Sara is Smiling

Living Social Deal

Hey Edmontonians
My company is featured on Living Social today for 70% off a sitting with 15 sheets and full res CD.
It's a crazy good deal..check it out!

Cupcake Carnage

I left the kids with Quincey while I ran out for something. Sooo, basically I left the children unattended.
When I get home the house is still standing (which was a concern of mine when I left) except that the gourmet cupcakes I bought were all upside down on the kitchen floor. I point it out to Quincey.
"Ohh..what happened?" he asked.
"You tell me, Mr. Mom!"

I ask Elly what happened. The icing beard she had going was a dead giveaway.
"What happened here, Elly??" I demanded as we stood facing each other with nothing but 12 smushed cupcakes between us.
"What?" she asks as she turns her head around pretending to not see them and wondering what I'm talking about.
"The cupcakes. They're ruined!"
"Ohhhh.....um...you need a hug." she wraps her arms around my legs smearing my pants with icing in the process.
"You happy now??" she cocks her head and smiles.
"NO! I'm not happy now!"
She leans over and gives me a kiss and a smile and hops away.

Aaaand this picture has nothing to do with that story, but damn if it isn't perfect!

Our February Event is Cupcake Cuties. Cheap packages, sweet pictures, and awesome photo valentine handouts! More info on our website under Upcoming Events.

World's Greatest Customer?

I'm busy and I miss my blog.
It's so busy with work and christmas. I love my work, but there's no getting around the fact that retail at christmas time is CA-RAZY! A good crazy, most of the time. :-)

I have a crazy customer right now. Just one. The rest are A++ and it's been a wonderful season. Best yet.
But this one crazy customer keeps coming back every year and every year it's the same scam. Take my pictures. I will order. You will print them. I will make up problems and complain. You will reprint exactly as I specify. I will make up a new complaint and make you print again. I will not return the original prints for various made up reasons. Then I will complain about the second set of prints. You will reprint exactly as I specify. Then I will abuse your staff some more and insist that they now mail the new (third) set of prints. Then I will call and say that they never arrived, abuse the staff even further (I have no class, you see). I will insist that you send me a fourth set of prints. Now I have the package I purchased x4 for free. Aren't I clever???
We are happy to do whatever it takes to make someone happy. This customer is a repeat offender and a bully. I guess I'm grateful that she's just one lousy customer (and I use the term "customer" lightly) amongst hundreds of lovely customers.
And I'm also grateful she's not like this customer..

See, Wonderful Ladies Whom I Employ?? It could be worse!
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart to the staff and the customers who are so supportive and kind. I've been imaging much of our sittings these past two months during the busy season. It is AMAZING to me that I recognize your children's faces. I've seen them go from babies to toddlers to preschoolers to school. When I upload your photos to your accounts and see the past albums I always look to see the progression..both in the growth of your children and the growth of our company, and all I can think is WOW!
I have family who don't support me as greatly as many of you have, and I want you to know that I see you, I know you, I recognize what you do for my family, and I am beyond grateful. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY! All the best in the new year! :-)

A brush with Fame

Charlie recently got to star in a short video for Walmart!
I've just seen the finished product, and it's pretty cool because you can personalize it with anybody's name and send it in an email or post it on facebook.

Here's the link to do your own, but I'm going to try and figure out if I can get it to embed on here too...

It was reeeally cooold when we were shooting so after every take they'd bundle her up in a big coat and mitts.
She's not a professional by any means, and I was soooo worried about if she'd do a good job.
I eventually had to remove myself from the situation because I didn't want to seem overbearing or pushy, but I was having trouble not "directing" her myself. I spend a lot of time directing photo shoots of my own (especially with Charlie) and it was strange just sitting back and zipping it. I also figured Charlie might be more laid back if I was off in the distance.
I could tell that she was trying to do EXACTLY what she was being asked to do, and when they shot retake after retake she was taking it as criticism that she was doing it wrong - although they were VERY sweet and kind with her..that's just her personality. She got over it though!

After they got all the shots they needed, they hooked a mic up to Max and recorded his funny laugh that they'd been hearing all morning. The laugh track you hear behind the music of the video is Max!
When I played it for him he got all pouty: "I sound like a mouse." he grumbled.
The next day when I was playing it again he grumbled again: "I sound like a rat."
"A rat??" I questioned.
I guess he got his furry little rodents confused. It happens.

