A summary of Anna and Ryan 2009.......

..........In photos of course.






A collection of some of my fav portraits from this year.

Foreground, Middleground & Background.

Man it has been a while since I posted.....I know.

So much has been happening, I have been counting cals, exercising and losing weight and finally back to my pre-Ryan size pretty much. I have not picked up the camera much, but have had some wonderful wins at Camera club.

I have so many photos to share on here, a special family members wedding, my babies growing up, my hair all chopped off and some special trophies.....however at the end of this rather busy day it all seems to be too much effort and I can't be bothered. I hope that I can update my blog properly one day.

The main thing I wanted to blog about tonight was a "special moment" today. Other photographers will appreciate this. A perfect "foreground, middleground and background". The only thing missing was the blissful sound of the shutter on my camera.

Foreground: The outer edges of our Xmas tree, silver and purple decorations and simple clear fairylights.

Middleground: Anna and Ryan playing with Anna's Disney princess cards in the theater room in front of the window, the evening light creating a stunning halo around them.

Background: Cam "rolling" the cricket pitch outside the theater room. The enthusiasm amuses me.

I was kicking back at the kitchen table when I saw this and was mesmorised, too scared to go get the camera incase I missed the moment so I decided to enjoy it without the capture.

After being exposed to some rather depressing crap on the internet lately it was a welcome uplifting moment that I really really appreciated, and on that note I might go and watch a Jane Austen movie in bed while Cam watches the cricket.

Jodi, if you read this I hope you and your lovely new husband enjoyed your honeymoon in Australias most beautiful state. I hope you are both well. I also hope you guys loved Port Arthur as much as we did. I also hope you got to see Richmond, the Richmond Jail was especially interesting.

I really have so much more to post about and so many photos to share but really where do I start? I have been so slack I am so behind. Best I leave it till after Xmas.....then after the New Year.....Then after a special family visit LOL. Perhaps I will catch up before the busy April B'day Rush.

My poor neglected blog.

I do love my blog dearly but I have once again neglected it! I am a poohead I know. Anyway it has been a busy few months since Ryan's B'day. I have had alot of work to finish, I have been to see Eskimo Joe live in Melbourne with my Awesome neighbour Sarah, I have been away on an awesome girls weekend with my PH family, a very special friend announced her pregnancy and my #1 cousin got engaged which means a trip to QLD for me at the end of the year. I have taken up running again only to slack off AGAIN!

The main thing keeping me busy here though is the kids. They are growing so fast, as are their attitudes. We had a mini photo session yesterday, a good opportunity for me to update the blog and profile pics.


Poor Ryan has inherited my crap eyes, one of them being smaller and a different shape to the other. Mum and Dad recon Anna has inherrited my temper and gift of the gab.

I have fallen in love with Eskimo Joe (Thanks Sarah) and listen to them most days if I can LOL. The concert was awesome, I actually wore the dress I am wearing in my photos here (yes it's a dress not a shirt) and some awesome new boots I got. I'd not slept the night before the concert, I was bloated like nothing else and my chin had errupted with the worlds hugest breakout......everything was against me....but with some good underwear and a LOT of makeup I got myself out the door, even thoguh at the time I didn't feel like it, and boy am I glad I did. There is nothing like a good live band....NOTHING! Looking forward to the next time.

I am still going to camera club but have missed a few nights this year. I have missed my last two judgings and am yet to find out how I went. I have heard whispers of a first place though which is awesome.

Well....It's that time of night....time to put the apron on and cook dinner.

Our baby boy turns TWO!!!

Can you believe it? Our baby boy turned two today! We had a great day, it started off with pressies after breaky. He got a Tonka truck off Anna and a tool bench and drill off us. I then whipped up a quick batch of cup cakes then we all headed off to Rain Hayne and Shine farm in Balnaring. Ryan loves chickens and took a liking to one in particular, he was chasing it saying "pat pat pat" so I tried to catch it for him....however I am terrified of fowl, they creep me out and I chicked out (LOL, get it....chickened) anyway I chickened out everytime I got close.

Ryan had a great time....Anna not so much, she was scared of everything and complained the whole time. I did a bit of complaining myself, there was poo everywhere at the farm and I got some on my camera bag and it STINKS.....Not happy.

