mcdougall photography

Last weekend my sister held a card making class at her house. We made some beautiful cards (one of which was the donut card which can be found on her blog), but we also had some time to create. Here is a Valentine's Day card that I made. I love the Wild About You stamp set. It's so adorable and there are so many uses for it. Here are the details:

Stamps: Wild About You, So Very, Happy Hearts, Riveting
Cardstock: Whisper White, Regal Rose, Real Red
Ink: Real Red, Regal Rose
Accessories: Light pink and red grosgrain ribbon, 1-1/4" circle punch, white signo gel pen, Real Red and Regal Rose stampin' write markers, stamp-a-ma-jig

Thanks for looking!

With Ava less than two weeks away from ten months old, I thought I would take a look back and post pictures I have taken of her during that time. And as I close in on 30,000 pictures taken with my camera (no not all of Ava...) I have to say THANK GOODNESS FOR DIGITAL CAMERAS. If I had a film camera we would only have a fraction of the pictures.

I know my family and friends have seen these pictures already, but unfortunately I didn't take any new pictures today. I had running around to do and Ava is teething big time. Her cheeks are really red and she has been like a little furnace all day. You know something is up when she has three naps during the day and is in bed by 8:30.

In case you are interested, I have added a link to my sidebar that allows you to enter your email address and be emailed when my blog is updated. The service is provided by a site called FeedBlitz and on their web site it claims that they don't release the addresses or sell them to anybody and they don't spam. Hopefully they are telling the truth. If you are like me and have resigned yourself to the fact that spam is always going to be around and they are going to find your address one way or the other, sign up!

Here are some new pictures of Ava. She has changed so much over the past few weeks. She is doing so many new things - clapping, waving, nodding and shaking her head. She says dada but doesn't do it when we ask or in response to anything.

These pictures were taken today. Jason took the one of me with Ava. My sister bought Ava and I matching t-shirts for Valentine's Day (thanks Mel!) so that is what we are wearing. The pictures in the high chair give you an idea of what a character she is. A lot of the time when I feed her it looks like I fed her with a slingshot. I will have the spoon just about in her mouth and she turns her head and the food ends up all over her face. She thinks it's hilarious.

She seems to be enjoying American Idol when we watch it in the evenings. Some of the singers really catch her attention - especially the bad ones. She will be missing it tonight because she fell asleep at 7:30. It's just as well as I realized today that the reason why our computer is running so slowly is because the hard drive is almost full! So I have a few hours of archiving ahead of me tonight.

Yesterday I was interviewed for the local paper about my photography which is exciting and very flattering. Unfortunately there will be a picture of me with the article. There is a reason why I take the pictures and am not usually in them - I am a blinker. Luckily he didn't use the flash. Anyway, the reporter was very nice and was here for about an hour. The article will appear in the paper in a couple of weeks.

My sister took these awesome pictures today when Ava went for her first sleigh ride. My favourite is the one where you can see me down the left side of the picture pulling the sleigh and Ava is blurry in the distance almost like we are going really fast. I just love it.

The sleigh ride was fun. Ava wasn't sure what to think. When she has her snow suit on she reminds me of Ralphie's brother in A Christmas Story where his snowsuit is so puffy that his arms stick straight out. Then he falls over and can't get back up again because he can't move his arms.

Anyway, although I am in the pictures and you really don't realize how big your butt is until somebody takes a picture of it, I really like these pictures.

Here is a new picture of Ava. I think she has four more teeth coming in. I got a quick look and I think both top ones are coming in as well as the ones on either side of the two bottom teeth. That would explain why she hasn't been sleeping the greatest. Anyway, here is one of her and a few candid shots from a wedding Dad and I did a couple of weeks ago. Thanks for looking.

Here is a picture from yesterday of Ava eating one of her new cookies. She didn't get to eat much of it before she dropped it and the dog ate it. She is now eating more solids and loves Cheerios and Goldfish crackers. The dog loves it because she drops more than she eats and she likes to lie right at the base of the high chair so she catches anything that falls.

I'm slowly figuring out how this blog thing works and I think I am finally getting somewhere. I also finished proofing the wedding I did with dad a few weeks ago so I will try to post some pictures from that tomorrow.


Here are some other shots from yesterday:

Well, I still don't know what I think about this whole blogging thing. I used to think that it was crazy to think that people are that interested in your life that they would actually want to read your blog. But recently I find myself reading the occasional blog. Some blogs give way too much information, but some of them are pretty cool.

I don't know if I will stick with it and I don't know if it will be interesting enough to get repeat visitors, and god knows that I am bad enough at email so we'll see how it goes.

There are some people asking for more pictures of Ava and there are other people that I always miss when sending out monthly pictures, so if you are looking for new stuff (and if I get around to posting it), this is the spot to look.

Here are some pictures I took of Ava on Monday. You can click on the images to see larger versions. As you can see, she gets along really well with Scarlett.