Day-30 Something Beautiful!

Well day 30 has arrived, which means this is the end of my photo blog until next time. I have absolutely enjoyed it. I only know of a few people who actually took the time to read through each blog and now feels like they know me a bit better. The funny thing is I was going to plan to do this blog on my own to help me use my camera more often, but great minds think alike right Libbee and Becs. It's been an awesome experimenting time. I am sure when the new baby arrives my camera will be working over-time.

Some pics that I took on our Piha scenic bush walk that I thought were just beautiful... Here they are...

Piha Beach in the distance.

Close ups

I love taking pics of the sun through the trees.

Keri Keri Beach in the distance

Day-29 A great Memory!

I always love seeing daisies. It brings back so many memories of when I was little. I don't know if kids still go outside these days to play with all the technology keeping them busy. When I was young we would always find a whole stash of daisies and make necklaces. Then it didn't matter to me that it wouldn't last because it would die. It was just the fun of collecting and making something from scratch.

Not the most outstanding flower, but there always seems to be an endless amount of them.

Day-28 Your Favourite!

I have taken so many photos since having my camera, but I thought of having a look through the earlier photos that I took when I just got it. I still didn't really know how to use it then and was just snapping away. Also funny enough I didn't know how to use it in auto mode so these pics I took in manual mode.

I can see you...

Love the big cuddles...

These were taken on our favourite bush walk. Log Race Track! It is a road you you turn off while driving on your way to Piha Beach. Since we were going out and we were way more fit than we are now we use to be keen enough to do this walk every Saturday. It is a good 2 hour walk to Keri Keri Beach. We love the scenery throughout the walk. It also depends what time of the day you go. The oceans and the mountains just look so beautiful. The rest of the pics of this walk will be in the next two blogs.

This was our first bush walk with Levi. Clearly he didn't walk that much and poor daddy had to carry him most of the way. There are a lot of steep bits as well as downhills. But we survived it and loved showing him our favourite walk. I guess when the kiddies are old enough it will be the one thing we will be doing very often.

Day-27 Made you Laugh!

Cool dude!!

With Summer coming up really fast we've been trying to convince this little Mr.2 year old to wear his sunglasses that his grandpa bought for him ages ago. He has always been anti sunglasses. It made me laugh because he will totally wear daddy's pair, but absolutely refuses to wear the ones that are small enough for him. We will just have to keep trying to convince him to wear them. He prefers to wear his own ones on his neck. REALLY!!! LOL He is just too cute...

Day-27 A simple goodness!

Mmmmmmmm

I have a husband that is obsessed with Grabone. Use to be TradeMe! LOL but oh well. I got a good deal out of this one. Why would I ever say no to Butlers Chocolate Cafe... We made it a day and went to Sylvia Park on Sunday. And had a lovely little family day.

Chocolate Brownie and a hazelnut truffle

Hot Chocolate, so good.

Have no idea what this was called but it had chocolate mousse in the middle. Not allowed mousse, so just ate the cake.

We spent way less than we would have by getting it off Grabone. Have to say we felt pretty choco full after all of that. Heheheheeee. YUM!!!!

Day-25 Something you consider a triumph!

Well we set ourselves the challenge to do a bit of motion photography... Mmmmmmmm I missed out on the night trip to the bridge at the motorway to taking shots using shutter speed with the girls. So I set up my own little challenge at home. Me, my camera, a mini torch and my trusty tripod. I did a few shots really not worthy of posting because I was still experimenting and had no idea what I was doing. I set the the tripod up in my passageway and started off just playing around with the setting on the camera using it in Manual mode S. I did a few 15 sec shots and then tried out a few that were 30 sec. I had a bit of fun.

15 sec attempting to do a heart, looks more like a fat peach.

15 sec pretty good at attempting to do a circle.

30 sec I love this one. Looks so organic and I love how I have kinda disappeared because of all the motion. 

I consider it a triumph... Learning how to use the setting on the camera is a challenge in itself. But finally figuring certain things out and with them working the way I want it to is a total bonus.

Day-24 Something you cherish!

Well when I was young I spent a lot of those years at my grandma's place. There were a lot of little antiquie things I wish I could keep forever. She always had glass display cabinets full of glassware, and just stuff. I loved her house because there were so many old things. I remember those years like they were just yesterday. Both my parents worked when we were really young, so Ma(my dad's mum) looked after us(Geraldine & I). Nothing wrong with that.

This is as close as my camera would allow me to get to show you the detail of the top. Old and fading...

Held it in my hand to show how tiny it is.

