u saucy thang!

I had a visit up to Shabby Chic Shack (sale on all of February!!) the other day with Maryanne and found the October Afternoon Modern Homemaker in shop. I always take my 'in works' folder with me to match up papers and embellies with my photos. I just adore OA. It just 'speaks' to me. And MH is just perfect for this photo. 

Journaling says: there's nothing quite like homemade sauce 15.2.09.

itty bitty little miss Z

You forget how small an infant is. Well I do. I had the chance to be with a very beautiful 10 day old angel the other day. I still adore that newborn smell. There's nothing quite like it.

She's definitely a clothes on kind of a girl. Skin shots were upsetting for her and after a couple with her parents she was dressed again. I would have loved to get one of her with just her skin in the hat box but it was just not worth distressing her for that.

This is her big sister. She's a bit camera shy and I had to work hard to get her looking at me for a sec. But I did catch her!!   :O)

 More sweet images over at Tiff Firth Photography
:O)
t

today...

... was a magic day for the kids. I took them to watch Tangled. I was warned to let the kids know about the witch as she has scared some of our younger friends. So with a bit of warning to expect a scary looking lady, they were fine. Great movie. Recommend it.

After a coin toss, Annie won the choice of KFC for lunch.

We went to the Leisure Centre for the afternoon. Annie had a ball climbing over the floating obstacle course, swinging out on the rope and the going on the slide. Sean is a bit small to go on the slide on his own so that meant I could be a big kid and go on it too. And he also went off the swinging rope up the deep end. He was wearing his bubble and I was in the water to push him over to the edge. little tarzan

Gosh we all had a ball. No pics, alas, I was having far too much fun with the kids to bother with the camera. And that's the way it should be  :O)

ps. Harry Potter update.  Annie's just finished the fourth book Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire. All 636 pages of it. She amazes me. And now she's into the 766 pages of the Order of the Phoenix.

t.i. tops - sean's

Sean's LO for his album. similar to Annie's a couple of posts down the screen.

ti tops

At last I had an evening clear last night to scrap a LO. And after a quick run with Maryanne up to Shabby Chic Shack for their sale (love my Thickers!!) I was motivated to get into it with gusto.

I think the journaling explains it all, but I was really taken with the tropical patterns in the shirts, hence the hibiscus theme for the LO. I'm about to quickly do a 'his' one along much the same line.

I even have an evening tonight just to scrap, such a rarity these days as I'm usually found processing photo shoots these days. I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow's shoot of a 10 day old cherub.

 

finally getting underwater

It's taken till recent swimming lesson for Sean to get his head underwater at the pool. To have a bit of fun with him and for me to cool off on one of our hot days I got into the pool too with an underwater camera.

I did this for Annie when she first discovered that going underwater was more fun than being on top of it.

The camera is a film camera on lend from a dear friend and I would like to thank her deeply for it. Not everyone has photos of their kids underwater and I cherish these.

proving he can yell underwater. lol

cheeky

and raspberries to you too!

1st day of skwool 2011

mandatory 1st day of the year school photo. I'm going to try to remember to use this art easel blackboard each year to give a height comparison for the kids.

she was in the middle of a giggle- a- thon this morning.

Sean's turn tomorrow for his 1st day at CPC 2011. He actually starts school this year so he'll be having another turn with the blackboard in a few months.

the delightful miss e

What a sweet little thing. She gurgled all the way through and her little blue dress was so pretty for the shoot.

Thanks guys for having me.

few more over at Tiff Firth Photography on Facebook

pete

Laura and I are having a day with Pete Dobre today to capture the magic of our beautiful EP. I'm soooo pumped for this!!!

modra apartments

just been over on the website of Modra Apartments to see if they've loaded up any of my images I shot for their portfolio.

Have a squizzy. The shots with the key lines (curved corner line running on the inside of the image) are the ones I've shot.

This is where we stay for our home away from home each year.

:O)

just a few of my favourite things

well after many many weeks away from my scrap table I was able to come up with the time for this LO last night. Time is short lived, alas, as I'm back into the family photography game with a bang. My first week back at it and I've two shoots on the same day. I'm so looking forward to the one in the Shiraz vines in the golden evening light.

PS. Janice. I've used one of your challenge pieces. Can you spot it??

australia day 2011

We went to the Australia Day breakfast that our local council puts on this morning. This is also the occasion when the Citizen of the Year, the Junior Citizen of the Year, the Community Event of the Year and the Organization of the Year are recognized.

A friend of mine nominated the Christmas Wonderland (click on the word for my blog pics) as the Community Event. As she's away atm she asked if I would read out her nomination at the ceremony this morning. Not being a shy girl...lol... I said that I would.

