Captured by Reb.L.

A good day

2009-01-09T16:50:00.002+11:00

It has been a good day (so was my birthday but I don't have time to write about that now).
Alex is at pre-school

So it's just Ben and myself today. Ben has had a good day so far. He slept well which gave me time to redecorate the blog and take down the Christmas theme I had. Do you like the new look? I made it myself.
Ben watched for a while and we played peek-a-boo around the camera :)

I think he likes his new bib :)
Now It's time fetch the golden child.

Ben is asleep and I hate to wake him to go out :(

Some photos

2009-01-06T02:13:00.003+11:00

Well I have an awful lot to catch up on and no, I'm not going to do it now. I still have memory cards full of photos I haven't even looked at yet. I have to take down the Christmas decorations here and I haven't even done our Christmas cards and letter yet! OK so it's a bit late for cards but I still have hope of getting our yearly letter done and some photos printed.

Meanwhile, I wanted to share some photos from yesterday :)

Ben is sooooo beautiful! He may not be all golden like Alex, in fact it looks like he will have my colouring, but he is beautiful! He is growing so well and getting better every day at holding his head up and he loves being in a sitting position so he can see everything. He is very vocal and does a great imitation of 'hello' with 'eh oh'. He is just 4 months old now or nearly 3 corrected and about 5kgs. His umbilical hernia is getting smaller now as his stomach muscles get stronger with all the sitting he is doing and he is doing a great job of stretching out his tongue tie. His smiles light up the room and he is almost laughing. I am sooooo proud.

Alex is being brilliant, charming and cheeky as usual. His reading is just amazing, he loves clocks, the internet and we have to start each day checking the calendar and the weather. For Christmas I got him a set of magnetic words, words that are apparently required learning for the end of 1st grade, so he should know them by the end of 2011. Well forget that! I started putting them on the fridge with the idea being to give him one word until he'd learnt it and then another on another day until he mastered both and so on and so on. Well he knew the first word as soon as he saw it. I didn't have to tell him what it was at all. I have no idea where he learnt it either. Same with the next one and the next one etc. until we got to 'you'. That he didn't know. By then half the pack in on the fridge so I left he with those. Next day I rearranged them several times and asked him to read them to me. He got them all including 'you' so he got another word and another etc. until we got to 'away'. So we've left it there for now. He keeps saying 'away' as 'that way' :)

Alex starts pre-school this year for 2 days a week, Wednesday and Fridays. Starting this week so I get a bit of peace and quiet for my birthday :)

OK here's the photos. I'll post more news and stuff about Christmas when I've got more time, Ben is due for another feed now. Look how big he is now!

That lump sticking out of his belly is not rude, it's his hernia. He is getting so good at holding his head up now :)

Alex got a bouncing ball thingy for Christmas so this is what he did yesterday.

And here's some photos from Christmas day. Most of the photos I haven't been through yet so this is just a quick selection.

it's beginning to look a little bit like Christmas

2008-12-17T13:38:00.006+11:00

Well I updated the look of my blog to match the season but I still haven't had time to do an update post. I have one half typed and a pile of photos ready to resize but haven't had enough kid free time to finish anything. For some reason I find it hard to type with the kids around. There's always night time when if we're lucky they will both be asleep for a while but that's when I relax with some digiscrapping for a hour. One of these days I'll catch up properly but for now here's a couple of things I wanted to mention.
Firstly my new look blog is courtesy of the fabulous Mel aka PixelGeek Designs at ScrapOrchard.com

She has made these blog kits which come with all the graphics and instructions to dress up the blog like this. Concentrating on the instructions was a little difficult with the kids but really it was very quick to set everything up like this. Next time will be even easier which is a good thing because I'll have to take down the Christmas decorations soon. Christmas is coming up way too fast. Luckily I have just about all my Christmas shopping done. Most of it I was able to do online. I had to as I'm without a car since Graham crashed mine. I'm still hoping to have it back before Christmas but running out of time.

I have some digiscrapping things in store now. It's something new I'm trying and I'm hoping they sell well enough to fund an internet upgrade. We keep using up our monthly internet allowance, even with careful rationing, and it's worse now that Alex has discovered things like the ABC kids website (and IKEA and Bunnings) so the next plan up would be better and would get us through the month. We had a temporary upgrade a few months ago, funded by Graham's work while he was working from home but now he is back at the office we don't have that luxury. So if I can have something new in store each month that sells well I can cover the cost of an upgrade and we can all enjoy the internet again, including Alex.
So I have 2 quickpage sets for sale in Studio mgl at ScrapbookGraphics.com created with Monica's gorgeous kits.
This one is using Crimson Gypsy and is all the right colours for Christmas but is not Christmas themed so can be used and reused for any photos.

previews are clickable :)

and the other quickpage set at Studio mgl is created with Monica's Nameless kit.
This is Nameless - The Album :)

Then over at Digiscrapaganza.com I have a brag book album created with Shana's beautiful Angel Whispers kit. It's a 4x6" album of 8 photo pages, 8 journaling pages and 3 blank matching pages. Of course there's no reason why you can't put photos on the journaling pages too and vice-versa. These pages are ideal if you're looking for a quick DIY gift for someone. Just add your photos and text, print them out and slide into a little 4x6" pocket photo album. Perfect for a brag book of Grandma's little angels :)

All my quickpages are created at 300dpi and have my 'famous' shadowing :) I paid a lot of attention to detail and left room on each page to add titles and journaling or even extra elements.

and I have a freebie as well :)
Last night I made a couple of layouts using Shana's lush new Christmas kit, Holiday Shimmer

The kit has these cool Christmas lights in it but I wanted to turn them on. So I made myself some light flares in colours to match the lights. I was so happy with how they turned out that I'm giving them away for a short time so everyone can light up their Christmas layouts.
If you want them head on over the Digiscrapaganza store and grab them for free for a limited time. I think you'll have to register with the store to download but it's free and there's a heap of stuff on sale there right now starting from just 50c. If you do grab the light flares leave me a comment here and let me know what you think of them. I'd love to see any layouts you make with them.

Sorry the freebie has finished. You can still get these here but they just aren't free anymore.

Climbing the stairway to heaven

2008-10-11T03:56:00.010+11:00

What a day! Alex went to day care where he got hit over the head with a book by another child, Dad came over and built the stairs to our wonderland room, and Ben has been unsettled all day.
Right now he still wont settle and it's 4am. It's bad enough having to make do with sleep in between 3 hourly feeds but even worse if he wont settle between those feeds. This kid just does not want to sleep!
So if I must be awake at least I can blog. I'm having internet problems though so don't know if this will upload. My last few blog posts had to be done over and over again as the images were corrupting during upload. Since then I've found it's not just blogger, I'm having trouble with just about any site that requires a login or upload. We have yet to determine if the problem is my computer, software, the 'new' router or Grahams rewiring of the cabling in the garage. Trouble shooting will have to wait until we both have our hands free, ie when Ben is asleep.

So today Dad installed THE stairs! Nice safe full width stairs so we can get in and out of the room above the garage. They are a work of art too :)
Here's the progress shots. Dad's standing on a ladder in the garage here and that's the 4'6" door above him.

All done and they even hold my weight! They still need carpet and paint to finish but we have to panel the room next.

Ben had his first shower tonight. It was part of a plan to wear him out and make him all warm and sleepy but it didn't work. He liked the water when he was under it but wasn't too happy to be held out for a photo. I had to make the photo black and white because there's a limit to how much pale pink flesh I want on my blog :P

After his bath Ben had one of his quietest ever nappy changes. Not really a change though, just a dressing, but it was nice not to have any screaming. He looked so cute too. I hate the dummy though. The hospital got him started on this dummy. It's part of the process of learning to suck for tube fed babies and most of the time Ben doesn't need it but when he is screaming we'll try anything.

At the moment the change table is a mat on top of my dresser, just until we can move Ben into his own room and get the change table off Alex. Above the dresser I have a mirror on the wall and on the mirror is a black and white photo of Graham and Alex. Alex always liked looking at black and white pictures when he was a baby. He had one stuck on the wall next to his change table, a geometric design. I haven't had time to print something out for Ben yet so I gave him this black and white photo to look at.

I finally got around to uploading some layouts tonight. These are layouts I did a while ago but didn't get to upload because I was in hospital (cept the baby fat one, that had to wait until after I got home for a photo and journaling). They were supposed to be uploaded for Tara Dunstan's opening spot at a new store but it's turned out OK because now she has a whole new store called La-Di-Da Studios and it looks great. Luckily it's one of the few sites that would work for me tonight so I've uploaded these and will spread them to a few more galleries later if I can get things working again. You can find the credit/kit links for these in my La-Di-Da gallery. These are all that's there so far because it's an all new site. and typically I can't even log in there now but I was able to upload earlier. This internet is getting worse and worse.

over 2.5kgs now!

2008-10-09T22:52:00.007+11:00

Now I've updated the blog I'm going to try and make an effort to keep it up again even if it's just a one liner each night. Today I waded my way through 460+ emails and I still haven't caught up there. Tomorrow I hope to finish the emails and catch up with my CTs online.
Today Ben had a visit to the nurse and a weigh in. He is now 2560gms which means he had a really good weight gain this week. Turns out he has actually been drinking nearly twice the min required amount. The nurse confirmed he has an umbilical hernia, something I noticed the other day, but that shouldn't be a problem, Alex had one when he was a baby and it went away. The nurse is happy with Bens progress and next week he sees the Pediatrician instead.
Ben is having more alert periods now and it is so nice to have an interactive baby instead of one that just eats, cries and sleeps. Unfortunately his alert times aren't always appropriate but when they coincide with mine it's the perfect time for photos :)

Dad is coming over tomorrow to put the new stairs in for the 'playroom' so I must get some photos in the morning for the before shots. Alex will be at day care tomorrow so the boys should be able to work in peace.

Oooops I did it again...

2008-10-08T01:37:00.007+11:00

Thought it was about time I updated the blog with our new addition.

Benjamin John was born 11:19pm 3rd September, via emergency c-section, under general anaesthetic due to pre-eclampsia, just 5 weeks early at 35 weeks gestation, weighing 1840gms ( I think that's around 4 pounds).
His apgars were 9 & 9, a huge difference from Alex's 1 and 4!
Ben came out crying, needed no breathing assistance, not even oxygen. No drips this time either, just a feeding tube. He had jaundice but improved after just one night under lights. It was disappointing to have another general and miss out on the birth again but I had no choice, it was the safest option. It all happened so quickly. This time though the surgery was a much better experience, I wasn't under as long so I got to see Ben within the hour (just after midnight) and I got to hold him for the first time later that day. The midwife took photos of the surgery for us with my little point and shoot camera so while Graham and I missed out on the birth we at least have some photos of Ben's arrival. Graham then got to introduce my parents and Alex to Ben while I was still in recovery and announce his name. Unfortunately the name didn't suit him so we changed it to Benjamin a few days later :)
The pain was much worse this time though and recovery has taken a lot longer than I expected. To make things worse I got PUPPPS after he was born. It's something that usually happens during pregnancy but I couldn't even get that right. Thankfully that cleared up a few days ago.

It's been pretty chaotic here since Ben was born. A new baby is a lot more work than we expected. We thought it would be easy based on previous experience with Alex but we forgot Alex was 3 months old by the time he came home from the hospital and already had a routine. We are still settling into a routine with Ben. Feeds can take an hour, burping can take an hour and then half an hour later we have to do it all over again. Luckily Graham has time off still and has been doing so much to care for Ben! He is amazing! I couldn't cope without him. Ben is colicky so he just wants to be held all the time and if we put him down he chucks up. So there's a lot of washing and some nights he will just cry and fuss between feeds. Last night the only way we could get him to sleep was to leave the light on, unfortunately we didn't work that out until 5:30am so we didn't get much sleep before his next feed at 7:30am. Ben is in our room until we get the nursery ready and he makes a lot of noise even when he is asleep. He makes chicken noises! We can't wait to get him into his own room and sleeping through.

I'm expressing and bottle feeding breast milk. Ben was too small to breast feed without it tiring him too much so to help him save his energy and grow he gets a nice easy bottle. He is tongue tied too which makes breast feeding extra hard for him. All this means feeds are extra work and I feel like I'm just a milking machine just keeping ahead of Ben. It's working though. He came home weighing 1950gms and then only put on 5gms with a few days of breast feeding. Once we switched to the bottle he put on 160gms in a week and last week was up to 2300gms!

Alex is being really good with Ben, he wants to help with everything but we are being very cautious about Alex getting too close to Ben because of all the bugs Alex is exposed to at day care. Alex is going to day care on Fridays and often comes down with a cold on Sundays. The big news for Alex is that he is now toilet trained! He wears 'big boy undie pants' as he calls them. We've been making a big fuss over him, telling him how clever he is and how cool his underwear is, only problem is he has a habit of dropping his trousers to show people his undie pants if we mention them :) We've applied for 2 days a week for him at preschool next year. Still waiting to find out if we got them. Alex already knows all his numbers and letters, can spell some words (including Ben now) and can read the same words and can tell the time. So intellectually he is ready for school but he needs to learn to mix a bit more and speak up at school. He goes to day care and just does his own thing and doesn't seem to notice the other children.

Ben looks amazingly like my Dad. That's my Dad as he looks now (minus the beard) not my Dad as a baby. Apparently I looked like Dad as a baby too so I guess Ben takes after my side of the family. He certainly can match my brother for wind production :P
Ben has blue eyes and fuzzy ash blonde hair. He has my pink toned skin rather than Alex's golden tones.
I can't wait to get some decent photos of him, so far it's all just snap shots while everything else is going on but I have quite a few to scrap :)
Here's a pile of photos. I know Dad will say there's too many but I like lots of photos :) I do have some of the delivery that the midwife took for me but I don't think I should share the gory details here.

I promise I will catch up with everyone who's been waiting to hear from me. It's been hard finding time for anything lately between Ben, Alex and the breast pump. I am way behind on my emails and forums but will be making an effort to catch up with everyone soon. Last week I jumped online and started catching up then I copped a dose of mastitis that sent me to bed with fever and vomiting so I gave up on catching up again for a while. I didn't know mastitis could do that. I guess I can't complain about not getting the full experience this time but there are some experiences I can do without. I will NEVER do this again!