AFter Ryan's nap we took the traditional family "birth time" photo then we did the "cake" we did not go all out for Ryan's cake, we decided to do it cheap and just go with cupcakes. Infact.....I am so tight that I only decorated 4 of them then froze the rest for a future Mum's Group LOL. Nevermind....he loved it. That's it...we had a family afternoon tea on Sunday to celebtrate his B'day so we kept today very low key and just to the four of us. It was great.

Of course I have a few pics to share. OMG I have not blogged about our holiday.....crikey I had better get some sample boards done up of that so I can blog all the photos. Watch this space.

The B'day Cupcakes.

Blowing out the candles and stuffing his face.

P.s......Hi Jodi XXXXXXXXXXX

Distracted.

I am so close to finishing my second last client session I have to work on but then THIS vision came to me....and I just HAD to throw it together before I lost it. I don't do stuff like this much anymore so when I see something in my head I have to go for it. I took these images when I first got the new camera but have not done anything with them yet. All the templates out there for things like this have larger gaps between the images but I wanted to keep these close so I did my own in Lightroom.....it was very quick and lots of fun.



I am going back to the old way of uploading so excuse the small images from now on. I am not renewing my pro flickr account so some of my images from my blog will dissappear over time too.

This time it's Ryan's turn....

You may notice I take A LOT of pictures of Anna and no-where near as many of Ryan. That is simply because he doesn't sit still long enough so I tend to give up easily with him. However, yesterday we managed a little mini shoot with him. He was running aorund naked wearing his Dad's Ugg Boots so I HAD to grab the camera. However he ran and hid in Anna's toy box and this is what we ended up with .




Very cute indeed huh!

We also received my canvas of Anna I am going to use a sample stock for clients to see and feel today. It's so nice to see one of one of my kids at last. It's stunning of course!

Caleb

Here is a little sampler of one of my most recent fav sessions. I have been lucky enough to know this young man since he was born, his Mum and I were in rooms next to each other when Anna and Caleb were born. He was a CHAMP having his photo taken and Vanessa ended up with a fantastic gallery because of it.

Anyway......here is the sampler.

Fresh Baked

I have been soooo slack taking pics of my own kids lately so Anna and I just had a 3min shoot, These images are "Fresh Baked" and still hot. Taken less than an hour ago. The ones I posted on facebook yesterday were so populat I felt inspired to show off some more.








She makes it soooo easy.

A couple more......

OK....I couldn't just show two pics from the shoot so here are a few more.

Anna and Ryan update.

It's been a while since I posted recent pics of Anna and Ryan. They had a little photo shoot so we could put an album together for their Grandma and Grandpa for their birthday so here are a couple of pics from that.

Other than that we have been very busy here. I have been researching more albums as I didn't like the last lot I got in the end, so I have sound a new supplier and have ordered some stock to use as samples, I have also ordered a mini canvas to use as sample stock. I have had a couple of wonderful photo shoots and just need some child free time to really put in some hours of processing now. I am shaking up my proofing and ordering system for the business as the old way isn't working too well at all. I have had camera club entries to get in and had a judging the other night which I went quite well in but I will post about that another time.

This post I just want to show off my babies. Here they are.






I know I know.....they are GORGEOUS......it's soooo tempting to have another baby.....but we wont LOL. They are loads of fun. Anna is getting really good at riding her big girl bike and Ryan has just sleeping in a big boy bed. They are watching the old Alice in Wonderland right now which has given me this rare op to blog while my monitor warms up for photo editing.

I'm feeling very blessed in this life. I am a very very lucky Mummy and Wife. Oh that reminds me....Anna made me the most wonderful present at kinder for Mothers Day. It is a photo of her in a frame she made that has a magnet so I can stick it to the fridge. I was stoked when she gave it to me.....best present EVER.

Anyway....that's enough dribble. Wishing all my mummy readers a Happy Mothers Day for tomorrow, and wishing everyone else well too.