I normally talk quite quickly and sometimes get my words mixed (no I'm not dyslexic) but for some reason, when I do public speaking I do slow right down and not often stumble on words. It's is a mental process to slow down at the beginning and then I find the rhythm. Although I was a bit nervous, I was in front of a crowd of familiar faces that were smiling to me.

Photo courtesy of my dear Kym.

The kids got into the theme of the day....

We hoping to head to the beach after lunch.

the things she writes

over the last 12 months I collected the notes that Annie's left for us. Sometimes she expresses her love for us, sometimes her frustration with us. One of them in particular really shows how determined she can be ... 'so I am going to starv (sic)'

I love it that she can express herself by writing about what she feels. To me it shows confidence in her ability to write the words to tell us how she is feeling at that moment.

gosh... I love her.

with her permission I can post them here.

fireworks and light trails

Annie and I went to the fireworks last night at Port Lincoln Tunarama. I had some specific ideas in mind to capture them and I had done my research. 

Tip: when standing in the sea with the tripod, the sea lice will find you. Wear rubber boots, doesn't matter if you look like a twit, its better than being nibbled on for half an hour.

After the fireworks I want to gave a go at light trails. Unfortunately there's a tree on the left side, but there was another lady taking long exposure shots where the prime spot would have been and I didn't want to encroach on her space. This one is the Ali Baba...

...and this one is the Energy Storm  (more like Spew storm!!)

Annie asked me to get one of her with her 'Harry Potter' wand.

side note: Annie's well into the 4th book of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

tumby, day 20

We came home today.

:)

3 weeks away was absolutely lovely, but its nice to be home.

I packed up most of the stuff yesterday arvo so it wasn't too much of a rush this morning. Annie was happy to come home, but Sean wanted to stay.

Every now and then I think about what my next vehicle will be. Since I'm not towing a horse float and carting around associated gear for riding anymore I wonder if I still really need a 4WD with a canopy. And then on days like today there is no way I would want anything else. And as for 4WD, there's been many a time I've had to engage it to get to the spot I need to go for a photoshoot. So I guess, I'm still convinced that the next one will be similar to what I've already got.

Kym all loaded up complete with Max's hutch, smoker box, 3 bikes, other stuff and yes that is my lawn mower.

now to get into the pile of mail that built up since we've been away

:O)

tumby, day 19

Today was a pretty warm day. somewhere around 38 to 39 degrees I reckon. We havent had much of a hot summer so when it does get warm, it feels darn hot!!

Kym and Sean went out this morning to pull yabbie pots that were in a mate's dam from last night. Kym dropped off Sean at the hairdressers for his and Annie's haircuts by late morning. I think I may have found a new cutter for Sean. His hair tends to fluff up fairly quick. It was less than a month since his previous cut and it was looking fairly ordinary. Sean's first time with a razor and with clippers :O). I havent got a shot of it yet lol.

We went to the local library to return some books. This library building is brand new, and I've been wondering if  our new one will be looking something like this one. If so, its much smaller than what we already have. And its bloody ugly.

Round to Kym's mate for yabbie lunch. This one is draped over Annie's forearm.

The afternoon proved to be hot, so we holed up in the cabin with the DVD player and the air con. The breeze  swung around by late arvo and it started to cool off enough to open up all the windows again.

I've been looking forward to this evening for ages for a full moonrise of the sea here at Tumby. I've been scoping out spots and working out the timing of the sunset, moonrise and the tides. I had a friend from Lincoln who came up to share in it as well. Alas Mother Nature intervened and we had nearly full cloud cover. To say I was pissed off is putting it mildly. The moon did show for maybe a max of 5 mins and I managed this very ordinary shot. My watermark covers the horizon.

With the moon being a non event we improvised with other type of shots. I mucked around on Bulb for a while and learnt a few things. Then I had a go with starbursts and I'm really happy with this shot. I have only sharpened it, everything else is as it is.

So it wasn't a total waste of an evening, and I count it as practise for next month's full moon!!

I've packed up the apartment today as we head home tomorrow. Great to be away, and it will sure be nice to get home.

tumby, day 18

Had a lovely day today. Kym and the kids headed to a mates place to go duck shooting which left me with some quality me time!!!!!

  :O)   

I sweated it out on the bike for an hour or so. I went round to finish watering the garden at the renal house. We have tenants moving in soon. Yay for that.

I went out to the cemetery to have a look at the gravestones with thoughts of the Camera Club section coming up next month.

I did a heap of processing photos for my scrapping this arvo. I'm finally nearly done with 2009. yahoo.

