Happy Valentines Day!

We did most of our celebrating on Sunday, we baked cupcakes, made a mail box for all the valentines, and even had a little fun in front of the camera!  

This morning at about 6:45am, we signed all of the Valentines for Loralai's friends at daycare, and Loralai got her Valentine from Mommy and Daddy! 

Happy Valentines Day! Hope you got to spend it with the people you love! 

Impromptu Photoshoot

First of all I finally got my new camera! I am so in love, but of course it will take me while to play with it to get a hang of everything that it is capable of! 

second of all...my Peekaboo & Polkadot website has finally launched! I am super excited,  and hopeful about the new possibilities and path that I am taking! 

Last but not least, Drake and Loralai had a quick impromptu Valentine photo session just the other evening! 

My favourite picture of the session! 

How beautiful are these two kids? <3 they just have so much personality! 

This is how you continue to keep preschoolers engaged...you have to let them make silly faces every so often! 

Winterfest

This afternoon my Mom and I took Loralai and her friend Drake to Winterfest! 

Now all the activities were basically created for a cold snowy winter, and because it has been very mild, and we have hardly had any snow (they actually had to have snow shipped in for the event)...our day ended up being a little muddy and wet, but the kids (and me too) had so much fun! Drake's Mom met up with us a little later since she had to go into work for a little while. 

We started with the ice maze, horse drawn wagon ride, watching the helicopter rides, sliding (more like walking) down the snow slides, getting some cotton candy, riding some of the amusement park rides,  and looking at the ice sculptures! Although it was on the milder side, I guess because it was damp, it took me forever to warm back up after we got home. But it was worth it! 

Here are some pictures of our adventure! 

Quote of the week.

This quote is relevant for anyone who has a dream and wants to make it into a reality, but just needs some encouragement. I choose this quote for me this week because taking my dream of starting a small photography business is a big investment of both time and money, and sometimes I have to be reminded that dreams can come true if we have the courage to take the risk, know that their will be setbacks and learning curves along the way, but the reward will be amazing. 

The quote of the week:

Hope everyone has a great week! 

Newborn Session Sneakpeek - Baby Carter

I got to photograph an adorable little 2 week old baby boy named Carter. He was awake during the entire session, but he was so good. 

Price List

I did some research of companies that have a similar vibe to my own, then on similar companies in my area, took into consideration the newness of my company, and came up with a price list! 

I will be offering a 20% discount while I am building my portfolio. 

Branding

I am super excited to say that I have been branded! 

It is obviously important to have a brand that you are able to use to market your business. I found both my logo and brand on Etsy.com. Of course the prices and designs that you can choose from vary vastly; I choose a logo and brand that was fairly inexpensive since I am just beginning my business, and have a very small budget for marketing. However, even with this small marketing budget, I wanted to make sure the design suited my vision, and be something that would invite/draw people in. 

The package that I purchased came with the following items:

2 - CD/DVD Case Wrapper (Miller's Lab Specifications)
2 - CD/DVD Labels
2 - Tri Fold Brouchures (WHCC Specs)
2 - Blog Banners 
2 - Facebook Badges
2 - Thank You Cards
Business Card (Two Sided)
Rep Card (Two Sided)
2 - Letterheads
2 - #10 Envelopes
2 - Return Address Labels
2 - Stickers
Gift Certificate - (Two Sided)
Price List (Two Sided)

Here is a glimpse at some of the items that I have already been playing around with:

Example of business card

Example of business card

One example of a CD sticker 

Facebook badge 

Thank you for stopping by! 

Peekaboo & Polkadot Photography

I am VERY excited to be launching this new series! It will follow me through my journey as I launch my new small business Peekaboo & Polkadot Photography!    

I have always loved photography! I am drawn to colour, vintage & modern styles, and ever since the birth of my daughter, have really enjoyed practising creative angles and using different textures. My passion and mission for my new small business is to take beautiful and creative photo's for families. 

Here is my logo:

I was fortunate because my very first client was my cousin Laura's beautiful new baby boy Nicholas. Little Nicholas was born on Christmas day! Is having a baby not the best present ever to get? Well I packed up my van with all my new props, and camera, and headed over their house. Little Nicholas is now about 3 weeks old, and already did not want to sleep for us! But even though he was awake during the session, he was so amazing! When we placed him on his belly he just wanted to inch forward like a caterpillar...strong little guy already! :) 

Here are some of the photo's from today's session:

Hope you will join me on my journey! 

Happy Friday! 

Introducing....

So Lil' Lolo Chronicles is starting a few new series over the next couple of weeks. I am so excited to expand my personal blog a bit, and offer some tutorials, links, tips, check in's, etc. You can find a list of these series along the right hand side.

Lets begin with the series: Quotes that make you go hmmm! My family (which normally consists of on a Sunday night dinner is: Todd, my parents, my mother in law, Loralai, and I) started a new quote of the week. We have a brown chalk board wall in our kitchen, and every Sunday I will choose a new quote to place on the wall for the week, now the quote that I will ultimately choose will be one that either I feel my family needs some inspiration for at that time, or maybe one that has just completely inspired me so much that I cannot help but share!  The idea is that it will:

1.  Spark discussion on the Sunday that the new quote is placed up, and everyone discusses what the quote means to them. Since everyone has different experiences and ideas, it is nice to know the different perspectives that everyone takes, and it maybe allows you to think about it in a different way then you originally would have thought. 
2. Allow everyone present to take this added perspective and try to apply it to their week (at least). 
3. On the next Sunday, we all come back together and discuss maybe something that happened that week  and how this new perspective helped, or maybe how it did not apply or did not help, etc. 
4. Start the process over again. 

But this is not only for my family, I am opening it up to you to take sometime to be open minded, and of course share any of your thoughts! I would love to open up a discussion, or just hear some of your comments! 

Quote of the Week - Jan 8th 2012:

"Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think" - Dale Carneige 

What this quote means to me is that no matter what you always have the choice to be positive. I started off the quote of the week with this one since it tied so nicely in with my 2012 post.  My husbands response was "it is on how you take it" meaning the circumstances in your life. No matter who you are and what your story is, there is someone else out there who has a story too, and that story just maybe worse then yours. You can choose to wollow in your own sorrow, or think about why something may have happened and the positive reason behind it, or you can go out there and share your story with others. Sometimes someone else just needs to know that someone is going through something similar, and with the maybe even sheer comfort in knowing that someone else has survived, maybe would be enough for them to be positive. Positiveness is the foundation for happiness. 

Happy Sunday! 

Change has arrived!

So I had been contemplating a new template for the blog for a while. The last one I liked but I was unable to change the photo's at the top myself so they were outdated. I had my eye on this template from Dream like Magic on Etsy.com for a while now, and I finally thought that the new template was fitting with the new year!

Hope you enjoy!