a journal of sorts...

the winner is jen!

jen...mommy2two is the winner of the art print! i selected jen with my very random method of closing my eyes and moving my mouse around. when i opened my eyes my mouse was on jen's name. i told you it was a pretty complicated selection process, and this is why it took me more than a few days. haha. :)

pop me an e-mail jen with your mailing address, and I'll show you which ones you can choose from.

a big thank you to everyone for your well wishes on my new business. some days i feel a little overwhelemd with the everything on my to do list, but it's so completey worth it. i love what i do! i feel so blessed to have the opportunity to do something i love. it's been such a fun and exciting journey and i really love the opportunity it's given me to connect with others. not only my clients (who have been amazing!), but also other photographers and people in the photography industry.

so thank you, it means a lot. :)

www.rachelludwigphotography.com

woohoo! it's finally official. the rachel ludwig photography website has been launched! i'm so super excited about this...it's been a long time in the making, but i'm looking forward to taking my photography business to the next level. check out my photography blog for a small promotion for any local people interested in a photosession. i've also posted a few recent sessions over there, so lots of pictures to look at too.

for any of you who access this blog through www.rachelludwig.com, you'll also notice a change as that's now a landing page for my photography site and my two blogs. if you want to bookmark my personal blog directly, please use www.rachelludwig.typepad.com.

let me know if you have any questions or feedback on my site...i'd love to hear what you think! i'll also run a little promotion here on this blog too, just for the heck of it. :) leave a comment and i'll randomly pick someone to receive an 8x10 art print from me. there's several to choose from, and you can pick which one you'd like!

back to school

i can't believe how quickly the summer flew by! It was fun and busy and a bit relaxing all at the same time. but before i knew it, september was creeping up on us. and with september, came back to school. i can't believe my baby is in kindergarten! crazy how fast the last five years have gone.

he was quiet apprehensive about school and most definitely wasn't raring to go. the week before he was begging to stay home with me and promised me lots of hugs, kisses and snuggles everyday if i did let him stay home. the morning of his first official day, he was definitely out of sorts. his nervousness increased even more when we got to school and he saw the throng of people. that's when i almost started crying. realizing that he was going to be staying there in these very new surroundings with all new people. and realizing how much i'm going to miss my little buddy. he's become a great helper with arden, and he chats my ear off all day...it's going to seem so quiet without him at home.

his teacher seems excellent so far. she had all the students come in the day before school started for a 'get-to-know'-you' session. i was amazed at how she immediately put ethan at ease and how quickly she laid the ground rules and foundations for learning. she's been teaching for a number of years, and said her favorite grade to teach so far is kindergarten. and one of my favorite things is that she plays the guitar! my grade one teacher had a piano in the classroom, and i have so many great memories of singing from that year and i hope that ethan will have some of those memories from this year too.

i know that it won't take long before he's enjoying school (especially once he finds a little buddy). this week he starts full days (he goes tuesday/thursday and every other friday). he's already asking when he'll be able to read, and he told her he wants to learn math too.

at the end of the day when i picked him up and asked him what he did, he wasn't too forthright with details. i of course wanted to know everything, but even with some drilling he didn't share much (sure wish i could be a fly on the wall some days!). i truly think that this is one of the hardest things for me sending him to school...not knowing all the details of what's going on. it's one of those first little steps towards independence and knowing that is so hard. hard for this mama to let go.

here's a few pics...the first two are from his 'get-to-know-you' session (he wanted to bring her a flower, and he also had to bring his pillow and indoor shoes), and the next three are from his first day.

i'm so super-duper proud of my little buddy.

i know a few of you have been waiting

for an update from me. it's been a fun and busy summer, and i'm just starting to get back into a routine and hope to be posting some more and catching up here on the blog.

i know a few of you have been waiting for some wedding pictures from the family weddings we had in august...you can see some of the pictures on my rachel ludwig photography blog.

i hope you all had a great summer! i'll be back soon :)

rachel ludwig photography blog

i thought i'd give my reader's a heads up. i now have a photography blog which you can access here: rachel ludwig photography - the blog. it'll be mostly for posting images from recent sessions, as well as to let my clients know about any upcoming promotions.

i just posted pictures from my sister marg's wedding, as well as a link to the slideshow if you want to check it out.

and here's a sneak peek of marg! doesn't she look amazing? this was one of my favorite pictures from the day...she was just so happy and radiant all day long. :)

ps. i'm almost done my website. yay! hoping to have it up in another week or two

she's pretty proud of herself

now that she can walk! can you tell by her super cheesy grin, or what? :)

we knew she wasn't far away from walking, as she was walking around furniture, the walls, etc. and she was super stable on her feet. often we would find her playing away standing next to a table without holding on and she wasn't scared in the least. she was just scared of actually taking steps. and then last week she took a few while we were visiting the inlaws and last week thursday it just all seemed to click and she started taking 10+ steps. she is so stinkin' proud of herself, and she loves it when we cheer her on! in just a few short days she's cruisin' all over the house!

and one more pic of our little miss smarty-pants...not only did she break the elastic (our very advanced toddler deterrant system!) but she's trying to put it back on after she's rummaged through the cupboard and strewn the contents all over the kitchen. sigh. gotta love having a toddler in the house! She sure keeps me on my toes. :)

in other news...my sweet little boy is officially way too grown up now that he's five. And so is my little sister margaret who is now married and should be coming home from her honeymoon tomorrow! (i'll be sharing some pics hopefully soon). oh, and a nice little (rainy) getaway to whistler for hubby and i (a business trip for tim) without the kiddos.

other than that...just busy with getting my photography business up and running, and chasing after two busy kiddos. i'll be back soon i hope!

logo

yeehaw! i'm so excited about this. the fabulous erica designed this logo for me, and I couldn't be more excited! i'm finally making the official jump into my photography business. after a few years of portfolio building i think i'm ready for the next step...it's all a little scary, but fun and exciting at the same time.

my website will be coming soon too (keep an eye on rachelludwigphotography.com).

