The Sequel

More shots from our photo shoot the other day. I just got to play with these today.


Sweet Pea
Peanut
Peanut Butt and Belly
Bilia(billy)
Little Chicky

She has lots of nicknames from lots of people but mostly I just call her Amazing!

The Little Girl Lost

A girl without freckles is like a night without stars.
-- Author Unknown


A little girl can be sweeter (and badder) oftener than anyone else in the world. she can jitter around, and stomp, and make funny noises that frazzle your nerves yet just when you open your mouth she stands there demure with that special look in her eyes. A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot.
-- Alan Beck



I couldn't find the words so I turned to the experts known and unknown. :)
So titled because when I look at these photos I see both a little girl not much more than a toddler and a girl growing up way too fast.

The Big Bird

One of the members of my family you have yet to meet.
This is Loki bird, he is a baby cockatiel.
We think he may have been abused at the pet store because cockatiels are supposed to be very social, loving birds and he is very skittish, especially of hands. He is starting to come around though, he will come up onto our hands sometimes if you have lots of patience and I think that eventually he will become the loving bird he was meant to be.
He has learned the first part of the Mexican Hat Dance(the song) and is quickly learning the second half. He wolf whistles all the time and says "A prettttty boy".
He loves Lilia's hair ties(what he is chewing on) as you can see by the look on his little face. When he squints his eyes and puffs out his cheeks it means he is VERY happy. He also gets this look when he is listening to classical music.
I never thought I would love a bird but this guy is such a funny, sweet little bird I can't help myself.

I have yet to get good photos but we also have two budgies(Cosmo and Wanda) who are the cutest ever!! They are what got us started on birds. Now Grady wants to save his money to buy a conure(more like a parrot). You have heard of crazy cat people, I think we are fast headed for crazy bird people. :D

The Life

Life lately has me feeling like I am an old dog constantly walking uphill.
All the practices, meetings, meets, work and special occasions(easter and my bday) have me feeling like this:

Lately you will see me like this more often than not.
I am hopeful that tomorrow I will get just a moment of this:


In case you didn't know, this is Chloe, my 12 year old black lab. She is MY dog and I love her like mad.. how could you not? Look at that face. :)

I have recently gone back to work and it is kicking my butt, time wise. I am so used to having my whole day to get the housework done and have my computer time. Needless to say I have not gone near my blog for an entire week! ACK! I think I am finally hitting my stride again and getting my new schedule worked out. All this and all I am doing is substitute teaching at our local high school. I think it makes it worse that I never know when I go to bed if I am going to be working the next day or not. So far I have had 1 day off in the last week and a half. Which truly is a good thing because it means they like the job I am doing but at the same time I thought I would have a bit more time to ease into things. :D

The Tester

Lilia wanted pictures of herself with her medals as I was trying to get my settings I asked Gavin to stand there for me. This is what I got.... I think I need to tell him his just my tester from now on. LOL This is such a Gavin look, half mad, half amused you never know with this one.
Yes even in color his eyes really are that dark, he got lucky and got the true chocolate brown eyes instead of the hazel eyes the rest of us have. Doesn't he have the cutest little ears ever? or maybe that is just Mummy vision again, I do love them though. :)


This girl loves the camera, can you tell? Most of the shots I got of her were totally hilarious but I can't post them because of the angle and the leo. Not that there is anything showing but it is still a little risque for my taste.
These are not the best photos... in the first one her silver medal is turned around backwards and in the second one you can see my vacuum cleaner in the background. I am convinced now... I NEED a backdrop/backdrop stand.

The Gymnastics Sunday Report

Ahh yes, it is that time again for another edition of 'what did some kid ,I don't know, do over the weekend at her gymnastics meet'. :D
Lilia did very well taking first place all round with a humongous 37.00! That is a big score for her and we are pretty impressed around here. Heck even her brothers are jumping on the "way to go Lilia" bandwagon. I wish my DH had gotten some better photos from the meet but these are pretty representative of the best we got today. :(
Her individual event scores were 9.5 vault(2nd), 9.5 bars (1st), 9.15 floor (5th) and 8.85 beam(3rd).

I took this photo last week while we were out traipsing around the tree. I used the HDR program that someone on 2Peas had shared(sorry I can't remember who, but Thank you!). I gotta get that girl some Wellies.