XXX

22/4/09 - my tantrum

On Wednesday I had a tantrum at something Cam had said and stormed off in a huff. On instinct I grabbed my camera bag and the book I was reading and headed to Nunns walk. My Fav place. I had been wanting to check out more of what lies below Nunns Walk......as Nunns walk is a track that runs along the esplanade in Morington/Mt Martha with lots of little smaller tracks comming off it leading down to the beaches below, so I did. It was a nice walk to the leash free beach, which wasn't sand but rocks. It was lovely, not another soul in sight and the sun was out but low. I took a few photos, I am happy with perhaps 2 or 3 of them. Here is one of them

I processed it yesterday with a very special Man in mind. It's getting printed right now and I will enter it for Camera club if the print turns out alright. I think I will call it "Russell's Day", Russell is my husbands Dad and on the 22/4/09 just hours after I took this photo Russell closed his eyes for the last time. I don't know what else to say, it's not my place to talk about Cam's feelings and my blog isn't the place I would talk about it anyway. Anything I want to say to him I have already said so I wont use my blog to communicate some soppy corny message to him (he is probably up to his eyeballs in my soppyness). He knows how I feel and I know how he feels and that is all that matters right now. 

Anyway, so that's whats happening here at the moment. It's needless to say that I wont be waving to you on my way to Healesville Jaykay......I had to pull out of this weekends trip, judging by the weather I would not have had much fun anyway and would have spend the weekend in my sleeping bag doing nothing but reading.

Strangely enough, the 22/4 was Anna's due date 4 years ago.......so we celebrated by letting a couple of nurses jab her with her 4yr old immunisations LOL.....sadistic parents we are. She was amazing, she din't cry, she said "ow ow ow" as she WATCHED the needle go into her arm (dunno where she gets that from) and then accepted her jelly beans and jumped around popping the bubbles that filled the room from the bubble machine. I was so so soooooooo proud of our brave little girl. We had promiced to take her to Cold Rock, the ice cream joing but when we got there we realised they didn't open till 1pm........dogarses. So we had to get her a Mc Flurry instead. She decided then that she likes needles I think LOL...........however a few hours later when one of her arms started throbbing (the one that copped the tetanus I think) she quickly took her words back saying "Mummy don't ever take me to that shop again with the ladies with the needles, I don't like needles anymore." At 2am the next morning my heart officially broke as she was blubbering "It hurts it hurts" and she held her arm to her chest as if it were broken. As she climbed onto the toilet using her hand on the wall to steady herself she yelped in pain as the pressure of her hand on the wall obviously shot the pain through to the top of her arm. We had a snuggle on the couch as her panadol kicked in and my heart ached as her body was trembeling in my arms. Back in my room Cam was sleeping in a sleeping pill induced deep sleep, sleeping off the shock of losing his Dad. Ryan woke 3 times that night, we susspect he is teething. You can't help but feel a tad depressed when your home is so full of pain.

Today.......3 days later it is much better. You wouldn't know Anna had her needles, Ryan slept all night last night and Cam is much more like himself, but suffering allergies which I suspect came from going through a bag of dusty/mouldy old photos yesterday. All in all, the glass is definately half full. Oh and yes.....I did feel like a total arsehole for having that tantrum wednesday morning.....there you go Cam, that was for you XXX

Celebrating Calibrating.......

OMG.......No.....OMFG. Seriously I hate calibrating SO MUCH I lose clumps of hair every time I have to do it. The lab I was getting my prints from has lost the plot and the prints are getting redder with each order. Not only that but I ordered a 5x7 and 8x12 of the same image for camera club and they both came back different colours. After recieving and email stating "there is nothing we can do, our printers are calibrated as close as possible" I swear I had smoke coming out of my nostrils......their close enough is not good enough for me or my clients. I did not just get myself into debt buying this sweet new camera which produced sweet colours just to have some half arsed "pro" (and I use that term loosely) lab totally screw my colours up. SO.....I have found a new lab, but with a new lab comes new calibration requirements and I have spend the last week doing not much other than calibrating and tearing my hair out. It has not been a good week.

While all this is going on I have sessions backing up to be processed and am finally up to the newborn session I have been DYING to get up to. I but a good dent in that session today. I also need to get this months Camera club entries finished, printed and mounted in less than 2 weeks (EEEEEEEEK). I have just finished one entry........here it is.





OK.......so I cheated. I could not wait for this lovely preggy lady to give birth to give this a go....so consider this a dress rehearsal for when I get to do it with her own baby. This is actually "Max" the baby whos newborn session I am in the middle of. The idea came to me in the shower this morning and i wanted to try it today before I forgot it. Another idea came to me a few nights ago and I didn not jot it down right away and now it is lost forever so consider that a lesson learned.

