Mela

Goodbye My Sweet Beautiful Mum

2008-08-23T15:35:00.000-07:00

My beautiful Mum died unexpectedly yesterday. She was 56 and we were not ready. Love you so so much Mum and I miss you like crazy already.

2008-08-11T17:12:00.000-07:00

In the very early hours of Saturday morning, I was lucky enough to watch this little boy enter the world.

Jusr minutes old in these photos. It was such an amazing thing to see. A perfect birth, a perfect baby and his Mama, wow, you were so amazing Ness. I can't thank you and Ed enough for letting me see this miracle. I can't even begin to put into words what it meant to me.

His Mum before he arrived.

And the birth announcement cards I am having done for them as a suprise. Jed is baby boy number three for his beautiful family!

snow

2008-08-03T22:18:00.000-07:00

Leaving out a big chunk of time for the moment so I can post these from the snow.
I do want to say thanks to Sweet Chilly Philly and Sharon for tagging me though, very late, sorry girls! Maybe next time I'll actually get time to do it.

Poor child with goggles that were too big, not that he kept them on for long anyway.

Snowball! I should have taken a photo of Joel's nose after I hit him with one but I felt so bad already that I didn't, made him bleed!

Jordy and Uncle Benny making snow angels. "Welcome to my office" Ben said when we arrived, very nice office indeed Ben!

He doesn't have the greatest stamina Jordy, so it was either carry him or drag him up, hard work, lucky we had Ben to share the fun of that!

And a snowboard ride too!

Pom Pom! (Jordy named her that rather than grandma for those going huh?!)

Such amazing blue sky and sunshine! I didn't even feel cold and those that know me, know I'm always cold!

I'd left my camera in the car while we sorted out what we were doing, then walked back to get it which was a fair hike to go up the chairlift. While I was getting it, I must have left my gloves behind, which was a bit poor because it was cold without them but I thought nevermind, at least I have the camera. Got to the top and it was soo beautiful, pulled the camera out, um, no battery! Had taken it out to charge and forgotten to put it back in! Very annoyed is an understatement! I got only a couple of shots off my p&s (above) that was in my pocket before it went flat on me too!

Joel was calling Jordy The Cosmonaut with his suit and new goggles! The Cosmonaut didn't think it was that funny!

The Cosmonaut did like skiing though! We held his hands amd he said "Let me go, I know how to do it"!

Cute new boots that don't make blisters!

Waiting for the Ski Tube, a train that goes from the bottom, right up the mountain through a tunnel to Perisher Blue and then to Blue Cow. Trains are one of Jordy's favourite things, a train at the snow, how good is that!

And the rest of us thought these mini donuts from a shop at the station were pretty good!

I went without one glove for a bit so I could feel the shutter button on the camera properly, until I found these! Much better!

The navman very nearly got sent out the window on the way there, she didn't like us going the way we did! We had to mute her, there are only so many times you can listen to "Perform a U-Turn where possible"! She is normally very good and helpful but not up mountains apparantly! She didn't mind when we came home the same way though thank goodness!

And if you read this Ben, Jordy wants to say Hi to Lilly!

2008-06-11T19:37:00.000-07:00

The nocturnal boy, he doesn't appreciate being woken up in the morning, quite happy snuggling under his favourite blanket.

I noticed this very pretty light and needed to take photos, only problem was it up at fence height, so...

I got the boy to stand on a table!

While he is still not exactly what you would call a hat wearer, I can get him to keep one on long enough for some photos now.

And one from yesterday

5th Birthday!

2008-05-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

(happy birthday graphic by kateF @ Pickleberrypop )

Can't believe he is 5 already! He got a Nintendo DS which he loves, could barely get him to look up from it for a photo!

We had planned a party at Kidstown which is one of his favourite spots but the weather was dismal, the only time it has rained here pretty much all year and freezing to boot, the coldest day in 30 something years! So a last minute change of plans, we went bowling, he loves that also.

