And life keeps speeding up...

We are on so many countdowns right now:

• 31 days to Christmas  |  Today is the first day of tree season!
• 21 days to the Wee Ski 3.0's due date  |   Still cannot believe it.  He's measuring more than 6 pounds right now!
• 8 days to the first day of Advent  |  Cannot wait for this year's Advent season with the boys.  
• 0 days to Christmas Tree Season!  |  Today's opening day!

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind...it's been a constant battle to stay ahead of things and not get behind.  Most mornings, I have been out of bed by 4 or 4:30, with the occasional sleeping in until 5 am.  :)  I seriously do love being a morning riser.  And after nearly 5 years of marriage, Jonathan's learned how to sleep through my alarm and not wake too much while I'm getting up.

Things that I am loving right now:

• 14 Finian Road shoots in the past 8 weeks.  Nearly done with the edits and turnarounds for Christmas...just a few left!  Praying that the rain gives us some reprieve this weekend for a few scheduled shoots on the farm!  It's been in the back of my mind that the baby's coming early...so I'm trying to keep up on everything JUST IN CASE.
• A very fun Thanksgiving dinner yesterday on the farm.  My parents, Mike, Kristine and the kids came down for an early-ish dinner and finding Mom and Dad's tree.  I haven't cooked much (let alone big feasts) in the past few months with the pregnancy, so it was so fun to be back in the kitchen.  We had an awesome 20 pound turkey, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, gorgonzola & walnut toasts, baked brie with apricots & pineapple & crushed almonds, roasted broccolini, crazy delish gravy, and my first two ventures into pie: pumpkin pie and mini berry pies with homemade vanilla ice cream.  I cannot begin to describe how excited I am, at nearly 37 weeks along, for leftovers.  IT WILL BE EPIC.
• Cousins.  Thomas & John Paul had so much fun with their cousins yesterday, that when everyone was heading out to go home, I found Thomas laying down in the dirt crying.  I assumed that he had tripped, but no, he was crying that he couldn't go up there for a sleepover.  "MOMMY I WANT TO GO THERE WITH THEM WHY CAN I NOT GO I WANT TO SLEEPOVER PLEASE PLEASE SOB SOB SOB".
• Tree season.  I am so lucky to have extended family on Jonathan's side that I adore.  Even though we all live within a mile of each other, everyone's schedules are so crazy that it takes tree season to get everyone in the same room at the same time.  And I'll be honest -- some of my favorite moments come with the aunties and uncles when you're on hour 8 and everyone's a little stir crazy when it's raining cats & dogs.  We have special surprises for them this morning to celebrate the opening of tree season, can't wait to give them!!

Speaking of...I need to get up and going and into the shower...the farm opens for 2012 business in one hour, 55 minutes!  Cheers!

Art Cards: A giveaway!

It's the beginning of fall, and I need some good color right now. Perhaps in the form of artwork? :)

In Thomas's thank you cards, I had a spot for him to color a picture for the people receiving a thank you from him.  With the debut of 2.0, I redesigned the piece to be a standalone card which can be hung immediately, tucked inside a 5x7 card and mailed, or handed to someone special -- whether or not they are being thanked!

I love these 5x5 square cards, so I designed them generic enough (the originals had our names with checkboxes instead of "artist") so they can be used by any young artist, or really, any young-at-heart artist.  :)

I have them for sale in the Finian Road Etsy shoppe in sets of a dozen cards...and I am giving away two packs over on Facebook! 

How can you enter?  Just leave a comment over on the Facebook note!

I'd love it if you'd share your favorite 'artsy' thing to do with your kids.  If you don't, that's OK, I'm just all about stealing other people's fun ideas and making them our own.  :)  Entering the comment will get you entered into the drawing!

Deadline for the giveaway is this Friday, October 7th at 3 pm!  :)   Two winners will be chosen then!

A few more views below...



And you are WELCOME to 'pin it' on Pinterest!

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Life right now...

...is never boring.



So grateful that we're shooting family while Thomas is going through his "throwing giant rocks in the air right by his head phase".

The Birth Announcement

Photographed and designed, of course, by Finian Road.  :)

The announcements themselves are 4x9, with rounded corners.  I adore rounded corners.  And I adore long skinny designs (just like our wedding invitations and cards from Christmas in 2009 and 2010).  The quote is from Marc Brown, author of the Arthur books for kids. 

Seriously loving the color we painted our bedroom, for it became the base color for the card. 

I had ordered long orange envelopes and the orange custom knit bowl ahead of time (from Fini Fini Crochet & Knit Creations -- amazing work by my childhood friend Stacey Heim Tull)...and coupling it with the blue of our bedroom walls made this new-again mommy happy. 

The dresser that John Paul is resting on in the basket was handmade by his Grandpa Ski when he was in high school at Rainier, many years ago. 

SO loved how these turned out. 

The 2011 Shoot to Fight Cancer is LIVE!

Our Relay For Life team (Connolly Tacon & Meserve: "Connolly's Crew") is off to a fabulous start -- with funds that I mailed off a few days ago, we're just shy of $20,000 in funds raised!

For the last three years, I have donated a photo shoot from Finian Road and raffled it off to benefit the American Cancer Society.  More than $5000 has been raised from the tickets sold for the Shoot to Fight Cancer.  

I introduce this year's Shoot to Fight Cancer.

A photo shoot with your fam from Finian Road + the digital negatives + two beautiful gallery-wrapped 16x20 canvas of your two favorite images from the shoot...all while fighting cancer at the same time!

And this year, the new addition to the prizes are the addition of a second prize and third prize -- so there will be 3 winners this year!  The second prize winner wins a $250 gift certificate to Finian Road, and the third prize winner wins a $100 gift certificate to Finian Road!

With the exception of the cure for cancer, I can't think of a sweeter deal.

Tickets are $25 each, and there are just 125 tickets available. Great odds for a prize package worth $850!

100% of every dollar from every ticket goes to support the life-saving work of the American Cancer Society...saving lives and creating more birthdays by helping you stay well, helping you get well, finding cures and by fighting back.

You can use the shoot yourself, or give it away as a gift (and you would be the best gift giver EVER!).

Here's how to buy your tickets:

• Go to our online website for the Relay For Life.You'll see a very cute video of the Wee Ski showing off his Grand Club shirt at a Relay Regional Summit last fall.
• Click on the blue "donate" button under our names.
• Enter the amount you wish to donate under "select gift amount": $100 buys you 4 tickets, $75 buys you three tickets, $50 buys you two tickets, and $25 buys you 1 ticket. And you can always buy more than 4!
• Follow the prompts to complete your donation to the American Cancer Society.
• We will receive a notice that your donation has been made and your ticket stub(s) will be in the mail to you within 48 hours. It will go to the billing address for the credit card used to pay for the ticket.

Our goal is to sell out the tickets before the end of the month...so don't miss your chance to pick up your tickets!

Also sweet to note -- each ticket has a coupon for 15% off a Finian Road shoot or product, good through August 31, 2011!  So really...every ticket wins something!  :)

The drawing will be held on Saturday, April 30th at 6:00 pm, Pacific time. The winner will be announced on the blog that evening, just after drawing.

Good luck!

Sweet design goodies...

Just a quick post to point you over to a sweet little design giveaway on the Finian Road blog...celebrating the launch of my personal design line over at Etsy!  Don't delay - the deadline to win is tomorrow night (Tuesday, February 1) at 6 pm Pacific!