Anyway, other than processing a load of images today I also got some shopping in. I managed to drop $150 on books.....I have been bitten by the "Edward and Bella" bug and got all 4 of the Twilight books......plus the first Dexter book. I figured i can read when the kids are up and I can't use the puter anyway, I am sure they will be happy for me to pull up a beanbag in their new playroom and read as they play, they wont disturb me much......really they wont. I also got myself some flanny PJ's. I don't own jarmies and I have 3 weekends away coming up so I fugured I would do my "roomies" a favour and invest in some jim jams. Now all I wanna do is wear them......this is why I don't own jim jams.....it becomes too easy to stay in them allllll day. I can't wait for my trips. First is Healesville with Camera Club, then Phillip Island with Mum's group where we plan to spend two nights in a holiday house in out jarmies drinking cocktails and dancing to whatever music strikes out fancy.....knowing us the daggier the better then last but not least PH VIC MINI MEET WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Ah I am so excited about that. I get to meet an online friend Kym properly, I met her once but this is gonna we AWESOME. Two nights on a "farm" pretty bloomin posh lookin farm is you ask me, loads of photography, dancing, laughing, singing...oh it's gonna go off. Once again I plan to live the weekend in my jarmies and uggies.

So thats it, that is what I have been up to and am going to get up to. After Birthday Bonanza and celebrating calibrating I am left fat, bloated and bald.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

Yesterday was our dear sweet baby girls 4th Birthday. We had an awesome day. We decided this year to celebrate my parents, Anna's and my B'day all in one day.....we called it "Birthday Bonanza". We got Anna's usual Strawberry Fields Torte Cake and had a BBQ lunch followed by some late arvo drinks. Anna's Grandma and Grandpa stayed the night so they were here this morning for the great eater egg hunt.

Anna got a new bike and helmet for her birthday, within minutes of finding the bike she had managed to fall off it and bruise/scrape her legs up.

Anyway it's been a huge few days and I am buggered so I am keeping this short and sweet. Here are some pics.....just snapshots. I hope to be back with more.

The new bike and the famous birthday cake.

Our Traditional "Birth time" family photo.....we had to cheat this year and take it an hour early as there was no way the kids were going to make it till 7:45pm. Thank goodness Ryan's birth time was at a better time of day for his birth time photo. You can see we are all looking a tad ragged by this stage of the day (a few of us may have been a tad tipsy too).

We have all had an awesome Birthday bonanza/Easter. I really enjoyed having my Mumsy and Dadsy stay the night. Now we are all heading out side into the court to watch Anna ride her bike.

The Great Almond Heist

On the morning of April 6th I was woken to the mighty sound of Cockies screaching and Anna's delightful little excited voice. Cam had built Anna and Ryan a nifty bench for their proposed playroom the night before and Anna had got up and discovered it and she was calling "Mummy Mummy, look at my table". From the proposed playroom window I we could not see the backyard through cockies, we lost count at 30. They were on the gate, the fence, the almond tree, the Paulonia tree and the roof of our pagola. They were here to ravish our almonds of course......well what was left of them, Cam had harvested them a few weeks before but left them the ones up the top he could not reach. 

Here is a pic of two of them plotting their attack on the almonds. 

Sneeky Sneek Peeks

I am flat out at the moment, I have 4 sessions to process. I am rushing this post just to sneek it in while dinner is on.

Here are a few sneek peeks from 3 of the four sessions.

A re-shoot with young baby Max, here he is with his gorgeous Mum.

 

Baby Max again.

A close friends beautiful belly - my first maternity shoot.

I was with this friend when she got this tattoo done.

I had the pleasure of shooting with these girls are The Briars. They are STUNNING. I have since fixed the little ones black eye and the thing on the wall behind her head, had it printed as a 8x12 and matted it to be entered into tonights monochrome comp. 

A Box of Chocolates.

OMG....My eyeballs are hanging out of my head. I was determined to get at leats one entry finished for this months camera club comp and tonight was the night it was going to happen. Cameron went to the footy with some of his siblings so I had some quiet time to take advantage of.....not that he is noisy LOL. 