The Tree

It's a common phrase in our house "Mum we're going down to the tree".
Our entire property is probably 80% trees but the kids have this one massive Hemlock tree that they love to climb and play in. The area around the tree is perfect for creating fairy houses and clubhouses, you can climb to the tippy top and see for, what I would guess is, miles, having never done it myself :). It is the epitome of the perfect childhood tree, magical and wonderous if only I could capture half of that magic.

I will have to go back when I can get some shots of all the kids in it so that you all can really see the scale and the whole tree.
I played with some color tonight, trying a greener version, a bluer version and a redder, color popped version. :)

She is at ground level from this side of the tree but on the other side you can see that it is probably 5 or 6 feet up. This is because there is a ledge that abuts the tree on one side that allows the kids to walk right up and into the tree so she is standing on the ground and on tree branches all at the same time.

The Updates

The first update is photos of the lighthouse. Paul(hubby) and I headed out to the point today so that I could get some photos of the lighthouse and the surrounding area to post here because I promised I would. It was a gorgeous day but a bit windy and cold. The sky was just amazing though, the color blue was so deep and just breathtaking.
The third shot is of the next point over.. our favorite place to go in the summer. Tons of tidepools, lots of rock scrambling, a little "beach" that we love to search for beach glass and cool rocks and of course some beautiful surf watching! The fourth shot down is the little red building from my photo shoot a few weeks ago. This is the other side from where Lilia was perched on the window ledge.









I knew I had to update you all on the little gymnast, well maybe not HAD to but thought you all might like to hear how she did this weekend. She took first place All Around with a 35.85(.65 points higher than the second place), her second highest all around score this season. She placed first on bars(9.3), second on vault(9.15), fifth on beam (8.5) and second on floor (8.9). She fell on beam on her dismount, which she NEVER misses, had she not fallen she would have had a 9.0 and taken first on beam as well. :( Oh well it definitely gave her something to work on at workout tonight. :) Of course I had to include a photo of her on the podium for AA and one of her cheesing it up for the judge after her totally kick ass bar routine(look at her coach back there... totally beaming).




And finally a few days ago I got another shot of the ever elusive Grady AKA Gradoli. Hiding his eyes as usual but a pretty good close up of his face nonetheless. He was peeking at me through an upside down stool. :)
See that crooked nose? It used to be so straight, just like his Dad's but he got hit in the face with a golf club this past fall and we had to say byebye to perfect straight nose and Hello to nose with character.

The Cuppy Cakes

Sorry I have been MIA this week, we have had "the sickness" and I have been either dealing with that or trying not to get that. So far so good for me, I am keeping my fingers crossed that I don't end up sicky like all my kidlets.
I went all June Cleaver today and baked cupcakes for the kids for when they got home from school. The two that aren't sick were very appreciative, the one that is just wants us all to save him a couple. :) I almost didn't want anyone to eat them because they are so darn pretty.
As usual Lilia was hamming it up for the camera, Grady "ninjaed" a cupcake and disappeared into his room before I could steal a picture of him. What self respecting 13 year old boy would be seen eating a PINK cupcake afterall.

The Sicky Chicky

This is what she looked like yesterday, she had a bit of a fever and had been up most of the night before throwing up. She didn't even leave the couch but two or three times all day yesterday.
This morning she got up and got herself ready for school because they started MEA's today and she didn't want to miss any of the test. HOLY COW!!!! I don't know about any of you but any chance I had to stay home from school, especially during standardized testing, I was all over it!
I really don't know where she got her goodytwoshoeness from, certainly NOT me. :D

The Army

This is what came rolling into my living room tonight. An army of dragons, medieval men, phat boy carz, SUVs, helicopters, and big ball of yarn. What army would be complete without a giant mass of pastel yarn? All this on a skateboard no less...... we didn't get to the skate park this weekend, think he is trying to tell us something?

For both shots my settings were, 14mm, f/3.5, SS 1/8, ISO 400 WB set to tungsten.

The Avril Wannabe

This counts right? I didn't take it today but I did edit it today. :P
And Oooooh the editing I did:
I learned skin softening.
I did an eye pop because brown eyes are H A R D to get detail in on the other hand they show catchlights wonderfully.
I used the magnetic lasso tool and gaussion blurred the background more(I am not happy with it).
I desaturated it just a tad..... because I like that kind of washed out look.
I healed and cloned some sort of food stuff around her mouth (they must have had spaghetti at lunch that day).
That's it. :D