This photo was taken just before we left for the hospital. I didn't realise at the time that it would be my last pregnancy photo. We were just going to the hospital because I was feeling pretty bad and my BP was up. I hadn't had a pregnancy photo taken for a while so thought we'd grab some photos while I was dressed and upright :) This is my hurry up and take the shot I need to leave! photo. You can see how swollen I was, all over, I could barely open my eyes, that's from the pre-eclampsia. It is so good to have my eyes and cheekbones back now and to be able to bend my knees.

3 hours later, here's Ben in his crib.

My first photo with Ben. 24 hours after we checked into the labour ward I was moved to the maternity ward and we stopped at special care on the way for a cuddle. That balloon in the front of the photo is my swollen hand not an inflated rubber glove :P

Graham's first cuddle the next day

and me a few days after birth, sore and still swollen with a face full of broken capillaries and bruising from the anaesthetic mask.

I had some beautiful flowers and a lavender plant to cheer me up.

One bunch of flowers came in a box which was just Alex's size.

Graham got cuddles again for Fathers Day. So did I :)

Ben went quite a toxic shade of retro orange with jaundice and he had no energy for a while.

Ben came home after just over 2 weeks in hospital. He is too small for his car capsule, even with the preemie insert.

Since he came home he has had a lot of cuddles from Daddy.

Ben cries, drinks, has a nappy change, chucks up and has a clothes change and then snoozes on Daddy for a while before starting all over again.

Here's all my boys :)

Alex still asks about Mommy's tummy and this is what he did with his balloon.

We are making special time for Alex each day when Ben is asleep so that Alex wont feel left out. So far there's no sign of any problems but special Alex time doesn't hurt :) Of course Alex time has to include the camera, especially now the weather is nicer and there's more light for photos (no the shots in red weren't all taken the same day, Alex just has 2 red jumpers and wears them a lot).

Look how big Alex is getting! He has his Uncle Jim's wide shoulders.

Compare that photo to these of him a year ago. He looks all grown up now.

Ben's first bath at home was a success. Alex used to scream when we bathed him but Ben doesn't scream until we take him out. We do have a baby bath but he is too small for it so the sink works better for now.

Dad's been fixing up our 'playroom' above the garage for us. It's only 4'6" high and unfortunately there's no room to raise the ceiling or lower the floor to make it more usable but it's the right height for Alex to play and us as long as we are sitting. So Dad (and Graham) have strengthened the floor from underneath and are going to panel the walls. Dad's also moved the door in so we can have a full width set of stairs to make it safer to get into the room and we are going to carpet the floor. Then we will move our junk up there so Alex can have the back bedroom and Ben can have the nursery. We'll finally be able to move Alex's toys out of the lounge room into his bedroom and the new playroom.

It's such a good sized space, it's a shame we can't stand up in there, it would make a great photo studio. The lighting is so nice.

Graham has been going all fuzzy while he is at home.

Ben went to Mom and Dad's and had cuddles with his Nana.

Another bath photo and all clean ready for bed. His 00000 size suits are fitting now :)

Graham's been teaching Ben how to use the computer.

and here's some pre birth photos of the boys I didn't get to put up earlier.

In the garden on a cold day

and my little rock DJ

I haven't had time for any scrapping since Ben was born and I'm really missing my creative outlet. I hope to have some time to scrap soon. A few months ago I had a series of books make with my layouts of Alex. 6 books so far and I think I've got enough Alex layouts to do another book now.

Finally!

2008-06-24T00:50:00.001+10:00

I've lost track of how many times in the last few weeks I've started to type up a blog update only to get completely off track while talking about the current state of my computer. See I got my new computer up and running, the internet was working and most programs were too, with others just needing reinstalling as I came across problems. The big things for me was photoshop. It's mostly stable now and I've found when it's not, as long as I don't click on the error message it will let me keep working long enough to save. The big problem I had was my core 2 quad cpu only running on one. So in device manager it thought it was a
standard cpu rather than an ACPI multiprocessor and in task manager it would only give me stats for one cpu. So each time I started a blog update and got to thinking about where I was up to with the PC I decided I'd be better off putting the time into sorting things out and the blog could wait. Now finally after many hours researching, reinstalling and patching, it's fixed! Previously I've been going through the same steps only to end up with it blue screening and no better off. Tonight I did the bios update first then reinstalled windows, something I really didn't want to have to do, but it worked. It does mean I now have to recalibrate my monitor and I'm sure there's a dozen other little fixes I need to do but at least the cpu is sorted. Turns out during windows install, at the point where it says to press F6 for raid setup (or something like that), you actually have to press F5 to chose the multiprocessor option. It would be nice if it said that on screen in the first place. I would never have known about it if it wasn't for the magic of google and some helpful forum posts.

So my computer should now be better and faster. It's been working OK for the last few weeks but just not the way it should and I didn't want to put too much time into reinstalling the software because I was afraid I'd end up with the windows reinstall in the end. Now I can go ahead and get all the software sorted and that should be it until my next hard drive dies etc. Actually I usually lose 2 hard drives at a time so I have to get my backups organised soon.

It's been good to get back to creativity with my digiscrapping and photography. While I didn't have a reliable computer there wasn't much point taking photos because I couldn't do anything with them. It took ages to get photoshop working on this new pc, I actually had to contact Adobe support a few times! Now it's perfectly stable for scrapping but crashes randomly for photo editing. Weird but it's improving as I keep trying new solutions. Strangely enough Adobe Lightroom has had no problems at all so if they can make one nice stable program why can't
they do it with their best known product!

So now it's time for a huge blog update. I think I'm going to be playing catch up for a while :( I still have over 300 unread emails to get back to. In a way it was good not being online for a while because it meant I was sleeping when Alex let me instead of sitting in front of the computer. Actually I'm still mostly doing that. I need my afternoon nap when Alex has his. I'm not really sleeping much though. At night little J (no Graham hasn't agreed to a name, I'm just trying one
on for size) is kicking me like crazy. There is usually only one position he will let me lie in and it's too difficult to keep turning over to try different positions so once I get one where he stops kicking I spend all night in the same spot and end up quite sore and cramped. I know it's only going to get worse as he gets bigger. I get my best sleep in the morning when Graham gets up and gives Alex his breakfast, having the bed to myself really helps and no-one snoring in my ear
helps. Alex is sick atm so I've actually spent the last few nights lying in bed listening out for him needing more medicine. He has a chest infection and is really not well at all. Things are improving though, he is eating again which is a huge relief. He missed out on 'school' last week though and I'm really hoping he is well enough to go this Friday. He enjoys day care so much we're on the waiting list for another day now.

I'm now nearly 25 weeks pregnant. Little J and myself are both measuring where we should be. I feel huge, am bigger than I ever was with Alex but the OB says it's all as it should be. I got a shock Saturday, I went to buy new bras. I was relieved to find my back/chest size hasn't changed but my cup size sure has. I don't think I've ever seen a K size bra before! I'm sure I used to own skirts with less fabric! To think before Alex I was only a D cup, and afterwards an F cup.
Let's hope things don't keep growing in that department! I'd like to see my feet again one day.

I saw the OB on Friday and as usual it's all good. My BP is acceptable and on the ultrasound we could see J had the hiccups :) I go back again in 2 weeks, it's every 2 weeks from now on to keep an eye on things. I'm still having my daily injections, monitoring my BP at home and rotating antibiotics every 3 weeks, and putting my feet up every chance I get :)

We haven't got anywhere yet with rearranging the house to make room for 2 kids but Dad did install our new side gate last week and Graham was out there on the weekend filling in holes along the fence. I should take a photo of the gate. It's really impressive, not just a gate it's so much more ummm structural than I imagined. It's solid!

Graham and I have been doing our antenatal classes. We have the last one this week. It's interesting. All the other parents are having their first child so we have a lot more experience than they do but when it comes to labour and birth we are all first timers really and they are all further along in their pregnancies than I have ever been. They are all due in August so hopefully I'll be the last one to pop :)

Alex is being really cute about the baby. He points out things now that are for the baby and he loves to listen to my belly. I don't know what he hears but he things it's the baby. He says he wants it to come out and play and likes to tell people about how Moms tummy is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and pop, complete with actions like on playschool when they pop balloons :)

He came home from his Nan's last week and the first thing he did was walk up to a box where I'd been packing up some baby clothes and told me they were the babies new clothes :) The second thing he did was ask to go to bed which was very cute but was a sign he's sick.

Ok that's enough waffling, I better add some photos and layouts now. I think there will be an awful lot once I start. Good thing I haven't been taking many photos 'cause otherwise there would be even more!

I'm not sure I have my monitor calibration sorted yet so if the colour/contrast in these is off please tell me. The software that came with my monitor isn't supported by my new graphics card so there's no easy way to calibrate atm. Once I order my next set of prints I'll have a better idea of how the colour is on screen.

First up here's my beautiful boy :)

and here's the guts of the new computer that has been giving me so much trouble.

Last month we had Graham's Nana and Aunt come to visit and in preparation we did a bit of winter cleaning and rearranging of the lounge and dining rooms. I was so caught up in their visit I completely forgot to get the camera out and get photos of us all together but I did get photos of the house looking neat :)

Then we had my parents and Graham's Mom and her BF over for our first BBQ on the new deck. It was a combined celebration for Mother's Day, several birthdays and a viewing of the 20 week scan DVD of the baby. We had planned on announcing the sex of the baby during the DVD viewing but couldn't help ourselves and actually told both families the day before :)

Graham cooked the BBQ. This BBQ, the apron, tools and book were all Christmas pressies, it took this long to get to use them.

I made icecream flower pots. I thought they looked very Mothers Dayish but weren't very appropriate for winter. Actually a BBQ wasn't very good for winter either. Mom was freezing.

Mom made her famous chocolate birthday cake. Yummm wish I had some of that now!

I got plenty of flowers in May too :)

Here's my boy all grown up and off to his first day at 'school'.

Would you believe not one tear!

He is looking so grown up these days!

Here's some layouts. Most of these are for challenges at Scraphead and mostly using kits by ScrapShana for her creative team. Shana is selling at 3 scrapping sites now plus her own store Digiscrapaganza

I've linked each pic to my gallery so you can find all the credits just by clicking (I hope, I'm using new software for blogging so who knows how it will work). There's plenty more layouts in my galleries too.

This is a hybrid album which was in the gallery at Scrap Orchard but seems to have vanished and my credits with it. I used a template by QueenPamedalah, my ADSR #3 partner, and kit by Chris Greiser, both entrants in Scrap Orchards designer competition. The competition is over now so I guess that's why my layout is missing. I was really hoping Pamela would win :(

These layouts are designed to be printed and mounted in an acrylic album. I've found a source for the right albums in Australia but have yet to buy one. I'll get the layouts printed by my photo lab and then mount them.

This is how the front cover will look when closed with all the pages showing through.

and this is each of the pages open progressively with the others showing through.

13 week belly shot

2008-04-03T21:19:00.002+11:00

Last pregnancy I didn't get any belly shots. I kept thinking there would be plenty of time for them in the 3rd trimester and then missed out completely.
This pregnancy I'm going to get some belly shots even if I have to do my own :)
At this stage it's more fat than anything else but here's 13 weeks and 1 day. Sorry about the boobs but I tried it with a shirt on first and couldn't hold my shirt out of the way properly so I just looked fat in a big shirt. I took this with the self timer and the camera balanced on a pile of books while standing against my yellow computer room door. Would have probably been better without Jim's old trackies :) Alex couldn't resist getting in the shot, he loves the camera. He thought Mama's belly hanging out was funny and gave me a few pats on the belly.

I still don't have the new computer finished. Just lots of little things to sort out. Missing dlls etc.

Latest family photo :)

2008-04-01T22:34:00.004+11:00

Things are getting back on track here. My new computer is up and running, I just have to get all the software working still and move 2 more hard drives and the DVD drive across. Right now I'm reinstalling the most important part, Photoshop CS3, after 3 days waiting on help from Adobe support. Looks like the net and email are working now but I need to make sure all my email is copied across still. I used some old software to replicate my programs and files across and it looks like most of it worked except things like photoshop. Currently I'm running both PCs and networking and remote desktopping to get everything working. I hate this stage, it's too much like housekeeping, but once it's done, aside from the regular 2 drives per year I have fail, the new system should last me quite a while. It's an intel machine which is something new for me, I've been an AMD fan up till now.
I know Jim will want to know the details so it's an Intel core 2 quad Q6600 2.4GHz
Gigabyte motherboard, heat pipes, no fans.
Geforce 8800 GT graphics, Sparkle brand with heat pipes, no fan.
4GB
2 x 500GB drives, 2 x 320Gb and probably 1 or 2 x 200GB. Depends how many drives I feel like leaving behind for Graham :)
Graham will have my old PC which means we will both have nice quiet Antec cases. It really does make a difference having a quiet case. I just have to be sure the everything on the new PC is up and running correctly then I'll format the left over drives and Graham gets to go through the same process with his 'new' PC.
I'm looking forward to having everything working so I can catch up on things.
More important news is the baby is growing well. I've hit 13 weeks and the morning sickness/all day queasiness is sticking around. If anything it's worse but now the flu has cleared up I can handle it a lot easier. The trick seems to be to get up slowly in the morning and not try to clean my teeth before things have settled. Graham has been brilliant at getting up and toileting/feeding Alex in the morning before work and then he gives me my daily injection and then I have 10mins to recover before I have to get up and take over. Eating every 2 hours helps but I have to be careful not to eat too much as I get full very quickly.
I've been seeing the OB every couple of weeks, continuing with my clexane injections and monitoring my BP. Still waiting to hear back from one hospital about a booking in appointment, I'm going to have to chase them.
Yesterday I had my NT plus scan. The results came back as high risk for downs syndrome but really low risk for Trisomy 18 and 13. My age made me high risk for downs to start with 1/98 and one of my blood results came back .05 over the acceptable level which made things worse but the scan itself was good and gave me good odds so in the end I am only just high risk 1/247. Apparently the cut off for high risk is 1/300. It wasn't news we wanted to hear. Funny how when a Dr greets you all sugary sweet you can tell they don't have good news. The Dr gave us all our options for further testing and outlined the risks but after much discussion and research we have decided not to have any further testing. The risks aren't worth it and the scan looked really good. The babies NT measurement was normal and there's a visible nasal bone. So I'm feeling pretty good about things. It was too soon to determine the sex according to the scan tech, standard response at this stage but as she was scanning I'm sure I saw boy bits twice as she quickly moved over the area. It could have been the cord but when she pointed out the cord I couldn't actually see it. I'm still hoping for a girl but it sure looked like boy bits to me. We'll know in about 5 weeks :)
Jnr was moving around, waving and kicking. He/she has lovely long legs and we could see the little heart beating, 170bpm.
Here's some photos.
If you can't tell it's a head and chest shot, thats his face on the right, side profile, see the nose and jaw?