Anyway here it is, my "Box of chocolates"

If Only I could re do these photos now......why you ask, because I have some super exciting news......I have my new camera. The one I have been wanting for as long as I can remember and I am seriously in love. No more manual focusing for me and now I can offer massive prints and canvas with confidence. I just ordered a new camera bag for it, a 7million dollar home crumpler, only the best for my new baby. Another exciting parcel arrived today, the albums I ordered last week. I have sampled 4 different albums now and think I have finally found the one that I love to offer clients. I have to do one up for myself first to "test drive" it.....damn haha. 

Now I need sleep.....first I have to crack and stretch my back from sitting here so long. That box of chocolates was flippin fiddly. 

I know I said I would not blog for a while......but I just finished proofing and editing this session and got the gallery up and HAD to share some of the pics. This is Baby Max. I went to school with his Dad. Isn't he GORGEOUS.

A HUGE thankyou to Ben and Amanda for the opportunity. 

Pink overload.....

My friend Katie needed some help taking photos today.....she had all the gear and the pose idea but just needed someone to point and press the shutter. I had a ball. Now I want lights and a camera that has auto focus SO BAD!!!!!

While I was there I chucked my card in her camera and had a play with her stunning baby Amelia and took some shots of Anna and the famous chocolate for this months camera club comp. 

Here are some pics.....

Thanks again Katie. I had a ball and after the play with your Camera I came home and looked into it and Cam says I can get one.......I just have to get my head around not getting my dream camera but I was so impressed with yours today. Might have to have another play in natural light. 

Anyway, yes I have been slack here at the cafe again.....with good reason. I did THREE shoots this week. I know INSANE! So I am going to be FLAT OUT processing the sessions. I am also trying to get something done for this months camera club comp. I missed out last month cos I was so busy and can see it happening again. I have less than two weeks to get my entries processed, printed and mounted.

I have sourced a wonderful canvas supplier and have had one done for a client who was super impressed....so much so she wants another one. She is not alone, after seeing it Cam and I want some too. I am also in the process of ordering a few different albums to offer clients which is fun. I love classy albums, I have a dry mount one here for the kids photos and it looks awesome. So.....busy busy busy. I think I have a few really late nights coming up. So I wont be blogging for a while. 

Gluten Free Food Porn

Being Wheat free I tend to use Gluten free products alot. I have been super impressed with the cake mixes you can get, I am no baker and they are the only ones I seem to not dry out. I urge any cake fans to give a gluten free cake mix a go. The Basco vanilla cupcakes are my fav, the woolworths select brand make an awesome lemon cake too.

Anyway, I have discovered the worlds yummiest bake yourself carrot cake. Basco Carrot cake mix. It is flippin divine.
 

But even I get sick of the sweet stuff and crave a savoury treat to take to Mum's group and seeing how everything has wheat in it I try to take something the kids and I can have. Melinda's gluten free goodies Sundried Tomato and Spinach muffins are AWESOME! Not very healthy but when you can't eat wheat treats like this are very rare so what the heck. Check em out.



Seriously they are awesome. Anyway....that's me for the night. I am having an early one.....I hope to be photographing a beautiful new baby tomorrow. 

Ryan.......our sweet sweet boy.

Ryan is a hard one to get photos of....he is like the looney toons character Taz........always on the move and always destructing things LOL. 

Today I went out and got a few new blankets, an elbow pillow and some more beans for the beanbag......strictly for prop use of course. I managed to bury him enough to keep him still for a split second and I have to say I am OVER THE FLIPPIN MOON with the results. I have so so sooooo many photos of Anna but not too many of Ryan.....and most of the ones I do have of him are out of focus. I took these today and as I type they are uploading to get printed. I just love them. Isn't he bloomin divine?

This bottom one is a fav, he is a little stud. 

Cafe Renovations

LOL, Yep I thought the Cafe was long over due for a re-vamp. I used the Cafe overhaul to start my creative juices flowing in preparation to designing my company logo.....which I did last night.

This is huge for me.....I HATE change, never cope well with it. I also dislike anything but white backgrounds.....but I love the Cafe's new look. Now I just need to get in here more often.

Now for some little useless chitchat, I have watched a few movies lately. The day I got my business name certificate in the mail my bestie came over and we had a few (too many) drinks. We attempted to watch a movie, starting with Rachel getting Married it lasted about 5 mins and we turned it off. Next we attempted 27 dresses  it is one of my FAV's (and I can't believe in these reviews it got less starts than Rachel getting married) and Kellie hadn't seen it but we were too giggle and chatty to watch.....we only payed attention to the bar scene "B B B Benny and the jetsssssssss". Anyway, the next day I was feeling rather poorly, and after having a look at what was left of the bottle of vodka I realised that I would more than likely feel that way all day so movies it was. 