Joel and Jordy, yes we actually got those bowling shoes on him, no socks though eww. They insisted he wear them, the other bowling places we have been to have been more lenient with kids and shoes, no such luck here though. He didn't like them at all but we got through!

Also having a birthday on the 17th is Jordy's cousin Emma, with her brother Phillip's 5th just a few days before.

Jordy had wanted a Transformers cake for ages beforehand and was so happy with the Bumblebee cake Lisa made him (not that he ate it, but loved the look of it!) So with two nephews and a niece with birthdays in the same week, poor Lisa had a busy time the night before the party! She did an amazing job though, huge thank you!

Jordan' Bumblebee is in the middle for those that haven't experienced the joys of Transformers!

While we were getting party stuff we got some new crafty stuff for Jordy to help keep him entertained, particularly important at the moment because he hasn't been going to kinder. He has been sick and his sleeping is also way out of whack again. One of the things we got was beads, good fine motor activity.

This fishy bead was his favourite, he named him Goldie and he's "Keeping him forever"! Don't you love the over the top expression of love for Goldie!

And one last one from yesterday, I got the speedlight (flash) out and had a play. I bounced the flash off the window to the side. This was taken very late afternoon and without the flash there just wan't enough light left. I don't use it often but you can get good results from bouncing flash.

2008-05-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

A few from Friday at the local park -

Saturday we went on Puffing Billy, Jordy loves trains, it was too loud for him though. We had to go right down the back of it. I had intended to get some photos of the actual train when we got off but he fell asleep in my arms on the way back!

And Sunday, Mother's Day at the park.

She is keeping the tooth fairy busy! Wish she would pull the one that is hanging by a thread though. I loved wobbly teeth when I was young but now, eeek!

His moustache! Fun!

I see that pesky tooth again!

2008-05-08T18:22:00.000-07:00

A couple more of Bianca from last week

Jordy actually picked this hat when we were at Torquay, promised he would wear it and of course didn't. But it was cold over the weekend and he wanted to go to mini golf so we insisted on the hat.

He took it off in the car because it was of course "hurting" but did actually put it back on for mini golf.

He loves the nearby mini golf, the sign out the front claims it is Australia's Best Mini Golf, Joel and I are fairly sure it should read Australia's Crappest Mini Golf but the boy adores it! He gets a little sad on the last hole though, the balls disappear down a pipe not to be seen again. He asked me to take this photo of the balls before they went! (Excuse the colour from my pocket p&s, love having a pocket camera but hmm.. it even cures his anaemia!!)

Wednesday was Mother's day at kinder. I got a cute heart shaped keyring that has a picture he drew of me inside, very cute.

Didn't quite capture his expression of disgust at sitting down for snack watching the others eat fruit but this almost shows it. Yes, he still has eating issues, sigh.

2008-05-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm going to try again with the blog, lets see how long I last!

If you haven't already seen it my website is up and running, www.melindaalexanderphotography.com
Let me know what you think if you have a look.

Some photos from the past week-

Jordy ready for the park. Waiting for Lisa, there is always time for a few photos.

Jesse at the park.

and again.

Bianca. She was a crack up at the park, telling any kid she met her life story and her brother and cousins life stories as well! There was a little girl there in costume and she said to B, "I'm Robin Hood". B said "Oh hi Robin Hood, I'm Bianca Xxxx" Completely thought it was the little girl's name! God did we laugh.

So we were actually going to the wetlands but it rained, well drizzled.

Jordy was not a happy camper so we drove down there anyway and look what we saw!

An echidna! In suburban Melbourne! Well in a park but still, impressive!

Bells beach. Watching Benny surf.

This I love, pure joy. He was having a seaweed fight with Dad!

It was a cold day, hence the fluffy crocs, Jordy doesn't do socks and really only wears crocs so the fluffies are perfect. Except at the beach. Because you can guarantee that small children will go in no matter what temperature!

