Blog Lazy.....

.......I know I know, I have been neglecting my blog. I have been super busy with Anna's B'day.......Yes that's right my baby girl is now THREE!!!!!! Ah, when did that happen? Crazy crazy. It wasn't just Anna's B'day, on that weekend it was Anna's B'day then the following day it was a little frind of her's Caleb's B'day, I met Caleb's Mum (Vanessa...Hi Ness) in hospital when I had Anna, we were neighbours LOL, then the following day it was Seths B'day party (most of you have seen Seth's photos on Flickr and have already fallen in love with him LOL. I will post a pic or two of him after his Mum has the CD full of photos). Anyway then a few days later it was Mum's B'day.....I have to say....if I see another B'day cake I am going to repeat my actions of the rotten egg incident. Speaking of Cake, I have to make time to do a post featuring Anna's B'day pics. They are not great as I was more interested in enjoying the day than taking photos and really didn;t care LOL......but I will post them all the same to show you how happy she was and how divine her cake was. I also have to post the rest of the necklace pics.

I have not been well, I'm still not. I am suffering terrible headaches, I am exhausted and I have been dizzy. It's all getting a bit scarey actually. I think I am seriously run down. For a week there I wasn't even enjoying taking photos......but then a new challenege was set in the beginners group I am part of and I have been fired up again LOL. LANDSCAPES......somehting I desperately need help with so the practice and CC given on my pics this week are priceless. I love a good landscape and want to be able to take them. If I get time I will post some tonight.

Today I took the kids to the beach, just for some time out of the house and so I could get some nice photos of them for myself....not for any challenges. I also wanted to practice my Backlighting shots. I also wanted to see what Ryan thought of the beach LOL. Turns out he thinks Sand is very very tasty and the sea calls to him as if he were a baby turtle making his first voyage to the water. Made taking photos very hard, but it also made for a fun time with the kids paddeling in the water and me so happy that they were both having so much fun. I got some nice photos of Anna but the ones of Ryan sucked. He had sand all around his mouth too from the fistfulls he was eating.

Anyway, that is my update. I will try to find some pics to post. First here is one of Ryan yesterday drinking his milk....well pretending to drink it LOL. I love this pic.

The above three were taken on Friday (18th April) I just wanted to test out some settings on my camera, trying to get a better SOOC shot. These are all SOOC and I am very happy with them TBH. Beats spending time PPing them. Oh actually....the bottom one was cropped. I also took some in RAW and the colour difference and clarity are amazing.....but I have to say that this time I prefer the SOOC JPEG's. I will post the RAW one abother time, I'll do a storyboard to compare them.

These last two were taken a few weeks back, maybe even a month back. It was a stormy day....actually it was not long before the melbourne storms hit. I had a turd of a time. It was freezing and I had just been to the Gym so I wasn't exactly rugged up. I had the wrong lens on my camera, I had forgotten to change my ISO from the day before, I fell in a canal and got my sneakers and orthotics wet.....soaked, I had to get down onto my belly for that top shot and came home with sand in my jocks and my lens got covered in salt spray. On a positive note I did not drop my camera in the water, my lens is fine and I love the shots I got in the end.

And finally.....here are todays beach shots of Anna.

"Cracking me up"

Baked Beads

Baked Beads. What you need!

4 cups of plain flour

1 cup of salt

1.5 cups of cold water

Food colourings

Skewer

Oven Tray & Baking paper

Time.....this is not one to be rushed

What to do!

Mix the flour and salt together in a large mixing bowl, if your cooking salt is lumpy like mine make sure you break up all the lumps. Anna did a good job of this for me.

Add the water and mix together before transfering to a floured board or bench. Knead untill the dough is smooth and not falling apart, about 5 mins. You will be kneading more once the food colourings are added so don't be too fussy, you don't want the dough to dry out.

Divide the dough into equal amounts depending on how many colours you would like, Anna decided to make 8 different colours (however not all of them made it to the oven LOL). Add the food colouring, I found the best and most fun way to do this was to flatten the dough, make a little well and just add a little puddle., Then squish it all together over the sink, work it in a bit then transfer it to your bench and knead untill the colour is even and the dough is smooth. Little arms are tried by now so it's time for adult hands to get dirty (the dye will have worn off the following day).

Roll the dough into different shapes....or just round beads if you prefer. Use a skewer to poke holes through the beads.

Place the beads onto an oven tray lined with baking paper so as they are not touching.

Place the tray into a preheated "slow oven" now I have had conflicting on what "slow" means. After ruining our first batch Anna and I found that turning the fan off and having the oven set at 110-120deg was PERFECT. Too hot and the beads will dry out too quick, expland and split. (This batch pictured above ended up in the bin.) Bake for about 2-3 hours, keep checking them. You want them to be completely dried out and hard. I turned ours over at some stage.

That's it....once they have cooled they are ready to be threaded onto some elasic or fishing line to make a spunky new necklace (more pics coming soon).

PAD - April 4th

Happy Birthday Jodi

Today is my absolute most Fav cousin's B'day. So, Happy Birthday Jodi. Wish I was sinking a few good red wines with you RIGHT NOW......Mwahhhh XXXXXX

Below is my PAD for today. Not much, just a weed in the backyard with some texture. But that is what PAD is all about. Doing what you can with what you have and getting some practice at the same time. I wish my wool arrived today. I just wanna be crocheting right now. I like to crochet when it's cold.

Rotten Eggs

OMG.....Anyone who really knows me knows I have issues with three things. Balloons, Champagne corks and EGGS.I hate eggs, I hate the smell of them and I hate the look of them. Every now and then I will eat them (up untill yesterday that is......I will never eat one again after yesterday) but I don't crave them and could easily live without them. When Cam cooks them I go nuts about the smell and amost vomit everytime I open the dishweasher when he has put eggy dished in there. A few weeks ago he had "Dippy eggs" and I ended up dry wretching at the sight of them.

Anyway, for some strange reason I don't make a bad omlette and I decided to make one to Anna's dinner last night, but the first egg I cracked was ROTTEN. This is the first time this has ever happened to me. I have never ever smelled anything like it.....Instantly I was sick all over the kitchen floor.

To cut a long story short, I had actually decided to skip PAD yesterday, I'd had a really busy day and hadn't thought of anything to photograph and didn't really care to be honest so I thought I would just skip it. However once I cleaned up the vomit and recovered I dedided that perhaps I would take some pics of the remaining three eggs as a story went with them. I also decided it was time for me to practice with some backlighting. DO I have these eggs set up and Anna comes along and starts counting them and playing with them. So that is how I came up with PAD for April 3rd. The top one was my PAD entry for yesterday. I am impressed with the Bokeh in the top left corner. I was wondering when I would get my hands on some of that LOL.

My Wedding Necklace

I got this necklace for my 18th B'day from my Grandma and Aunti in Scortland. From the very moment I saw it knew I would wear it on my wedding day......and I did. I am spewing I did not get the photographer on the day to get some pics of it specifically but nevermind, gave me something to photograph for "A Photo a Day" today. The idea popped into my head last night, there are a few very special things of mine I want to photograph for "keepsakes" and this was my #1. I am thrilled with the end result. They were very very very rushed. I took them and processed them all in the couple of hours the kids napped this arvo.....along with having lunch and sorting some washing and catching up on some general surfing so I think I did really well LOL. I only just got my PAD submitted when we lost power and I left the computers off for the rest of the day.

Anyway enjoy, I hope that one day Anna wears this on her wedding day.