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{A}’s Haircut: Before, After, and Even the Middle!

August 9, 2009 By Laura 18 Comments

So here we are at the big reveal! {A}’s haircut, before and after! (I wonder who is already skipping the jabber and scrolling right to the bottom right now! lol) Patience, patience! (I test your patience, too, with my overdue posts…don’t I? ; ) Us girls just LOVE this stuff, though, don’t we?

I really AM going to get RIGHT to it! But I just wanted to mention, very quickly, that you can expect to see most photos in this section of the blog, watermarked with my logo. Especially the portrait type ones. It’s part of my work flow in posting portrait work on the web, and necessary for this new business blogging section, for all of the clients coming for whom I’ll be posting sneak peeks for here. (Awesome stuff coming up near the end of August or so.)

Ok, back to the intent here. On the way to salon, I had to take just a couple more before photos. In a ponytail, is how {A} most always wore her hair, every day. So we really needed photos of her with her hair pulled back as well. I loved it when she wore it down, and if I asked nicely, sometimes she would appease me. But a ponytail was the typical daily style. Just like this…

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Michael took one look at this photo, and first said, “JCPenney”. Which made me laugh out loud. Then he said, “Nice”. So every time I look at this photo now, I think of both of those things, in that order.

There’s the back.

And off we went to the salon.

Janine Cliffe is our family hairdresser, and has been for many, many years. She currently works for Shear Creations on Long Pond Road in Plymouth, MA. (No web site.) She was Michael’s stylist first, for several years, and I think became mine when she came to cut my hair when I was pregnant with the triplets! I was on complete bed rest, so listen to this: She cut my hair, with me lying down, on a full length reclined lawn chair, in our kitchen! It’s true! She passed that test, so I kept going to her. Then around the time that the triplets turned 1 year old and needed their first haircut, she instantly gained 3 new clients! It was then that we started hiring her to come to our home on a regular basis, and when she does, she does Michael’s hair, the triplets and sometimes gave {A} a trim. Most times I choose to go to the salon, though, because I am often having something else done besides a cut, and I want Janine comfortable with the bigger jobs.

Almost time for the cut! YIKES! It was bitter-sweet. It still is, actually. She has SO much hair, Janine divided it in 2 side by side ponytails, which I thought was a smart start.

No going back now!

“Oh-my-gosh.” (I think I said that 100 times when I was standing there, in between deep breathes.)

What an odd little photo. lol

After the razor chop, Janine cleaned it up nice with her scissors. I just didn’t take more photos then. I was busy, recovering.

That’s Janine (Cliffe) on the left. She’s so pretty. And the BIGGEST RED SOX, PATRIOTS and CELTICS FAN you will ever meet. I’m not even kidding. She’s very cool. She didn’t charge us for this special cut, either, which was SO nice. (Thanks again, Janine!!)

A little while later, after some shopping, and some of my favorite comfort soup <sniff, sniff>, Panera Bread Broccoli & Cheddar, we stopped on the way home and got some after shots

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How do you like it? Can you even believe the curl and waves now? I knew before the haircut that her new hair was growing in pretty curly, and figured some was weighed down. But I didn’t expect this! Michael has some crazy thick hair, and TONS of it, but he keeps it short and spiked. I think {A} must get her hair from her Daddy (As well as the crazy long monkey- toes, but that’s another story.). No one would believe how heavy her hair was. There was just SO much of it.

She gets her crazy eye color from my mother. Michael and I both have brown eyes. Mine are a medium golden brown, and Michael’s are more black-brown. I really loved how her hair came out. I think she’s a DOLL anyway!

Another bizarre, if not creepy, photo, I know. But here’s her hefty Locks For Love donation! 17 and 1/2 inches! And about 17 pounds too.

It would be weird to end with that photo….so here is the before and after, one more time, one right after the other.

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JC Penney!

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After.

Tell us what you think! And was this fun or what?!

