Jillian Bickle Photography |Cobourg and Northumberland Area Photographer | illustrating your life story

i can’t believe that christmas has already come and gone. i’m sure like many of you, it was a whirlwind of a time! we spent the 19th doing the BIG bickle christmas at the church, then on the 24th we headed to nathan’s side (grandma and grampa) for the day for christmas, since grandma had to work on the 25th. we had a great big breakfast with everyone, then moved on to opening presents. i was trying to watch and see what everyone got, but was so busy helping the kids open their presents, i have no clue who got what! the girls were more interested in stuffing the wrapping paper into boxes, and elijah just wanted to color with his new crayons! once presents were out of the way, nathan put together elijah’s new skidoo racer (it is the exact same as nathan’s actual skidoo, even the same motor i’m told) and out he went for three hours up and down the hill infront of grandma and grampas house.  after supper and bath, we bundled the kids up and headed home. they had such a busy day, they were all asleep by the time we got there, so off they went to bed!

Those two photos of the girls were at the end of the night…they were getting pretty tired.

Elijah climed into bed in the middle of the night, so christmas morning i was woken up to an elbow in the temple. but i can’t say i mind, he’s so cute in the morning. i said to him, “do you think santa came?” and he looked at me and very seriously said “no, he’s just too busy.” i told him that santa wasn’t too busy to come. and then he looks at me, and says: “I’d like to see Grandma”. of course! at this point, i’m just feeling the love! we grab up all the kids and go downstairs, and get them opening up their stockings. elijah had to help the girls, but he didn’t mind. the girls had no clue what was going on, and just looked around dazed.  after breakfast we packed them up and went into my sisters for the day, where it was once again a whirlwind of opening up presents and playing with everything. then eating, then playing some more…then packing them up and taking them home to bed.  whenever we drive by a house that has christmas lights on, elijah gets very excited and says while pointing “it’s christmas!”. I love it! it’s been great re-living christmas through a toddlers perspective again. and yes, i had my tree down christmas day night (nathan looked at me like i had two heads) but it had been up for a month, and i needed to make room for the big new train table, so down it came, elijah even helped take off the decorations. i enjoyed christmas, but it’s kind of nice to get back into the life routine again. lots of work is being done at the studio this week, it’s getting so close to being done! i can’t wait!

The first photo is gracie’s face that she makes whenever you point a camera her way, she loves her photo taken. elijah loves cars right now, so he was more then happy to get them. the third photo is elijah showing his chocolate mouth that poppa gave him…we found out he’s just like daddy and gets a nose bleed from chocolate. that fourth picture, my dad thought it would be great to take a photo of my sister and i to compare. an no, i’m not having twins, my body has just been so used to being pregnant, it goes right back to the shape and size easily! and that last photo, this is why i’m happy that two boys are being added (my sister and i are both having boys) to even out the score a little. soon it will be three boys and four girls, much better odds for elijah! then, he won’t be stuck playing with prince charming! although, when his monster trucks got opened that aunti erica got him, that doll was thrown across the room, and then the fight over them began. on the way home, he had these trucks in his lap (he sleeps with them even) and he holds them up to me and says “mom, aren’t they beautiful?” i couldn’t help but laugh. he then said “they’re my favourite”. and he carries them everywhere. to be a child again!

i was going to wait until monday, but thought i would post tonight instead.  below is a picture showing the newest addition (well not quite) the the bickle household…meet caleb! we are so excited to be adding to the family, so i thought i would share with everyone else as well. it’s going to be interesting, 4 children 3 years and under…but great! i have to say though, probably not the greatest time to decide to renovate a new studio….my body hurts, and i am so tired! but the studio is really coming along, and i can’t wait to get it running. there are still a few free sessions available for the end of january, make sure you get booked in and help me break in the new studio!

last week was a wild, crazy week, and honestly, i can’t believe it’s only monday! i am so excited for this studio to be finished, i just wish i could work 24/7 for an entire week, not have to sleep, and just get it done! but it is coming along, and i think that this week we’ll get lots done.