I attempted to watch Rachel getting Married again......well I watched it all but my GOODNESS.....what a waste of life that I will never ever get back. Kellie and I love the movie 28 days but it was like someone had decided to remake it but write the script while on a truck load of downers of some kind. It was the most drawn out boring NOTHING movie I have ever seen. 

Next I watched 7 pounds now I am not usually a fan of Will Smith but by golly this was a GREAT movie. I loved it. I am pestering Cam to watch it now.....but he favours movies that suck so I guess he wont like it.

Then while I was sick a few days ago (yeah I copped the lurgy BAD) I had an early night and watched changeling with Angelina Jolie. I am not a fan of Angelina, her acting does NOTHING for me and I find her presence in a movie creepy in general......and this was no exception. It was a very sad movie and not the kind I would have watched if I had have known what it was about first. I hate any movie with kids being hurt in it and at one stage in this movie I wanted to rip through Cam for telling me to watch it, him knowing what i am like I was furious that he has suggested it. Anyway I had to keep watching cos if stopped at that point I would have been picturing little boys being hacked to death with an axe all night, so I watched the whole thing. It was a sad movie, but a good one I guess. The only person that would have been worse for the lead role however would have been Nicole Kidman. 

Last but not least......Cam talked me into watching a movie with him the other night. Cam often watches movies at night while I work on photos. He likes creepy, scarey movies and I don't anymroe so it works well for him to watch them while I am busy, anyway I decided to work till 8:30pm then join him. The movie was called Walled In and the opening scene featured something terrible happening to a dear little girl.......I could have throttled Cam right there and then. Seriously I just can't handle it,and it seems every horror/thriller movie seems to feature kids being tortured to death in some way WTF is with that? Anyway I kept watching, thinking the next kid I see doing anything other than making daisy chains I am walking out and going back to work........lucky that was the worse of it. I liked the movie in the end. Cam didn't, messaged me the next day saying it was the worst he has seen in a long time........I find that hard to believe considering the crap he watched on a weekly basis, he and his mate could run the "I am a fan of crap movies" club. Anyway I would not watch it again but it was good crappy entertainment that I didn't have to think too hard watching, I do think it is sad that in this day and age they seem to feel the need to always resort to child cruelty for shock value.

Anyway......so that is it. The Cafe has been spiffed up a little and I just proved I can talk about something other than photography. 

One of the most beautiful Mums I know.

I love this chick, Mums don't come much better than this one....what a gem. I managed to torment her whole family in this shoot but decided to make a Mum themed storyboard as a sampler of the shoot seeing as Mothers day is approaching. 

Jane's Boys

This shoot was booked well before I decided on the fundraiser, I love these boys, they are soooooo photogenic. I also had the pleasure of doing the youngest ones newborn photos........it's really rewarding to get to shoot a family more than one. 

Emily and Will

This shoot was a pretty big deal for me. It was my first shoot where I did not know the Mum or kids and I have to thank both Mum and kids for making it so comfortable for me. Actually I had the advantage of meeting Mum a few hours before the shoot as she was having lunch with my neighbour (Angus and Lucy's Mum). Anyway, I am very happy with the results of the shoot and can see Emily and Will being just as dominant in my portfolio as dear Angus and lucy. So a huge thankyou to Carolyn for letting me torment her kids with my camera, it was truely a pleasure. 

Angus and Lucy

Here is a little sampler of one of the shoots I have done for my little bushfire appeal fundraiser. One of my best shoots to date. I am having a blast at this location, great models help too! 

Busy Busy Busy.

Gee, I got slack real quick here didn't I. I do have a good excuse, I have been REALLY busy. After the bushfires devistated Victoria I started  a little fundraiser, I am taking childrens portraits and selling a print package and donating most of the proffits to the Red Cross Bushfire appeal. I started a blog to launch the fundraiser. You can see it here. 

I didn't go crazy sending the link out, I had no idea how it would go so I started with a small group of people in my email list and another small group on facebook. Having two small kids at home and a hubby working crazy shiftwork I could only take on a limited number of sessions. I was also offered to put a flier up at my Gym but didn't have to take up the offer in the end. I have only one session left.....actually two as I just had a cancellation. It has been a great learning experience for me, I have an idea of how many sessions I can take on a month now and I have had more experience with other peoples children and at the end of the fundraiser I should have a nice little portfolio. 