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Changes Are A-‘Comin’! – A Photo Shoot of Our Oldest Girl

August 4, 2009 By Laura 8 Comments

These past couple of months have been slower with my photography business than any year in a long time. Probably because of the economy and people cutting back some, a photo shoot is just not at the top of the list in families sometimes. I understand that, and I’ve been more than content with this slower-summer paced, and just hanging out with my kids even more. But it looks like that phase of summer is over, because suddenly the work for me has just started pouring in this week, and I am booking photo shoots left and right! I always try to be careful not to book too much work, because our family and the kids schooling are my first priorities. But we do need the income, and I do love my work. Balance is always my daily goal and challenge though. Things are about to get a lot busier. And that means, so is this section of the blog!

But this post was a mini-session photo shoot for {A}. We decided we needed to get some photos, for memories. Not only because she just turned 12 years old last month, but for another reason as well…..which I’ll share at the end of this post. But here are some of our favorite shots of our oldest baby girl. Looking at these photos just fills my heart. We love her so much. She is such a good kid, so full of faith, with a loving and joyful spirit that shines every day. And man, has she grown A LOT in the past 2 years. (She’s even taller than me now.)

Michael and I really, really love this one above, because it is SO HER! Always laughing.

When I am away from her, (which is so seldom), and I think of her, that is exactly how I see her in my head.

Just look at how crazy long that hair is! And it’s heavy.

Always digging her toes in the sand.

She just loves, loves the seashore. It’s part of her home.

We were sure to get some photos, because . . . . . . she is getting her hair cut! It’s always been very, very long.

Always. Not that getting it cut could ever change her beauty, that truly shines from the inside, out.

I did take some other before and after shots, too. Would anyone like to see? : )
You can see how her haircut came out, right HERE.

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Our Family’s Episode of CatholicTV’s House + Home: A Late Report

August 4, 2009 By Laura 4 Comments

Those of you who are long time visitors of a our blog may remember that last year (2008) our family was asked to be filmed for the pilot show of a new series being created by CatholicTV, called House + Home. The premise of the program is to feature various Catholic families, that vary in family size and lifestyles, and how they live out their Catholic faith in their daily lives, in their homes, and as a family. Each episode would feature a new family, and we were the first to be asked and filmed, thus being the pilot show. How crazy is that?!

We blogged about filming day when it took place back in October. In that post, we said we would let you all know when our episode was to be aired. But…we didn’t end up doing that, so this is a very late post. Our episode actually aired about countless times throughout the month of June, on CatholicTV. It was just a crazy time, and we were actually in the midst of completely revamping our blog, and during the process of that, were getting more hits on the blog than ever, because of the show airing, in which Fr. Robert Reed talks about our blog, and even visits it with our kids on film. And o.k., maybe we were procrastinating a little bit. We were a little startled by all of the attention the show was bringing to us, and we didn’t think it needed our help. lol So….we just never ended up blogging about it before, but we are really, really excited to see other families featured, because we know we will be left inspired, and it will simply be good tv viewing that we can count on and enjoy.

Since our filming day, there was a little span of time before they resumed filming for the show, featuring other families. So ours has been the only one being aired and promoted, heavily throughout June, and I think randomly since. But it is always on their web site as well. CatholicTV‘s web site is a really fabulous site (and as Fr. Reed wants everyone to know, it’s in high definition!! lol….he’ll be pleased that I mentioned that…lol)…..because you can not only watch any program you want to at any time, but you can also watch CatholicTV LIVE 24/7. We love that because guess what? We don’t even get the CatholicTV channel!! It is a national television station, but unless you get the BIG digital package of cable, (w/ lots of UNCatholic channels too…; ), that channel doesn’t come in. SO….we watched our own show on the computer ourselves. So if you don’t get the CatholicTV channel, and you go to the site, save the link!! It is awesome Catholic programming, naturally, for adults and kids alike.
(Updated Note: It later became a more standard television station.)

Since the show has aired, it has caught the attention of various Catholic and secular news medias, so we have been asked to do several interviews that have been printed in various publications including Catholic Online, and The Pilot (which was pretty exciting, minus my off-moment facial expression.) We have another interview coming up for the Old Colony Memorial.

