Baby Rudy and big sister Charlie-May!
A little girl named Charlie- very cool I think. Her mom and dad brought her in for newborn portraits and a maternity photo session with mom before that! (more…)
Kim Cartmell's Blog
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Engagement photos in the snow!
Getting to the end of winter, (not complaining) and before we know it there will be no more snow, so Brittany and Brian were really happy when we found the perfect day for their engagement photos. (more…)
Baby Colin is 1 years old!
Baby Colin is not really a baby any more! He came in for his 1 year old portrait the other day. The final session in his “Watch me grow” series of portraits to document his 1st year! (more…)
Debbie from “Wee Piggies and Paws”
There is an amazing success story here in Niagara. Debbie Cornelius started a business creating life size casts of babies and children’s hands and feet and she has catapulted her business into franchises around the world! (more…)
Baby Peter is 1 year old!
I can’t believe a whole year has gone by since Peter first came in for his infant portraits! The 1 year old portrait is always the busiest of the 4 session series, as of course one year old’s don’t sit still for very long! Peter brought in his favourate big bear rug too! Can’t wait to design his “Watch me Grow” wall panel once mom picks out which images she wants to use!
Jon and Lee-Anne engagement session!
Jon and Lee-Anne are getting married next June and wanted fall photos for their signature portrait! We always create “Save the date” E mail collages that couples can e mail out to all their friends and family. Save the date cards and e mails are such a cool idea! The invitations don’t go out untill 6 weeks or so before the wedding, but sometimes quests need alot more time to know the date if they have to travel to the wedding, from out of town, or make sure they will get the day off work etc… June will be here before we know it! Can’t wait for the wedding! Thank-you Jon and Lee-Anne!
50 cm of rain in 10 minutes = flooded basement = Sham-WOW =sore wrists!
We had the most horrendous downpour of rain. It rained so hard, in such a short period of time that the water had nowhere to go and nowhere to drain and consequently made an appearance in my office through the basement door. My office and studio entrance stairway was literally turned into a waterfall that accumulated in 2 feet of water at the bottom. The poor little drain at the bottom of the stairs just couldn’t keep up!  I had been sitting at my computer trying to turn it off as I had heard thunder and lightning, and suddenly I heard water . “That’s odd” I thought to myself…I hear water running…??? What could that be? I get up and see water just gushing through the bottom of the doorway into my office , onto the carpet at full force! It freaked me out! Thank goodness my kids were home. I started yelling “HELP HELP…” they thundered down the stairs with towels . My daughter tried desperately to stop the water with towels, while my son and I ran outside around to the stairwell to check it out. It was raining harder than I can ever remember in my lifetime. We were screaming at eachother just to hear, and we were 4 feet apart. It was just like in the movies, when the river is rising and it’s pouring rain and people are trying to sandbag their house , trying to STOP THE WATER! I ran to get my son a bucket to try and bail the water out from the stairwell, but as fast as he could do it , the water just kept pouring down the stairs towards him. He tried to put a piece of wood in place at the top of the stairs , but the water just kept coming over top of it. I ran back in the house to see how my daughter was making out. There was water everywhere, and she had gone through almost every towel in the house, and she was screaming ” I can’t hold it back much longer mom”.. it reminded me of the poor little dutch girl in the story with her thumb in the dyke!! I was just beside myself not knowing what to do next. My son suggested the pump we have to pump out the water from the hot tub, so I called my husband to ask him where it was and what to do….Of course he thought we were over reacting.. and exaggerating…and he kept saying…”Now just calm down…..the drain is probably plugged, just go clear out the leaves….” then he said, ” just try putting a towel on the outside of the door” AARRGHHH… ” A TOWEL ??? I screamed…. You don’t understand…. We are drowning here…getting pummelled…..” we ended up hanging up on him, because it was wasting time as he just didnt’ get how bad it was! We kept bailing, and towelling, and eventually the rain let up, (Hallelujah). Thank god it only lasted 10 minutes… I really can’t imagine how awful things would have been if it continued for an hour or a day or something. Then we assessed the damage! 1/2 of my office rug was completely soaked. Then my son remembered” SHAM WOW”  he exclaimed! Mom- we can use the Sham-Wow’s we bought at the CNE last summer! Oh well, it was worth a try. Well, what do you know, those things really really work! The 3 of us Sham-wow’d and wringed out the water for 4 hours! We were sham-wowing, and shop-vaccing…and de-humidifying…and fans running….and we did really well! The rug should have been a write off, but it is looking pretty good. oh man…our wrists were sooo sore from wringing out water. I have new found respect for past generations of women who had to do that every laundry day. My husband came home after work, after it was all over with, checked everything out and said ” m-m-m , I quess you got alot of rain huh?”
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The crane in our creek! Spring is here for sure in Niagara
There is a “resident” crane living in our creek. He is just beautiful. Watching him flying in for a landing to catch some supper is so cool. We were cooking our supper on the BBQ and he came gracefully , skillfully landing in front of our place to catch his own supper! I had my camera near by and caught him patiently, slowly, carefully walking in the water looking for a fish to grab! He is almost as good as my niece is!
Squirrels in the trees
We have lots of squirrels out where I live and they are really neat little creatures! My favourate thing to watch is when they jump from tree to tree. It is like watching mini olympics from the front porch!! I have yet to capture them jumping with my camera as I am never ready for it! I am usually relaxing when I am on the porch- but I hope to get an action shot one day!
I was reading the paper and could hear this really wierd sound coming from the tree and it took me awhile to figure out what it was. It was a squirrel eating a nut . A rather very noisy squirrell at that. So I grabbed my camera and got a shot of him perched, just mowing down on his lunch! ” Go on, fly squirrel….I am ready….I have my camera…..jump to the next tree…..” but of course he wouldn’t do it while I was ready! So I went back to reading my paper!
Catching Fish in the Creek!
 
My niece is a powerhouse of energy and enthusiasum! She is so funny! She is at such a great age, so much fun to have around.  She loves fishing! As soon as the good weather comes and she is here, she can always be found on the dock with her pole. It is always so amazing how many fish she will catch in a short period of time. She just seems to have a knack! She caught 7 fish in 1 hour!! “Uncle Dwayne, Uncle Dwayne….I need a pail for the fish!!!…then if she needs help getting the fish off the hook, she can be heard crying ” Hurry, hurry, there’s more in the water…..they’re waiting!!”…( so funny) sure enough, as soon as she gets the pole in the water, Boom- there she’s caught another one! Sometimes there are 4 or 5 guys, men, boys, whoever is around, everyone seeing her catch fish, so they figure “oh , the fish are biting…” so they grab a pole and stand there waiting, waiting….while my niece is pulling them out of the water right, left and center! It is really funny! Especially seeing grown men, trying to be cool, trying to pretend it isn’t bothering them….. a 9 year old girl is “out”-fishing them!