We were at Lollibop Festival yesterday and the kids loved scrambling about in the KIA cars they had there, beeping the horns and pretending to drive them.
Devonish adventures – the Black & White Photography Project
We were up in North Devon for a day at The Milky Way Adventure Park this week while visiting my parents and I couldn’t resist snapping this pic of Georgie sitting next to the Left Luggage and Parcels sign looking a like she had been left there, all abandoned.
I have two photos this week, and the second is Devon-related too; although it was snapped at the Camelford Show in Cornwall the fudge it is talking about is made in Devon. It was extremely yummy, we bought three blocks to take home with us and savour – strictly an adults only treat! I loved the contrasting blackboard against the grubby white marquee.
I am really enjoying this photography project; I find myself keeping an eye out for potential photos that will work well in the black & white format, and consequently I am taking photos that I may have missed in the past.
Dandelion seeds – the Black & White Photography Project
We are currently down in Cornwall visiting my parents and I snapped this shot while we were out picking Redcurrants at a PYO farm. I was playing with the macro filters my big brother gave me for my birthday and I am quite pleased with how it turned out.
Sandy fun – My Sunday Photo
On Friday we headed to Trevathon Farm near my parents house for some PYO fruit fun, and lots of playtime in the sand and down the slides. Lydia hasn’t had an awful lot of experience sitting and playing with sand and didn’t really remember what it was like, so she had a great time exploring the texture and so on.
Runaway Mine Train – the Black & White Photography Project
(As always, click to view big)
Following on from My Sunday Photo earlier today, here is another photograph from our day at Alton Towers yesterday.
The weather wasn’t the best for a day at a theme park with frequent showers and very heavy rain in the morning, but it did mean the park was very quiet and queue times were very short. It looks quite threatening in this photo as we had just been hit with a particularly heavy shower, and it makes a great background to the silhouetted Runaway Mine Train.
Georgie and James are in the front row of the right of the two central carriages, with their hands up in the air. Our little 3 year old thrill seeker loved this roller coaster so much she went on it four times.
Charlie & Lola – My Sunday Photo
We visited Alton Towers yesterday for a fantastic CBeebies Magazine event and had a brilliant day, despite the weather being a bit miserable for large parts of the day. There were moments of sunshine though, and while we were there I couldn’t resist getting Georgie and James to join Charlie & Lola of CBeebies fame for a quick picture!
July – Me & Mine: A Family Portrait Project
Me & Mine is a family portrait project hosted by 7 bloggers, encouraging blogging families to capture a photo of the entire family together at least once a month. I love photos of us all as a family and we really don’t have enough, so I want to try and participate in this project monthly so that I end up with a series of photos of my little family that I know I will treasure in the years to come. I am going to use these posts a a chance to write a little update about what we’ve been up to and how the girls are getting on too.
This month I took advantage of our day out in the woods to get some photos of the four of us together.
I took these with my Samsung NX1000 camera using the gorillapod I “rescued” (stole) from the dusty depths of my Dad’s storage cupboard. We got a few strange looks for dangling the camera off random tree branches! I used the shutter on a timer but it was such a faff running back & forth that I think I will just use the remote shutter on the NX iPhone app next month instead.
July has been a bit of a difficult month for us. Apologies in advance for some whining! My birthday weekend was great and we’ve had some nice days, but I have been suffering a lot with bad headaches and more migraines than normal, which is mostly due to the heat I think. I have been ill with some sort of bug or heatstroke since Sunday so I wasn’t sure if I was going to get this posted, but I am glad I managed to sleep last night which has gone a long way to getting me back on my feet after an awful few days.
I love spending time outside in the garden with the kids though, so we have been enjoying the nice weather and playing out there a lot. Our neighbours have got accustomed to two naked little girls squealing happily as they splash in the water and bounce on the trampoline. The weather is brilliant for getting washing dry too so I have been working our way through the piles of laundry – handy since Georgie is generating extra washing right now with her potty training!
We have gone to our last playgroup sessions for the summer holidays and Georgie was quite upset to leave our Thursday afternoon one after their summer party. I’m taking this as a good sign, because she starts there in September for five mornings a week – they run nursery sessions each morning, and then a stay and play group Thursday afternoon which has been useful for us, getting to know the staff and location.
Our internet was playing up for around 3 or 4 weeks this month and the Virgin Media customer service experience was truly terrible. I found it really hard to work or blog when I could barely get the internet to maintain a stable connection so I am behind in both and the stress is a bit much for me, I have been feeling very bad about not being able to work much, when I have jobs to be getting on with. The house is looking tidier though as I was able to spend time sorting a few things out while cursing Virgin Media under my breath! After a couple of engineer visits and some new equipment inside & out I think the problem is now sorted, but time will tell. They did give us a month refund so that’s something at least.
Lydia is talking a lot more these days, although not everyone understands what she is saying! Cheese, share, thank you, and tada! are some of her favourite new words. She is super cheeky and such a monkey, some of her antics this month have been hilarious.
Georgie is potty training which has caused some stress this month; it is taking a while to get sorted and a tummy bug that knocked me and the girls out for a few days set her back a lot. Just one accident yesterday though so hopefully we’ve cracked it! Lydia is joining in a bit with some wees on the potty, so we have to have two potties upstairs and two downstairs, so they can sit on them together.
Georgiana is really imaginative and loves to play any sort of role play game, with frequent “trips to the park” with her teddies, having carpet picnics at the bottom of the stairs with play food from the kitchen. The dog bed is repurposed as a boat on a daily basis and she has started singing songs to her teddies too – lullabies and birthday songs, mostly.
Well that’s July in a rather long winded nutshell! I’m going to be posting what we are looking forward to this summer, and August is looking exciting so hopefully next month will be a better one!
Starfish – My Sunday Photo
I had a lovely day yesterday, visiting the Sea Life Centre with my little family and Clearly Bex & her kids. I’ll be posting about our Moshi Monster hunting adventures very soon but for now I thought I would share this starfish shot with you for this week’s Sunday Photo.
Lydia – the Black & White Photography Project
I snapped Lydia having a cheeky bit of chocolate while we were out, after a busy morning last weekend… I just love the tuft of hair sticking up and find her expression of slight irritation quite amusing, staring straight at my camera as I interrupted her snack time.
Georgie in the Woods – the Black & White Photography Project
PODcast is starting a new photography project; the Black & White Photography Project. I love taking photographs and hope that occasionally trying to look at things in Black & White will stretch me creatively, so I thought I would join in…
The first photo I want to share is one of my biggest girl. Here is “Georgie in the Woods”
We went for a walk in a local beautiful woods at the weekend and I love this photo, looking down on Georgie as she bum shuffled along on the carpet of pine needles. Her hair is a disarray of curls as she had been running about and rolling around the woods for about an hour by this point!