Anyway, I've been trying and trying to get this to embed, but apparently it's under some world class security so please click the link to see my kids in their acting debut and personalize and send one of your own!

Bummed.

I missed an opportunity for a lovely dinner at a lovely restaurant with lovely people, and I'm bummed. BUMMED.
I NEED A BABYSITTER!
Where are all the teenage girls looking for money for clothes and makeup and movies?? Where is 16 year old MEEEE!
When I was a teenager I was Babysitter Extraordinaire. I was in high demand, folks. I very rarely said no to a babysitting job!
There is not one person in this world who I can rely on for a date night with my husband. Maybe we should start dating other people so one of us can stay home with the kids....oh wait, he already does that.

I totally just buuuuurned you, Quincey!

Tonight I had the pleasure of driving Charlie and Kenzie to dance class, taking Max for a haircut, getting baaaaad drive thru chinese, wrestling the kiddies to bed on my own, and now trolling the internet for new product ideas. I think I'll also have a bowl of ice cream. With chocolate sauce. And if there's a god I'll find a can of whip cream in the back of my fridge that hasn't expired yet.
Don't get me wrong..I don't usually mind boring nights of routines and running errands. But that's what I do 360 nights a year. I savour those 5 (if I'm lucky) nights.

You're tired of my whining, I can tell.

I had a dream last night that I was driving the first car I ever owned, in reverse, up a steep hill, around sharp turns, alongside a cliff, in heavy traffic, at high speed. So I'm mostly using the rear view mirror to stay on the road - not over the cliff - and not hit other cars, but my kids keep grabbing the rear view mirror and readjusting it so I can't see the road.
I'm no pro at dream interpretation, but I'm guessing this has something to do with the fact that my store is MOVING in a few short weeks. To a location outside the mall. With a name change. Image makeover. And I'm SCARED OUT OF MY MIND!
And I have 3 little kids and a baby on the way.
But FANTASTIC staff, and even more FANTASTIC customers, and a solid plan, and I'm sure it'll all work out in the long run.

Until then..my blood pressure may be running a little high!

Hide and Seek

Today we lost the bunny for 3 hours.
No idea where it was.
I had told the kids they could let it loose in the office with the door closed while they took turns playing on the computer, but after awhile they got sloppy and Max..er..someone left the door open when they went for a bathroom break.
The kids were "looking" - which usually means laying on the floor to look under the couch and staying there for the duration of whichever show they've been distracted by on YTV - and having no luck. Surprise, surprise.
Quincey and I were busy with our dinner guests, although I did become more and more concerned as time kept ticking by with no sight of poor Bunbun.

Finally at bedtime when Charlie came to me close to tears because she was afraid Percy - our cat who has been circling the bunny cage for days - would eat him, I agreed to go look for her.

I found her still in the office, but on the book shelf tucked in under a book that was fallen partially on its side.
Crisis averted. Mom to the rescue.
Now everyone GET TO BED!!

 

Oh, by the way..finally got our sample pictures for this year's bunny photo event. Of course, I used little Eloise as my model. :-)

For more details visit our new website www.saras-smiles.photogiftworld.com

Party Plans

These things always sneak up on me.

In September I get all excited for party season. We wait aaaaaaall year without any parties. Then they all come at once: Thanksgiving, 2 weeks, Halloween, 2 weeks, Charlie's Birthday, 2 weeks, Elly's Birthday, 2 weeks, Max's Birthday, 2 weeks, Christmas, 1 week, New Year's.

I'm so gung ho in September to start planning, buying and booking, but I convince myself to slow down..it's too early. You know what's coming next..
Time flies by and I'm scrambling to throw everything together!

This year Charlie has to have her party a week early on the 7th. Her and her cousin were born 4 days apart so it's always a toss up of who gets what weekend.

I had promised her a bowling party with webkinz as favours and lots of friends from school. We've never invited anyone but cousins before so this was quite exciting.
Yesterday I realized that the 7th is just a week away and I haven't booked the lanes, ordered the webkinz, made or handed out any invitations. Seriously, I totally get in my own way sometimes.

