Laura’s Life

An assortment of photos of the kiddliwinks taken at the end of March.

Orin and Evan found an empty snail shell covered in small snails.  I rather suspect some kind of cannibalism was afoot.  The boys decided to hold a funeral for the extinct snail:

Orin and Arlo watching ‘Backyardigans’ together:

Aidan made an Easter chick mask at Beaver Scouts.  He decided to make it look like his Grandpa.  The hybridisation was freakish:

Note to Daddy: This is what happens when babies get given a bowl of cereal:

Arlo using the baby walker:

Aidan with a lego creation:

Arlo stands at every opportunity these days:

Orin and Evan have been learning about flowers at nursery so Orin made Chris buy me a bunch of tulips:

Aidan invited us to a pirate afternoon in his classroom.  These photos are of the boys trying on their costumes beforehand:

Orin, Evan and Arlo getting their costumes on in the car before going into the school:

In the classroom:

Arlo playing with his activity table:

Arlo sitting in the bouncing horse to watch a DVD with his big brothers:

My parents came to visit last Sunday.  They brought my sister, Leanne, with them and also my cousin Kim’s son, David, who is visiting from Australia.  It was a cold but dry, bright day so we decided to head out to Crinan to show David something of this area.

We then decided to take David to a section of Kilmartin Glen, so that he could see something of the neolithic sites to be found in Argyll.  The boys had fun playing inside the burial cairns:

Orin came home from nursery the other day with some “magic” beans, which he shared with Evan.  I just hope he is not too disappointed when they don’t grow into a beanstalk with a giant residing at the top:

Spring has finally sprung here as my crocuses are finally blooming:

Arlo watching his brothers playing in the garden:

Evan in his den:

Arlo discovers the advantages of being able to stand ….

…. and uses the coffee table for teething while he is at it!

This New Year, I set myself the challenge of taking a photo to represent each letter of the alphabet.  The idea was to break me out of my comfort zone and habits and encourage me to do something new, either in terms of subject matter, or composition or post-production editing.  I completed the project this weekend and these are the results.  Of course, there are way more than 26 photos here but you know what I am like - how could I ever choose just one photo per letter?

A is for Aidan and Arlo.  The challenge here was getting a portrait of both boys given the huge difference in size between them plus getting them both to co-operate with the camera at the same time:

B is for Blueberries.  The challenge here was to capture the colour of the berries accurately whilst in macro:

C is for Candle.  The challenge was obviously the lighting conditions and keeping a steady hand for a somewhat long exposure without using my flexipod:

C is also, of course, for Chris.  It is always a challenge to take a portrait of Chris since he a) always shuts his eyes at the crucial moment b) always looks uncomfortable in front of the camera, overly self-conscious or c) gets annoyed with me taking so many photos:

D is for Dice.  The challenge was shooting in macro while trying to capture multiple colours accurately:

D is also for Dominoes.  I was playing around with depth of field taking these shots:

With this one it was finding a fasting enough shutter speed to capture the motion of the dominoes toppling:

E is for Evan.  I cheated with this first one, one of my favourites ever of Evan, because I actually took it in October, prior to setting myself the challenge:

Evan is actually a very good model so the challenge with these portraits was to take one that really captured his cheeky personality:

F is for feet.  Playing around with filters and effects post-production to create a sun-bleached quality was the challenge here:

G is for Game.  The challenge was actually playing Lord of the Rings Risk in the first place … but it was also the composition:

G is also for Green and Glow.  The challenge was retaining a true green while also making the dew drops shimmer more in post-production:

H is for Hands.  This is another cheat since I actually took this photo when Arlo was a newborn but I could not resist including it in this project:

I is for Ice.  The only challenge was waiting for the perfect frost conditions to take some photos.  This ice was on our velux windows:

These ice crystals formed on the car windows:

J is for Jammies.  I was playing with a different perspective for portraiture here:

J is also for Jump.  I confess to cheating again since these photos are about 18 months old.  I just could not think of a better depiction of the word jump than these shots of Chris throwing himself off sand dunes:

K is for Kick.  The challenge here was to capture the motion whilst keeping the figure sharply in focus:

L is for Lemon and Lime.  The challenge here was thinking of something that could represent the letter L:

M is for Marbles.  The challenge was a post-production one. I wanted the marbles tolook luminescent without distorting the hands:

N is for Notes.  These are some of my family history notes. The challenge was to create an interesting composition out of a random assortment of documents:

O is for Orin.  I didn’t actually take this photo during my challenge period but I love this photo of Orin so included it:

This challenge was a post-production one - keeping the blue of Orin’s hoodie and his eyes but turning everything else black and white:

This was a composition challenge as I wanted the blue of the sea to pick out the blue of Orin’s eyes so I took a “birds eye” angle to capture both:

P is for Photographer.  The challenge was taking a self-portrait using a mirror which, therefore, meant no flash and no flexipod and so required me to have a very steady hand in a dimly lit room:

Q is for Quattro.  Taking a photo of all four boys at the same time. Need I explain the challenge?

R is for Rainbow.  The challenge was to capture this wide array of colours accurately:

S is for Spiderweb.  The challenge here was really one of focus, getting the background sufficiently blurred that the web would be highlighted against it and the dew drops crisply in focus:

T is for Trees.  This was a composition challenge. I squatted down low to the ground to make the tree trunks appear even taller and to capture the sun centrally:

With this one I was playing with post-production to create a silhouette:

U is for Underneath.  I was using “worm’s eye” perspective for a more unusual composition in all of these:

V is for Violet.  Annoyingly this is an orchid rather than a violet. But I used a violet coloured filter:

W is for Whisky.  I wanted to capture the amber colour of the liquid and also the glint of the crystal. I “forced” Chris to have a whisky one night just so I could take photos of it!

X is for XRay.  Aside from the challenge of figuring out what in the heck I could photograph to represent X, this was also the first time I had inverted colours:

Y is for Yellow.  This was another photo where I retained some colour while making the rest monochrome:

Z is for Zig Zag.  The challenge was finding subject matter to fulfil the requirement for a Z … and we don’t have zebras in Argyll as far as I am aware:

It was Chris’ birthday on Sunday.  Here he is opening his presents - with a bit of help from some eager assistants:

It was also Mothers Day so, on the basis that neither of us wanted to slave over the cooker that day, we all went out for Sunday lunch.  It was Arlo’s first time in a restaurant:

Aidan was recovering from croup which is why he looks a bit tired and grumpy:

Chris and his birthday cake:

This is just a random assortment of photos from the first two weeks of March.

Aidan made some fishcakes, his first time doing proper cooking:

Evan fell asleep on the naughty step during a time out (and while dressed as a dragon):

Evan made glittery playdough one morning:

Time for Arlo to leave the moses basket, you think?

Arlo in his big boy jammies:

Time to raise the side of the cot, you think?

Orin kitted out Arlo as a Warrior Baby:

Aidan and I had fun setting up lots of domino runs with a set borrowed from the Toy Library:

During Jim and Heather’s visit, they helped us finally put up the trampoline the boys have been waiting a year for and which has been in our shed since November.  Jim had to have a go:

The boys love the trampoline!

Aidan with his drawing of a family of monsters (autobiographical?):