Most all of the news reporters, as well as people in general have asked and wanted to know why we agreed to let our family be filmed for this program. I especially am one that is most comfortable being behind the camera, perhaps because I have control there, as a photographer. So being in front of a camera of any kind, never mind a national tv video camera (also high def by the way ; ) , was a bit out of my comfort zone, as well as my husband’s. The kid were SO FINE with it. So humility has played a small part in it, but is a part we decided to embrace, in agreeing to be filmed, despite our discomfort. The virtue of humility may be defined as: “A quality by which a person, considering his own defects, has a lowly opinion of himself and willingly submits himself to God and to others for God sake.” Therefore, to reject doing the show, to us, would speak of putting ourselves and some vanity we wanted to protect, before our God. So that there was the biggest premise of our decision. (Still uncomfortable though.)

But we had other reasons we wanted to do the show. One as we mentioned, was because we support and love the concept of the show. We knew WE would certainly be interested in seeing how OTHER Catholic families live out their faith in their daily lives, so we thought others probably would too. We wanted to aid in ‘kicking off’ this great idea, to help encourage it to become a successful series. Some other reasons are:

*We are called, in commitment to our Catholicism, to evangelize our faith. Since we are not the type that have very strong skills in sharing the Word of God, with the people we encounter in our daily lives, this seemed like a pretty good way to do it. We knew we were indeed capable, in sharing the best way we could express, how we live our day to day life as a family. So it was an offering of evangelizing in the way of example.

*We LOVE our lifestyle, and the Catholic faith that is so intricately woven into our daily moments, from within our family, our businesses, our homeschooling, our serving others, and every other area and situation in our lives.

*It was an opportunity that just doesn’t come along very often. We are always inspired and encouraged by other Catholic families, their practices and traditions, perspectives and lifestyles, and it was our opportunity to at least try and give back. It was a hope that in some way, some other family may see the joy and fulfillment in our family, that comes deeply-rooted from our faith, and be inspired to develop the faith in their own families as well. Or, for other Catholic families, who DO live much like we do, and feel so alone and different in today’s society, to see that there ARE other families….many other families, who live like they do. It was an opportunity to reach out, connect and network with those families.

*As a home schooling family, it was a real educational experience for our children! They would not just learn, but witness, participate in and experience all of the hard work that goes into the production of a television program.

*It would be a wonderful keepsake, in the form of a memory and a film piece, of our children’s childhood, for them AND for us in years to come. And for the generations that follow.

*Also, it should be noted that we love Fr. Robert Reed and we would have a pretty hard time saying ‘no’ to him, for anything he asked of us.

We have not regretted participating in the promotion of this show at all. We’ve had lots to say about it, in the various news articles we have shared our thoughts with. While it has drawn far more attention ourselves than we ever anticipated, which we are still adjusting to and are still not 100% comfortable with, it has overall been a ‘good thing’ for our family, and for our Catholic community.

In closing, we would just like to express our heartfelt thanks to the many, many people who have seen and supported the show, and/or our episode, and have called, sent e-mails, commented on our blog and just came right up to us in person on the street, in stores or as members of our parish family (St. Bonaventure’s Parish), to express that they saw us on tv, and how much they enjoyed the program. We truly appreciate all of your kind words and thoughts. Your support and expressions of faith lift us up.

Most of all, we would like to thank Fr. Reed, for more reasons than we can ever express, really. We are thankful to you, Fr. Reed, for responding to your personal call of faith in your vocation as a priest, as you touch millions of lives in a loving, inspiring and effective faith-building way – reaching out to adults and children in so many areas. For all of the mini-Latin lessons you have given {A}, and for being a powerful, significant example of many things, and in many ways, than you will ever know or realize. (In {A}’s words), for all of the funny memories and times you have had together in the sacristy before and after serving Mass together. We are also humbled and touched, that you would recognize and embrace our efforts, however full of stumbles, in living out our Catholic faith as a family. You have made a wonderful impression on our family as a whole and as individuals, for life. Overall, we just think you are a really cool guy, and we have come to love you very much.