Luckily, we were able to book the lanes for that day and I found a webkinz supplier here in Canada to ship to me fast(I didn't want to risk them getting stuck in customs).

And here's the invitation that I made at my store and got printed right away:

(I know the info is there, but I'm no celebrity..show up and bowl a few lanes if you want..I don't care. It's a public place!)

I'm so in love with it!! Only one thing that could've made it better..I tried to convince her to let me take a picture of her holding up six fingers. She flat out refused. She said it would be too "embarrassing". OK, I can get that. She's getting older. But it turned out that it wasn't that she was against a photo on her invites, and she told me that she would pose with 5 fingers or 10 fingers, but not 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 6.
Personally, I think she just enjoys weilding this power over me.
In any event, the invites look amazing. I love them. She loves them, and they'll finally go out to her friends tomorrow!

Master Procrastinator dodges another bullet..phew.

Charlie - The Early Years, Part 2

Charlie - The Early Years, Part 1 here.

When Charlie was born we were poor. Poorer than poor. We didn't have zero, we had less than zero. Much less. All of our money went to the business. We both worked for the business so if the business wasn't making money then neither Quincey or I received a paycheque. We took money on an "as needed" basis, and if there was no money to take then bills didn't get paid. The early years of our business destroyed both of our personal credit.
One of Quincey's talents is managing money. If you said that to him, he'd probably laugh in your face. He thinks we're both too "spendy". But here's the thing - he just has this ability to know what to pay, what to push, when to fight and when to charm. He'll beg and borrow or whatever it takes to keep things moving forward. I was glad it was him and not me because I thought I was too proud of a person to do that, but in reality it wasn't pride it was fear. Quincey knew what he wanted and what he needed to do to get what he wanted, and he was fearless.
I remember so clearly the day our bank account hit zero. We celebrated! We had a line of credit (you don't want to know how much!), and always ran riiiiight on the edge of it. To see our bank account without a big fat negative in front of a big fat number was thrilling! exciting! motivating!
I like to remind Quincey of that when he's complaining about money these days. :-)
Remember when we were over the moon about zero?!

Take a look at Elly's exersaucer and then at Charlie's:

I base our success on what type of exersaucer I can afford. Elly's had all the bells and whistles. Charlie's was old, second hand, and had no toys left on it! I used to stack up toys around her so she had something to look at or grab onto. She hadn't quite perfected her hand-eye coordination yet, but that didn't stop her from getting her chompers around Lamby's little nose.

We couldn't afford a house, and even if we could have our credit was too poor to get approved for a mortgage. We lived in a high rise downtown. It was nice because I could put the kids in the wagon and go visit Quincey at work 2 blocks away, but that was about the only upside.

I remember locking my keys in the van WITH THE KIDS while we were in the underground parkade of our building, and I couldn't even get OUT of the parkade to get help because the door opener was on my keychain! And now the kids were screaming, and I had no idea what I was going to do. I was singing to them through the glass in an effort to calm them down when I heard the parkade door click into motion. A car sped out and didn't see me running and  waving, but I took the opportunity to exit the parkade. I had mixed feelings about leaving the kids, but staring at them through the windows wasn't going to solve the problem so off I went. I ran around to the front door of the building and it hit me, "DOH!! I still have no keys to get in! I started buzzing all my neighbours, and finally got in. I couldn't get into my apartment, but I borrowed their phone to call Quincey for spare keys. Now THIS is where working two blocks from home comes in handy! He was there in no time. The kids survived it better than I did!

When we finally had the opportunity to buy a house, I felt a little sad at leaving our city lifestyle. We were going to become people who stayed within the fence. We'd come out to go to the park or browse the mall. I started taking pictures of all the things we did as city dwellers that we took for granted.

Going underground to catch a train:

Buying a hotdog on the sidewalk and eating it on the street:

Using an elevator to get home everyday:

Playing in the fountains in your front yard:

Sometimes I miss certain things about living in the city. Then I lean back in my lawn chair in my backyard and watch the kids play on the swing set or waterslide and I think..Naaaah

That's Dedication

So I’m out on a photo shoot Saturday.

It’s an old friend’s husband’s extended family. With the exception of Trina and her husband, I’ve never met these people so it’s just like any other photo shoot. Groups pictures, each individual family picture, just kids, just grandparents, etc etc.

