the night, ever.single.night. to give Ellia a bottle and soothe her back to sleep. Yup, that's right ladies, he's amazing. Or to my parents, who watch Ellia all the time and love her more than anything. If I ever need to get in a few hours of rest, or work, or Lucas and I want a night out, they are ALWAYS there. I am so fortunate.

Ok, so enough of all that...onto a few photos. Most of which you have probably already seen since I pretty much post everything on Instagram.

Most of our days are spent pushing things across the floor at Nanny & Nonno's.

 

This past weekend I had two sessions. And a 1 year birthday party for our dear little friend Kennedy.

 I'm such a dork with my matching wrapping and party theme obsession.

We are so much closer to moving into the house, I really cannot wait.

Quartz countertops are finally in. I LOVE it, there are these little 'diamonds' in it that sparkle like crazy in the evening. I like to sing, 'Shine bright like a diamond' on repeat while I'm in there. This may get annoying when we actually live there.

 Stairway light

Hubs sent me these photo today...stone on the fireplace is coming along..

 And we have grass!! woohoo...fence going in soon too.

 

Driveway and exterior is almost all done, too!

Love you guys :)

xoxo

Nat

9 months old

I can't believe my baby is 9 months old!! Time used to move so slowly, and now it's just flying by.

Height - 30in (98th%) The doctor said she is off the charts and predicts she will be very tall.
Weight - 20lbs (60th%)

Loves: cheese, crawling, fake coughing, dancing & music, squealing, cell phones, bath time, playing outside, standing and walking around everything, short naps, waving, the dogs, walks, car rides, drinking from a straw and her aunties.

Dislikes: sleeping, chicken, diaper changes, when no one pays attention to her, sitting still, washing her face, the word no

Since we are in the midst of moving, Dolly has decided she would rather not nap, or sleep through the night anymore. We are staying in my parents basement for a few weeks until our house is finished, and our whole schedule has been thrown off. That's ok, we are only here for a few weeks and hopefully she will get right back into our routine once we move in.

39 weeks

Ellia was born at 39 weeks on the dot. I took these photos in the morning before leaving for the hospital. I can't believe she has now been here longer than she was in my belly.

 

 xoxo Nat

Ellia's Nursery

Well, it's quite ironic that the day we move out, is the day that I am posting Ellia's nursery. A year ago,  I was pregnant and moving into a townhouse that we were renting for a year. I was really pregnant and we needed somewhere to live. So we rented this place, less than ideal, but hey, it was a new home that was clean and a great location. I knew that I wanted to decorate a special room for Ellia, even though her room was tiny, carpeted a poop colour that was not my favourite and we would only be there for a year.

At the time I was obsessed with chevron, and it wasn't overly popular. My Father-In-Law offered up his mad chevron mapping out skills and it took him many hours to tape it all up. It turned out perfect and more incredible then I could have imagined. I wanted the colours to be soft and pretty and the room to be super girly.

Most of the items in the room were thrifted and refinished. My mom and sister found the vintage dresser for $15 at a community garage sale, the bookshelf, mirror, little mint glass cabinet, and picture frames for the gallery wall were all thrifted finds I had collected over the months since finding out I was pregnant. One of the first things that I made was Stella, the paper mache unicorn. I love her to pieces. I also made a bunch of the prints for her gallery wall, and the others were artworks by various artists from my favourite magazine, Frankie.  I always wanted the Oeuf Sparrow Crib and was over the moon when my parents offered to buy it for us as a gift. Overall I think the room turned out pretty cute, and it will definitely hold a special place in my heart.

And that's it! I still love it, a lot, but am looking forward to making Ellia's room a little more big girl. Hubs surprised us with the best bedroom set, minus the very bright colours, and I cannot wait to refinish it and put the room together. So.many.ideas.

xoxo Nat

Please excuse the current state of this blog, I am in the midst of a very much needed update. Also, please forgive me for being a terrible blogger, yet again. I have been busy working (a lot) and editing and running around after a now crawling baby who doesn't want to nap and packing, it's been a little chaotic around here. In the meantime, here's a few photos of my Dolly, taken today, 9 months old.

Cali Part II

Part II, finally! All of my Cali photos are on our MacBook Pro, which hubs takes to work almost everyday, so that is why it is taking me sooo long to blog about our wonderful trip!

We decided to go and visit my best friend Katie's Dad and Step Mom in Dana Point. I really wanted to show everyone where I have been spending the past decade worth of California vacations, and of course wanted to see the awesome people who have let us crash at their amazing place. 

We walked around the Dana Point Harbor and enjoyed one of the first really sunny days.

 Saturday was one of the best days. I had my very first Instagram meet up!! I had been talking with Danielle, one of my fav IG mama's and we decided to meet up at the beach. I was so looking forward to meeting her and her gorgeous little lady, Berlyn.  Danielle was sweet enough to drive in to meet us for the day, and of course it took a million years to find each other, but it was definitely worth it. We decided to head to Pacific Beach, were we are staying, since I kind of knew the area. We first went and had lunch and chatted. Berlyn and I both had grilled cheese, one of the reasons I love this chick, and we shared my fries. Then we went and meet with Mercedes and headed to the beach. There we did some more chatting, took some photos, Ellia had a nap, Berlyn went from hating the sand to liking it,  and going through my diaper bag, which I'm sure was super fun since it was packed to the brim!

Then the REAL photoshoots began..that's for an entirely other post really, but here's a few good ones...

such a babe, eh

 

Mercedes wanted some photos of her and TJ, so we ran off while Danielle, B and Lucas hung out and waited.

 

TJ took a few of us...

 

typical...

Aren't these two so cute?!

Then we attempted to get photos of the girls together. 

 There were a couple friendly smooches, which was way to sweet...

 

and I think it's safe to say it was an wonderful day. Danielle and Berlyn, thank you for meeting up with us, hopefully we get to hang out again someday.

Part III coming soon.

xoxo