He had been just playing, running from the waves but then stopped running, deliberately!

We did try and rescue him!

But when you are already wet, why not really enjoy!

Poor fluffy crocs!

The fluffy insert does come out for washing and drying so we discovered! And lucky for him he had a full set of dry clothes which is more than we can say for poor Dad!

And again!

2008-01-17T21:21:00.000-08:00

Look what got delivered here today!

He was stoked to see it "Hey, that's me!" but not that happy to have his photo taken to show it! Got there eventually though.

There is just soo many inspirational layouts inside too! LOVE this magazine.

We are home again for those who follow my flickr, he is getting better.

Some news!

2007-12-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

Check this out! So very excited to be a part of this!

Adding this link for a layout too!

A Perfect Family

2007-10-05T22:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting Annette and her family and got to photograph them. They are just such a beautiful, perfect family, so loving and happy! Here are a few of the photos, (there's still heaps more to come Annette).

Building!

2007-08-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

Very quickly, because Lisa wants to see -

See something in the bokeh?

Yep, the stumps for our new house!

Then the floor!

And the littlest builder who is on light duties - "The bigger ones can do the heavy parts!" He would also like Lisa to know its not finished yet!!! "Tell her we've got lots more parts to put on it"!! In case you couldn't tell!

Almost warmer

2007-08-12T04:56:00.000-07:00

The almond trees blossom this time every year as it starts to get a little warmer, a little promise of better things to come.

And some of the boy -

This one was taken in his bedroom which has a large north facing window. I'd been taking them of him a little further back not directly in the sun when he moved forward and gave me this. Too good to miss though I knew his hair and shoulder would be blown. Turned out to be a good thing thankfully because its not often you get a look like this. Just the wall behind him, I do have a backdrop but I've never used it!

One good thing about winter, the lush green grass! Trying to capture it while I can because it will all be dead soon enough with stage 4 water restrictions still in. The little rocking chair was mine when I was a child, given to me by my grand parents, cute huh!

He looks kinda comtemplative here and he is, contemplating how he can get off the chair lol! He won't walk barefoot on grass which can be handy if you don't want him to move for a bit!

These just make me happy -

He gets the cheesiest smile happening when he gives me flowers, its sooo cute!

And just to show he doesn't always swan around with a photogenic look on his face! -

Still cute though.

There's more on Flickr, you can click the thingy on the side, it shows the newest ones (well it does after a while anyway). I'm pretty sure thats all anyone comes here to see, certainly not for my words which I just struggle to get out. I'm actually trying to decide whether its worth keeping up with a blog or not... really not sure. Layouts I guess, might post some next time.

Cover Boy!

2007-07-15T00:05:00.000-07:00

Just amazing! Made me so very happy! (right when I really needed it too!)
And for those who haven't seen the mag here are my layouts too -

And some photos

Yeah, he glows in the dark! This one is at Braeside Park, right near where I grew up. We started walking down to the wetlands but the little man couldn't so we headed to the playground where he found this fun spinning thing! Jordy and I spent last week in Melbourne, attempting to destress a little.

Pom Pom's placemat on his head, he loves these placemats, he and Bianca fight over them! They both even try to take them to Southland, god knows what for!

I get a lot of this upsidedown-ness when the camera is out!

Bought him this while we were down from Ikea. It spins and he can pull the cover down and hide in it!

By the river

Also by the river with the sunset glowing on the water and cliff behind him.

Some Photos

2007-06-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

Just some photos

Cold weather beginning

Jordan's 4th Birthday

More Puddle fun, Jordy and Bianca

Nana pushes high! Wish I had have been able to get them both in this better but couldn't due to the trees. Jordan and Jesse getting pushed on the swing by Nana.