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This is a separate post, but related enough that I thought I would tie it in. It’ll be a whole lot shorter. Promise.

{A}’s’ birthday fell on a Sunday this year. This made her SO happy because it is not only her favorite day of the week, but she was serving as well, which she loves to do. Fr. Reed happened to be presiding over that Mass, on her birthday, and shared with the congregation that it was 24 years ago that day, that he was ordained as priest! So {A} was thrilled they shared that special date, and Fr. Reed expressed after Mass what a funny little coincidence it was too, as we stood around chatting.

Then, he said that he had something for the kids, but said they needed to split it, and use it for their college education. Then he proceeds to pull out of his pocket, a million dollar bill, and he handed it to them. The little ones just giggled of course, while {A} prayed it was real. lol. Of course she knew it was a joke, being no such thing as a million dollar bill. But it sure looked real! It was crinkled and everything! He also gave them chocolate bars with WOW wrappers on it. (WOW is a CatholicTV Challenge show for kids, of which Fr. Reed also hosts.)

So, it was another happy day for the kids, loaded with more smiles and giggles brought on by Fr. Reed.

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Our Home Transformation Reveal! – Our Dream: Final Part

August 2, 2009 By Laura 7 Comments

If you’re just joining us, and would like to see the story of our dramatic home transformation, you are welcome to check out the previous parts of the story at the following links:
Part I
Part II
Part III

Some rain came that late afternoon, as the guys hurriedly tried to get the house covered. Most of the second floor was completed at this point, with the exception of {A}’s room and the stairwell.

The next morning the crew showed up, took the tarps off and got back to work. They started on the new cathedral ceiling, and the walls and roof of {A}’s room.

As the day wore on, more rain was coming. The guys got plywood on the new roofs and tar-papered it. At the end of the work day, they re-tarped the completed second floor.

But the rain came that night, REALLY hard. A RAIN STORM. The house was really not sealed in a 100%, with gaps still between plywood and open walls. At one point early in the night, Michael ran over from the beach house we were staying in next door, to see if things were staying protected, and became really overwhelmed with the drips all over the place. He was putting pots and pans all over the house, trying to catch the water coming in, some of which was even running off the tarps edges. There was water coming down from behind the moldings of the doorways, gushing down walls, even filling pockets of water behind the paint of our existing walls. I called Michael at one point, worried he had been gone so long, and he was literally so discouraged he was about to cry. He had run ouf containers, and was running low on hope and high on worry. At one point, where it was 1:00 on the morning, and he was on the roof in the rain, trying to adjust the tarps to save our home. It was one of those situations that really felt like a nightmare, with no one there to help. I felt SO helpless, having to stay with the kids, and he was there for hours, emptying pots, pans and pitchers only to be filled again. It was one of those situations where, we know we have always live a very simple, non-materialistic life. Expanding on our home was the most extravagant thing we had ever done, out of necessity. We had been living in a home the size of the little beach vacation homes in our neighborhood, and it was enough. Even once the babies were born, we remained living in such tiny quarters until they were 4 years old! That is when we started this project. We knew they were going to need bedrooms, so we could have ours back! Even ourt dining room table was at the end of our living room….as there was no dining room and the kitchen was way too small for even a chair. So…..as the rain poured down our existing walls, and even started leaking into on top of the rooms in our basement, we FELT like we were losing even what little we had before we even started construction. It was a long, devastating night.

By the time the crew showed up the next morning, with Stephen (aka Bob the Builder), the rain had stopped. What had happened was not their fault. The weather forecast had not warned of us of THAT much rain, and we all had every reason to believe the house would be protected. So there was really nothing anyone could do. The guys continued on with their work, and they promised they would have the house weather-tight, structurally, for sure by the end of the day. And they did. But in the course of the day, they had to check for proper venting through the roof, on the front most low ceiling of our house-which was existing. As they did, the inside ceiling plaster/sheet rock just started falling to the floor. Turns out the provious owner did a make-shift-do-it-himself job when he possibly enclosed a front porch. We’re just speculating but, whatever was done, was obviously not done properly, and until that day we had no problem and never knew it. SOOOO….there was even MORE house inside to be re-d0ne, that we had never planned to be touched.

