Ze Blog Haz Moved!

Just letting everyone here know, I now have a new blog. I have finally graduated from blogger!

My new blog can be found at www.sharonfyfe.com.au/blog.

It has taken me nearly a month to get around to sharing the new address... sorry! I have been flat out with the kids (who have spent most of that time sick!) and I still wanted to do a bit more tweaking with the new blog... but that may have to wait a while.

Sorry!

I can not believe how busy one can be, and seem to achieve absolutely nothing!

I have had a heap on business wise - another photography friend and I are doing a display in a couple of weeks to attract some local clientele, so in preparation I have to get prints ordered, business cards and some postcards ready, I have not even thought about going back to finishing my website... ARGH!

The two business card designs I am working with at the moment:




THEN there was Hannah's Birthday on Thursday. My precious girl is 3! She had asked AGES ago for a Wiggly Party, and with everything else on, I had not had time to arrange a proper party for her. So Wednesday I went shopping and phoned (the mother of) one of her friends to see if they could come over for a cake. I was feeling a bit bad about not organising more (she was going out to dinner that night with my family, and tomorrow we are seeing DH's).

So Wednesday night I cleaned up and decorated the rumpus room. Thursday morning DH worked from home, so he headed upstairs before the kids woke and shut himself in his study. When the kids got up we went about our morning routine as per usual, then once the kids were fed and dressed I headed upstairs with Toby, let DH know we were coming, then called Hannah to follow us.

This was the room that she was greeted with:


I had a fantastic photo of her reaction, standing looking up at the balloons, but the camera settings were completely wrong (I forgot to change them after taking the above shot) and it was completely blown out, beyond being selvage).

Anyway, I think it is safe to say that she never noticed the absence of guests at the party (which is just as well, given her guest list was made up of Wags, Dorothy, Henry, Captain, The Wiggles, and... Jesus - huh?) and as it turned out, just the one friend over for about an hour was enough to leave the rumpus looking almost exactly like it had the previous day before I started cleaning... lol!

Other photos from the day...


Hannah put the hat on him...

hehe - Puppy Toby.

Hannah's choice of cake decoration - I didn't have any say in the matter - although given I had planned to make her a fancy charactor cake, I am not complaining.




Oh, and her presents: 2 Wiggles jigsaws, a Wiggles domino game, a Wiggles spinner puzzle game thing... a Wiggles toy hamper, a Wiggles remote control car, a Wiggles guitar (from Nanna) and... a Barbie. lol! (also some books from my brother, and my mothers housemate, and a teddybear from the friend she had at the party).

OK - I am supposedly working... lol. Best get back to it.

So much to blog, so little time!

I hate to think how far behind I am with posts at the moment. I am not even going to try to catch up.

So I am making a shortcut to the last week.

Last weekend we sold our house. Which was very exciting, because it meant that I could get my new camera and lens. Yes, my excitement for the camera far outweighed my excitement over the house. *blush*

So Thursday I went for a drive ALL the way across town to pick up my new baby. Canon 5D and 24-70mm L series lens. I never DREAMED that I would own something with that beautiful red ring, but with my Tamron playing up, I needed something more reliable. Still, it would never have happened without the sale of the house (which, BTW, was for 55k more than we were originally budgeting on - hence the splurge).

Anyway, Thursday, picked up camera, drove home, then had MIL over for lunch, so I did not have a chance to play until she left sometime after 3. Toby was asleep, so Hannah and I went out into the fading and VERY dull light to have a play. Well, in as much as Hannah will ever let me. A game of "let me take a photo of your..." managed to get me a couple of seconds of posing, though.


So - now I have a second body... my old 350D as a back up, something I can use if I need a little more range (my lens range of the full frame sensor is a bit limited!) Or so I thought. Apparently someone else has an interest in photography that just can not be fullfilled with either of her current cameras.

I wanted to take some photos of Toby to try out some new newborn props, and knowing how good Hannah is at interfering in photo taking (either wanting a turn with the camera, or else playing with the subject, or just getting in frame), and since there was no way I was going to let her try my 2kg, 3.7k camera/lens combo, I set up my 350D with my 50mm f1.8. She had a blast, and actually managed to take some reasonably composed shots! (when I reminded her to look through the "eye bit." I will post some of her shots later, if I get the chance.


