Branching out

I've clearly been slaving away over the wedding photos I did for Michael's cousin a couple of weeks ago. Hence my lack of blogging and picture posting. I also further climbed up in the bad mother ratings for not posting on Patrick's birthday. And there are many, many pictures! And I will post them, but for now I am not going to get worked up about not blogging, because much as I love it and want to be able to post daily, life just doesn't allow me to do that at the minute. And I won't feel guilty! So there!

Anyway, before I lose all my readers I shall give you a preview of the wedding pics. I was generally pretty pleased with the results but my camera was in the process of dying so a few weren't great. The upside of that is I'm also trawling the digital slr market for a new one!! Very exciting times indeed. Ok, pictures coming up...

 

Lazy blogger

I admit, I've been a terrible blogger this past few weeks. Things are just crazy at the minute. Take tonight for instance. Conor woke about an hour after going to bed and when I went into his room I could hear the scraping and flapping sounds of a (another) bird trapped in the cavity wall between his room and the bathroom. It would appear we have starlings nesting somewhere in the eaves of the house and one of them must have fallen. We had a similar experience a few weeks after moving in, although after about 3 days the noises finally slowed down then stopped. One can only imagine what's lying down there now! Anyway, the outcome of tonight's episode was that we had to take Conor to my mum's to stay as no other rooms in the house have curtains and that would have meant getting up at about 4am when Conor would most likely have decided it was time to get up!

Aside from that I've been a busy photographer. Last weekend I went to Liverpool for Michael's cousin's wedding, at which I was also doing photographs. Talk about pressure! It was such a beautiful wedding, but given that I was being watched by everyone and that I knew half of them I felt very nervous. It's a very different experience from babies and families where you know you can always reschedule if things go wrong. Thankfully, my friend Kenny came with me and brought bucketloads of talent and experience to the whole affair and I think we pretty much covered it! I promise to post a few pics in a day or two. For me, though, one of the nicest things was the impromptu newborn session I got to do with the bride's 10 day old nephew the next day! He was just adorable. I'm not at all ashamed to confess that I've proofed a good few of this session despite the hundreds of wedding pics waiting patiently in another folder on my desktop!

   

His brother was extremely cute too:)

I seriously have a ton of photos to share but bed is calling me, so I shall post those over the next few days. And to those of you I owe a phone call, I admit to being a rubbish friend and shall make amends tomorrow!! PROMISE :)

Check this out!

A friend of Michael's is helping me out with this!

How very exciting!! Will keep you posted.

Beautiful

Just a quick post to share a few pictures from my newborn session at the weekend. This little girl was amazing - so wide eyed for being less than 2 weeks old and totally loving the camera! Can you tell her parents have modelled in their time?! It must be in the genes:)

eta: it's the dad's tummy! Do you think I would torture myself if it was the mum's?!! 

To the ladies

Once a month I get to meet up with a group of incredibly cool girls for some food, chat, a lot of laughter and a healthy dose of encouragement. I've known some of them forever (well actually just my sister!), some for years, and some for just a few months. We are all so different but have been brought together by our faith in God. This week has been a very emotional one in many ways, and being with these girls tonight really made me realise how blessed I am. So I thought I'd just very quickly say thank you to the ladies. You are amazing girls and life is better because of each of you:)

ps Apologies for no pictures but there should be some tiny baby ones at the weekend. SO excited!!

Playing catch up

Most days when I look at friends' blogs and other fab scrap sites I see new layouts everyday. Take my good friend Jo for example. No sooner is she back home from a fab family outing til she has the photos uploaded and a page or two completed! Absolutely brilliant. And Sheila has gone scrap mad! But me, I take pictures galore, leave them on the card til I need it for a session before uploading them. And I am brimming over with inspiration from the hundreds of scrap magazines I read but rarely muster up enough energy to actually create the layouts that are in my head! But this last week or so I have actually managed to do a few layouts that I've been thinking about when I should have been marking coursework or doing chores!!

I love these pictures of Conor playing with his toys uninterrupted by his big brother! He's getting so much better at amusing himself and is amazed by everything he sees these days. I've been a bit inspired by Jamie Waters' layouts in Ali Edwards book. I love how she uses patterned paper.

I'm on a bit of an inspiration kick when it comes to layouts at the minute - see above note about reading magazines! This time doing what I've seen many do, and using a square punch to crop photos and paper. It's a bit busier than my usual stuff but I like it! Obviously scrapping the birthday pictures from last year!

This last one was a bit of an unexpected layout. A few months after Conor was born last year, Patrick began pulling out his hair, right on the top of his head. I came across this picture while looking for the ones in the previous layout and was really taken aback. I had forgotten just how much hair he had pulled out - a patch nearly the size of my hand. I had never intended to scrap this little episode, but when I saw the photo I realised it is an important and noteworthy part of his little life and deserved to be recorded. It certainly was the focus of our lives for a few months and had knock on effects galore. I'm glad I've done this page. Loving my doodles as well! Good to see I'm behind the times as usual with scrap trends, but it's all good, right?