From there on out, things went smoothly and really quickly. The sun room was built.

The roofers came. The roofing company, Falcone Roofing Company, is owned by Michael’s brother-in-law. They are real pros, with John (BIL) having high standards of his work and expectations of his crews. They banged it all out in a day, and even installed 3 skylights. It was a beautiful, impeccable job done.

As you can see, all of the windows had been installed too. We were nearing completion.

Now this all may have seemed like forever to you, and it felt that way to us too!! But the truth of the matter is, ALL of this construction was done in a matter of 15 consecutive work days, excluding Sundays. We were really amazed with how fast it all happened, as well as the quality of the work.

A couple of weeks later, after the vinyl siding was installed, it looked like a completely different house…

BEFORE

AFTER

see home transformation remodeling

The house looked like it was ready to be moved right into!! And we did… to plywood floors and insulation, even in rooms that weren’t supposed to be touched at all. We were doing all of the finishing inside, ourselves. Sheet-rocking, plastering, flooring, priming and painting, finish trim on windows and doors. That process happened s l o w l y, and has been going on for 3 years TODAY. To date, the first floor is completely done, (minus the new couch I want, and a few other furniture pieces I dreamed up that Michael can build.) The upstairs is getting there now. But we enjoy the process. The more work we put into our home ourselves, the more we love it. As you can see….the yard has some real needs too. : ) Soon, we’ll be sharing the building and creations of our gardens over this spring and summer. There is LOADS of projects to be done all over our homestead….inside and out. But that’s o.k…..we’ll get it all done over time. It doesn’t all need to be completely done, for us to have that feeling that we really, really love where we are, together: Home Sweet Home.

We hope you enjoyed this 4 part episode of our Extreme Home Makeover. : )

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Our Home Transformation – Our Dream: Part III

July 29, 2009 By Laura 4 Comments

If you’re just joining us, we’ve been sharing the progressive story of our dramatic home transformation, so you are welcome to check out the previous parts of the story at the following links:
Part I
Part II
Before we move on to some real ‘action’, we wanted to take you back inside for a minute….

……re-posting this image, because we want to draw your attention to the ladder you see on the left. (Something happened to the quality of the image but, it’s not worth going back to get the original or fixing. You get the idea, I am sure. ) Now, as you know by now, we had had this little 2 bedroom home, and found ourselves in the very blessed but unexpected position, of triplets joining our family. So, we made do – made the most with what we had – did whatever worked. So we (Michael & I), gave up our bedroom. That became the triplets room for the time being. We actually had our bed in the main living area, for awhile. It worked out nicely for me, with feeding the babies and all. : ) But it was a TAD awkward when the in-laws came to visit. ; ) lol. Anyway, once the babies were weaned, and sleeping through the night pretty well, we were desperate to get the bed out of the main room there. So, being the creative problem-solvers that we are…..we took to bed in the crawl loft!! We put our queen size mattress up there, bedding and all, and that’s where we slept! It was literally a crawl area…..open and overlooking the living space, with pier like ropes that went from one vertical beam to the next. And it had this beautiful, heavy-duty, rustic ladder, to get up there. We always loved that ladder, and our loft! But who knew it would ever become what we came to call, ‘The Love Loft.” : ) It’s funny, because when I was little, I was always a little envious of Laura and Mary Ingalls, getting to go up that ladder to their bedroom in the loft every night. Might be why I found myself looking for our first home with a loft!! But I swear, I never had ANY intentions or plans of sleeping up there! Ours…..there was no way you could stand. There was room to crawl across our mattress, and that was it. The highest point, which was the opening to the living space cathedral ceiling, was about 4 feet, and the ceiling just tapered down to about 2 feet. Michael slept on the inside. : ) But I most always headed up the ladder to bed before Michael, and I loved to say, “Come along, Charles. You need your rest.” Sometimes, if Michael was in the mood to play along, he would respond, “I’ll be right up, Caroline.”….just to make me happy. And it did. : )

