Mothers group and Stella's birthday

Last weekend we celebrated the first of our Mother's Group's baby birthdays! Wow, I can't believe how fast the time has gone! The birthday party was for Stella, who is the oldest bub in our group (Ethan is the second youngest). Here is the birthday girl herself!The party was in Kings Park in the middle of a heatwave (it was a 38 degree day). Needless to say the cupcake icing wasn't the only thing melting!

Who's this cute dude??

Mum can I get one of these please??

There were a few girls missing from mothers group but we did manage to get a photo of us all while we were dressed up and clean... no I take that back, Ethan had been eating dirt so he wasn't clean! The most common thing I hear people say about Ethan is "he is a real little boy isn't he". It's true though... Ethan was happier exploring the park, eating dirt, grass and sticks and trying to climb trees than playing with the other babies!
There is just 10 weeks until Ethan's birthday party, I better get planning haha!

Welcome to the world Caitlin Rose!

Last week my very good friend Melanie and her husband Michael welcomed their wee girl- Caitlin Rose- into the world!

Congratulations Melanie and Michael!!

Here she is in the onesie we got her... maybe a bit big at this stage!

(photo courtesy of Melanie)

I look forward to all the future playdates Ethan and Caitlin will have!

Happy Birthday Jason

March 7 is a very special day- It's Jason's birthday! Jason was lucky to have his parents here to celebrate with us as well.

The day started off well with croissants, bacon and triple cream brie (not my first choice for breakfast but Jason did love it!). We then did the present opening.

Unfortunately Ethan wasn't as organised as he should have been and his present to his Daddy is still on its way! Despite this, Jason was still very spoilt, getting a lovely greenstone from his sisters and a cool new waterproof video camera from his Mum and Dad and me and Ethan.

Whenever life gets hard and the road gets rough,
My eyes search for you, cause you help me out when times are tough.
You hold my hand firm, stand by me and show me that you care,
No matter what the case is I know that you'll always be there.
Your presence makes my heart feel so very light,
As long as you're there nothing in the world can give me a fright.
A very Happy Birthday to you my love!!

Project 52: Week 9

shine [shahyn] verb

• to give forth or glow with light; shed or cast light.
• to be bright with reflected light; glisten; sparkle.
• (of light) to appear brightly or strongly, especially uncomfortably so: Wear dark glasses so the sun won't shine in your eyes.
• to be or appear unusually animated or bright, as the eyes or face. to appear with brightness or clearness, as feelings.

This weeks challenge was a really enjoyable one! I had fun despite my initial trepidation at the theme!

In third place is the Christmas decorations taken in the early morning Perth sun!

In second place we have the sparklers, bringing back memories from my childhood.
In first place is a shot I snapped at the market this morning, we had popped in to get some bread and I saw the water reflecting off the council buildings. I snapped 2 photos in total, took around 5 seconds and got this one! I was very pleased with the outcome! It proves that as a photographer you need to be prepared and have your camera at all times because you never know when a great photo opportunity will come your way!
Stay tuned for next week, the theme is "hands".

Project 52: Week 8

red - noun, adjective, red·der, red·dest.

noun

• any of various colors resembling the color of blood; the primary color at one extreme end of the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 610 and 780 nm.

Well, it wasn't until I started this weeks challenge that I realised how little red I have in my life. Round the house there is one pair of shoes, one dress and some kids toys. In the local neighbourhood there is a whole lot less!!! I did find this sign though (not part of the challenge but needed to be published!)....


If I was organised and had my camera on me 24/7 I would have been able to get some cool shots of this car (Mustang- one of Jason's favourites) but all I had was my phone (again not posted as part of the challenge).So to the actual photos from this week. I am cheating this week and posting 4 photos. I just don't have the time to sit her pondering over them all and am sitting on the fence for third place!

In equal third is the gerbera macro and the brick wall! The gerbera macro is here because I love macro shots and the first 10,000 photos I took were of flowers (I may be exaggerating slightly but it was a lot).

The brick wall made it to the final cut because its such an inane thing to take a photo of but I think the photo was great quality. I wanted to show that photos can be taken when there really isn't a lot of special things around!
In second place is the drops on the gerbera petal... the background to this photo is actually Ethan's paddling pool, not the sky! In first place is my raspberry lemonade! While I am not 100% happy with the background I just couldn't look past the richness and depth in the lemonade itself!