 

sunny phoenix

so, i've been a neglectful blogger again. i always know i've left it too long when i start getting concerned emails. yep, hanging in here. just busy with life. and trying to get my photography business and website up and running officially. shooting my first wedding. a first birthday party for my baby. and some scrapping scrapping. plus i was/am in a bit of a funk. weather mostly i think. and just feeling a little overwhelmed with the mundaneness (is that a word?) of laundry, cleaning, meals, school driving etc. i'm sure some of you can relate? not bad stuff, just the seemingly never-ending list of things to do. i'm dreadfully behind on emails too, which always has me feeling so guilty. if i owe you one i promise to try get back to you very soon.

oh, and a fabulous trip to sunny, wonderful and relaxing phoenix. it was awesome and just what we needed! tim had an opportunity to attend a convention in phoenix, and for once i was the spouse tagging along. such a nice change of pace to be able to sit and read by the pool while tim worked. and some shopping. and sleeping. and eating out. i am totally dying to go back. the resort we stayed at was amazing. and it was so nice knowing our kids were safe and sound back at home with family. it's always hard to leave, but knowing they are in good hands makes it much easier. we also happened to go at a great time weatherwise. the weather was perfect. warm and sunny everyday, but not too hot. perfect for lying by the pool and going for swims. :)

lately i've been enjoying doing a bit of landscape/citscape photography when we travel. normally it's totally not my forte, but i've been enjoying the creative aspect of working outside my comfort zone (people). i'm looking forward to printing and hanging some of the pics from recent trips and having a travel wall in our house! i even got up early-ish one morning to get some pics before the sun was too high. i love the shots where i was able to get the sun peeking out from behind the buildings.

i decided to share some of my faves here. it was absolutely beautiful there. i really liked the desertscape and the amazing blue of the sky which contrasted so nicely with the adobe. i loved the cactus (cactii?) too. even though i ended up not sharing a bunch of the pics as the aforementioned cactii looked a little on the phallic side to me. haha.

and the ceiling/mural was really neat. when you entered the hotel you were on the third level, and below was this huge two-story half circle wall of rounded windows. the ceiling had this huge mural (which was painted by a local artist) that reflected a waterfall that was cascading down through the lobby area. each of the different sections in the mural depicted a tradition of the native americans from that area. it was beautiful, i just wish i could've captured it in it's entirety!

i almost forgot. a layout i did of our trip for 2peas.

anyways, just a quick post from me. more updates to come with pics from arden's birthday. i can't believe she is one!!

 

upcoming class - urban scrapbook trends

i'll be teaching a class at my new local scrapbook store urban scrapbook trends on tuesday april 17th from 6:30 - 8:30PM. we'll be making a 12x12 scrapbook page and a mini tag book and you'll get a chance to play with a bunch of new fontwerks stamps, some buttons and more. it's going to be fun!

you can give the store at call at 604.855.7757 to sign up. looking forward to seeing you next week! feel free to email me if you have any questions. :)

decorating

those of you who have been to my house are probably going to read this and say 'they are finally decorating those bare walls?'. haha. we've lived in our house for coming up on two years, and it's only recently that we've hung the first things on our walls (6 things, to be precise). we still don't have blinds, and only recently did we put up towel bars and toilet paper holders. in our defense, me becoming pregnant and sick shortly after moving in, combined with a new baby 9 months after that, didn't help matters. nor did our mortgage heavy budget. but i digress.

what can i say? we take our time about making major decisions like where to pound holes in our new walls, and what to hang up! when it comes to decorating, we're both very much of the camp that we do things once. that, and we (ok, me probably more so) are pretty darn picky too, and my taste usually ends up running to the more expensive end of things. but we're making some progress. i have a bunch of ikea frames (very budget friendly!) waiting to be filled and hung, and lots of ideas brewing in my head. but i was at a bit of a loss on how to put it all together. but once i saw this from martha stewart (pictures compliments of martha's web site) it suddenly all clicked. so i went to michael's to buy some stretched canvas frames, dug through my fabric stash, bought some acrylic paint, and ordered some monogram letters from letters by janna (a fellow canadian. yay! these letters are awesome, and ready to customize), and now all that needs to be done is everything assembled, painted and hung. i plan to do variations of these pictures in both of the kids rooms and in the playroom.

i can't wait to have it all put together. and then the next projects to tackle will be the ginormous wall in our greatroom (thinking of doing some sort of photo collage either hung on the wall or on a large picture ledge), the front entrance (purchased some wall rubons and need to find a console table), the mud room and our bedroom/ensuite (orange accessories are hard to find...this one will be tough!). one thing at a time though, right? We plan to stay here for a while, so having ongoing projects will hopefully help me to not be so antsy to move.

pictures to follow once these first projects are completed. give me a while...i'm sure it'll take at least that long, but after 18+ months, what's another month or three?