In this one you can see the little hand waving. He/she kept putting her hands over her face and wasn't very cooperative about lying side on it's back for the NT measurement. The scan tech had to poke and jiggle my belly a lot to get him to turn over. I think my laughing would have been more than enough jiggling, I didn't really need the poking on a full bladder and on the injection bruises on my belly.

Happy Easter

2008-03-22T23:45:00.006+11:00

Just some quick photos before I'm off line for a few days. I'm in the middle of a computer upgrade. Graham gets my old computer and I get a new one. It's all built and the next step is transferring my drives across and getting my software working. This always ends up taking longer than planned so safest to assume I wont have a working PC for a while.
Today we took Alex to his other Nana's. We had planned an Easter Egg hunt but as it was raining and cold and he and I both still have colds I figured we wouldn't end up outside so I only took the little point and shoot camera with us. It's not very good but a lot easier to carry. As it turns out I was out voted and we ended up doing the egg hunt anyway so I have some snapshot type photos. Luckily Alex was warmly dressed and survived the weather OK. I was freezing the whole time and feel all full of flu again tonight but Alex had fun. He slept for hours when we got home, got up and had dinner then asked to go back to bed!
Here's my cool dude in the car on the way out.

His favourite thing is popping balloons so he had a ball with these balloons with eggs hidden in them.

I made a citrus cheesecake yesterday. It looked great until I took it out of the tin and the base crumbled. Tasted good though.

Alex eating noodles, I think he likes them. Just plain japanese noodles that I use for stirfry.

Alex with Tedda.

Alex loves cooking and asked several times a day to make a cake.
Here's the first cake he made.

Check out the beans growing on my coffee bush. Lots of growing to do but it looks like it will be a huge crop. Every branch looks like this.

In baby news everything is going well. Measuring spot on for dates. Will be 12 weeks on Wednesday. Had bloods done today ready for the NT scan the end of the month. All day morning sickness queasiness continues but I feel a lot better after a dose of antibiotics to clear up a chest infection. I'm hungry all the time but I don't seem to have much room for my stomach so it gets really uncomfortable after a meal.
I have one hospital booked and I'm waiting on an appointment to book the other (in case I go prem).
Graham is doing well with my daily injections. It's actually funny sometimes when the needle bounces off my belly and some of the things we come up with to get Alex out of the way so he doesn't see whats going on. It's a good thing Alex likes helping so things like 'go and look out the window and tell me if you can see the garbage truck please' actually work :) He's quick though so we have have to have the next mission ready as soon as we hear him coming back.
Anyway happy Easter!

Happy Valentines Day

2008-02-14T22:26:00.001+11:00

Happy Valentines Day

Ok so that's a photo left over from my birthday but here's one from Valentines Day :)
Graham gave me a handmade Cadbury Creme Egg bouquet. A huge surprise because VD is such a none event here. I gave up trying to make it an occasion years ago. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I'm off chocolate atm, just don't feel like it. I can't taste anything with the flu.

I cut Alex's hair yesterday. He kept asking me too and in the end I had to give in before he did it himself. I don't know why he wanted it done but he kept saying 'cut hair' and trying to drag me into the bathroom. So it's done and it wasn't easy while he was trying to watch what I was doing. All his curls are gone again and I was surprised at how much came off. Once again he looks so much bigger and older with his curls gone.
Photos taken when he had just finished eating Thai red curry with his fingers.

Alex is just getting over a cold but has given it to me. I am sick sick sick! So Alex is staying at my parents tonight so they can take him to Gymbaroo in the morning.
Why does Alex always have a cold around his birthday?
His other Nan brought a cake around for him on the weekend.

and a bike helmet that fits really well, a blue rubber duck and an electric car that we don't have room for and it wont hold a charge so it doesn't work. Every time Alex sees it I'm plagued with constant demands to make it work and I can't and Alex can't accept that so we usually end up with tears.

Nana also showed Alex how to stick tooth picks into a potato

Luckily he still loves his scooter so as long as he doesn't see the car he is happy. Photos pre hair cut.

Alex is in the big bed now. In the end we just had to move him. He was making no attempt to get out of the cot but I'm hoping that sleeping in the bed will make it easier to toilet train him. The idea is that now he can get up and go to the bathroom in the morning without waiting for us to get him out of the cot.
It doesn't quite work that way though. He wakes up, sits up, wets his nappy, it leaks and he calls out 'more wee, more wee' until we fetch him to the bathroom. Not fun but he loves the bed.

Here's some snaps taken with the little point and shoot camera.
On our afternoon walk. Alex doesn't pedal, he just likes to be pushed. Unfortunately he removed and lost the bolt that holds the Dada handle in place so it's not very easy to push him and impossible to steer.

In scrapping news I still haven't got around to announcing here that I made it to the GDS supreme team. So ta dah! I got through all 4 rounds and on to the team of 12 winners. It was a tough comp. So hard to guess who would make it. Some of the people I thought were a sure thing didn't get through :( So I'm now on the 3 designers creative teams and the GDS site creative team.
The big part of our supreme team duties is to produce 6 layouts a month, one for each of 6 kits we are given. As we complete each layout and upload it to the required sites we get access to the next kit and so on. Once we have finished all 6 kits we can request our own choice next.
I've finished my 6 for February already and I've just finished my first personal choice kit. Also been doing my layouts for Amy, Shana and Theresa.
It's fun being creative and challenging when you never know what kit you'll have to work with. Some are so not my style but once I start I find, well I guess my style is adaptable :) I keep thinking at some point I'll run out of ideas but it hasn't happened yet. I think I've done all the current GDS challenges and some on other sites too. This flu has slowed me down a little. When Mom and Dad took Alex this afternoon I would normally have taken advantage of the quiet to scrap but instead I went to bed.
Here's the most of the layouts I did for the supreme team. One I'm saving for later :)
For credits please go to my GDS gallery here. It would take me forever to link individual credits and I need to get to bed. If I get time tomorrow I'll come back and edit in the links.
This one's a double page layout.

This one's a double spread too.

and a few of the latest for my CTs.
Here's Amy's Grunge Prince kit.

Shana's Cool Dude kit

and Spring Fling kit.

Theresa's Lovey Dovey

and Marvelous

as you can see I get to work with some beautiful kits :)

Alex's Birthday

2008-02-09T00:19:00.000+11:00

Happy 3rd birthday my beautiful blue eyed boy!
Alex is now a very happy, healthy and active 3yo.

His Dada got him a bubble blower for his birthday. It's for outdoors but it was dark and cold tonight and he didn't want to wait. That's his new watch he is wearing too. I don't expected it to last long but it was a freebie :) His Nana and Grampy gave him a scooter which he loves so much we had tears when he couldn't take it to bed with him. He kept saying 'play scoota'.

Hard to believe this was him less than 3 years ago. He has come so far and so well.

It's huge!

2008-01-29T10:34:00.000+11:00

'bout time I did an update here, which means this is a long one.
This post is backdated because I typed it all up but we went over our internet limit for the month so I couldn't upload this. Now I have my connection back so I'm playing catch up, all over the place.
It's been a busy month creatively speaking.
Firstly though, Alex is well, active, happy and chatty. He is talking all the time now, about everything. As I type he is in bed talking to himself, it sounds like he is discussing chocolate milk with his teddy (he should be asleep, Alex that is not teddy). It's quite amazing some of the things he comes up with and the connections he makes. He spoke to Jim and Elin on the phone on the weekend and said 'Hello Uncle Jim' and 'Heydoor Auntie Elin'. It didn't come out quite like that, Elin was more like Elinlinlin :) He also got to say 'Gday Mate' to some friends who visited from Texas!
We are persisting with toilet training. He is really good at using the potty but not at telling us when he needs to. So I find myself asking him every 10 mins if he needs to go. This may take longer than I expected.
Alex has been doing a lot of this

and some of this

Alex is turning 3 in just a couple of weeks!

Check out the flowers on my coffee plant. Looks like we might be in for a good crop! An unexpected bonus is they smell really nice. I had no idea coffee plants were scented. They even smell good at night!

Alex stayed with my parents on the weekend so Graham and I could go photo hunting. We went to the Australia Day dawn balloon rise. Got there at 5:30am in the dark, in time to watch the balloons being filled before the lift off. We spent a few hours shooting and ended up with
soaking wet shoes and trousers from the dew. There were a lot of people taking photos. I had to laugh at the ones carrying around huge tripods and huge external flashes. I don't know how much of a balloon they expected their flash to light up. I just bumped my ISO up to 1250 to
cope with the low light. A lot of people are afraid to use a high ISO because if noise/grain but as long as you get your exposure right there shouldn't be much noise difference between 100 and 1000 ISO. It's when the photos are underexposed that you get noise problems. Graham and I
traveled light, a camera each, a lens on each and one spare to cover wide, long and mid range, and that was it. Other stuff like spare batteries and memory cards we left in the car. We didn't need the batteries and when I filled my memory card I just took Grahams off him :p
The balloons were stunning, huge and colourful and so beautiful when the sun finally hits them.

We ran into some friends there and went out for breakfast with them afterwards.

It was quite nice to have a meal without a toddler playing with his food. Got home about 9am. Not a bad morning.
Camera club starts again tomorrow. It's a talk though, which we've heard before so we'll skip this week. The first meeting next month is about black and white photography so I'm interested in that one.
Gymbaroo starts next week for Alex. He is doing so much dancing and singing at home now, he will love to get back to Gymbaroo.

OK the creative news.
I'm now actively doing digital scrapbooking. I've been doing the occasional layout for the last few years but never participating in the whole sharing side of the digiscrap world. Now I can't get enough of it. I know some people (Hi Mom) think it's silly and childish but I enjoy the creativity of it and it's something I can do with all my photos. I've also met a great bunch of people online and I'm enjoying my new virtual social life.
I signed up to GDS (a large digital scrapbooking site) a while ago but only ever browsed there but the beginning of the month I jumped in with both feet to compete in their Supreme Team Contest. I didn't expect to get anywhere, wasn't sure I'd even be interested enough to get my first entry in but the offer of a free digital kit was enough to get my attention :) For each round we we given a digital kit from one of the GDS designers and had to make a layout using only that kit and our photos and journaling.
Well I've made it through to round 4 of the competition, the last one. Tomorrow I'll find out if I'm one of the 12 winners. I think we started with 158 contestants from all over the world so I feel pretty privileged to have made it all this way.
Along the way I've been doing every one of their monthly challenges I can. I can't get enough of them. The challenges inspire me. There was even a Queen of the Crop challenge that meant doing 10 layouts in day with a limit of 2 hours to be spent on each. Each one had a theme to
conform to. Quite a challenge but I did it and my layout for the theme 'green' got me a January Queen of the Crop award :)
There also a project 365 going which is a photo a day so I get to keep up the daily photos with themes that make me think outside the box.
There is some amazing work to see in the galleries there and the members are so encouraging in their feedback. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
I've joined 3 Creative Teams! Wont mean much to non-scrappers but to anyone in the scrapping world it's pretty special to be on a designers CT. So I'm now doing layouts for Amy Fenner, ScrapShana and Theresa Borntreger :)
and I have blinkies!

and I've signed up for something called the Amazing Digiscrapping Race (on another site) which starts next month. My partner is from Texas so we are the Tex Aus Coast Girls. It sounds like fun. Here's the official description.

'Teams of two will traverse the digital scrapping world, site by site, completing challenges and collecting prizes along the way. Everyone who completes the week's challenges in the allotted time frame will move on to the next week, where they can collect even MORE prizes! And at the end of the race, everyone who has traveled around the digiworld and completed each and every challenge will be entered into a drawing for the GRAND prize!'

Here's some of my digiscrapping layouts.
I posted my round post entry for the supreme team earlier so here's round 2 using Leslie Emery's Pocketful of Posies kit

Credits here
and round 3 using Theresa Borntreger's My Shining Star kit

Credits here
and the final round using Helen Ehrenhofer's Mom's Diner kit.

Credits here
One I did for the colour challenge. We had a set of pastel colours to work with.

Credits here
This one is using ScrapShana's Blue Jean Baby kit

Credits here
Check this out too. A different look but all from the same kit.

Credits here
and for the previous colour challenge. Much bolder colours.

Credits here
The cover for my legacy book. This is a long term challenge where we will do a page each month.

Credits here.
This one I did using the January Collab kit and it was chosen for the scraplift challenge which means people were challenged to create a layout using mine for inspiration.

Credits here
It's been really interesting to see what everyone came up with. Some layouts are very similar, right down to the same papers and frames, and others are so different I wouldn't have picked them as a scraplift of this. Of course I wanted to do this challenge too so I had to scraplift myself. I kept the basic idea of paper, 2 journaling mats and clustered frames and came up with this one using Amy Fenner's I Heart You kit.

Credits here
and another using the collab kit for a different look.

Credits here
One for the quote challenge. I put the quote on the book cover.

Credits here
The font challenge. Using a set font.

Credits here
The progressive challenge. 4 steps. Every few days we find out what we
have to do for the next step.

Credits here
My green layout for Queen of the Crop

Credits here
These photos were perfect for Amy Fenner's Oh to be a kid again kit.

Credits here
This is a double page layout (so two 12x12" pages) using Theresa Borntreger's Automoplay kit

Credits here
and another double page layout using Theresa Borntreger's Paisley Pistachio kit.

Credits here
Here's a close up of the one of the cute little bees I made using just the elements from this kit.