Mine taken at the same time:
This one the focus was almost deliberate. He only lay down for about 1 1/2 seconds, literally, and I knew I did not have time to work out how to move the focal point on the new camera to the other side, and it was too far away to re-compose... so I just went with the focus on the hand stroking the fabric instead.

AAAANNNNDDD... because I know they will be itching to see them... some more previews of the shoot I did today.

Daddy and Jasper:
Mummy and Jasper (I have known mummy for as long as I can remember - over 20 years, I think?)
And Minnie... or Maxie? I can't remember which was which...

Sneak Peek

I had the absolute pleasure of photographing this adorable little guy this morning. 8 days old and oh so sweet!


He was not interested in sleeping for me, unfortunately... but he did behave himself well - at least most of the time.

The mysterious mind of a 3 year old

Hannah was playing outside, and I heard her crying, so I looked outside to check what she was doing.

She was sitting in the middle of the trampoline. Butt naked. Why was she crying? She was scared of the kangaroos.

huh?

As to why she was naked... I am yet to get an answer on that one.

Since I didn't post a photo with my last entry... this is one from the Montsalvat PB shoot that I did with Cazz, Melissa and their respective kidlets a couple of weeks back.

AAARGH!

DH decided that since I completed most of a computer science degree, I should be able to build my own website, rather than spend $200 on a template.

What DH completely missed with that logic was the fact that I have never used Flash before. Half the reason I only completed "most" of the degree was that I did not really like Java, and without actually having any idea what the programming language Flash uses is, it is quite Java-ish. Give me C/C++ any day.

2 days later, and I am starting to get the hang of the new programming language. I have to have it up before Saturday, so that gives me, what... 3 more days? 2 if you take out Thursday, when we have people coming over. *sigh* I am getting there... slowly. Yesterday I built a lot of the framework, and today I have fine tuned it, and am currently about 80% of the way through the contact page. Then I just have the gallery, and I need to work out what I am doing with the home page...

You make me feel like dancing...

The Oxford Dictionary describes dancing as "a series of steps and movements that match the rhythm of a piece of music."

Stuart put some music on for Hannah a couple of nights ago, and we all got sucked in to a rather exhausting evening of what can only be described as extreme outburst of unknown energy. We all had an absolute riot, but we were so exhausted by the time we finally got the kids shipped off to bed - especially given it was 11pm! *gasp!!!!!* (one must add here - after a rather ratty day, Toby ended up going down for a nap at 6.30, and then waking at 8.30, which is usually their bed time, and for some unknown reason, Hannah had slept late that morning as well, AND there was no clock in the room, so we all kind of lost track of time with both kids routines being out)

I did manage to catch Hannah in action - she actually saw me with the camera, and LET me take her photo! I was not risking distracting her with the flash, though, so given the available light, the photos are really not good quality.






A colour one - just to show how stunning her dancing costume really was...


And the latest addition to Hannahmania... (which Hannah was quite upset about not being able to wear herself, despite her numerous other dancing skirts!)

Cupcakes and the forgotten one.

I am attempting to do "something" with Hannah each day while Toby is having his morning nap. Usually I would be finishing up some cleaning, sitting down for a break, doing some photo editing or sewing, having a shower... and Hannah would be entertaining herself, following me around chatting, watching TV...

It isn't really fair on her. She gets lots of time with me when Toby is awake, but I am always distracted, or there are meals to be prepared, nappies to change, etc. By the time Toby goes down in the afternoon I am tired, and not usually at my most patient.

So now I am moving Hannah time up to the morning.

Today we made cupcakes! From the outset my plan was to make them as bright and colourful as possible so they would look good in a photo. *blush* sad, hey. But we had fun. Hannah got to serve them to both Nanna and Daddy (and actually managed to limit her consumption to only 2 for the day!). Oh - plus the beater licking.


And the forgotten child. Poor Toby. He gets a bit lost in his sisters wake. At the moment he is trying so hard to move around. He burst into tears the other day because Hannah and I were crawling around on the floor, and he was not able to follow us when I chased Hannah into another room. He had rolled over onto his front, and was up on his hands and knees rocking forward and crying.