I hope you enjoyed this week's photos as much as I enjoyed taking them. Stay tuned for next week, the theme is "shine" (I am not sure what possessed me when setting this theme!)

Black eye!

It's happened! Our little adventurer boy is sporting his first black eye! He took a big tumble in the bath a couple of nights ago! There were tears from mummy and Ethan but in the end I think that I was more frightened than he was!

Photos from over east...

While in Queensland I got to take some other photos that weren't for Project 52 and weren't of Ethan! I just wanted to share a few favourites with you all (in no particular order).

Ethan's visit over East

Last weekend Ethan and I traveled over to the Sunshine Coast to spend a couple of days with my family.We stayed our first night with my sister Tiffinee, her husband Mark and their two boys- Harrison and Hudson. The next day we headed up the coast to Mum and Dad's house for a few days. My brother Tyson was just home from Canada so we got to spend some time with him as well. On our last day Ethan and I spent some time with my sister Camille, her partner Colin and daughter Summer. All in all it was a great trip (apart from the mossies and sandflies) but as per usual just not enough time! Here are a couple of photos from the trip.

Ethan with his nanny.Ethan walking in the lovely garden with nanny.
Ethan bonding over a beer with poppy.
Ethan sharing an ice block with Poppy.
Ethan made a new friend (Bella).Ethan tried to play with all nanny's pot plants (she was much better at the "no" than I am, Ethan listened to her more than me).Ethan got up to lots of mischief.
Ethan showed his Nanny and Poppy how much he likes food! Especially mango!Ethan LOVES playing with water. Lucky it had been raining so it wasn't rationed!
We visited the botanical gardens (a great day out). Ethan had LOTS of fun in the rain (there were way too many cute photos so I needed to use lots of them).All in all a great trip with some wonderful memories. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos with Tiff and her family, Camille and her family or Tyson!! I need to do better at that next time!

Project 52: Week 7

time [tahym] noun, adjective, verb, timed, tim·ing.

noun

• the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.
• duration regarded as belonging to the present life as distinct from the life to come or from eternity; finite duration.
• a system or method of measuring or reckoning the passage of time: mean time; apparent time; Greenwich Time.
  
• a limited period or interval, as between two successive events: a long time.
• a particular period considered as distinct from other periods: Youth is the best time of life.

This weeks theme of time wasn't too hard. I was based in Queensland (at my mum and dad's house) so I had a different environment to shoot in as well, which was great.

Third place was the tree rings. As a tree grows, it produces new layers of wood around the trunk, just under the bark. If a tree is cut down, the layers are visible in a cross section. The layers appear as a set of concentric circles known as tree rings. In general, one layer of wood grows each year. Each layer consists of two colors of wood: light-colored "earlywood" that grows in the spring and summer plus darker, denser "latewood" from the fall and winter.Second place goes to the clock hanging in my mum and dad's house. This is a very literal interpretation of time! Some of my other photos (which didn't make the cut for this post) were more abstract.
In first place is the time signature in the music sheet (the Norwegian Cradle Song for those that are interested). In a music sheet, the time signature appears at the beginning of the piece, as a time symbol or stacked numerals immediately following the key signature of the clef. There are various types of time signatures, depending on whether the music follows simple rhythms or involves unusual shifting tempos.
Stay tuned for next week, the theme is "Red".

Jason's job

I realise lots of the blog is about me or Ethan and not a lot about Jason! So I am looking at changing that a bit!

So what does Jason do for a job?

Well, Jason works for a small company called Yambay, out of its Subiaco office. According to its website "Yambay provides mission critical mobile solutions to the enterprise market serving customers that need a highly functional solution with interoperability across all core systems"... sheesh what a mouthful that is! I'll attempt to explain it in layman's terms.

One of Yambay's clients is Western Power (a State Government owned corporation that builds, maintains and operates the electricity network in the south west corner of Western Australia). Jason's company provides the software that Western Power uses to maintain the powerlines. For example, if a powerline comes down, then the software from Jason's company dispatches linesmen to fix the downed line.

Jason's official job title is "Application Specialist". That means that he is the "go-to" man at Western Power to talk to or solve any issues or training needs regarding the software that Yambay provides. Lately Jason has been tripping around the state visiting the depots- this sometimes involves driving 300km to get to a 2 hour meeting!

Jason sent me a picture of his desk last week!