It's my birthday and I'll blog if I want to

2008-01-07T23:08:00.000+11:00

It's my birthday.
A pretty normal day all 'round. This year is just another number. Next year is the big one and I will need a party!
I got 3 cards, 2 bunches of roses (both from Graham, or maybe one was from Alex) and chocolate.
Saturday the in-laws came over with a cake. Caught me in the middle of painting the laundry, literally up a ladder, so I was not dressed for this and less than impressed at having my photo taken. But it was nice to have my cake and eat it :)
They gave me some money, $1 for each year, a chocolate Christmas bell and a really cool card that plays music when you open it (which Alex loves) and inside are animals with cameras and the cameras flash (which Alex also loves but I do too).
I got also got a card from my Godmother in England and one from Alex and Graham. Alex signed it all over. It looks like he is already trying to copy Grahams signature.
Graham brought me home a bunch of roses at lunch time and again at dinner time. Which either means he is having an affair (joke) or he had no idea what to get me for my birthday. He also brought home take-away from my favourite little local Italian place. We could have eaten out but it's not really relaxing with Alex.
Here's the dreaded shot from Saturday with the cake my MIL made.

and here's my roses and the 'cake' Graham served tonight :)

and here's some recent shots.
I had to wash Teddy again last week (Alex was sick on him). Every time I have to wash Teddy I worry that he wont survive. He is stuffed with some sort of lavender scented filling. Alex has had him since he was a baby and sleeps with him every night. Lately he has become quite clingy to Teddy, wanting to play with him, not just sleep with him. So when I had to wash him I had to be careful to sneak Teddy off to the wash without Alex seeing and then hang him out on the line without him seeing. He asked for Teddy often during the day but I managed to distract him until he spotted Teddy on the line. Then we had a bit of a tantrum but Teddy was wet so had to stay on the line.
Finally at the end of the day Teddy was judged to be dry enough and Alex was so happy to have him back, even with the pegs still on.

He then took Teddy for a ride in a box.

This is what we have all over the house the last few days.
At least they are soft to tread on. Alex is having fun with them which is what counts. He knows most of the letters even though these are lower case and the fridge magnet letters he is used to are upper case.
He surprised me today. I was in the kitchen making his breakfast and the milk bottle was out on the other counter behind me. I wasn't watching him so I was surprised to hear 'm mama eye el kay'. Yep he was reading the label and had just read M i l k. I knew he knew M and K but didn't realise he could recognise the lower case i and l. He then fetched the big rubber K from his floor mats and held it over the k on the label and said 'same' and then fetched the M off the fridge and said 'M mama same'.
I was sooooo impressed.

This is what Graham looked like after removing tiles in the laundry.
The laundry is almost finished so I'll get some photos of it soon. One side of the room is done and the washing machine and dryer are back in. The other side needs a 3rd coat of paint and that's it. I could have finished it today when Alex had his nap but I decided to celebrate my birthday by having a nap myself :)

Some Alex photos, he was watching his newest home movie on TV. I made a DVD of home movies and photos to included in the Christmas parcel to Elin and Jim. Alex has his own copy which he frequently demands to watch.

and here he is having fun with water.

and a digital scrapbook page I made the other day inspired by photos Jim emailed us.
This is using the Winterfrosting kit by Andrea Gold provided to the first round entrants in the GDS supreme team contest.

The gangs all here.

2007-12-29T23:28:00.000+11:00

Well Christmas is over and I have a heap of photos to catch up on.
Lets start with the week before Xmas. Alex went to Grahams work to see Santa. It's the first time he has met a Santa and he wasn't too sure about him. He spent all week practicing saying 'ho ho ho' and 'merry Christmas' so he would be able to say it to Santa and we talked a lot about Santa Claus. On the day though it was all too noisy for Alex to say anything to Santa or vice-versa. There was carol singing going on as well as all the background noise that comes from a large crowd of kids with parents.
Alex looks uncomfortable in these pics but it's mainly 'cause he didn't want to touch anything. He had just eaten a cracker while we were in the queue to see Santa and he doesn't like to touch anything when he has food on his hands. His Dada had disappeared with the bag with all the wipes and tissues.

I think he enjoyed himself though. He stood up and wiggled a bit while listening to the carols (most of the kids didn't) and he liked getting a pressy from Santa :)

Here's Santa and the carol singers. If you recognise the guy with the mike in the middle, he is butcher on the Woolworths ads. He isn't really a butcher, he works at head office and likes to sing. He is a good singer.

The weekend before Christmas Dad came over and put up the new wall paneling in the laundry to cover the damage there. I got new taps and skirting boards too. He finished the floor the other day and now as soon as Graham has finished sanding back the plaster I can paint. We got an extension hose for the washing machine so we can move it over when the rooms finished and look at installing some sort of bench/cupboard between the sink and the washing machine.
No photos of the floor yet (the washing machine is currently in the middle of the room) but here's the walls going up.

and the finished wall. It's a silvery blue suede finish.

My new taps. I love them!

I'm still working out the new taps for the washing machine, they have to be turned on further than the old ones and there's a huge amount of difference in pressure between the hot water and the cold (due to the pipes not the taps) so we've had some interesting washes. I'm using the same amount of detergent as usual (less than the instructions) but we are getting lots of bubbles. Hmmm maybe it's the lack of dirt in the hot water now that's allowing things to froth up more.
This was taken while the machine was running. It was a slow shot so you can see the blur of the machine spinning and the bubbles just kept growing higher.

A tip if you ever find yourself over run by bubbles. Spray deodorant or hair spray near them and they just melt away. Don't spray directly onto the bubbles unless you like them flying around, the force of the spray can get them flying.
We picked up a booster seat for Alex for my car. Yah it fits! He already has one in Grahams car but my back seats are narrower so we needed a seat with a narrow base. All the new models with cup holders and arms rests are too wide so this one is the older model.
Alex loves it and wanted to eat all his meals in it before we got it installed. He actually asked me to take this photo and said cheese!

Christmas eve we had a delivery of plants from the in-laws. Not sure yet where I'll put them. I am doing a new garden bed at the end of the pergola but I want herbs and scented plants for there.

Christmas day we went to my parents for lunch.
Alex got to hand out the pressies and open a lot too :)

My 3 men :)

He was in heaven with all the photos of 'A' to look at with Jen, Dad and myself all taking photos.

I gave Graham a tie with binary code on it. Here he is trying to translate it. It says 'ties suck'. He hates having to wear a tie for work.

Jen's family sent her some pretty underwear that she refused to model for us :)

and Mom's new quiddich broom took 3 people to open (or 2 and a half).

Santa sang a really irritating song over and over

and Alex's other Granny called in for a while.

Alex of course did what any 2yo will do when given a new (noisy) car to play with (no he didn't break it), he went and played with it in the kitchen right under foot.

Christmas lunch was beautiful and filling. Can you believe we missed out on the trifle cause we were too full!
Here's some of Mom's special mice pies by the light of the Swedish candles.

Christmas night we went to some friends for the annual Christmas night gathering (which we didn't do last year) for more food and drink, an exchange of silly $5 gifts and good company.

Alex wanted to play with everyone else's toys and the girls had fun dressing him up in some head bands:)

I took some sneaky shots of Dad through the windows. He was outside and I was in with the 70-200mm.
I love the way he has his drink and his camera both within easy reach :)

and I took some photos of Jen. She wasn't posing but she didn't run away either :) It's always nice to be able to practice on adults for a change.

This one's a shocker but he didn't run away either. I think I'll be the one running when he sees this.

Then we got everyone together for a group shot. I used my 10mm lens which causes quite a bit of distortion so I put the ladies at the back figuring they wouldn't mind the lens making them look thinner :)
Great plan until Dad wanted to take a shot so made me take his spot on the front. I really don't need to extra weight from this lens.
So in the interest of revenge here's what Alex calls 'two Gumpys'.

I love how everyone can't get out of there quick enough once the photo's over.

I got some new photo gear for Christmas but haven't had a chance to play yet. Once the laundry etc is finished I can't wait to have some photo fun. Graham got me a backdrop stand and white muslin backdrop. I plan on making some other backdrops myself. Mom and Dad got me a Gorillapod slr-zoom. It's pretty amazing and weighs so much less than I expected. It's going to be perfect to carry around and will be fun to try out next time I'm out shooting. I should have had it with me Xmas night for the group photos but I like to spend some time admiring my Xmas gifts and have them all to myself the first time I use them :) Just my little indulgence.
I have a pile of photos from the last few days too, mainly of Alex with his new toys so I'll post them up later.

Happy Christmas!

2007-12-25T02:41:00.000+11:00

Hot hot hot

2007-12-17T23:53:00.000+11:00

We have hot water! Which means no more boiling the kettle and washing in a bucket. Alex did enjoy his bucket baths though.

The new hot water system works and it is so nice to have hot showers again. Even nicer knowing that it is free hot, not free hot water because we still pay for the water but the heating is from the sun so it's free hot. We haven't had to turn the electric backup on at all and it's been 3.5 days of washing and showers without running out of hot water. It's even been raining and the water still heats up!
The removal of the old system has left us with a laundry to renovate though. The plumbers made a big hole in the wall and the floor tiles only went to the edge of the old tank.
This is the state the floor was left in

and here's the mess that was the wall.

We're going to replace the old tiles with these rubber tiles. Sort of an industrial look. The floor will be this creamy colour and the walls will be silvery. Graham suggested I paint one wall with a scene like I did in Alex's room, with a tree, but I think a beach scene would be more appropriate and the colours would work. Not sure yet, we'll see what I come up with. Graham removed most of the tiles yesterday using a new rotary hammer drill we bought to do the job, it was cheaper than hiring one. Once he has the last of the tiles out we will have to get the concrete nice and smooth before we can lay the rubber tiles. The wall will need fixing first and new skirting boards.

Here's the new hot water heater on the roof. We thought it should have been more central but the plumber said it wouldn't fit. As a result it's at the opposite end to the kitchen and it takes a while for the hot water to reach any taps.

Alex stayed at his grandparents on the weekend. He went home with my Mom after Gymbaroo on Friday which got him out of the way while the plumbers installed the water heater. This meant we could run around Saturday and shop for things like floor tiles and we finished our Christmas shopping. At least we had finished until we remembered someone else :) So one more person to shop for and 8 more things I'm waiting to be delivered. Most of which are for Graham. If they don't get here soon he wont have much for Christmas.
We wrapped all the Christmas pressies we do have and took them to Mom and Dads last night and I put up the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree is my job each year and it's something I look forward to.

I've been buying Alex a decoration of his own each year so by the time he leaves home he should have a nice set of decorations to start him off. I love all our old family decorations and the odds and ends that have been added to them each year from various people.
Here's Alex's Christmas ball for this year. He noticed it straight away and went up to it and read 'A' and then read 'Alex'. He also found and read the one from last year. Looks like he has learned to read his name :)

Alex made all our wrapping paper this year using his crayons on a roll of paper. I've made gift tags with photos so Alex will be able to see who to hand them out to. Last year he enjoyed handing out the pressies but we had to read the tags for him.
Looks like most of these are for Alex.

I've made all our Christmas cards and written our yearly Christmas letter. Now I'm just waiting for Graham to sit down with me so we can double check all our addresses and get them in the post tomorrow. I also had some big photos printed as wall calendars for some of the family. All different photos but this one here is my favourite. I wish I'd done one for myself. This isn't up properly, just wedged behind some frames so I could take a photo. You can see how big it is.

It was raining most of yesterday and was still raining when we drove home last night. A couple of times we saw a frog hop across the road in front of us, lit up by the headlights. We realised we have never seen a frog at our place and we've been here 6 years.
When we got home I went to open the car door and looked out the window and there was a little frog on the rear view mirror. He must have had an interesting ride.
Luckily I had the camera in the front with me so I could open the window and shoot him. He jumped away into the dark when Graham tried to move him to the plants so we don't know where he ended up. I'd like to think that we now have a frog out there somewhere.

I wanted a nice photo for our Christmas cards but it's so hard to get everyone looking at the camera with a self timer. Here's the best of the bunch.

This was another card idea

but this was the one we settled on, with some text added.

To finish here's a shot from our infrared security camera.
This is Alex lying in bed with his eyes open. It's dark in there but the infrared means we can see him. We've found, since watching him with the camera, that he will lie there with his eyes open like this for hours at night before he finally turns over and pulls the pillow over his head and goes to sleep. He also cuddles his teddy a lot and is very fussy about placing his teddy in the top right corner before he goes to sleep.

rain go way

2007-12-05T23:02:00.000+11:00

Well we still don't have any hot water. It looks like maybe next Tuesday for delivery and who knows when, for install. We can't actually book the install until we know when the delivery will be. Not happy Jim! We could always pay $1000 more and go with someone else but for $1000 we can live without hot water for another week. Cold showers are an interesting experience but I'm sure our electricity and water bills will be good this month. We are learning some little tricks to the art of showering in cold water and boiling the kettle for washing up. The dishwater heats it's own water and the clothes come out OK in a cold water wash. I will have to wash my hair tomorrow night so I think we will try and 'borrow' a friends shower or Graham will have to help me wash my hair in the sink.
I've finished the second coat of oil on the deck and we set up the new furniture and BBQ which means I can now get to the top step of the deck to seal that. Have to do the railing too but that will have to wait until it's not raining.
Setting up the new furniture and BBQ took us 3 hours. It mostly came flat packed/self assemble. The table took a few goes to stop it wobbling and one of the chairs has to go back because it's broken (came like it). I was quite paranoid about the glass table top breaking. I didn't want a glass table but it was quite a bit more affordable than a wooden setting. It survived the installation process though which included me dropping a handful of spanners on it and Alex stepping on it (that was scary). The BBQ took the longest to set up. Lots and lots of fiddly bits and pieces. Luckily I make a habit of reading the instructions that come with everything so I was able to work out what went where and we got everything in the right place first go. Would you believe even the 4 legs are all different? Actually we haven't attached the gas yet so we don't know if it works. I suppose we should check it soon.
Alex was into everything. He tested all the buttons, screws and bolts for us and hid in the box.

Installation chaos and Alex helping.

Furniture and BBQ.

Alex found a beetle to play with and then he let it go on the plants.