Reflection. Used BILs 70-200 L lens on this occasion, loved it so much I went and bought myself the 24-70 L, beautiful lens but wouldn't you know it Jordan doesn't like it ("it's too big, where has your smaller lens gone?"!!). Ahh, he'll get used to it.

The boy.

A fairy sighting.

Very pretty fairy she was! And good too, though not cheap, she required payment for these. She requested $10 but Lisa suggested she would be just as happy with a pinky purple one ($5 and she was, afterall they are her favourite coulours!Thankfully she doesn't prefer yellow or green!) Still worth it though, we got so many good ones of her.

Stacks more from the past couple of months on Flickr, even more on the HD that are just not gonna get seen due to lack of time!

Layouts

2007-05-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

Just some more layouts that for one reason or another I never uploaded to my gallery. They are from the past few months, I didn't have a mass scrapping session! All use my stuff, one Jason Gaylor brush used down the side of the one called Rare.

Oh and check out my boy on a bag!

You can lead a horse to water

2007-04-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

Poor neglected Blog! 2 months, too many photos and layouts to post and I really don't know where to start!Um, with a photo maybe.

My beautiful son. This photo had such a huge response on Flickr, my first explore Top 10 and front page! Flickr is such an inspirational place, amazing.

This one actually won me a prize! I won Childish David's texture actions in the Totally Texture pool's moody comp. I've only had a little play but they are awesome actions, really easy and have masks to remove texture from areas if desired.

So why the title of this post? You can't make it drink, nor my boy. We have struggled with his eating and drinking (lack of) since he was a baby. His paed told us to research gastrostomy tubes (tube into his tummy for feeds)because that is likely what he will be recommending. We know it is time, its starting to cause problems in his little body, more than just being small. We are ok with it, relieved even except for the surgery part. No idea on when a decision will be made, things move slowly in the bush.

Slowly isn't even the word for our subdivision. I just searched back in the blog to see when we sold the front half of our property, you think I would have blogged that, nope! Anyway it was over a year ago and we were told we were nearly there... apparantly we are really nearly there now. We believe it was signed at the titles office last week though getting hold of anyone who could confirm that is proving difficult. If it was (and we really, really need it to be), settlement would happen in the next few weeks. Its not just the house, other things are dependent on settlement. We are so lucky that the buyer of the front half wasn't in a hurry.

My second explore top 10! Parkdale, Melbourne on sunset, HDR. HDR for anyone curious stands for high dynamic range. This one is a 3 exposure HDR. You take photos with differing exposures of the same scene and then tone-map them with software. PS CS2 can do this which is what I used. You need to use a tripod really, to make sure the different exposures all line up perfectly. I was suprised I pulled this one off as I handheld it, balancing on top of one of the posts and it was bloody windy!

So I was feeling so incredibly homesick for Melbourne a few weeks ago, really, really wanted to be back there. We went down and ended up spending two weeks there. Caught up with most people I needed to, had some awesome times with my family. Jordy loved having his cousins nearby. Lots of shopping and trips to the beach. Met up with the very talented Dale
and her gorgeous daughter. I had lots of willing models for photos, my nieces and nephews especially. The 2 littlest ones just loved the camera! Stacks of photos yet to go through. We had a wonderful time, well until my boys both got sick. Soothed the homesickness for now, for a while at least.

Now I always say I'll post some layouts and never do, I've got a heap of unshared ones so I'll post just a couple.

Lisa Whitney's artsy fartsy sampler

Lynn Grieveson's Bellisimo kit

More next time. Oh yeah and on digi scrapping, I did get my Digital Scrapbooking Mag sometime ago with my Enjoy-autumn leaves layout in it. I've also had 3 more accepted by them (well one is for the web extension of the mag but they pay you the same for it, how awaesome is that!).

"Stung-ed"!