2 boys and an egg hunt

It's all been a bit crazy around here over Easter. Good crazy, that is. For a start the weather has been fantastic so we've been outside a LOT! This is good because it means less tv, more activity and lots of fresh air. However, this is not good because the garden is a health and safety hazard as far as Conor is concerned - lots of uneven paving and a playhouse with a little wooden ladder (leading only to A&E as far as I can see!) This is not going to be the year of lazing in my sunchair while watching the boys play peacefully! But we've been having fun. The grass is a football pitch, a rugby pitch, a cricket pitch and a golf course all rolled into one. Thankfully we've made friends with our neighbour behind who I think will be tossing a lot of balls back into our garden! She seems jolly lovely:)

Easter Monday was a great day. We went to Nanny and Grandpa's for a BBQ (I may have previously mentioned that my dad is the king of bbqs. See post about Christmas dinner, ie, bbq'd steaks!) Nanny had also painstakingly organised a totally fun egg hunt for Patrick, complete with clues and rhymes! You can tell she was a primary school teacher in her hey day! The egg hunt looked like this:

1. Find clue in paper bag.

2. Reach into bag for next clue and mini egg treats.

3. Stash treats in fab little bucket!

4. Read next clue to find next little bag of Easter loveliness!

5. Stuff face!

Conor also seemed to be having a great time while all this was going on, although what exactly he was up to, or about to be up to, we're not too sure! Definitely trouble of some sort judging by this face!

 

Finishing up with a VERY cute pic of my little lovelies. Patrick is totally loving Conor at the minute - he better soak it up while the going is good! Playing with my new set of actions from Jinky. Love them but need more time to play with them.

 

How cute is this?

I've been taking photos this week. Of babies. But not the human sort.

I honestly could have brought one home with me, but common sense prevailed and I left them behind. They were just the cutest things. And I get to go back and take pictures of the one they're keeping. He's the runt of the litter and hasn't been well and was in isolation from the rest when I took these.

I am, however, going to do newborn photos for my friend Jen's sister next week which is very exciting as the baby will be less than a week old. Again, nearly dying with excitement! I LOVE taking newborn pictures - all that scrunched up loveliness and parents just beside themselves with how amazing their tiny bundle is. Yummy all round!

In other yummy news, we spent such a fab morning with our top chums ever, Gareth and Rosie, and Auntie Lesley too, of course! Lots of coffee, cream doughnuts (all part of the Florida plan!) and then lovely lunch at Eden pottery. So great to catch up and spend a bit of time with people we totally love to death:) Wish we could see them more often though. We miss you guys too much!

After lunch, Patrick and I decorated the incredible Easter egg Lesley bought for him. It's a Smarties one that you put face stickers on before you eat it. This is Patrick's doing!

It's like Mr Potato Head, but edible! Love it.

Nestle have done well this Easter!

And yes, Patrick is still bored with the camera!!

Finishing off tonight with a few words we've used on our Easter service invitations.

Death is dead

Love has won

Christ has conquered!!

Have a lovely Easter:)

Pencil Lines Layout

Every week I check out the Pencil Lines blog and sketch and think to myself, "I'm definitely doing that this week." And every week I find about a hundred other non-scrap related things to do instead and so I never get round to it. Until now! I have finally allowed my inner creativity to over-ride the urge to either surf the internet, veg out on the sofa or do mundane jobs. I decided to do a page about Conor's use of the phrase "uh-oh" which we hear all the time! It really is very cute, but generally accompanies some minor spillage, droppage or other toddler misdemeanour! I may have been urged on by the Hambly goodies that one lucky post will receive, but regardless, another little instance of our life has been scrapped for future generations to enjoy!

Glorious day

It honestly felt like summer was just around the corner here today. The sun was out all day and it was warm enough to be out in short sleeves this afternoon. I know that this will particularly gall my sister who is in York visiting friends for the weekend and who told me earlier that they were wearing hats and gloves! We, on the other hand, took a walk down to the beach. This is why we moved here:)

And I think my favourite shot of the day was this...

Today's other major event was our trip to the Big into Baby show at the King's Hall. It's one of those events that has exhibitors from Huggies to interior design to clothing. I went mainly to see what the photographers had to offer, and I have to say they were genuinely impressive. So I had better keep up the practice! However, the highlight was that Patrick was brave enough to get his face painted. He has shied away from this kind of activity up to now, so I was really chuffed that he waited patiently in line with Nanny (bless her for coming with me and doing general childminder duties on her day off!) for a good 20 minutes. The end result was this.

How cute is that? He kept it on all day and I pretty much had to bribe him at bedtime to get his face washed! He ran round all day doing Spiderman 'stunts' and pretending to catch us in webs! We loved it but Conor was less than impressed!

A thoroughly lovely day in the Boyd household (obviously ignoring the continued whingeing from tiny - it's just assumed at the moment that he isn't in great form, poor little lad). So how was your Saturday?