I just had to tell you all that. Thanks for amusing me. : ) Oh….and the piece of plywood you see over the front of the ladder, covered the first 2 steps. It was hinged and hook-locked. That was a safety measure to prevent the babies from climbing the ladder. Yes…..we slept in the loft for a LONG time. Until the babies COULD have climbed the ladder. But I’m telling you…I loved it! The skylights were over a few feet from us, and on summer nights, it was awesome.

Well, there’s a little peek for you into our love loft, with the roof ripped off. They needed the school room at least rough framed, so they could rip the roof off and start building the second floor.

Since our loft was literally gone, we were now sleeping on the living room floor. The cathedral ceiling you see, with the skylights I mentioned, were planned to stay. But after a couple of nights and days, the contracted builder decided that it wasn’t that structurally safe for us to be living there, and being there, through this point of the construction. Furthermore, they decided that the cathedral ceiling and peek of the roof as it was, was really more in the way. They wanted to remove it all because they needed to run a main support beam from the left side of the house, to the right. (30 feet long). This beam would be at the lowest end of the pitch you see, off the photo to the left.

Bottom line was, the roof had to go so they could do their work correctly, and so do we!!

We had a matter of an hour or so to get what we needed, and get out. I’m one of those stress packers, especially when it comes to wanting to be sure my kids will have all they need, and I’m a stress-mess when I have a few days to get it all together. But I had an hour. We didn’t even know where we were going!!

We ended up at a hotel with townhouses, not far up the street. We live in a tourist, historical town, so there are plenty of places to stay. Just not plenty of places to stay, affordabley. Well, with the expenses we had going on, $5 wouldn’t have been considered affordable. lol. This place was very comfortable and had all we needed. It was actually 2 floors, lots of beds, and fully equipped kitchen. For only…..$189.00 a night. <gulp> We had no idea how long before we could go home! Well, I think we were there for 3 or 4 nights, when I had a brilliant idea, in my place I have so many of my brilliant ideas……..the shower. You know….white noise….no kids…..I can think in there. Start to finish. I am sure SOMEONE out there can relate. So anyway……it occurred to me, ……. we have an empty beach house right next door to our house! Michael was actually the property manager for it. So I thought….maybe he could call the owner, and we could get some really cheap rent for a week or 2? The idea was still something we could NOT afford at all, but it HAD to be cheaper than $189 a night!!

So Michael called, and the owner told him there was no bookings, and we could stay there as long as we needed. FOR NOTHING.

<Ok…I just need a moment so I can cry again over this unbelievable blessing from God.>

Was someone taking care of us, or what?? It was amazingly generous for the owner to let us stay there for free. Such a GIFT, and one we needed so badly. But then, the fact that it was right next door to our house under construction was too good to be true!! First of all, talk about convenience for anything we needed or forgot. (We could run in our house, if needed, with warning.) But also, just to be able to watch the progress of our dream home being built. I loved that the KIDS could watch it all! Talk about teachable moments!! Do you see the bay window on the right side of the house? That faces our home, where we could see almost everything going on, at all times. One of our boys loved big trucks and construction equipment. They all thought our contractor was “Bob the Builder”. Forgive me, but there was a little bit of resemblance.

So construction continued, and we were enjoying every bit of it from a clean and comfortable space.

The roof was off of a good portion of the house. The living room was open to the sky, there was an open second story on over the kitchen, new school room, {A}’s room, the bathroom and 1/2 of the triplets room.

Looking down into living room. Also visible on upper part of photo is the beam that needed to be installed.

View from second story, former Love Loft, into side sun room.

So the house is pretty much open…..unprotected.

Rain was in the forecast, heading our way. Bad, bad timing. So the crew covered the house with these tarps.

But it was to be a 3 day rain storm, and the tarps were seriously not working well enough…………….

(To be continued…..Here, Final Part)

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