Our second daughter has always loved art. Since we’ve moved into a home where she has her own bedroom (the first time in her life), we promised her she could do pretty much anything (within reason) for her design.

A friend of ours is a fantastic hobby artist who paints alot. Our daughter asked her to do a mural, with animals and nature. She also wants faeries hiding in her room! Thankfully, our friend agreed to paint this mural and let my daughter watch and learn how it is done. She started her work yesterday, and it is wonderful.

Here are a few quick snaps of the work in progress:

She is coming back soon to complete the tree in the corner. then the faeries will appear, as if by magic.

Have a fantabulous day,

~

This is the view on my front lawn! 

The craziness is over, the relaxing begins {yeah, right, lol}.

This weekend, hubby and I are gone to photograph a wedding, but expect a longer, more regular postings very very soon!

Have a fantabulous day,

Contrarily to what it seems, I have not quite fallen off the planet (or the Blog-World). Hubby and I made a huge decision last month. It has affected our time, our ressources and everything surrounding those things. The decision is quite exciting for us, but it means so much work to be done!

We have decided to sell our house and move into a bigger (ie: more bedrooms) home. The decision was made by a few factors (like our needing more space as kids get taller) but it it was mostly for our need of a photography studio space. We have no garage at the present house, so we had nowhere to convert  a space and make a studio. Things seem to happen so quickly, and this has been no exception!

We wanted to put our house on the market before looking at other homes, but a 6 bedroom house, with a huge unfinished garage (perfect to convert!) caught my eye when I looked up houses on the realtor system. I know, I shouldn’t have looked. And then maybe we shouldn’t have went to see the house. Because next thing we knew, we found it to be perfect for us, and we put a bid on it. The owners accepted it, but now we have only 3 months to sell our house or we lose the bid!

Eeek!

Hubby and I have been painting up a storm, fixing holes in walls, scratches, wear and tear from 7 kids. We have put many things in storage to make more room in our house. Our house is not super tiny for a “regular” family (say, of 4 people) but with 9 people in this house including all their belongings, it looks tiny. So pardon the paint in our hair, on our faces and all over our hands, we’ve been busy these past few weeks!

Any good thoughts, prayers and happy wishes will be well appreciated, as we try to put our house on the market around March. I still have so much work to do in painting terms, so I will most likely be found lurking and rarely leaving comments on all of my bloggy friends’s spaces. But I’m reading you, I promise! And I’ll try to keep up with Photo Friday, or add a post here and there. No grandiose promises though.

Have a fantabulous day,

We all have our moments, right? Well, it seems my moment came when I decided to take some “nice” photos of the kids during the Holiday break. Between the sugar, the company, the late nights and just plain being worn out, the kids were not really in the best of moods to sit quietly to get their portraits taken.

I had the grand intention of doing some nice head shots, just each child’s individual face, and putting them in nice sepia or black&white and then hanging the picture in the living room. I thought that each year I could update those nice photos with their every-changing look.

Instead, I took some pictures a bit like “school-type” portraits, and then a girls group shot and a boys group shot.  The individual portraits were nice, and I showed the group shots at our Photo Captiva Website. Instead of posting things in double, I will share with you the outtakes of such an interesting photoshoot.

I know the bottom left picture doesn’t look half-bad, but notice the lump in his cheek? He has a piece of chocolate, and it makes his mouth crooked! {What?  Every Mom resorts to bribing their kids to smile for pictures …don’t they…? }

It’s funny to see that the older kids are always sitting perfectly still, smiling away while we try to snap a picture as the littler ones are smiling.

In our family, we have so many different personalities with each child, that it is hard to imagine the 7th child could have his own personality. Apparently personalities are abundant, because all of our children have distinct attitudes, varying preferences and very different outlooks.

Here Mister Crinkle-Nose show off his serious, “why the heck did you stick me on a chair while I’m miserable” and ticked off look. And guess what? These will be our wallet-size hand-outs this year, because he is just too darn funny in this picture. And for the record, he does smile alot during the day. I think he just does not like to get his picture taken!

Have a fantabulous day,