2007-02-20T05:18:00.000-08:00

Jordan showing his eye - "Where the bee hit me"! He got 3 stings last Wednesday as did Joel, we were having a look at a tree that had just fallen near our place. Turns out he's allergic, he ended up with hives all over - that was a little confusing for him - "I haven't got hives its just a rash" he told us! He thought we were meaning bee hives! So he missed out on kinder, he didn't want to go and it was probably for the best, he was very swollen, itchy and quite grumpy.

Jordan painting earlier last week. Normally we paint outside but its been too hot. Makes for a colourful floor thats for sure. I had to laugh though, I told him to be more careful with the paint, then splattered some everywhere myself! He said "Now Mum, please be more careful you just got paint on my foot!" Ooops! He actually splattered some on my camera!

The camera had a bit of a rough week actually! He got me here too!

The exif data for the bath ones will only be on the middle one at Flickr (click them to view) because I de-noised the other two in noiseware which saves as a new file, but was the same for all of them, ISO 1600, f 1.8, 1/125s. Yeah my bathrooms dark! Although I love shallow DOF, I would have liked a slightly wider depth of field on the last one to get his hand in focus as well but I had no choice, there wasn't enough light! The focus on the bubble rather than the boy in the middle one was intentional in case anyone is wondering!

I should put some of my layouts here too but I can't be bothered now! Maybe next time.

Kinder Boy!

2007-02-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

Jordan's first day at 3yo kinder. How was it? I am quite unsure, he and the teacher have very different opinions, she says he went well, he had a massive meltdown when I collected him and didn't sound quite so positive about it at all. Judging by the screaming, kicking, crying, throwing himself on the ground (because he hadnt been allowed to go into the empty daycare playground, which also happened last week at orientation), I would think not that well, added to the fact that he was outside on his own when I got there. The teacher said he'd only been a little upset for the past half hour or so. I really dont know, we'll see next week I guess. He is asleep now, emotionally exhausted poor boy.

So some more photos -

This one was taken in front of our glass door, worth trying for anyone who is after that high key look but cant be bothered with backdrops etc.

These where down at the river, my boy collecting pebbles, discovering and enjoying.

And after a swim!

And beautiful Bianca who started school last week! A big preppie now! We were only in Melbourne one day for an appointment and it was her day off school so I didn't get to see her in her uniform but Lisa showed me photos, so so cute in her huge dress complete with massive school bag! I got this beautiful one of her though and some more cuties of Jesse.

I think there is a few more on my flickr for those interested and now that I've discovered how easy it is to link to flickr photos rather than uploading here, I might even update more often!! If you click these photos you can see them in flickr, most of them will have the exif data on them if you want to view that, it can be helpful when learning manual to look at the settings of different photos (ISO, ap, shutter speed etc). Can give you ideas though obviously you need to go with what you need with your given light.

At lastly yes, I am now watermarking all my images for the web, I had heaps of photos taken off the web and used as someone elses own recently (discovered complete with theif's watermark!!!!) so its there as a bit of a deterrent.

2007-01-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I've been very busy but I have one spare bit of time right now so here I am, before I get busy again tommorow! Living up here means lots of visitors this time of year and we haven't been without any the past couple of weeks! First was PomPom who stayed until after Christmas. Christmas was lovely we stayed home and had a big lunch in the middle of which Jordy got his foot stuck through the back of his chair!! We couldn't get it back out so Joel had to SAW the chair!!! Other than that we had a great day with lots and lots of bouncing on the new tramp Jordy got for Christmas. Jordy and I took photos of the sunset together with his new camera which he is loving, so cute!

Next we headed over to Bendigo to Joel's Dad for boxing day. Jordy played some cricket with Dad, Grandpa and Uncle Josh. Yes I know I was game standing this close, and yes I did get hit - hard in the ear!! Better my ear than my precious camera though!!