it’s amazing to watch my children change and grow. it seems like each day one of them does or says something that just makes my heart hurt with all the love i feel for them. then there are things they do and i think…they are crazy! usually daddy does bath time, so when he’s doing that, i return emails or get any last minute computer work done for the day. after bath, elijah will come in the office with me, sit on my desk and color while nathan is dressing the girls. the other night he was sitting coloring, nathan had just come in, elijah stood up put his bum towards my face and farted. i froze, thinking “did he just do that?” of course, nathan started laughing, so elijah thought what he had just done was great. but then nathan says, “no elijah, you have to put your bum on mommy and fart”. so elijah climbs onto the chair with me, turns and puts his bum on my back, and pushes. nothing happens, so he keeps pushing to the point, he was grunting. well, all of a sudden he stops and in the cutest little voice says “oh no!! i pee-peed my pants!”. he was truely shocked that that had just happened, but i kind of figured that was going to be the outcome. nathan and i had a good laugh over that one, although now elijah thinks it is his duty to fart on me as much as possible. boys!!

twins are amazing in so many ways. if you sit and watch you can see that they communicate to each other in different ways. my girls like to tag team, and are getting quite good at it. elijah is starting to get it back when he takes something of theirs or pushes them over. now that eve is taking steps on her own, she likes for you to sit on the floor so she can walk to you. i swear the other night gracie told her to do this to distract me.  because as i was sitting helping eve, i saw gracie with a big smile, crawl off. i didn’t pay much attention to her, since i thought she was going to go play with some toys. well, after about five minutes i heard elijah say “oh no!!” i look up and see the back of gracie. i walk over and she looks up at me with this blue grin on her face. she had gone over to elijah’s coloring station grabbed one of his blue markers, and painted the floor, and then decided she needed some lipstick. thank goodness they are kid friendly markers! eve thought it was great, she kept laughing at gracie…

hope everyone is enjoying their snow day….i’m not!   i’ve never been a fan of snow. i don’t enjoy the cold, or the wet, so i will be happy when winter is over. what did i do on my snow day? i decided to try and get some photos of the kids…again, why i put us through the torture, i don’t know. getting a decent photo of the three of them, not really possible right now. got a couple cute ones of the girls, but elijah just didn’t want to have much to do with it. he just did his big fake crying session, so most were done of the girls.

Do you know how hard it is to put pigtails in when you have such little hair to work with, and squirming children! i managed to get elijah to sit for a minute, and i got this smile when i mentioned that he was going to go skidooing with daddy after this.

for those that have young children, you know the pain of what i’m about to talk about! snowsuits. today, getting elijah ready for outside was an ordeal in itself.

“elijah, do you have to go pee?”

“nope”

“are you sure”

“nope. no pee.”

so, on goes the snowpants, then we struggle with the boots since they are the heavy duty ones so his toes don’t get cold when on the skidoo. finally they are on. there goes gracie with one mitt, and eve with his hat. i put his neck warmer on, then his coat. get that all done up as tight as it will go, take the hat back from eve which brings on tears and put it on his head (he looks so cute since all you see is just a small portion of his face). then i get the one mitt from gracie and go to put it on and realize i should have put those on first. so off comes the coat, and for some reason he decides his hat has to come off too. all the time we’re doing this, he’s continally saying “wait for me dadda. don’t go without me dadda. wait dadda.” so i get the mitts on…struggle with the thumbs. go to get his coat, gracie and eve are playing with it, so again, tears when i take it away. get his hat on, coat back on, zipped up and he’s ready. of course i have to get a picture of him (this was before i realized about the mitts).

and in case you’re wondering, it’s a nine foot christmas tree….go big or go home!

so, he gets outside with dadda, and then “pee-pee!”. you can imagine what i was thinking. all i can say is, he almost didn’t get a ride on that skidoo, but i couldn’t do that to him….

i have been getting complaints about not having any bickle bits lately, so i do appologize for that! since the girls were hospitalized, i’ve kind of been keeping the kids home while flu season is in swing, so we’ve been coming up with our own entertainment. it’s been awhile since i’ve heard a twin comment, although the last time we were out, a lady comes up to be, grabs my cart and says: “they better be twins”. what do you say to that? sometimes i just don’t know about people…maybe she was trying to be funny?