A special thankyou goes out to my lovely next door neighbour Sarah who booked me for a session (which happens to have been my best session to date) and then refered me to her friends and got me two more bookings. I would show some of the photos but I have not got Sarah to sign my paperwork yet LOL. 

Health: Yep, my health went backwards again. I was having tum problems again and thought "great, I can't eat rye aswell as wheat" but I went to the wonderful Monica Henry, and appointment I had waited over 4 months for, and found out it was the yeast......along with a ridiculous list of other foods which after a week of cutting out I was feeling worse than ever......tired, irritable and weak. Lucky for me I had my appointment with my super fab natropath, Samuel Kennedy, approaching and after a good chat with him we think we know what all my problems come down to.......my lack of gall bladder and my ability to digest properly due to that. So it's not the wheat as such, as in it;s not an allergy, it's y bodys inability to digest the wheat that is causing the problems. So I am on these drops which will help my first stage digestion, 3 days of being on them my tum was starting to ease. One week later and my tum is alsmost 100%. Amazing. My concern now is for the kids. Seems everyone in y family has tum issues and my kids are no exception. I am going to take them to my natropath to see what he thinks, maybe we can help them avoid having major issues down the track.

Camera Club: I had my third comp judging this week and I got a second place for my monochrome and a "highly commended". 

A little announcement: I have my business name. I have not set anything else up but once I do I will link it from here. I am in the process of designing a logo but have had to put all things "Mugshots Photography" on hold till my fundraiser slows down. As it is I have two sessions to order prints and mounts for, another just got the gallery up and another I am in the middle of processing (this session I am processing now I am having a ball with, there are some stunning images of these siblings). I have a session this coming thursday I am also really excited about, my fav girls to photograph (other than my own of course). 

Last but not least.....my family: My kids are fantastic, they really are. You know there are times when I am pulling my hair and wonder what I was thinking but those times are sooooo out weighed by the magic times, like when Anna tells me randomly she loves me, or she hugs Ryan for no reason other than she loves him, or when she sits quietly "reading" a book when she thinks no-one is looking and makes up stories to go with the pictures. And Ryan, he is a little firecracker.......a cyclone.........our own little tassie devil "Taz". But he gives the worlds best cuddles and does the cutest things and never makes a fuss over the small things that Poppy does. I love watching him dance, he has not got Anna's rhythm but Cam and I still love watching him dance. (I need to come back and read this later after is has taken me an hour to get them packed up into the car because Ryan unpacks things quicker than I can pack them and Anna has a 30min tanty over going to the toilet and washing her hands).

A huge thing for Anna at the moment is she has started 3 yr old Kindy. She is loving it, I assume she is doing OK there. She is so lovey dovey after I pick her up. This week after Kinda we went shopping for new jeans for me (yep, I had to get some smaller ones whoo hoo) and Anna says as we are walking down main ST Mornington "I love you Mummy, your my favourite girl, thankyou so much for taking me to kindy and coming to get me" with the sweetest look on her sweet little face. I stopped right there in the middle of main st and gave her the hugest cuddle..........5 mins later she was peering under the door of the change room announcing rather loudly "HI MUMMY.....I CAN SEE YOUR KNICKERS"

Another first Place WHOOOOO HOOOOOOO

I am pretty bloody stoked and still on a high. I love this portrait so it is great to see a professional liked it enough to give it a place.

As far as health goes, I am still feeling great. My workouts are going great guns though my diet has not been great this week. I did not bother weighing myself this week. Why ruin my good mood? Alcohol intake has also been bad this week. I have been "emotional drinking" a little. Anyway, I feel great, am getting stronger and feel physically ready to start the walk/run regime......but don't think I am emotionally ready. Scared of failing? Scared of not being able to commit? 

I am so excited about my photo. What a high. 

Ah, I can't believe I almost forgot to mention Anna's big day today. It is her 3yr old Kinder orientation. We have to leave any minute actually, better get the pram out of the car. She is so excited. I had a quiet cry earlier, she is growing up. I hope she makes some fantastic new friends and there are no bully's there. I am not a fan of bully's.