This is a tiny Coca Cola bottle I took one day from Ma's house. I know, how naughty *Smacking my hand* I don't exactly remember when I took it, but it was a loooooong time ago. It is something I cherish a lot. I keep it in my jewellery box. I have always been thinking of making it into a charm for a necklace, but then I am too scared I might loose it. It is the one thing I can feel and look at that instantly reminds me of those fun young years... Thank you Ma!

Also when I was young I use to collect and safe keep just any old thing. My mum can tell you all about that. I guess that's why till today I still collect and keep things, but this time in cute jars or tins.
Back in the day I had this 'purple case' that would hold all my precious things like my diaries, letters, shells... I think I found the case when we lived in Cafda when my dad was the caretaker at my mums work. They always had a day when you could just have a rummage through and keep old books, records, suitcases, just things that other people no longer wanted. Well I found my beloved 'purple case' and to this day still have it.

My 'purple case'

I still have the key to lock it.

Just a bit of rusty detail.

Day-23 A recent splurge!

Well I can't remember when last I spent a ridiculous amount of money on something other than our recent new family wagon. We own a Toyota Bb, but we thought it was by time we bought a car that had 7 seats since we have a growing family. LOL! We bought a Toyota Sienta, we need the boot space for the bigger buggy and just for those in case moments when we will be taking some extra passengers other that our own kiddies. Some people might not like the look of our new car, but it is really cheap on petrol and so nice to drive. Just wish the DVD player actually worked! Would have been way cool! When we had our alarm installed the guy was trying to convince me that he could do a good deal for us to get a new DVD player installed that would come with a navigational system and all all sorts of other goodies and it will only cost us $500... I was like yeah sounds great! Just hurry up and install my alarm so I can get out of here. Yeah right I was prepared to pay that much!

Our Toyota Sienta

Day-22 Something you miss!

These pics were taken at Hahei Beach when we were there in April.

I know I have so much on my blog already about the beach. I just really miss 'home' (Cape Town) sometimes for the beach. We only had white sand beaches. None of this black sand that gets stuck in between your toes and takes forever to wash off. LOL!! Back home we lived close enough to the beach to get there in a 20min drive and it was safe enough to swim anytime of the day. I'm only saying that because it looked a lot like Piha Beach which a bit of a drive away... but I dare not swim at Piha, just love the look of it and to put my toes in the water.

I was one of those kiddies that if I knew we were off to the beach for the day... the minute we arrived at the beach I would be in the water with my boogie board and only come out if I was hungry. I was pretty much a water baby. I absolutely love the ocean! We don't swim at the beach anymore as often as we use to because the beaches we have grown quite attached to in New Zealand are just so far away from where we live. So really it becomes like a total day trip to get there and so much hard work with having a little one. If I go back to Cape Town one day, I am definitely going to spend a lot of my time at the beach.

Day-21 Your happy place!

Well my ideal happy place is sitting on a beach, toes in the sand either reading a book or a magazine with just quiet around me. But whatever haven't had that for a while. Last time we were at the beach I probably only read for 20 minutes before it was my turn to keep an eye on Levi.

My happy place these days is a quiet afternoon when is having nap-time and usually I have an hour to relax. Read maybe a few pages of a book, play Candy Crush LOL while listening to some music. Something nice and soothing with not too much beat otherwise he would be awake way to quick. Today I thought I'd listen to Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite, so good. Nice and relaxing!!!! Haaaaaaaaa... Could even fall asleep myself.

I'm enjoying it while I can. Only because within the next few weeks when Levi is going to have nap-time there will be another little person keeping me company. Who knows what is going to happen then. :)

Been sleeping for more than an hour already... Totally not complaining!

Day-20 A surprise!

I was busy in our garage/studio/storeroom when Levi wonders in and has a scratch through the area where I keep all toys that he no longer plays with. Or I just put toys in that area that he is too small to play with. While minding my own business he found a toy that you put shapes into... I forgot that I put some wooden numbers in that toy, hiding them from him because he used to just throw them around the room and I was always worried I was going to loose some of the numbers. He was sitting pulling each number out and telling me what number it is. I was so SURPRISED because I know that he can count till 20 but didn't realize that he knew what each number was by seeing them. Proud mummy moment!! When he was little we did put a 1-20 number chart on his wall and he did start daycare a few months ago. So he is a learning little machine now. So cute.

Day-19 Something you wish to improve!

Since doing this 30-day-challenge photo blog, I have being trying to improve on my camera skills. Although it is a lot of fun at the same time it is also quite hard to get the right shot especially at night. So something I wish to improve is to learn to take amazing shots at night.