i thought i’d include video of the kids, since all of my recent photos are still on my camera (yes, that’s very bad). the first one is of the girls. they are contained so that i can wash the floor, and did not like it very much. for the first 5 minutes they stood and shook the gate, trying to get out, and what i got on video was of them getting tired out. it rarely happens that they stop to lay and rest, so i had to capture that on camera. and the last two are of eli and eve…the two of them are so similar, it scares me for the headbutting that is to come with them! even now eve will watch to see what eli is playing with, go over and sit on it or try to take it, and then scream at the top of her lungs if he doesn’t give in. the second video shows how a simple foam pad can be entertainment….who needs toys? he pulled her around with it for quite a while, and the third video shows what she had to do to keep him happy while she was getting tired and couldn’t hold on as well. enjoy my children!

ask any photographer, the hardest subjects to photograph are you own children.  as soon as you get your own kids in front of the camera, all patience and skill goes out the window, and you end up sounding like a crazy person. i should video tape a session i have with my own kids, just to show you what i mean.  your logic just seems to disapear, and you turn to desperate mode pretty quick. i try to never bribe kids until i really have to, i don’t like to mention treats to early on if i don’t have to, cause that’s kind of the thing to use when all else fails. for some reason, with my kids (well at least elijah cause the girls are still too young) i jump to the bribe very early on, and that is never a good thing. my son is smart enough that he’ll stand outside the studio and want his treat first, and once he gets it, he runs. if i am lucky enough to get them all in the studio and in somewhat decent moods still, the craziness just increases. and i have to say, i do feel sorry for nathan because he is usally helping with the shoot, and so i end up yelling at him when elijah won’t sit, or the girls won’t look at the camera every time we do a shoot, he vows he’s not helping again….right.

i thought i would do a quick shoot of the girls in one of their cute outfits since i think it’s last wear for it. then i got them all into their costumes for their halloween photo. the girls no longer sit in one spot, usually you sit both of them down in the right spot, and as soon as you take your hands off of them, they are moving. so constantly i’m saying “nathan, move them back!” then, one of the most difficult things about photographing twins is that normally if one is looking at you, the other one isn’t. that is usally the case with my girls, very rarely do they both look at the camera at the same time. and since eve has a mind of her own, she didn’t like that gracie got the chair and she didn’t so there was a bit of a wrestle between them. i thought i would post some outtakes along with the one ‘ok’ photo.

OUTTAKES:

then it was time to get into costume. gracie hated her headpiece and kept riping it off, and eve kept trying to crawl but would get stuck because of her costume. so what do i do when i have problems getting two of my children to look at the camera at the same time? I try to get all three of them to look at the same time…not a chance. but hey, at least they’re all sitting in a row. and with some more bribes and threats, i was able to get a couple of elijah. he really enjoyed trick or treating this year, at every house he would say: “trick or please…..roar!!” very cute!

last week i decided it was time to carve the pumpkins. why i choose the night nathan did not get home until after the kids went to bed to do this, i have no clue. it wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t the most enjoyable experience i’ve had for carving pumpkins.

a few things i learned and thought i would share: 1. don’t try to carve pumpkins with three young children by yourself – just not worth it! 2. keep the marker out of reach of the children, or you will have your walls and floors drawn on 3. keep watch of the knife at all times, or your toddler will think he can carve as well, and does not like it when it is taken away 4. wash the pumpkins, because your baby might like to just lick it 5. try to keep the seeds that in a plastic bag where they won’t find their way into little mouths – i had to fish way too many seeds out of mouth and got bit a few times@ 6. don’t let one baby roll the pumpkin onto the other babies fingers, there’s lots of tears when that happens 7. try to clean while you carve, because unless you have eyes in the back of your head, pumpkin guts will be smeared all over the place

i thought i would include a video to show what is was like to try and carve with one baby hanging off of you, and other other wanting to lick the pumpkin.

and here are some photos:

this is when i noticed the marker on eve:

this is when i turned around and found the marker:

and on a side note, i wanted to put up two more photos. the kids get bathed every night (i think the girls have only missed 3 nights in their life where they have not been bathed) and sometimes, it is a very tiring ordeal. however, when you see them like this, it makes it worth it!!

i laughed at elijah’s face in this one:

as a photographer, you tend to spend so much of your time photographing other people’s children and families, that you tend to forget to photograph your own, or it’s hard to find the time to do so. i have become very bad at taking photos of my own children. when i found out i was having twins, i thought, ‘poor them, they’re going to be in the studio all of the time’ but i feel like i’ve missed so many opportunities with them!  i am desperate to get a nice fall photo of my children (i bought outfits to match even) and time is running out with the leaves already starting to fall. first finding a good spot that has leaves and has some grass to set the girls has turned out difficult to do. then thinking up a good bribe was hard to do. the girls obviously won’t take a bribe yet, and elijah is too smart for that now, although promising him special paints (he spends hours painting a day) did work.