So. Here he is, in all his post-lunch glory. Scuse the odd bit of food... some areas were a bit hard to clean up in photoshop. lol!

Hannahmania is open for business... again!

Well, it has only taken... ummm... ages. Hannahmania has finally re-opened.

I stopped sewing back when I was pregnant with Toby. Too many complications, it was just too hard to know if and when I was going to be able to sew.

This time around, all items will be sold through the shop. Custom orders were getting too much last time. I will be selling a number of new designs/items as well as bringing back the very popular striped pants.

Sneak peek of the first item added - more to come over the next few days!

Something a little different.

Have you ever seen anything this cute!




From Knitspirations at WAHMania. There are other designs in their store, and some seriously cute beanies as well.

I am in the process of preparing to re-open my own store, but I keep on adding new designs/items leaving a pile of almost finished items behind me. lol! With any luck, I will have enough ready to list by the end of the week.

(Photos swiped off the WAHMania site with permission of Knitspirations)

The beach and the river

Yesterday I was itching to get out and take some photos of something non-kid related... so I convinced DH and the kids to the beach for sunset.

It was supposed to be Brighton Beach, but we were running late, so I had to be happy with St Kilda. More people around than I would have liked, but at least the sun put on a rather lovely display.



On the way home, we stopped at the lookout at the top of Yarra Blvd. I did not have my tripod, so this is a little shaky, but not too bad. I had to spend ages editing out the streetlights from the Eastern!
Going back a couple of weeks ago - Our Corowa trip. I still have not edited all the photos, but these were a couple I took of the kids by the river (on the dried up river bed). Hannah found a rusted trolley that had become exposed with the river dropping so low, which she seemed to enjoy sitting in.

So long!

How slack!

Well, I really could not justify not posting today. I had my first competition results at DVPS last night. I was fairly happy with the images that I put in, and was hoping for maybe a merit or two.

Well.

My absolute favourite photo (the one that had been untitled, which I ended up just using the girls name for), the one that I was sure would do fantastically, was given 9/15. I think the lowest score given on the night was an 8/15, so really, not a great score. I was a bit disappointed, and given what he said about the image, I was a little surprised it scored so low, as he seemed to only really have one negative, everything else was quite positive.

But, that is life.

The one of the baby feet (Wished for child) and the one of Hannah both scored 10/15. Neither were perfect shots, so I was happy enough with those scores.

The last one up was the one of Toby. He had picked out a couple of slight faults with the image, and after my last three, I was expecting about an 8 or 9 for it. Well, apparently I was in for a bit of a surprise when, not only did it score 14/15, but it also got first place!


Now I have said all that, I really did actually like the judge. He was really nice, found great comments about all the photos, and I think he did a really great job, even if a couple of the results were not what I expected.

Meanwhile, the subject spent the 2 1/2 hours that I was out at home screaming for his father. As it turned out, the poor boy just wanted his mummy to come and put him down to sleep. Poor daddy having to deal with the screaming child for all that time! I have promised that next time that happens I will come home, but being my first competition AND getting first place, I did not want to miss collecting my certificate just to go home to look after an unsettled baby when there was a chance that he would just continue screaming for me instead.

Conversation/monologue of the day from Hannah:

"Mum, you get up please and come downstairs and help me. Help me downstairs. I need you for only 3 hours. No mummy stop being funny [laughing]. You need help, mummy."

Only a mother...

can get so excited by another persons toileting habits.

We put of TTing Hannah for a LONG time. First because I was pregnant, then because we had a new baby, were moving, were putting all our spare time into doing up the old house... There were so many excuses.

Honestly, she could have been TT'd just after she turned 2. She was able to use the toilet when she was interested in being in undies. We just were not interested in the extra hassle.

But last week I finally decided I had run out of excuses. We were home for a couple of days, nothing on that was going to cause any major interruptions, and she is definitely ready.