Alex had his visit to the plastic surgeon yesterday at the children's hospital to have a look at his hand. The conclusion is that we will wait another 12 months to see if it corrects itself. The Dr said that a lot of children he puts on the waiting list for surgery end up not needing it by the time their turn comes up (shows how long the wait is). The Dr wants to see us again in 12 months and meanwhile if it gets worse we are to go back sooner and if it gets better we don't need to go back. The Dr added that if Alex has to have any surgery for anything else he can do the hand surgery at the same time which would make it a bit easier on Alex. Fingers crossed (bad pun) it never happens!
Alex was very well behaved at the hospital. He got a bit restless towards the end of the hours wait, when he had finished all the books, but you can't expect a toddler to sit still that long.
After the hospital Graham dropped his car off to get the aircon fixed and we got it back today so we finally have aircon in the big car. Didn't need it today but it's going to make so much difference this summer.
Tonight Graham's work had a staff sale night at DSE. They had some good discounts plus the staff got 10% extra off. We've been to these nights before but never bothered buying anything 'cause the check out queues have been so long they filled the store. Tonight though wasn't too busy so we did a bit of Christmas shopping, got a new game each, some new salt and pepper grinders (Alex smashed the old salt grinder), a security camera system and I got a little point and shoot camera. I've been thinking for the last few years that a little point and shoot camera would be handy to keep in the nappy bag for when I'm out and don't want to miss any cute Alex moments but don't want to have to lug around my heavy camera gear. I wasn't prepared to pay the price of a decent quality camera though and the cheap no-name models were crappy quality. Well tonight we scored a bargain Olympus FE-210. It's small, 7.1Mpix and does movies too. It's slow, especially compared to the SLRs I'm used, to but the image quality is OK so it will do just fine as a nappy bag camera. It was the display model (locked up in a glass case) so it was being sold hugely reduced without box, software, cables or manuals. We didn't need the box, software or cables and I've downloaded the manuals from the Olympus web site. Haven't read them yet cause it's pretty easy to use and has a built in help system. I might have to have a read to work out the panoramic setting cause the batteries went flat while I was checking that out. It takes 2 AA batteries but for some reason none of our vast collection of rechargeable batteries will work. We'll have to recharge them tonight and try again. Oh yeh on top of the reduced price we also got the 15% off they were doing on discontinued cameras tonight and then we got the 10% for staff. Not bad at all!
I was not expecting Graham to buy a security system. My first reaction was 'NO' but it was 50% off plus the 10% for staff so not too bad and whilst I didn't think we had any need for it, it is nice to sit here watching Alex on the monitor, sleeping with his pillow on his back. The system came with a monitor and 2 infrared cameras. So we can have one in Alex's room to watch him at night. Not because we have some obsession about spying on our son but because it's nice to know if he is OK without having to open his door and risk waking him to check. Mainly we always wonder if he is warm/cool enough when we go to bed at night. He plays around in bed for a while before he goes to sleep so we never know where the sheets end up. Looking at the monitor now I can see that he is not under the sheets so his legs and feet will get cold in the early hours and the pillow is on his back covering his head so the back on his neck will be sweaty. So before we go to bed one of us can tiptoe in and cover his legs and take the pillow off his head. It was interesting to see just how much he was moving around before he went to sleep. Last night I kept hearing him cry out in the night and bang the bars but I didn't know if he was awake or asleep and dreaming. I lay in bed listening for ages trying to decide if I should go in and settle him or risk waking him if he was asleep. In the end I decided he was asleep but now with this camera I'll be able to see. It will also be interesting to see if he makes any attempt to climb out of his cot when he thinks we aren't looking. Once he moves to a big bed we'll be able to use this camera to check that he stays in bed at night.
Right now I can see Alex is awake and staring towards the window. He keeps putting his hands over his ears and I just heard him say 'rain go way'. It's raining quite heavily and he obviously doesn't like the noise. I know the rain has woken him before I until I saw this I didn't realise the noise was something he disliked. Doesn't look or sound like he is going back to sleep anytime soon.

Here's some photos from the weekend.
I got new door mats.

Graham worked hard in the garden.

I painted an old seat. I should have taken a before shot. This was white and rusty. I cleaned it up and spray painted it. I wanted to paint it grey to match the new table and chairs but couldn't find the right colour so went with silver. Now I just need some cushions for it, back and base. I'm thinking maybe blue.
It's to go on the deck.

The birds have been enjoying the recent rain. These tiny little blue wrens come out and dance in the rain.

and this big beauty visits every morning and evening. Usually while I'm looking out the kitchen window and then he disappears as soon as I get outside with the camera. I think he's a Red Wattlebird. I'm guessing a young one despite his size.

It's raining on my deck again!

and here's a recent digiscrap.

huge update

2007-12-01T19:09:00.000+11:00

Wooohooo, it's a new month and things are off to a great start!
We have our internet bandwidth back so I can finally blog again (and do emails and eshopping etc) and we have water again so we can flush the toilet and wash etc. We still don't have any hot water but at least we have water. A few cold showers wont hurt us and Alex is staying at Mom
and Dad's so he can have a warm bath. Hopefully we'll have hot water again by the end of the week.
Such a relief to have water again. I thought we could manage because we are used to being careful with water but you don't realise how often you need water.
At the moment everything around here looks half finished. The deck is done but I have to do another coat of deck oil and do the top step and rail. I ran out of oil doing the first coat and now it's raining so I can't finish the deck until it's dry and clean. The rain has left pools of water and dirt on the edges but the oil is doing the job and keeping it from soaking into the deck. It looks really yellow though. It's supposed to be a natural, uncoloured finish. Hopefully the yellow will
fade.
Here's the water pooling on the deck

and the colour of the sealed deck

and here's the colour difference between the sealed bottom level and the unfinished top step.

I want to get started on the garden but that can wait until the rain stops.
We did the washing at Mom's last night but can't hang it out so I have wet washing sitting around waiting for the rain to stop too.
It was funny not having any water while there was so much coming down outside. Graham used a bucket to collect water from the neighbours gutters because they have a missing down pipe, and we used that water to clean up the laundry where the leaky hot water tank had left a smelly mess.

Now we have plans to paint and rearrange the laundry once the water tank is out. It should look bigger, cleaner and a lot neater.
We still have a trench all down the side of the house that needs filling, just waiting on the road base for that.
So much to do!
Here's Alex sweeping the deck while the digger digs a trench. This trench is filled now, it's the one on the other side of the house that isn't.

Right now Graham is in the laundry 'removing' the cupboard from around the water heater. It should make it easier to get the water tank out and the cupboard itself is so horrible (badly made, shabby and smelly now) that I just want it gone. However the idea of Graham dismantling anything stresses me so I'm doing my best just to keep out of the way and pretend it's not happening (typing nice and loudly). I'm sure he can't do too much damage (repeat repeat!).
So what's the story with the water heater you ask? Well it's a 1996 model, well past it's warranty and ready to burst. Thursday night I went into the laundry to get Alex's PJs from the clean washing pile and I stepped into water! Bit of a shock and then I noticed the strange hissing water noise coming from the water heater. So Graham turned the hot water heater off at the fuse box and tried to turn off the water inlet to the tank, but couldn't so he had to turn the water off at the mains. The water was seeping out of the bottom of the tank but only when it was filling at the same time (ie under pressure) so once the mains were off the leak slowed right down. When I pulled the release on the tank the water that came out was just rust coloured mud. We've never been in one house long enough before to experience the death of a water heater so we weren't prepared for this. Never even occurred to use that it could happen. Luckily I had sealed the deck that day and this happened about 15mins before 'touch dry time' otherwise it would have made things just a little more difficult, especially considering that the only way to get to the fuse box without crossing the deck would have meant climbing the muddy trench on the other side of the house, in the dark. I was still not happy about the idea of any dirt or water getting on my nice pristine deck! Just shows, 'pride comes before a fall'. I was so proud of the job I had done on the deck Thursday and I was waiting till 'touch dry time' so I could take Graham out for a walk on the deck to show off. Then the water heater had to go and take the wind right out of my sails. Good thing the deck has at least one coat on it though or it would be staining badly now.
Friday was a busy day with both of us on the phone trying to find someone to install and supply a new water heater for a reasonable price. We have a long list of plumbers who haven't returned our calls, many which advertise a 24hr, 7 day a week emergency service.
Because our water heater is inside, in a cupboard (not a good idea when it leaks) it meant that our chances of finding something the the right dimensions to fit were very slim. Also with our recent electricity bills we weren't too keen on a small, quick recovery, electric tank. We don't have gas (unless you count Graham after a pizza night) and with the deck all down the side of the house, there was nowhere suitable for an outdoor tank without cutting a hole in our deck. So the best idea we had was a solar water heater on the roof (close coupled). The tank is out of the way, it can be positioned right over where we need the water to go and our roof has the right NE-NW aspect with about a 25 degree pitch. Add to that we should get cheaper power bills and with the current government rebates for solar it works out only just a bit more than an electric tank of half the size.
Problem was most plumbers just aren't interested once you start talking solar. One of them told us it's because all the rebates make it too confusing for them.
Anyway we have ordered a Rheem Hiline 300L solar hot water heater and Graham found a plumber who said he could install it for a reasonable price (he hasn't returned our call yet about actually booking a time for install). So we should have the tank delivered midweek and hopefully can get hold of the plumber to install it the same day or soon after.
Today we got another plumber to come and cap off the water to the old heater so we could at least turn the mains back on. I celebrated by flushing the toilet! We took Alex to Mom's last night and we thought we could manage until the new heater arrives. We were turning the mains on a few times a day just to fill the toilet cistern and bottles and jugs to keep us going but even in just a few mins with the water on, the laundry floor was becoming a puddle again so we gave up and decided the call out and emergency rates for a plumber were worth it if we could at least get the water back on.
The smell in the laundry was getting really bad. The water was sitting along the wall behind the sink and washing machine. All cleaned out now and once the cupboard is out it should be even better (Graham is still banging away in the laundry). It's surprisingly difficult to clean up smelly, muddy water without clean water, hence Graham collecting water from the neighbours gutters for mopping.
It is so good to have water again. Don't ever take it for granted. Now we are just looking forward to having hot water again. Pretty soon anyone near us will be looking forward to us having hot water again too :P
What else has been happening? Well Dad finished the deck! I just have to finish sealing it and then we'll get a door in from the dinning room out to the deck. It makes such a difference just being able to walk out onto the deck. It all feels so much nicer outside now, cleaner, roomier and more relaxed. Alex loves it and I can sit there and watch him play. I bought Graham his Christmas pressy already, a new BBQ. Once I've finished sealing we can set up the BBQ on the deck but eventually it will go down in the BBQ pit once we get the road base down. That way any drips or splashes from the BBQ wont damage my deck and we can stand around the rail and watch Graham cook :P We also got a new outdoor table and chairs set for on the deck. Not assembled yet but will be soon. I had to get Dad to run me around with the ute on Monday to pick all this up but at least we got it all in one day and saved on delivery costs. I can't wait to take photos of the BBQ and furniture all set up and Graham and I keep coming up with new guest lists for future BBQs. So far I think we have 4 different BBQs planned for various groups of friends and family. Don't know when we'll be ready but I think Mom and Dad will have to be our first guests after all the work they have put into this deck.
Deckman himself!

and the finished deck.

We went over our internet limit the beginning of November (about the time of my last blog) so we've been struggling along at less than dial up speeds for weeks now. Most of the time I haven't even been able to download my email without it timing out. It made online research for building supplies/plumbers etc difficult and at night when we both wanted to check our email we would have to take turns trying to get access. Very glad to have our connection speed back today and I'm going to have to keep an eye out for things like Photoshop upgrades downloading in the background and using up our download limit (that's what took us over).
Alex is doing well and has loved all the extra Grandparent time this month with Mom and Dad over so often for deck work. He also got to spend a few nights there when we had the flu, to get away from our germs plus it's hard to look after an active little boy when your feeling so sick. Toilet training is happing sporadically and he is going great guns with his numbers and letters.
I cut his hair and he looked instantly bigger without the curls. Now people keep commenting on how big he is. It's so funny, people will say 'what a big boy' as a casual comment while we are out somewhere and they have no idea just how happy that makes me. He really has come such a long way and has caught up so well. On Tuesday he finally has his appointment with the plastic surgeon to look at his hand. Fingers crossed he will tell us he doesn't need to do anything and send us away again. After waiting since June for this appointment I'm not at all worried about it anymore. Might be a different story if the Dr starts talking surgery and anesthetics but Alex is bigger and stronger now and I'm sure we will cope just fine.
Where's Mama?

There she is !

New haircut!

Last weekend I was supposed to help deliver Austprem cooler bags to the hospital NICU to help promote/celebrate National Premature Birth Awareness Week. I was looking forward to visiting some of Alex's old nurses and checking out the new NICU department, not to mention catching up with another Austprem member, but with the flu there was no way I could risk going near anyone with a baby. So instead I went and had a blood test :) Nothing to do with the flu, just my regular test. Got the results Tuesday and I am STILL in remission from Graves Disease. Thats 18 months of normal results now. The Dr did make a point of reminding me that it can still come back anytime. I know that, because this is the second time I've been in remission but still I feel really pleased and I know what to look out for and I'm sure I can beat it again if I have to, over and over even. Next check up now isn't for another 6 months! Wooohooo!
I guess things are looking pretty good around here. It's been an expensive month with all the work we are doing and there is still a lot I want to get done but it is so nice to be getting things sorted around the house.
Tilly is loving her indoor/outdoor cat status and eating lots of grass. Her points have got so dark from the sun and she has freckles! We haven't lost her yet but she did get locked under the house once.
Tilly the great grey grass hunter

Oh almost forgot. Photo wise, not a lot happening really, haven't had a lot of time. My main lens is still in for repair, for the second time. It went off 29th Sept, came back worse and went straight back. Now they say I'll be lucky to have it back for Christmas.
I'm loving my new camera and lens though. Everytime I download photos from the 40D I'm reminded how much I love it, and the 70-200mm L lens is beautiful. Took me a while to get used to it but now, it's a dream. I so want more L lenses.
We went to the camera club finals. I only made it to 3 shows all year so I wasn't in the running for the finals but I got a medal for scoring over 100 points. 100 points is the score needed to move from B grade up to A grade so it's considered quite an achievement. The thing is Graham and I can't work out how I made 100 points from just 3 shows. I know I did really well but unless places are worth more points than we though it wouldn't make 100 points. I was in B grade for my first show and then they moved me straight to A grade so maybe they gave me the medal as an award for that without worrying about the points. Strange but nice :) Hopefully next year I can get over there more often.
Here's some photos I took (from the deck, in the rain) today while waiting for the plumber to arrive.
The beans/cherries on my coffee plant.

Just had a parcel turn up on the doorstep. Gotta love these pre Christmas Saturday deliveries. It's a coffee mug from Homescan, the scanning service we do. One of those metal thermal mugs with a lid and detachable cup on the bottom. Not a bad little gift.
Hehehe it's going to take us a while to get over the novelty of having water again. I just heard Graham cheer after flushing the toilet :)
Graham has just finished in the laundry and it's getting late so I better upload some photos and find some dinner. I didn't bother defrosting any meat because without water it's hard to wash veg and cook and wash up, so now we have water and no food ready to cook.
Before with cupboard.

After, cupboard gone but a lot of fixing up to do.

More wee?