We lit up some sparklers on Sunday night which Levi absolutely loved. But poor little man was so scared and excited at the same time of the other sparkly things that made a little more noise LOL

I liked this photo... Levi looks like he has two faces. His moving but the sparklers are not!

Concentration, such hard work holding two sparklers.

With these two I had the camera on a tripod. This firework was dancing around all over the floor.

Trying to take the shot as someone else is setting off there fireworks, but was always just a tad too slow. 

The other thing I need to improve on is motion pics at night. Took some shots of our fireworks last night. We didn't get to do too many because of the rain.

This looks more like we made a fire.

Well fun for me Quinton decided to by me a photography workshop. I will be going on Monday night to learn how to take shots at night with a professional photographer as well as learn how to use my camera using the manual functions. Woohoo!!! Thank you hubby!!! 

Day-18 Top of your priority list!

Toddler and newborn nappies

 Well by looking at these two nappies I'm guessing you can tell what will be the top of my priority list till forever.... these two monkey's. I still can't believe that in the next few weeks we will have a new baby. I look at these two nappies and try to remember how tiny Levi was when he was born. I love it when they are so tiny and can't talk back and say no! and all the rest of it.

Bag packed for the hospital

I decided on Sunday night that I better make a start on packing my bag for the hospital. Last time I went I packed so many unnecessary things. This time I will just pack the essentials that I will actually need while being there, hoping that I don't have to stay there for very long.

Baby's area in our room

I enjoyed having Levi in our room for the first three months, so I will be doing that again. So much easier to have him this close to me especially because there will be a lot of waking up during the night for that first few months.

pamphlets 

Mmmmmmmm what can I say. So many things to decide on doing or not doing in regards to labour, birth... We will just have to wait and see what lies ahead for us.

My photos were not that exciting for this blog...

Day-17 A recent favourite photo!

I love this close up with her closing her eyes while dusting herself with sand.

At the beginning of this year in January we went on a family outing to the zoo. It was my first official day taking shots with my new camera. I took soooooo many shots, but these would have to be my favourite. All day long the elephant kept amazingly walking past us and by the time I got around to getting the camera ready to take a shot she was long gone. These were taken at the end of the day when we were just about to leave. We were sitting down having ice-blocks when lo and behold the elephant was about to come back to her enclosure and yay we were just in the right spot at the right time. She did this amazing dust bath and it was so nice to capture shots of her standing in one place dusting away. It was the highlight of my zoo visit that day!

up!!

down!!

She was just so amazing! Loved every minute of it!

Day-16 A project that needs attention!

If you are one of the amazing people who like my Lakool Design page, https://www.facebook.com/LakoolDesign
you would know that this is a long time coming project. LOL I have been so slack finishing it off. I initially wanted to make it to divide a space in a previous place we lived at, but obviously didn't get around to it. I worked out the dimensions and my dad builded the frames for me and I did all the rest. It has been a really fun project! All it really still needs are some hinges so that I can make use of it. Hope soon, before the end of this month.

I thought it would be nice take shots of it outside seeing that it has birds on it. I was hoping for some birds to fly by, but naaaaa nothing.

Day-15 Someone you love!

Well that's just way too easy. The love of my life of course. My amazing hubby!!! He is the best husband and daddy I could ever ask for. He is so thorough with everything he does and very proper LOL I say he gets that from his mum, but neither of them agree to it. Even though I think he is an amazing guitarist, he always wants to be reassured that he sounded really good on stage. He is so talented in so many ways. A Mr. Fixit when you need him to be and way to smart when it comes to computers. Quite handy for me cause I wouldn't have a clue how to fix anything regarding computers. He is an amazing daddy to Levi. Levi is at that stage now where he just thinks that his daddy is way cooler than mummy and I just love it! He waits everyday for daddy to come home (to play). Sometimes poor Quinton is so tired and just wants to relax when he arrives home and Levi won't have a bar of it. I love the bond that they have, it is just so sweet to watch. While being pregnant I haven't been able to play all the rough games that Levi wants to play. So I'm guessing when daddy sets foot in the door it's on...

My boys...

My Love...

We've been married for 7 years and 7 months, been together 11 years. We've had our fair share of ups and downs, but I guess that's what keeps us together and appreciating and loving each other all the more. I pray everyday that God protects him and looks after him. Life would be ridiculously boring without him! He can make me laugh so much sometimes that my tummy hurts and sometimes so frustrated. But he is all mine and I wouldn't want to have it any other way!!!

Love you Honey!!!