Everything is going pretty normal. I’m trying to get pictures of a 1 ½ year old girl who just will not smile. I’m practically laying on the ground on my side holding up my 2 ton camera waiting for the shot. Mom and Dad are pulling out all the stops trying to get the girl to smile. I feel something rubbing on my leg, but if I move and she finally smiles and I miss the shot I risk being tarred and feathered. I hold my pose. I am going to get this shot.

My leg continues to tickle. “There’s something on my leg.” I mutter, but no one is paying attention to me. I’m drowned out by coos, and claps, and silly voices all at the same time but no one in unison trying to coerce a smile out of that unhappy little girl. I hold my pose. I tell myself it must be the long grass I’m lying in that’s tickling me.

This goes on and on. Shea, my assistant, steps up in an attempt to cast a shadow across the baby to get the sun out of her eyes. A few minutes later – still in my pose – I hear Shea, “Ack! Ants!” It still doesn’t click for me until I realize I’m shaking my leg again.

It takes every ounce of restraint I have not to throw my camera in the air, rip every piece of clothing from my body and dive head first into the creek screaming bloody murder for God to have mercy on my soul. Were I not with customers, I just may have done that.

When I laid my foot to rest across the top of this anthill, those poor ants called for every man on deck. I’ve never seen so many ants in one place in my entire life. I was wearing full length, loose fitting pants and these ants were retreating from the invaded hill UP THIS INSIDE OF MY PANTS.

I didn’t yell. I didn’t run around in circles. Those of you who know me will know how difficult that was for me. Because they were primarily INSIDE my pants, the 20+ people who were a part of this photo session didn’t realize the depth of this problem for me. I was trying to figure out how to get through this with the least amount of humiliation. I really reeeally didn’t want to take my pants off.

While I’m frantically smacking at my legs and feeling the “tickling” getting higher and higher, the thought crossed my mind that I must be smushing these ants – guts and all – against my bare skin. I don’t care. THEY MUSTN’T GET ANY HIGHER!! I feel one of the ladies brushing some off my back, but I realize for the most part nobody cares and they’re all wandering off to the next photo site.

I pull myself together and make my way to the front of the pack where I hear someone complaining under their breath that they have no idea where they’re supposed to be going. OH. SORRY THAT I JUST GOT RAPED BY AN ARMY OF A THOUSAND ANTS WHILE I TRIED TO TAKE PICTURES FOR YOU, AND THAT THIS INCONVENIENCED YOU BY THREE OR FOUR MINUTES.
(Just a note in their defense - because they were nice people - some of them had somewhere to be and I don’t think they knew what was going on with the ant situation.)

I continued on, and every now and then I’d flick a couple of ants off my neck, shoulder or pick them out of my hair. I did my best not to think too much about it because if I did, I would surely have a massive stroke and die.

Back at home, I sat huddled and naked in the shower for a gooood looooong tiiiiiiime.

 

Trina's lovely family. Taken Saturday at the ant session.

Practice What You Preach

I don't just sell photo gifts, I'm my own best customer.
My home is filled with pictures, pictures, pictures. Huge pictures, groups of pictures, pictures on things, in things, around things. A lot of times our new product ideas are based on what I personally want for my own home.

This is starting to sound like I should've posted it on my company blog, but really it's just because you asked about pictures of the garden tiles the kids made, and also I've been meaning to post pictures of my fabulous new table made from ceramic photo tiles. We'll start with that...

 

It's just basic patio furniture that I've seen sold just about everywhere. It comes with 12 inch ceramic tiles. All I did was replace the generic tiles that came with it with ceramic photo tiles that we sell in the store. Another great thing about it is that I can switch them out if I get sick of certain pictures or just want something new. This is probably my favourite thing I've made EVER.

Quincey's favourite things ever are the garden tiles that we made for father's day which I've already told you about. Here are the pictures of them with their artists.

 

 

I've finished Max's room too. I hung some pop art above his bed in colours that compliment the room. He LOVES it, and so do I!

 

I took a bunch of pictures of other photo gifts in use in my house, but maybe you should just come visit me and I'll show them to you then. (I get lonely :-( )