2007-11-10T22:31:00.000+11:00

Huge celebrations here tonight!
Alex did wees in his potty for the first time, after his bath tonight!
He has previously caught me out by weeing unexpectedly after a bath so tonight when he got a bit restless as I was drying him I asked him if he wanted to go wee in his potty and he said 'yeh' and ran to his potty. He sat there for a while with his sudoku book (he reads the numbers) and then we heard a glorious tinkling sound from the potty. It surprised him too! We cheered and clapped him and made a bit fuss about how clever he was and I ran to get the camera. Not that him sitting on a potty with wee in looks any different from him sitting on a dry potty but it's important to photograph those 'firsts' in his life, even if it's just to embarrass him when he brings his first girlfriend home. Naturally as soon as he saw the camera he decided to leave but when he stood up the potty had stuck to his damp, fresh washed, skin. So when he stood up the potty did too and promptly emptied down his legs and onto the bathmat. Hopefully this unfortunately accident and his parents rolling on the (dry) floor laughing haven't put him off using the potty again. Considering he kept saying 'more wee' and wanting to sit on the potty again and again, I think we shall be alright.
Wow I feel so proud! This potty training thing might actually happen this year! My little boy is growing up.
So no potty photo but here's a photo of Alex with his new electric frog tooth brush. He loves it. I bought it yesterday and ever since I've been plagued by demands for 'more tee' (teeth). He just wants to keep playing with it. Last night he wouldn't sleep. He sat in bed saying 'more tee' over and over. We knew he wanted his tooth brush but pretended we didn't. Until he speaks more clearly we can get away with that. Eventually Graham went in and gave him one of his plastic tea cups and he went to sleep. Maybe he really did want more tea!

Another cause for celebration is our new deck. Not quite finished, and there's the rendering and garden to go with it, then there's the carport floor and a new back door, but in one very wet week Dad has taken our back yard from this

to this.

Actually it's been less than a week, he started Monday, had Thursday off and Sunday will be his day of rest (and fixing the electric drill Alex broke).
We replaced the old pergola earlier this year and now the decking is almost finished. It is so nice to walk out the door onto the deck now.
I'm looking forward to being able to sit out there and edit photos on the laptop while Alex plays outside.
Here's some progress shots.
The old pergola coming down and the new one with the deck going in.
Not the best photos. Some of these were actually taken in the rain.

The old pergola was dark, green and falling down.

Tilly is an inside/outside cat now. She got to play outside each day at my parents while we were away and she didn't get lost, eaten by a dog or run over. So we have decided she can go outside here now. I'm still worried about her getting lost, eaten by a dog or run over but so far so good. She has a cat flap on the back door and goes in and out all day then at night we shut her in. Her favourite activity is doing laps right around the outside of the house, in through the front gate, straight over the neighbours fence (they are not impressed) and down the footpath to do the loop again. All at high speed and over and over. She has a bright green collar with a bell so I can hear her even from inside the house.
She likes to think she is a hunter. She certainly can look the part, she is very good at stalking and blends really well with the fence and grass but she has no hope of catching one of the native birds. They can spot her anywhere and they make such a racket rousing on her. Even without the bell I'd know where she is from the birds dobbing on her. The bell is just to make sure she really can't get close to any birds.
Here's the outside version of Tilly before we got her collar. We had to buy the smallest we could find and cut half of it off and make new holes just to get a collar to fit her skinny neck.

Here's what she wants to catch.

Tomorrow we are photographing 'Team Eunos'. It's an early start so I have to get the camera batteries charged and the gear packed up tonight. Here's some shots from our last car shoot, last month. This one was for the UK Toyota Sera calendar.

Golden light

2007-11-08T19:52:00.000+11:00

More photos from our holiday. I love how the golden light from the setting sun has turned some of the trees into Autumn foliage.
I have a lot of photos of the back of Alex and Graham. Every time I stopped to take a photo they kept going. There are no photos of me so no family photos from our first family holiday :(

Photos from September

2007-11-04T10:49:00.000+11:00

Alex and I are about to go outside and play with Tilly (the rain has stopped) so I'll upload these photos quickly before I shut down. I've got a min while Alex finds his shoes and hat.
These were taken in September at Wisteria Gardens. I took all my camera gear with high hopes for some great photos but faulty equipment got the better of me. This was the day I finally gave in and the camera (20D) went off for repair the next working day.
These were taken with the 10D because I couldn't use the 20D (still had to lug it around all day) and with the faulty lens I had no control over aperture. It wasn't just like it was a fixed aperture cause I couldn't even tell what it was set to. I was using the ISO and SS to try and control the light but still had a lot of problems with blow outs and couldn't control my DOF as I would have liked. There's a ribbon cable inside the lens that had snapped. It still focused fine but the other controls weren't working. Now I have to wait until next years Wisteria Gardens open day to get some of the shots I wanted.

This is what happens when you shoot into the sun with infrared and no effective camera controls.

and here's the broken part of the coffee machine. Had to take a photo, it was hard to believe that something could just snap like that, after just 3 years. The replacement parts are working but leak so not as good as it used to be :(

Digital Scrapbooking Day

2007-11-03T23:05:00.000+11:00

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day.
Almost over here in Oz but the rest of the world is still celebrating so there's lots of freebies, competitions and sales to be found online.
I don't do a lot of scrapping but I do enjoy it as a creative outlet when I've run out of things to photograph. I like to challenge my photoshop skills :)
So I couldn't let today go by without creating a page. Here's one I did this afternoon while Alex slept, Graham worked and Tilly explored the garden.

Down on the farm

2007-11-01T21:32:00.000+11:00

'bout time I blogged again (as Jim has reminded me).
Just had a few days break on the farm at Narrawilly so feeling refreshed and freshly inspired.
I fell behind with blogging when my camera broke (and my coffee machine and my tooth). I still had the old 10D backup and still took photos but the 'magic' was missing.
It didn't take long to get the camera serviced (and coffee machine parts) but I only got my main lens back yesterday. That's over a month for the lens repair (dentist is worse, thats in 3 weeks).
It's been hard shooting without my main lens, the Sigma 18-125mm. I have plenty of other lenses to play with but that's the most useful everyday range and it's a good sharp lens.
It's going to take me while to get things up to date here. Even lens handicapped I have a lot of photos to share :)

Let's start with this week.
We had been wanting to go away for our wedding anniversary in September but it just didn't happen. We looked at going to VIC for a few days but things were too expensive, we didn't know what to do with Alex and Graham didn't have time off. It looked like we weren't going to get the
break we craved. Finally Graham surprised me with a couple of nights at Narrawilly. It's a farm with a couple of mudbrick cottages, lots of kid friendly space and not too far away. We went there 5 years ago, a sort of honeymoon after we got married, our bestman gave us 2 nights there as a gift. We loved it so much we've been wanting to go back ever since. It's just so relaxing, no internet, no TV, no work etc.
This time we had Alex with us so not quite as relaxing but it was worth it because he had so much fun. He could get up in the morning and go straight outside and see the horses, chickens and sheep and we didn't have to worry about anything except the electric fences :)
Alex slept and ate well while away and we relaxed and ate well and I am once again the trivial pursuit champion!
I took photos of course, over 600. I think most of our luggage was camera gear. It's a good thing I took the notebook too because I kept filling my memory cards and needed to offload the photos. Still have to go through most of them but here's a few I've prepared for web.
On our second afternoon there we went on one of the walks around the farm. A nice easy walk with lots of flies, bulls and electric fences :) It took 2.5 hours at toddler pace.
My intention was to photograph the sunset from the lookout at the top. Only problem is that would have meant walking back in the dark. So we did the loop, took some photos as the sun bathed everything in golden light and long shadows, and ended up back at the start in time
for me to still go get some sunset shots nearby.

These were taken with the Canon 40D and mostly the Canon 70-200mm f4 L IS (my anniversary present).

That's our cottage down there in amongst the trees.

The second night there Alex woke up crying after just a few hours and wanted his shorts. So we put his shorts on over his PJ's and put him back to bed and he slept until about 8:30am. Here he is when he got up in the morning.

This is the back of the cottage, the TV aerial is a new addition and the honeysuckle and plumbago has grown a lot since our first visit.

part of the view from the backyard

and the horses out the back. It was pretty much dark when I took these, the sun was down and I used ISO 1600 and 800. It was still really hot!

There were heaps of flies and bees. Indoors and out.

Alex loved going in and out all the french doors. Hence the flies indoors.

We tried to take him to the beach, he wasn't very impressed,

but he thought the lighthouse was cool.

2 in 1

2007-09-15T23:01:00.000+10:00

Well yesterdays HSMS was 'tweezers'.
'An instrument for picking up small objects. Find tweezers in your space today.'
So I got out my unset stones and my tweezers and took some photos last night when Alex went to bed but then I was too busy to upload them so I'm uploading them tonight along with todays HSMS which is Self Portrait Saturday.
I don't have the right sort of tweezers for picking up stones and I was so scared of scratching them but I can't resist an excuse to photograph my sparklies :)
This is a half carat irradiated blue which I intend to set one day when I stop spending my money on Alex and cameras. (or start making money with the camera).

Then I wanted to take a tweezer photo of the big stone that lives on my keyboard but it was too big for the tweezers.

So Graham came up with some tweezers that fit. (that's his hand)
So funny :)

Now for my SPS here's me showing what I normally do with my tweezers.

Yesterday my big photo order arrived with all the wedding photos so I spent most of last night sorting them. All the 6x4's are in an album, enlargements are all trimmed and flattened (they were shipped rolled), the digital files are on a cd in web res and print res and I also made a web page for the photos so they can show family and friends overseas. The only thing I forgot to do was burn the monogram I designed for their invitations to CD but I can do that bit later.
The big 20x30" metallic turned out beautiful but we couldn't work out how to wrap it for them without rolling it so Graham (feeling generous after his pay review) gave me permission to frame it. So today we went back to Ikea and picked up a nice big (and cheapish) frame. We also dropped off photos to Graham's Mom.
Alex loves Ikea so two trips in one week was a real treat. Here he is all dressed up ready to go out (except his shoes). He hasn't worn these trousers before because he doesn't have enough of a waist to keep them up but they are getting short on him so we made him wear braces. I thought he looked so handsome I had to take a photo :)
Actually he had a few admirers at the shops too.

Here's the finished photo all framed and ready to go and Alex waving bye bye.

and the bad news...
we got home, desperate for a coffee, started brewing and the group on the machine shattered. The group is the metal holder the portafilter (coffee holder) twists into. Not something you expect to break, it's all one piece of solid metal! I got out the paperwork and the machine is 3 years and 1 week old so no warranty. Hopefully we can get a new group for it. We emailed the company we purchased it from and I think there are a few importers in Melbourne who have parts for this model. Problem is we are suffering without our real coffee. I got out one of our old turkish coffee pots but it's not the same at all.

Krispy Kreme Kurious

2007-09-13T23:19:00.000+10:00

Just a quick 'cause it's been a busy day and we were out tonight.
Todays HSMS is curious
'Eager to know or learn. Find 'curious' in your space today'
Naturally my first thought was killing the cat but I restrained myself.
My curious shot is from tonights outing.
We were invited to a special launch at Penrith Krispy Kreme for a new doughnut. Turns out it wasn't really a launch, more like a preview and we were the guinea pigs.
It's a choc glazed doughnut. Like the original glazed but with a chocolate glaze. The chocolate glaze doesn't taste like chocolate, it just tastes like icing sugar with a bit of cocoa. We got to try them fresh and hot and it really wasn't worth it. Not something I'd buy. They were too soft and sticky and pretty tasteless. Might be better a bit cooler when they've set a bit.
Alex wouldn't even taste his.
I didn't take the camera with me but when I saw everyone lined up at the window to watch the first of the new doughnuts being coated in chocolate I thought it would be a good shot for curious so I asked Graham to take these shots with his mobile phone. The colour/quality was pretty bad so I converted to B/W. Alex was standing on the wall so he could see :)

awwww give us a kiss

2007-09-12T22:40:00.000+10:00

Todays HSMS is Kiss!
'AKA: Pucker up, swap spit, snog, tonsil tickling (tee hee).
A show of affection by means of mouth to mouth contact. Go on, give us a kiss!'

Well Alex was asleep most of the evening so there went my easy option. I wanted to get Alex blowing a kiss to the camera, and I really didn't want to kiss the cat, so I had to wait for Graham to come home. We had fun with this :) It was hard to get a kiss shot where we weren't laughing though.
We set up the tripod and used the self timer with the flash bounced off the ceiling.
This was my version, I planned on the lamp giving us some back light,

and this was his. Hehehe does that make it a MVHV?
He was dipping me and I was not feeling very secure.
I like the way he framed us with my painting.
Note mine is the one in focus :P

Today Alex and I went out with my parents. We took him to see the fountains at the Olympic park and then we went to Ikea. He didn't want to get too close to the fountains but he loved Ikea. He runs 'round the whole store 'reading' the labels, testing all the chairs, opening and shutting all the cupboards, pushing the buttons on the dummy TVs and turning off the staff computers! It was a big day out for him and hence he has been asleep all evening until now. He just woke up for dinner and will be back in bed soon.
I took the camera hoping to get some shots of Alex having fun with the water. As usual it's a hard choice when going out with Alex. Do I take all the camera gear and get stuck carrying around bits I probably wont use or do I travel light and end up missing the perfect shot because I didn't have the right gear with me?
I opted to travel light. One camera, one lens and one spare battery. Then I ended up wishing I had the 10mm lens with me, a tripod, a ND filter and my infrared filter. These locations would make for some stunning portraits for anyone who wanted something a little funky and colourful. I might have to go back there with a willing model.
As for todays effort, well my camera has a problem. Actually I've kinda known it does for a few weeks now but as I mostly shoot manual I've been able to work around it. It's exposure is way off! If I use auto exposure it way overexposes with the occasion way underexposure. On manual it still behaves strangely but I can work around it most of the time. Problem is for chasing a toddler around between sun and shade I don't have time to adjust manually and can't reshoot the shot when I adjust the settings. So today I wanted to use P mode for shooting Alex but it just wouldn't work. For example on P it would use 1/125 and completely blow the shot, where as for the same shot on manual I'd have to use 1/1250 to get the correct exposure.
So I know my camera will have to go off for repair but I don't want to be without it for any length of time :(
The old 10D is still working but it's so slow, I prefer to use the 20D. Actually I'd like to get the 40D I've been hanging out for and send the 10 and 20 both off for a service.
I'll wait and see if I can persuade Graham that the 40D would make a good anniversary pressy before I do anything about the 20D. Never know what a few weeks hinting will get me.
Though some wood for the new deck would be a more sensible gift for us to buy each other, especially for our 5th anniversary.
Anyway here's some photos from today, the ones that did work.

