Andddd it's over

*After a giant break from Rounder (my fault!), there is finally a new post up! I definitely encourage everyone to go read (sing) it! Such a cute Christmas post from Sarah. Sorry for letting it go for so long without updating, guys. Please forgive me?

Hope it was worth all the hustle& bustle, Christmas has come& gone (in case you didn't notice)! One of my favorite parts about Christmas is comparing what everyone got. So, bloggy friends, what did you guys all get?! Spill! I'll give you a detailed itinerary of my presents ;)

This photo shows off two of my presents. The first one is my zoom lens! Thanks, Mom& Dad. I definitely didn't expect to get a lens for Christmas. My mom& I even had this discussion about the price of them& how she had no idea what she was buying so it made it impossible to try to purchase one for me. I mean, I guess she did alright ;) Next thing I got that this photo shows? My new flash! Can I just say my boyfriend is hilarious? He spent Christmas at my house so on the 24th, he showed up with a GIANT wrapped box. Turns out, it was 7 wrapped boxes inside one another. Inside the very last box, my new speedlite :D It is a beautiful thing. I was convinced he didn't get me it so I was totally surprised by both my awesome new camera things! The photo above, of my cousin, was taken at 8PM. I bounced the flash off the ceiling. I'm such a pro ;)

Aside from that, I also got from beautiful things from Tiffanys. Again, shocked because my parents picked them up from Las Vegas in October. I just figured that they didn't bother to get me anything from my favorite store. I was wrong! I got a necklace& bracelet. I am one lucky girl!

Hope everyone else had a great Christmas& is currently enjoying their Boxing Day! Enjoy& try to do as little as possible. That's my motto for the holiday season ..works very well. Before I leave, check out the very first photo I ever took with my zoom& flash. I'm going to have to say I'm a natural at this whole flash lighting thing ;) I've seem some other people attempt flash& have really awful results for their first few days with it. Or maybe they just didn't know you were supposed to bounce the flash off something? I accidentally shot it into my eyes from a very close distance ..ouch.

That is my brother. He really does exist ..although this is probably the very first time that you guys are ever seeing a photo of him. He hates the camera& he lives 8hrs away. I never visit. He comes home for holidays. It was about 7:30AM& he wasn't awake enough to run away from me. Anyway, enjoy the remaining days of joy! Hope you're all working on a resolution to give up on my January 16th like I do ;)

3 days

Santa will be here soon! I hope everyone has their presents wrapped& all their shopping done! I'm heading out now to brave the world that is the mall. I'm actually dreading it. Also, my poor little blog will probably be quite neglected the next few days while I relax with friends& family! I will return with lots of photos, including a photo shoot that I have tomorrow! Should be exciting& fun. The girl is gorgeous so it'll be very easy to make her look good.

For now, I'll leave you with this present. My mom is the best gift wrapper ever ..that is one thing that isn't genetic. I am awful but slowly getting better. I hope you all are enjoying your last few days leading up to Christmas! I will probably post a sneak peak tomorrow of the photo session& then be done until after Santa arrives ;) I have a few giant linkups coming your way that make for awesome posts! Both of them are completely finished& contain all kinds of fun photos that I've taken over the year. Some of them never even made it on the blog. Should be exciting. Now, I'm off to go to the mall. My saving grace for making this trip bearable will be purchasing myself a smoothie from Orange Julius. Bring on overpriced blended fruits :D

Christmas?

Everyone keeps talking about Christmas. I guess once the American Thanksgiving is over, that means it is officially time to go Christmas wild! In honor of that, the dog got his photo taken today. Nope, he's not levitating. He's in the light box since that's his favorite place to be. So much his favorite place that today I had to bribe him with treats. And then yell at him to listen to me instead of trying to run away from me. What a little monster. His attention span for photos last about ten seconds. I think this is good practice for photographing kids. I need to have everything set up& ready to go or else there is zero chance of me getting a photo. Making this as painless as possible for the dog give me a 0.01% chance of getting something worthwhile. So I grabbed some things that were easy to find (Mom, where do we keep our Christmas decorations) along with the dog& the result?

Linking to Capturing Beauty,  

Favorite Photo& Show& Tell! Check them out.

Tada! The dog looking for his escape route, which resulted in him knocking over the bells& getting caught up in his bow. Thankfully, I now know the trick is to set everything up then just click like crazy& hope I get it. While I would prefer if he was looking at me, I understand that he hates my soul& therefore I need to accept less than perfect from him. Poor little monster, your life is so rough! Does anyone else plan on taking cute Christmas photos of their pets? This is just the start of his life for the next few weeks. He needs one wrapped in Christmas lights as well. And with a Santa hat. And with a scarf! Okay, okay. I'll stop but if anyone has any funny ideas for my dog's next photo shoot, please let me know in the comments!

Winter in spring

The title perfectly describes Cape Breton at this current moment. It's snowing .. it's cold .. it's windy .. did I mention there was SNOW?! The perk to the sucky weather today is that it's 12.52PM and I have already accomplished so many things! I will provide a brief overview and some details on the more exciting parts.

Haircut
Went to Rena at Hair Solutions. She was super sweet and it was a really laid back place. Had a few laughs, solved my hair issues, got bangs AND it didn't even cost me that much money! It was great and really perked up my mood. I now have lots of energy and am feeling better about the fact that it's freezing cold out. Mostly I'm just super happy that I have a hairdresser who can actually style my hair! Welcome back, fabulus curls :)

Contest
So, my blog contest only has today+ 3 more to enter! Hope you guys are planning on entering at some point! Don't forget the 4 ways to win (blog, comment, tweet, facebook) and also, all parts of the blog prize have been compiled and are just awaiting me to take their photo! I am trying to decide to how to best photograph them to show them ..I will be uploading both them& my photo of the day later this afternoon!

Silly String
I also bought 2 cans of this stuff. What I am going to use it for remains to be seen! Mostly I just want to spray someone or something with it ..I'm not picky. Contemplating covering my puppy in it, but can totally see that backfiring on me and ending up with a dog covered in silly string that I can't get off. LOL. He would hate me for the rest of his life. So I figure I'd spare him and just silly string something else. Just not entirely sure WHAT yet!

Today
You know that saying about today being a gift, that's why they call it the present or something? Yeah, if I wasn't so lazy I'd look it up. Well, I was thinking about that the other night at work ..and wondering how much truth was in it. Keep in mind, my evening at that moment was not going particularly well. My first thought was to think about how awesome my gifts have been from immediate family and friends (amazing) and those who got gifts for me because they wanted to come to my party / had to for some reason (less than amazing and also more abundant). Then I started thinking about about my days. Some moments are amazing, while most of the day is basically incredibly ordinary. I think these people might be onto something with this thought. So, my end thought? Each day probably is a gift, however most gifts are disappointing.

New Music
Hopefully you will all love this song as much as I do! It's really sweet& cute. I also noticed a crazy trend with my music ..I obviously love male singers way more than female ones. The only female singer I ever put on here, I ended up retracting my like of her song due to her stupid behavior. Way to go, JG. Ruining female artist's chances of being discovered as the next big thing via my blog. I hope you reform your vulgar tweets because of this consequence. So, for now I will continue my trend of beautiful songs sung by guys :) Enjoy!
Oh, and also ..sorry for the weird video that accompanies this song, but it was the best version I could find of it. I am amazed I could even find it!