today was finally a nice day, so i thought, i’m going to try it! once my morning shoot was done, i got the kids dressed and got them in the car. by this time it was already 11:15, not the best time to photograph my children. usually before 11 is best, and i ignored this, thinking, they’ll be happy cause they’re outside. although the girls started falling asleep in the car, i was still determined to get these photos. the spot we ended up going, is not really my ideal spot for this kind of photo, but i was getting desperate, and time was quickly running out. so i get them set up, i was hoping eve would stand and hold the couch, but of course she decided today she could not stand (normally she’s walking around the coffee table, climbing up the stairs, up the couch….but not today) so i sat her right in the dirt and put gracie up on the couch. elijah ran in and out of frame, like i knew he would. well, after gracie face planted off of the couch 3 times, i thought i would switch them and see if it would work a bit better…eve did a HUGE face plant off the couch and ended up with a mouthful of dirt, not a happy mood after that. so that was the first attempt, can’t say it went very well. i’m praying for good weather on friday so i can try again! this is the one that works the best, and of course eve isn’t looking!!

i don’t know how it is already october, the days seem to be melting into each other. i still find it hard to believe that my girls are a year old! i know i’m a bit biased, but they seem to be getting cuter each day, and elijah seems to be getting funnier each day.

anyone who has children, knows that it is a bit more difficult to keep the house clean. i enjoy cleaning, however, my house does not stay clean for longer then 2 hours (tops) so it does tend to get frustrating at times, since it seems like all i do is clean, but you can’t tell! well, the toys in the family room (next house will be having a toy room, so that i can put all the toys in it and close the door!) were starting to grow, and take over everything, so i thought it was time to sort and purge, like i do every now and then. i thought, might as well do it this morning…bad idea. word of advice, don’t purge toys with your children in the room. you throw something in the garbage bag or the storage bin to be put away, and within seconds, it’s back out being played with like it’s the best toy in the world. you then try to distract with a different toy so that you can put it back in the bag or bin, but they aren’t dumb, they know what you’re trying to do. then they start to hoard it in their own little piles. i couldn’t even see the floor at one point, but the kids were having a blast! next time, i will be waiting until bed time…

gracie is very proud of helping me sort

elijah decided he would build a castle in the middle of everything

i also thought i would include a photo of the girls during spaghetti night…you can never go wrong with spaghetti in this household.

People always ask me, ‘how do you do it?” but really, i don’t see it much different then people that have three children of different ages. you just do it. i’ve learned to be content averaging 6 hours of sleep each night; i’ve forgotten what it was like to sit down on the couch and have an hour to do nothing but relax; to be able to take an hour each day to exercise and pamper myself in some small way is longed for but not something i expect for a very long time;  grocery shopping while chasing after a toddler and amusing the girls is the norm…well, any type of shopping; i now subconsciously stand with my one foot protecting my ankles from the tricycle that zooms around at very fast speeds all day long; having toys all over the place is what my decorating now consists of; and a night time routine of feeding the three, bathing the three, dressing the three, playing some more until bedtime, reading stories to the three, giving their nighttime bottles and tucking the three into bed is so normal i just don’t think about it any more, even though i just want to curl up in bed beside them!  i’ve never been so tired mentally and physically with running a business and taking care of three children under the age of three, but i know that one day, i’ll get more sleep and i’ll get that hour or two to myself again…and then i’ll miss these days. plus, how can’t i feel blessed when i have three beautiful little souls that think i am the best person in the world, and that don’t want me to be out of their sight? i always have at least two bodies following after me at all times. the video below shows how the girls will follow me around, and they think it is wonderful when they catch me! life is good.

well for a year now i have heard the question, are they twins? after a year, it does get a bit old! today i was in costco, and this is what one of the employees said sitting behind those food stands:

“they can’t be identical twins, that one’s face is fatter”

some people have class, is all i can say! so i learned something today, you are not an identical twin, unless your weight is also identical. interesting….

thought i’d show you what my nights are like. after bath time, i give the girls their bottles, and try to get them settled down into bed. that’s when elijah likes to come in and help with that…