That's my Dad taking photos with his much more reliable Fuji.

This was as close as Alex would get to the water.

Does anyone else think it looks like they are practicing their dance moves here?

This is the walk over the old brick pits. It's huge and Alex did the whole walk!

Print

2007-09-12T00:22:00.001+10:00

Lately it seems like the HSMS prompts are stalking me. They are fitting so well with what I'm doing each day :)
Todays prompt is Print.
'To produce in large quantities by mechanical process. Find 'print' in your space today.'
Today my latest print order was delivered so I've been busy sorting prints.
Here's a photo of print sorting in progress.
This one was only a small order of 77 prints. I was a bit concerned that the colours would be off. My monitor is still calibrated but since I installed CS3 my I can't get the colours to match on my printer. So I was worried that I'd have the same problem with photos from the lab.
Thankfully the colours are great so I've just sent off another order for 207 prints including 6 20x30" metallics. Can't wait to see how they turn out :)

Happy Birthday cake all 'round

2007-09-10T17:03:00.001+10:00

It's my brothers birthday and the HSMS word of the day is cake so I had a good excuse to eat cake :)
Happy Birthday Jim!
Let's hope you read this, leave me a comment if you do so I know, and when are you going to update your blog?
We had the out-laws and the newlyweds over to celebrate your birthday. We had a cookies and cream cheesecake with 3 candles. Alex blew out the candles for you and the rest of us ate the cake. Graham had to eat the piece Alex blew on, he hasn't got the hang of blowing without dribbling yet :)
Hope you have a great birthday, we miss you!

Show off!

2007-09-09T23:00:00.000+10:00

Phew what a busy day!
Cleaning all morning, some washing even though it rained, in-laws over in the afternoon and then friends over this evening. All this with an excitable 2yo running riot. He loves having visitors but gets a bit silly when he is tired (like me). Multiple coffees and cake later, (so much for the diet today), everyone has gone, Jnr is asleep and I have a splitting headache (and the washing isn't finished).
The best thing about today is I finally got to show R&R the photos I took at their wedding last month. I made them a DVD slideshow. They loved the photos! I am so happy :) I wanted to be able to give them some beautiful photos even though I wasn't the official photographer. They haven't seen their official photos yet which I'm a little upset about. I didn't want to undermine the photographer (grooms sister) by jumping in with my photos first. My photos are supposed to be just candid supplements to her photos so I wanted her to have the glory of showing them first. Oh well they were so happy to see some photos that I'm glad I didn't wait any longer.
Good news is now they have seen the photos I have permission to show people and it's perfect timing for 'Show of Sunday' as HSMS. So instead of new photos today I get to show off my favourite wedding photos from last month :)
Now I'm off to order some prints for them. I have a magnificent 20x30" metallic print in mind as a gift for them.
Busy busy busy!

This first one is my most favourite (for now).

Self Portrait Saturday - I tried

2007-09-08T12:18:00.000+10:00

Ok today is Self Portrait Saturday at HSMS.
So I had this idea that I could use the self portrait Saturdays to track my weight loss and help me stick to the diet. I thought I'd do my weigh-in on Saturday mornings and photograph myself on the scales.
Stupid idea!
Besides the tricky angle and the bad lighting in the bathroom, there's the fact that the read out on our scales flashes when it's reached it's figure. So no matter how I tried to time it I always ended up shooting between flashes and getting a blank number. Add to that the fact that I couldn't take the shot without the weight of the camera (and flash) being recorded. The camera with 580ex is surprisingly heavy. Really was a silly idea. I suppose I could do it with a tripod, and a long exposure would get the numbers as they flashed, but it was a very unattractive look anyway. I forgot that my legs don't match and my foot is ugly.
I persisted anyway and tried a compact mirror over the readout instead, to get my face in the shot. Now that idea could work, with a bit more thought, but I really don't think I'll bother trying this again.
So here is my self portrait for Saturday and I'm sorry I wont do this again.
If I come up with something better later I post again but as it's a rainy miserable day I don't think I can be bothered. Maybe more coffee will help.

Talky talky

2007-09-07T21:51:00.000+10:00

Todays HSMS is Talk.
'To converse or communicate. Show us 'talk' in your space today.'
If prem chat had been on tonight I would have taken a photo of my screen but that was last night so here's Alex talking to his Nan. He kept telling her 'car'. I think he associates her with trips in the car. We had Gymbaroo on today and when we pulled up in the car park there he started asking for Nana. This week Nana didn't come though, Dada did. Today was the local APEC 'holiday' so Graham had the day off. He still went to work after lunch until about 8pm.
The phone has to be on hands free for Alex to use it otherwise he pushes the buttons and hangs up.

He had to check behind to find out where the sound was coming from.

After this he walked around the house talking into a remote control.
He says hello, uh huh, ok, wow and bye. A whole conversation with himself.

Feast

2007-09-07T00:36:00.000+10:00

Wow what a day.
Alex was awake very early, way before Graham's alarm went off, thanks to a street sweeper truck that was doing the rounds this morning, several times. Once in each direction on our street and we also get to hear it on the street behind us. Not nice to be awoken that early.
So I checked HSMS for the word of the day before I fed Alex, just in case it was something like 'mess' I could make fit his breakfast. It was too early but I did find an email telling saying my photo had won for this week at Pink Ink Studios. Woohoo! $50US to spend on their products and there's a few I've have my eye on over the last couple of weeks.
Choices choices!
That was such a nice way to start the day. Plus Graham actually got Alex up for me so I could wash my hair! So I started the day feeling extra fresh and like a winner :) I didn't even mind the pile of washing from his nightly leaky nappy or the fact that it was rainy so there was no point doing the washing.
Then we had a visitor to drop off some products I am doing a home testing survey on. I don't think I'm allowed to say what they are but it will be interesting and as part of it they've asked me to take photos. How could I resist :) They might be a bit surprised with the effort I put into the photos.
Then my parents came over and the sun came out. Alex loves having his grandparents visit and I love having someone else entertain him for a change and wear him out. He got tired and silly so they didn't stay long and then he went down for a nap and gave me a few hours break.
This afternoon I watched my brother cycle to work. At least it could have been my brother, couldn't really tell but it was nice to have that 'contact'. He lives in Sweden and there is a webcam that shows part of his route to work.
He worked out what time he would be going past so we can watch him.
Maybe tomorrow Alex will be awake and I can show him the little dot flying across the screen and tell him it's his Uncle Jim.
Todays HSMS is 'feast'.
'A large meal or a plentiful supply, show us 'feast' in your space today.'
Hmmm doesn't quite go with the left over 0 point soup I was defrosting for lunch and dinner. So when I realised it wasn't going to be defrosted in time, I then had the 3 perfect excuses for take-away for dinner. I like to have 3 reasons for things.
1 - the soup wouldn't defrost in time
2 - I needed a feast to photograph and
3 - I am so sick of eating vegetable soup!
So I asked Graham to bring home Chinese. Yum :)
All I had to do then was resist eating and save my weight watcher points until dinner time. I couldn't even risk looking at anyone else's feast photos in case they drove me to the fridge.
I didn't expect Graham to be 3 hours late coming home!
I was starving.
He got home and I quickly dished up and took some feast photos before we could eat. I was too hungry to bother trying to get good photos and the food was cold but I didn't want to wait for it to heat up. I get cranky when I'm hungry. I didn't notice until I downloaded the photos that his coffee had a heart on it and mine had a playboy bunny :)

Alex was tired and ready for bed by the time Graham got home but he wouldn't go down. So he sat up and ate some Chinese, then some custard and milk before bed. I'd forgotten that all his winter PJs were in the wash after a run of leaky nappies so we had to dig out his long summer PJs. He hasn't worn them since winter started and I wasn't sure they would fit. They are a close fit, not too tight though. It was funny seeing him in 'skinny' PJs, with his big belly sticking out, so I got the camera out and he had fun posing for a few photos before bed. He didn't want to stop but he is finally asleep now.

Graham took these photos. Alex was laughing so hard he went red.

Hold

2007-09-05T22:20:00.000+10:00

Alex goes to bed with his 'Tedda' every night. We have to do the whole routine of tucking him into bed with his teddy and they both get kisses. Then each morning (lately) Alex has been waking up happy and instead of throwing everything out of his bed like he used to, he is playing with his teddy. I go in each morning to find Tedda either jumping, dancing or flying but always being held by Alex. So this was the first thing I thought of when I read that todays HSMS prompt is HOLD. 'To grasp, carry or support with your hands. Find 'hold' in your space.'
Luckily I checked the web site before Alex woke. I'm loving the early prompt posting because it gives me time to come up with something in daylight.
So when I heard Alex wake I went in armed with the camera. He loved it too, kept asking to see the photos of 'A' and got upset when I said it was time to put Tedda back to bed and have breakfast.
So here are some 'hold' photos.
This is what greets me each morning.
Can you believe he is this tall and still makes no attempt to climb out of his cot? Phew!

Now that's a hold! I love these shots :)

Tedda's dancing!

Time for Tedda to go back to bed.

Thoughtful

2007-09-04T20:23:00.000+10:00

Todays HSMS is 'thoughtful'.
'Absorbed in or involving thought. Show us 'thoughtful' in your space today.'
So here's Alex being thoughtful. It's not hard to catch him being thoughtful. He studies things so intently and puts a lot of thought into even simple things like the order of his blocks. This morning he lined his blocks up like this. Tonight I found them all lined up in the same spot but with the bottoms facing out.

and for comparison here's a shot in the same spot from November 06.
He could only just reach the window sill then and couldn't see over it.
Now he can :)

and here's his retro look :)

1 year on

2007-09-03T20:07:00.000+10:00

Just realised yesterday was my 1 year anniversary for this blog!
I started this blog September 2nd 2006 with a giant chicken made from oranges.

For for

2007-09-03T19:20:00.000+10:00

Today I decided to cook up a pot full of my '0 points' soup to help with the diet. After lunch at Mom's yesterday I needed to be extra careful with the diet today.
The pot of veg looked so good I took a photo :)

Then Alex wanted his photo taken! Normally it's hard to even get him to look at me when I have the camera out but this time he wanted photos of 'A'. So I had to take his photo and then show him then do it 'again again'. He even gave me a cheesy grin when I said smile. I've never told him to smile for a photo before so it may have been a coincidence but it was very cute :)
Not so cute was the tantrum he threw when I stopped taking photos for him.
There wasn't a lot of light so I had to crank the ISO up to 1600 for these but I wasn't aiming for good photos anyway, just amusing boy wonder.
He has a cold and has been very snotty today so while he was his usual cheerful self most of the day he was also prone to quick tantrums.

Today's HSMS is Fall.
'To move downwards rapidly. Show us 'fall' in your space today.'
My first thought was to follow Alex around with the camera because he is bound to fall eventually but a quicker solution was to ask him to build me a tower. He likes knocking the towers over so all I had to do was sit down and keep telling him to add 'one more block' until they fell or he pushed them. We did this a few times until he got a bit to forceful and the blocks started bouncing of the window.

Alex has some cute new sock/shoes. They are socks with built in soles or shoes with built in socks. They are perfect for Alex to wear around the house as slippers but he didn't want to wear them today. As I was putting them on him he kept saying 'for, for'. Took me a while to realise he was saying 'fall'. He was trying to tell me he would fall over if he wore them. So I showed him the sole and explained it wasn't slippery and he would be OK. Didn't work. So I showed him the little 'made in China' sticker on the bottom and explained that if I pulled them off then the shoes would stick to the ground. He watched very carefully and examined the stickers after I took them off and felt the sticky residue (I didn't know there would be any) on the bottom of the shoes. Then when I stood him on the ground he took a few test steps and was pretty happy with the sticky noise they made and was obviously reassured cause he was off and running. Not sure how much of the conversation he understood but it certainly seemed like he understood and it is sooooo good when we can understand each other and have conversations. He is so clever :)

Show it off Sunday

2007-09-02T22:15:00.000+10:00

Well Sunday is 'Show it off Sunday' at HSMS so here's the best photo I took today.
Alex's pencils on black card. I gave him some black card this morning to make a Father's Day card for his Dad. I thought the colours would show up well on the black but they didn't so it wasn't much of an idea for a card and he soon got bored with it.
Still the pencils and card made a nice photo.

Some photos from today at Mom and Dad's. Alex did his usual. Riding around on his way-too -small bike and filling up the bird bath.

and here's some flowers.

Chocolatety good(grief)ness

2007-09-01T22:22:00.001+10:00

Well today is Self Portrait Saturday at HSMS.
I didn't get a chance to take a self portrait until late this arvo when Alex went down for his nap. So as usual there wasn't a lot of light left. Graham was working on the cars and had the camera with him so I was able to run outside, find a spot of setting sun and balance the camera on the boot of his car for this shot. I got the camera strap in it by accident. I was using the strap under the lens to stop it sliding off the boot and I forgot how wide the 10-20mm is. The good thing with the wide lens is I don't have to be too accurate with my aim to get myself in the shot. I like the strap in the shot though, it says a lot about me which makes it even more a self portrait :)

Yesterday's word was 'chew'. Other than following the cat around with the camera, Alex was my best target. Now Alex isn't much of a chewer. He prefers to swallow his food whole so it all has to be kind of mushy. I did my best but here's a series of shots of Alex NOT chewing.

I had these ready yesterday but with our internet connection cut back I couldn't even get a blogger page to load to upload these. I waited until midnight for our connection to be restored but as with any service company, they are quick to cut off or charge for a service but take their time restoring it when they should. So 2am I gave up and went to bed. This morning things were finally working again but I have a lot to catch up on. Actually I'm having problems sending email now. Don't know yet if it's my PC or our connection. Typical, there's always something wrong when it comes to computers.
Alex learned to drink from a straw today! Finally! Not that we use straws around here and I don't give him any 'fast food' type drinks that come with straws, but sucking a straw seemed like a basic skill he should have. We have tried teaching him before but all he would do is chew the straw. Today I bought some flavoured milk in a cardboard popper. The sort you can't let a toddler hold 'cause if they squeeze it the drink will spray out of the straw. Perfect! I was able to squeeze the drink up the straw and eventually Alex got the idea that he could suck it up himself. I'll get him to practice this again tomorrow. This skill will be useful. Alex isn't very good at drinking from a cup yet but if he will drink from a straw we may be able to get him off bottles.
So he did really well at lunch time. He had almost a full chocolate milk, then some chicken and veg and pasta mashy mush, then chocolate custard and then a bottle of milk. Brilliant meal until he coughed and it all came back up, in 3 big liquid chocolate fountains. In the computer room no less! All over the carpet, me, my chair, a computer, an external hard drive (inside too), the desk and Grahams tool box. Alex was clean except for one sock and his bib. I was in the middle of typing a message to Jodi at the time so it took me a very long time to finish typing. The carpet doesn't look too bad but the room smells all sour cream chocolatety.
I think I'll save his next chocolate milk straw drink for when he is at his Grandparents tomorrow :)

Dish

2007-08-30T20:33:00.000+10:00

Today's HSMS is Dish.
"A shallow bowl or radio antenna. Find 'dish' in your space."
Well I like to think my husband is a bit of a dish but he isn't a shallow bowl or a radio antenna.