After a couple of days of asking for a nappy, she has since given up, and is going really well. We might get an accident once a day (often, but not always, poos) usually when she is tired, but generally she is doing fantastically! We do have a bit of an issue with her playing instead of getting down to business... seriously, you take everything else away, and she will still find ways to play! Singing, playing with her feet, twitching around... *sigh*

The big moment that has brought me to posting though... most of the time I am taking her to the toilet, telling her when she should be going. A few minutes ago, though, I was sitting on here chatting with her dad on MSN, and suddenly I see her going past my door saying "I just going to the toilet mummy!"

By the time I got downstairs she was sitting on the toilet in the middle of a wee! I was so excited, as was she! Because she took herself, she even got 2 stickers. lol.

Meanwhile her bedroom door is starting to look quite pretty. She has a laminated chart that has 5 circles on it, and when the circles all have stickers, she gets a small prize (usually a choc-drop, although I am planning to get some face painting bits, so I will start painting a flower or something on her cheek instead) and then all the stickers go onto her door.

My sick boy.

I was going to come on and post some photos of our trip to the miniature railway yesterday, but instead I have spent the day looking after a stroppy sick baby. :-(

Toby felt a bit warm when I got him up from his nap yesterday evening, so I took his temp - it was 39 degrees! So off to the Dr today, and he has an upper respiratory tract infection, and is on antibiotics. Poor kid is so miserable. His temp was up even further this arvo - 39.5 degrees. I felt awful for holding off panadol until we got in from the Drs (cos there is nothing worse than showing up with a sick kid who appears perfectly healthy thanks to a well timed dose of panadol).

Anyway, might try to post the photos later if Toby sleeps well enough.

We has a tooth!

I was just giving up on them ever coming through, when I noticed something sharp when Toby was chewing my finger earlier!

I swear this tooth has been cutting for about 3 weeks now. He has not been bad with it, but he has been grizzly and a bit fussy/unsettled. Last night he was up every hour or 2.

Only about 15 more baby teeth to go!

Photo lull...

The only image that I have taken in over a week. My photo entries for the DVPS comp (Open Subject) I was a bit stuck for non-child photos, and with a sick household I have not had much chance to take anything new.



From top to bottom:
"I sitting for photo - I have my lolly!"
Untitled (any suggestions?)
Wished-for child (the meaning of the babies name)
Toby

Since there is not much of interest in the post, I will add in the conversation I had with a tantrumming toddler earlier...

"Hannah, come into the bathroom and wash your hands please!"
"No! I go to Toby!"
"Hands first, then you can go play with Toby."
"No!"
"Hannah you are so exasperating!"
"No! I NOT exaspeRA-TING!" *add foot stamp and pointed finger*
"Hannah, believe me, you really are." *trying so hard not to laugh at her*
"NO!" *bursts into tears* "I NOT exasperating. You're exasperating!"

I cracked up laughing, and gave the poor kid a cuddle, at which point she decided that it was a good joke too, and proceeded to perform for the video on the phone.

I am just loading some bits off my phone, and I could not resist sharing some of these. For a child who hates cameras, she LOVES being recorded on video on my phone!





She was a bit nuts when I took this one...

I am sitting here...

with my beloved daughter sitting on my lap, giving me kisses and cuddles.

I am the luckiest person alive.

I am off to enjoy it.

And the other post...

These images are a bit out of order... but ah well.

I have recently, with the small patch of lovely weather we have had, discovered a park not far from where we are living. I set out on Tuesday with the intent to take the kids for a walk, and I was wanting to find one of the lovely maples that we can see out the upstairs windows to make use of all the lovely autumn leaves.

As it turns out, all those lovely trees are actually on peoples properties, not on the parklands that cross about 4 blocks just down the road (mostly tree edged sports fields). But in searching I did find the playground tucked behind some tennis courts. With the kids it takes about 10 minutes to walk there (that is travelling at a 2 1/2 year olds pace) Given how hilly the area is, it is actually a reasonably comfortable walk... not flat, but nothing too steep either.

For this photo she was on someones nature strip. It was getting late in the afternoon, and the lighting was SO lovely - hence the orange hair. lol! (I bribed her with Tic Tacs to sit and look at the camera, so now whenever we are walking back from the park she will randomly sit down on the ground and say "I have Tic Tac please - I sitting down!" Oops.


