Excuses

Well, I'm clearly off to a bad start with making a better effort to keep this blog up! I could come up with plenty of excuses, but won't bore you with them. Suffice to say I've been pretty busy with photography, scrapbooking and generally being a mum to 2 small boys. And a perfect wife to my husband, obviouslly!

Things are starting to pick up a bit with the child photography. I've done a couple of newborn shoots recently and have several more babies and toddlers lined up over the next few weeks. Plenty to keep me busy, and keep Michael happy that one of these days he'll be married to a top notch photographer and can retire, ha ha! I have had my first paying customer but I'm guessing that it will be a long time before any of us can retire round here. If you know of anyone in my general vicinity with kids who would like to take part in a portfolio building offer, please direct them here. The more practice I get the better.

And on the scrapbooking front, my exciting news is that my layout is going to be on the cover of the next Scrapbook Magazine! Now I know that this is not very exciting news for the majority of people I know, but I know enough people who care to share this news! Hurray!!

I'm posting a few recent photos just in case anyone has been missing the boys! And there are a few new pics in the portfolio album if you fancy a look.

The first few of these were taken yesterday at Mountstewart. The boys and I went for a walk and a picnic snack. And I pestered the boys with my camera trying to practice!

Do you think Patrick was fed up with me taking photographs of him?

Look how cute these two are! All hot and bothered but still not able to leave each other alone!

This is a new face Conor has come up with all by himself! Don't tell me this boy isn't going to be trouble!

Think you're having a bad day?

Then check this out and see if you still feel sorry for yourself.

Trying harder...

to get into this blogging thing. Spent a lot of time yesterday and today working on the site and looking at other blogs from the girls on the SBM design team. There is an article about blogging in issue 17 and lots of the other sites are in there and they have links to here so I thought I better get busy! If you have time take a look at their sites - some are v inspiring and have other great links.

There. That's 2 entries in 2 days! Only tomorrow will tell if I can continue the flow!

This heat...

...is fantastic

...is making me lament my post-pregnancy summer wardrobe!

...is the perfect excuse to eat ice creams and ice lollies since all the calories will be sweated off while lying on my lounger!

...is almost more than the boys can bear :(

...making sleep almost impossible (at night, that is, since I could happily sleep anywhere during the day!)

...is the perfect opportunity to take silly summer pictures like these!

Happy weekend!

A discovery

I've recently realised that while this blog is subtitled "Life with the Boyds", it's really only my input about Patrick and Conor! Clearly Michael will not be posting any time soon, and while Patrick is a dab hand on the CBeebies website I'm pretty sure he would wreck this one. So it's really my site! And to that end I've added a new album of my scrapbook layouts. Feel free to browse, comment or indeed not bother looking! Just thought I'd share!

Conor's Big Day

Today was Conor's christening, and thanks to many prayers, the Lord blessed us with a beautiful day. We were lucky to have so many of our friends and family there to share this special day with us. In the ideal world, all of you would have been there and we know you would have liked to have been there too. But we won't take you off the Christmas card list or anything drastic!

Conor was privileged to be wearing the same gown (also known as a dress but not really manly enough!) that Patrick had worn, and Michael and Joanne before them. It's almost becoming an heirloom. My job now is to have it ready for the day Joanne tells us she needs it!!

Patrick was a superstar at the church - there had been much preparation and talk of how the minister was going to put water on Conor's head and later carry him around the church for everyone to see. But it was still a near miracle that he didn't cry out for Conor to come back! In fact, after Conor had been blessed, Patrick asked me, "Is God going to take Conor round the church now?"  He's too cute, that boy!

After the service, we had a lovely BBQ at the house. Too much food consumed and lots of fun had. It was really a great day. Thank you everyone for your lovely cards and kind gifts - all much appreciated. Individual thank you notes will be winging their way in the next few days!

You may notice the conspicuous lack of pictures of just us Boyds below - it does make it look like Michael and I have fallen out and can't stand to be in the same photo! Actually all the pics of us are on dad's camera, so we'll have to wait until he e-mails them to us. They will be added sometime soon.

Yikes! That was rather larger than expected!

 

Back to porridge

Well, I've been back to school for 2 whole days now and just wanted to let you all know that I've survived so far! It's a bit like having a holiday - real coffee breaks and lunch times when nobody cries at me or spews on me and where my tea or coffee are still warm when I get to the last mouthful! And sure it's the weekend for me tomorrow!

Happy Father's Day

Just wanted to post this photo of my boys and their daddy - how gorgeous are they?!

And another cutie of Conor

 

Paris

As promised I'm posting a few photos that I took in Paris last week. For once I pretended I'm not obsessed with getting a good picture and just took mum's handy digital so I could relax and actually enjoy the trip without constantly worrying about the photographs! Slightly anal but I usually can't help myself.

Having never been to Paris before I was pretty excited and hoping that it lived up to my expectations. My first view of the city was coming up from the Metro and being faced with the Arc de Triomph right in front of me. Definitely not a disappointment! Our hotel was just a few minutes walk from here so we were well placed for some mooching up the Champs Elysees - clearly not buying anything other than food since that took all our money!

We did pretty much all we wanted to without wrecking ourselves, although we did still manage to walk the legs off ourselves on more than one occasion. Everything looks closer than it actually is! Went to the Louvre (v impressive and super good value - a bit obsessed with getting pictures here but I calmed down afterwards!), went to the top of the Eifel Tower (Michael not altoghether thrilled with the lift ride), took a boat along the Seine, got ripped off for ice cream and crepes (surely part of the whole experience!), and did a bit of shopping. Tried not to feel too guilty about leaving the boys behind, especially since they both had horrendous colds at the time! Had a lovely relaxing time, just the two of us. We must start saving to do this again!

Yikes! It's been ages!

Well I'm not doing too well at keeping you all up to date with us! It's been a busy few weeks with the boys and other things. So, here's a few highlights.

1. Everybody has been sick! All Michael's fault. Stupid cough and cold, but Conor decided to add his own twist to it and had an overnight stay in hospital. Nothing major, but a very high temperature and rash which resulted in a lumbar puncture :-( Anyway, he was fine after a few days, but both the boys are coughing like they're heavy smokers!! So that's nice for all of us!

2. Michael and I went to Paris for a few days. Didn't even feel guilty about leaving the boys behind! Had a great time seeing the sights and getting ripped off for crepes and cokes. Gorgeous weather too. Good fun trying to come up with non-child related topics of conversation - almost missed talking about who had done more poo or how many times Conor had spewed!! Will post pics when I get them uploaded.

3. I've been doing a lot of photography for Liz, my friendly baby yoga instructor. She asked me to take pictures at all her classes (baby massage, yoga, swimming, ante-natal yoga etc) so she can get promotional flyers done. And from that a few mums have asked me to come and take photos of their kids at home.  All very exciting as this is something I'm keen to do more of as part of my 'I don't want to be a teacher anymore' plan! Also had the opportunity to photograph a few friends' babies too, so I've been having fun. Again, I'll post pictures when I get permission from the parents - have to keep myself right. But if anyone reading this knows of anyone in my area (Greater Belfast) who would like photos taken of kids/babies in their own home, just pass my e-mail on to them. I need as much experience as I can get!

Sorry for lack of photos this time round -will get some up by the weekend.