So I went through the shelves and came up with this.
I know it looks like an egg but it is a dish. My Dad made this during his pottery stage and somehow I scored it. It's a really good little dish for keeping knick knacks.
I haven't looked inside since our last move, about 6 years ago. It's just been sitting on the shelf with it's secrets hidden.

See it opens and there's the dish part.

and for the first time in 6 years here is the contents.

and here's another dish I think is pretty. This one came from a deceased estate onlong with some other bits and pieces I liked.

and here's Alex. Graham took this one tonight as he was putting the camera away for me.

Cloud

2007-08-29T18:47:00.000+10:00

So todays HSMS is cloud.
"A mass of water vapour. Show us 'cloud' in your space today."

It was 6pm when I found that, on what had been a cloudless day. The sun was already behind the hills and the light was almost gone but I grabbed the camera anyway and ran outside.
I stood in the backyard and looked around and found a cloud over the house. Well actually it wasn't over the house but the view I had of it was over the roof.
One of the neighbours was watching me. I'm sure he thinks I'm nuts, standing there photographing the sky. Especially after last nights effort shooting the moon.
So here is the cloud. Interesting shape.

and here is something else.
It's a flower :)
After shooting the cloud I turned and snapped a shot without aiming or changing my settings. So it was a slow shot and I was moving and this is what I got.

Blood moon apple

2007-08-28T22:41:00.000+10:00

The HSMS prompt for today is Apple.
"A red or green fruit from a tree. Show us 'apple' in your space today."

I was looking for a silver apple keyring I have but I don't know where it is so I hit the fridge. There's usually an apple in there somewhere. The apples from our local shop have been really disappointing lately, old, somewhat wrinkled and not crisp. The ones from Graham's work are nicer, being head office I think they get the best.
So here is an apple. Not a very attractive apple and it wasn't very tasty either.

Oh and we've gone over our monthly limit for the net so they've cut us back to slow access so internet access (and mail) is really slow. I've compressed these a little more than usual so I can upload them so the JPG quality is not very good and spoils the photos a bit.

Taken in the kitchen on a beige plate with 2 coloured chopping boards. Flash bounced off the ceiling. Canon 20D. Sigma 10-20mm lens at ISO 200, 1/250, F5.6.

Tonights moon was the 'blood moon' eclipse. I found myself wishing for a bigger lens again.
We set the tripod up in the backyard and took turns going out and snapping while cooking and eating dinner. These were with the 300mm lens.

Sun

2007-08-27T21:36:00.000+10:00

Mondays HSMS is Sun.
"An object that gives light and warmth. Find 'sun' in your space today."

So I took my little sonshine outside to capture the sun. It was a beautiful warm day, almost spring now!
Alex got to wear shorts for the first time in months and they fit him! Last summer his shorts were too long. This summer they should fit perfectly. Shirts are a different story. We will need some new ones soon. It was so nice to see his legs bare and I had forgotten how he gets red patches on the side of his face when he runs around in the sun.
Really looking forward to spring!

Here is my son and the sun. Both bring light and warmth.

and here's some more shots. The lawn really needs mowing and Alex does his best but just can't cut it. Actually for photos I like it long and green like this. When it's cut it doesn't look anywhere near as lush.
Alex was pushing his mower around making mowing noises until one of the neighbours started up a real mower. He got all worried about the noise and came to me for protection. The funny thing is when he does that he doesn't cuddle up to me, instead he backs into me and gets me to wrap my arms around him but with his back to me so he can still see and hear whats going on.

and just for comparison here's one from February in the same shorts. You can see how he has grown. Well I can anyway.

Self Portrait Saturday

2007-08-26T22:46:00.000+10:00

There's a blog called Her Space : My Space
which I like to read/look at. It looks like fun so I thought I'd play along. I always like challenges and a daily photo subject challenge may help the creative juices.
The time difference may make it a little confusing though. When I looked at the site at midday they were up to 'Self Portrait Saturday' so that's where I started. Now they are up to 'Show Off Sunday' so I guess I'll always be a day behind AU time unless the new day's prompt is something I can do late at night. I couldn't come up with any 'show off' photos which I haven't already shared except the wedding photos, which I don't have permission to share yet, so I guess unless I come up with a new favourite in the morning, then my constant showing off will just have to do :)
So here's my self portraits. 2 of them because I couldn't decide which I preferred. Taken under challenging conditions.
Today Graham went to a car meet with his new car club and I stayed home with Alex. I was looking forward to going as it was a BBQ and I thought I'd get some nice photos but Alex slept late so I told Graham to go without us. As it was Graham had trouble finding the place so missed out on the BBQ anyway.
What has this got to do with my self portraits? Well Graham took my camera and both my wide angle zoom lenses. So I was left with the backup camera, which is still good but slower than I'm used to, and the prime lenses or the big zoom. To take photos in this house I really need a wide angle lens, nothing to do with my weight, I just can't back up far enough for most shots with the other lenses. I could have gone outside (would have had better light) but Alex was asleep and has super hearing so I didn't want to risk opening the back door and waking him. It was bad enough that the cameras self timer beeps as it counts down and with the camera having to be on the opposite side of the room to fit me in the frame I was pushing the button and having to run on tippy toes to get into position for the shot. It was all quite funny really.
So here's me today. Taken with the 50mm 1.8 prime and Canon 10D. No makeup, I forgot that bit but I did brush my hair sometime today :)

Hard drives, beautiful hard drives!

2007-08-23T19:17:00.001+10:00

Things are getting back on track here.
I finally got my damaged hard drives replaced under warranty and now have one of them installed. Which means I am in the process of restoring everything from backups then I get to rearrange things and make new backups (after the other drive goes into the server). Meanwhile I have a huge backlog of photos to go through including a few hundred from Saturday's wedding. At least it will keep me offline a bit. We have almost reached our download limit for the month so have to be careful with web page access.
The wedding was lovely which is I guess exactly what you want for a wedding. The rain didn't start until the reception and I met some really nice people. I bought a new outfit for the occasion which was nice and summery so I was pretty cold most of the time :( and couldn't cuddle up to Graham to get warm. Though once the reception started the alcohol helped warm things up but I'm afraid I also got a bit talkative. These days it only a takes a few drinks and my focus and shutter speed become unreliable. I took a heap of photos but I wasn't the official photographer, (the grooms sister was) so I was very conscious of not getting in her way and not using any flash. So most of my shots had to be high ISO and slow shutter to work with the low light in the church and the reception. I got a lot of sneak shots, through the crowd and behind the scenes, and left all the posed shots for the photographer and the pushier guests :) I was impressed with how well the camera performed in low light with ISO 1600 and 3200. The photos will be fine as 6x4"s but there's too much noise in most for enlargements.
Makes me want an upgrade even more! Canon have finally announced the 40D but it will probably be a month before it's available. I've been waiting so long for this. It was like counting down to Christmas. There were so many rumours but everyone was pretty sure the new camera would be announced this month and it was, a few days ago :)
Alex has Gymbaroo tomorrow. We were going to the Wednesday group but we went to Friday's last week and he participated better. I think it's because all the kids on Fridays are his size. Wednesday group has some older children who are a lot bigger than Alex and he spends most of his time watching them and not paying attention to what he should be doing. So now we have changed to Fridays so tomorrow will be fun. He is really enjoying practicing his jumping and kicking and is counting everything he can. Though his counting usually starts with 2 and jumps to 4 or five. He can recognise 2 and A when 'reading' and often gets 4 and 5 correct too. I've found junk mail catalogs are best for this because everything is numbered and there's bound to be some nice large print on each page with an A in it. He also goes through the colours of things in the catalogs and points out which things are for Mama and which are for Dada, like shoes for Mama (I hate shoes) and belts for Dada.
Graham just got home with a speeding fine! I think I need a coffee so here's some photos:

Alex in his bedroom with the early morning light. I got him up, changed and dressed then put him back in his cot so I could take some photos with the nice light. I'm looking forward to the days getting longer and the light getting stronger.

We had a nice day recently so we played bubbles in the backyard. As you can see we don't get much sun in the yard. I was hoping for more now the neighbours trees are gone but it hasn't made any difference at this time of year.

Finally here's some photos from the wedding. Just my handsome husband (the best man) :) and one of the church. I have other photos I like but I don't have permission to put them online (yet).
The one on the phone was when they were looking for the bride. The horse and cart broke down and the minister wanted to know how long they would be. Of course the brides phone was turned off so Graham couldn't reach them.

Catch up photos

2007-08-02T11:03:00.001+10:00

I've been having some computer troubles lately so I haven't been blogging. 2 of my 300gb hard drives developed problems at the same time. One has all my photos and the other has all my art. No idea why this happened. Both the same brand/size drives, bought at the same time. My other 2 drives are OK. I seem to go through 2 drives a year (actually I think this makes 4 for this year). Different drives, different computers even. We have no idea why (same with my email and bookmarks, I lose them several times a year). These drives are still under warranty (only 11 months old) so I expect to get them replaced but it's meant many days of work to recover as many files as possible and back up everything, and check and double check my remaining drives. All this while trying to keep access to a minimal to avoid things getting worse and I didn't want to work on any photos after the last backup in case I lost them. I have lost some files but I don't know which and wont know until I go looking for them.
I now have a new 520gb drive and I've copied everything from the dodgy drives to it so I can clear them off and remove them. It's all very well taking drives back under warranty but you still need somewhere to store whats left on them first. When we get the drives replaced one will go back in my PC and the other will go in our backup server.
All this means I have a huge backlog of photos! So now that I can access them without fear of losing them here's a heap of pics.

First here's my beautiful boy looking quiet (it's a trick, don't believe it for a minute).

Alex woke up one day with a rash on his face. I think it was from drooling in his sleep. I took a photo of it anyway so I'd have something to compare if I thought it got worse later. It took a few days to heal.

Alex is into stacking and grouping lately. Everywhere I look I find towers or little collections of things.

Here's Critchon hiding (from Alex) under the table, before he went home, and a cold Tilly all snuggled under her blanket.

We have a row of succulents/cactus down the driveway. This year they all burst into bloom, in the middle of winter! We got home one day and they were all in flower. The sun was really low with just the last rays coming in almost horizontal between the houses. Which meant it was pretty dark at the base of the plants but the sun was at just the right angle and height to hit the flower spikes which were just glowing! Of course I had to race inside for the camera and get these shots before the sun went. The birds love the orange flowers but wont stick around for a photo.

Alex has a new toy and a new door.
This is his remote control Bob and Scoop toy. He doesn't watch Bob the builder but he sure knows who he is when he sees him. He saw this toy in the shop and the display made all sorts of noises and he loved it. We had a real fight to get him to leave it. Same when he saw it next. The third time he saw it it was on special so I gave in. He carried it all around the store and then to the next shops too, playing music all the way. It's one of those toys that drives parents mad, there's no volume switch! It says 10 different things with music and there's 2 remote options, a forward and turn mode or a 'follow me' mode. So Alex can 'drive' it just fine and he loves it. It turns itself off if he leaves it for a while which is a pain because just when he has found something else to do, Bob says 'bye bye'. So Alex goes running back only to find it's powered off and Mama has to reset it for him.
I decorated Alex's door after I touched up some paint chips on the doors and door sills in the hall. I wanted to do something pretty but I can't get away with flowers with a boy so I went for stars. Alex likes stars. The 7 larger stars are wooden shapes stuck on the door, same as his name. The paint has a silver and gold metal finish over the colours and there's glitter paint over all of it so it catches the light and twinkles like a star. Alex likes to point out the stars to me.

The camellia has been full of flowers this winter. It's first winter without being over shadowed by the old hedge we had.

The frost caught my coffee plant though! The beans are still there but no signs of ripening yet.

Hows this for ambitious?
A weed growing out the side of the tree.

Alex has a new hat that his Grandparents brought back from Sweden.
Naturally he had to wear it to mow the lawn.

He loves his Swedish hat!

He likes his Crocs too but it's a bit of a worry when he takes them off, sniffs them and says flower.

Such a stylish child! He matches his shoes and socks to his hat and his shirt to his mower.

It was Graham's birthday so we went to his Mom's for cake. For some reason birthdays in his family mean wearing a silly hat. I think it looks like it has prawn tails on top.

Alex rolling around on the floor. Nope it's not a tantrum, it's fun!

Last week one of the neighbours had some big trees cut down and shredded. It was very noisy and they started right when I put Alex down for his nap so there was no way he was going to sleep. We spent the rest of the day outside sort of watching. We couldn't see much over the fence and it was too dangerous the other side so Alex had to settle for me lifting him up to see and watching the crane from the garden. They had a huge crane lifting parts of the trees as they were cut and the street was blocked off by a few trucks and big shredding truck in the middle of the road. They lifted the trees with the crane to the middle of the road and then used chains to make them hover horizontally and feed into the shredder. There was fine tree dust flying everywhere and coating everything including the camera. Alex really wasn't at all sure about the noise. Every time they started fresh shredding he got all worried and clung to me but he was still interested enough to want me to pick him up so he could see again. If it wasn't for the bits flying around I would have let him stand on a chair to watch but it wasn't safe when the shredder was on.

This is our tree, in the background you can see one of the neighbours trees which didn't get chopped down. The ones that went were the same as the background tree, smaller than our tree.

Alex says the tree is 'all gone'.

Alex watering the fallen flowers. He was supposed to be watering the seedlings in the pot but I guess the dying flowers looked like they needed it more. He also pulled frost bitten leaves off my coffee bush.

Graham took this because he was impressed by the amount Alex had on his spoon.

Bath time is always so much fun. Alex loves pouring water over his head and I find it's good practice photographing in the bathroom with all the white reflective surfaces.

Check out that belly! It's all up high because it's a full tummy not fat. It's pretty easy to see when Alex has eaten well.