Toby's first swing. He was completely obsessed with his sister, and would not look in my direction, no matter how much I called.

Oh, I made that beanie, too.


Toby on his half birthday. He was getting a bit tired, so he would not sit... but I was determined to get something. As per usual, using his forehead to lift his head up.


We have a yard full of these things... and Hannah is doing her part to ensure the seeds are well distributed so we will have many more to come.


Just playing in the back yard at our old house.


I love my Boganvillia. I will miss it when we sell the place. :-(


That is about it, really. Just a bunch of random photos for this one.

OK... a slight delay.

I kind of ran out of time to get back and finish the story. And TBH, I am not actually all that keen to. Thinking back over the time in the hospital, there were a lot of frustrations... all par for the course. But I find more than the upset of having a child in hospital for 3 weeks, I just feel angry when I remember the little things, the slip ups that set him back a little... All I wanted was to have Toby with me, and anything that held that up was downright devastating.

So I will be brief.

It was a while before I got to have him out of the SCN again. We had to wait for him to come off the glucose drip, and then for him to be weaned off the warmth of the isolette. That in all took about 2 1/2 times as long as it should, due to midswives forgetting to decrease the drip/temp at the right time... so instead of being about 12 hours, it took over a day. When you are desperately waiting for a chance to take your child and just cuddle them, without having them attached to drips, and having to remain in the SCN, with midwives watching over you... and when you are counting down the hours until you are sent home, away from your child before they are even a week old... Any delay was near unforgivable.

Finally he was allowed out. I begged the night staff for a chance to take him out, just for a few minutes before his next feed. I was given 20. 5 minutes later the morning staff came on, and came and collected him. As soon as he was gone I burst into tears. I had not even taken him out of his crib, because he was still asleep and not quite due for his feed. I was trying to be so good, and for it I was robbed of the chance to finally have a cuddle with him outside of the SCN.

Hmm... I did say I was a bit angry, didn't I. I will try to tone it down.

Anyway, after 5 days, I was discharged. Surprisingly, I coped quite well with that. I had devised a routine that never had us away from him for more than 2 feeds. Within about 2 days of being discharged, I was driving again. I did get permission from my GP... but as I was having such a good recovery, and with Toby in hospital, it just was too hard to wait it out.

A couple of days after I was discharged, Toby started to get snuffly, and came down with a cold. 2 days after that, his sister presented with it as well. In a round about way, a point was made about the fact that we had had her in the night before she got sick when she had a slight cough. We had not thought it was anything - just her being a little tired. I think what irritated me more, though, was that Toby was already sick at this point. We had no way of knowing that she was carrying anything when she showed no signs of being unwell.

The cold really set Toby back. He did not feed well, and that made it worse. We were only able to try a couple of suck feeds a day, and the rest was just straight down the NG tube. It. took. a. lifetime. before he was taking full bottles. Nearly 3 weeks, to be precise.

Most of the next couple of weeks was just a long monotony of going in and out of hospital. Hannah hated leaving her brother behind. She kept wanting to take him with us.

Once it became clear that Toby was going to be in for a little while, I mentioned something in passing to the Paed about how I would love to have him home for our anniversary, Dec 1st. By the last few days of November, he was getting close, but he was not quite ready to come home.

So the Paed arranged for Toby to take day leave for the day (completely off her own bat). It happens with SCN babies if there is a special event on... but not at our hospital. She had to really push to get the hospital to allow it. Apparently it was the first and last time they were going to allow it. She basically told them that she had already planned it with us, and that she just needed them to provide the form to sign him out.

It was a lovely day. We went home for a little while, and then we went out and had fish and chips in the park for dinner.





A couple of days later I was able to room in, and he was discharged the following day. We finally had our baby home. 3 weeks and 12 hours after he was born, still nearly 2 weeks before he was due.

There is a heap missing from that story... the jaundice (which he had until he was about 10 weeks or so), the blood tests... they seemed almost daily! But that is the bulk of it.

The child in question calls, though, so that is where it is ending for now. BBL with some stuff from the last couple of days.