The kids and Kym came home, BBQ chops for tea before I headed down to the beach to watch the moon rise. I have a couple of friends meeting me tomorrow night to shoot the moon.

I then went out to the cemetery to shoot the shot that I wanted to get.

I've roughly smudged out the name and date in respect of that person.

tumby, day 17

We had a leisurely morning before heading down to Lincoln to go 'Swim with the Tuna'. Annie was feeling a bit tentative about the snorkelling with them and all I asked of her was just to give it a go and see how she feels about it at the time. Long story short she loved it!!!!

First off when we landed on the floating pontoon was to feed the tuna. They are super charged torpedoes that zip the pilchards out of your gloved finger tips before you even know they were there!

Both the kids and Kym got into the pilchard action. Then it was time for Annie and Kym to suit up and jump in with the tuna.

It wasnt long before Annie got the hang of it all and snorkelled around with needing Dad close by. Those shadows are the tuna underneath her.

While Kym and Annie were getting in touch with the tuna, Sean was fascintated by the scallops in the touch pool. They opened and shut while it was sitting in the palm of his hand.

Before boarding the catamaran to head back we all went down to the underwater viewing platform. The water was fairly murky but still seeing the tuna rip past the windows was pretty cool.

The time went so quickly that I didn't really have a chance to put the camera down and get into it myself. I'm a bit sad about that as I had paid to feed the tuna and fully expected to have plenty of time to have a go. I guess with 40 other people there they need to follow their timetable and shuffle people thru efficiently. When Sean is able to snorkel, I'll go in with him then. But from what I gather he's pretty keen to swim with the dolphins. (Me too, wink wink)

When we came back to Tumby the kids went for a spot of fishing while I went round to the rental to water the garden before the stinker hot Thursday that's to come.

And then we caught up with the Claughton's on the beach for the kids to play before we headed to the Seabreeze Pub for tea.

I've been eyeballing the time the moon comes up the last couple of nights and calculating the time and position of it for Thursday night's full moon photo shoot. Looking forward to that and what with a hot day forecasted, the sunset colours in the east should be magnificent. (fingers crossed)

tumby, day 16

Kym went home today after receiving a phone call to say the front garden was a bit damp. Oh dear, a solenoid on the automated watering system failed and yes the garden is a touch damp.  ooppps.

He was away for most of the day with one thing and another so the kids and I slothed it a fair bit. We did go for a walk up the jetty after burning of energy in the playground.

We went to the bakery for Annie's milkshake and Sean's pink jelly cake. (I abstained)

We took our trailer load of garden cuttings from Granny's garden to the dump for her.

We confirmed the new tenants for one of our rental homes.

The kids rode their bikes around the place and scootered (is there such a word lol) on their scooters.

I shot a few more pics for the portfolio for Modra's Apartments today and tonight. Capturing the garden at late dusk under lights is a bit tricky with the Tumby breeze. I'm hoping for a still night to have another go, but I'm fairly pleased with what I caught.

I headed down to the jetty after tea to see where the moon is at and the reflected sunset on the Eastern horizon.(Mary, you'll be proud of me and textures wink wink)

Working on the Modra pics tonight. And we are heading to feed and swim with the tuna tomorrow. So looking forward to that!!

tumby, day 15

Paige dropped in to say goodbye this morning. She's on her way to her new abode on the other side of the state to start her job as an RN. I couldn't help it. I tried to hold it in so as not to upset Paige, but I cried. We are so proud of her.

 A bit of backstory with Paige. She boarded with us for some of her Year 11 and most of her Year 12 schooling years to have the right subjects to enter Uni to study RN nursing. She was there when Sean was new born and Pagie knew Annie since she was very little. So the kids and I love her like she's our own.

To see her head out into the working world tugged my heart strings. And to see her mature in such a level headed and responsible person makes me so darn proud. 

The kids headed out with Kym to the Ungarra Gun Club at lunchtime for a shoot. Quite a few came out today and a number of kids too. 

I was asked by the owners of Modra's Apartments to shoot a portfolio of images to showcase the 3 types of apartments they have. Today was perfect as I didn't have the kids with me and it worked out that I could do 2 of the 3 today before the people shifted in them at 1pm. I'm working on a few other ideas for their gardens one evening when the light is right and the breeze drops.

I've worked on the photos this arvo, put on a roast for tea and then headed out to the Gun Club. I shot a round of 25 targets which I haven't done since this time last year. I was pleased how my shoulder felt after too, since I had surgery on it since then as well.

Back home for a yummy roast tea, and worked on the Modra photos.

Scotch is tasting good atm too