PomPom (Joel's mum for those who must think who is PomPom, yep Jordan started calling her that and it stuck, even some of her friends call her that now!!) stayed on for the week, spent mostly at the river, friends are camping there also. She left Friday and we headed to Shep where Joel bought me a new wakeboard!! Haven't used it yet because the boat is not in the water! Joel had stripped parts of ours to build another to sell and is only now getting close to finished. Tommorow I am told, but then thats what he has been saying for a few days now... He's under pressure with it now though since his skiing mates have arrived and are also waiting! I can actually see into the shed from where I am sitting and I did hear it fire up before so maybe!

(Bouncing, we do have the nets up now thankfully, Santa was too tired to do it)

We traveled to my Dad's New Years Eve (also his birthday). Lisa, Mick, Bianca and Jesse also went on their way up here. Dad had told us there would be a carnival type thing happening where he lives and fireworks. We spent last NYE in the city and learnt that fireworks and Jordan didn't mix well with his severe noise sensitivity. So I asked him if he wanted to go and told him he could wear ear muffs like he does on the tractor. He asked for them on as soon as we got to the carnival and wow, what a different child, so so calm! He does struggle with the noise of crowded places but I hadn't thought to use ear muffs for it before. So he got to see the fireworks and absolutely loved them with the sound factor taken away. They were actually the best fireworks I have ever seen, we were all very happy!

So Lisa and family stayed this week and we had lots more fun at the river and home. We are missing them already!

So I have been trying for many months to cut Jordan's hair but he really, really didn't want too and made it too dangerous. I had been thinking for a while that we would have to do it while he was asleep but I knew I wouldn't be able to do it (I'm not much good with scissors!) So when he had drifted off the other night I got Lisa to do it. It was much harder than we had anticipated. Take one snip, he'd stir - roll over, say something to us or block his hair with his hands even with his eyes shut sometimes! At one point he got right up and said "I don't want to be here anymore I want to go to bed to sleep" quite angry with us, he knew we were doing something to him! He stormed off to bed with us laughing because his hair was in piggytails and all over the place! We did it in bursts until he was too awake or making it too impossible each time. At another point he had been saying "Mummy? Mummy?" and I had been saying its ok I'm right here, when he opened his eyes and saw Lisa (who quickly hid the scissors!). He shot her a filthy look and growled "Not you, I want my OWN Mummy". Poor child!

We gave up, it had taken too long for too little result but when he got up in the morning, we could see we would have to try again, he had a very punk looking style happening and it was just too messy! We were so not looking forward to another night of it, when a panicking Jordy came out with a battery Thomas stuck in his hair, his hair had been wound around one of the wheels. So out came the scissors and while he wasnt happy about it, he was less happy having Thomas stuck to his head, so thankfully the haircut got finished, well near enough anyway! Definately not bothering again anytime soon!

As Requested!

2006-12-15T04:53:00.000-08:00

Shouldn't leave this so long I guess, now I've got too many photos to share! So here's just some from the past few weeks.

These are from this week in Melbourne, we took Jordy out in the pram to see everyones lights around PomPom's house. I also got a few crazy ones using bulb (shutter stays open as long as you hold it) and moving the camera around, they might be fun to use as overlays on layouts. Didn't actually get PomPom's lights coz she didnt have them up til yesterday, oh well. The globe thing in the middle picture is actually huge, you can see it behind Jordy in the side shots.

The smoke from the bushfires has been shocking, both here and in Melbourne. You can see the smoke in the above one. The fires are not near us but its scarey none the less, the smoke got so thick in the middle of the night before we went to Melbourne, we actually opened the curtains so we could see just in case there was one closer. Worries me living right next to the forest that we could have no warning if there was a fire, particularly when you see campers having fires in there when they aren't supposed to. Thinking of all those living near the current fires and those fighting them.

Got a stack more photos from Melbourne, lots of lovely ones of Bianca and Jesse

If you're reading my sister I'll put more up soon here or flickr.

So we finally got all the materials for our house (We paid NO INTEREST thanks to our solicitor finding a flaw in our contract which was a huge relief because it had clocked up to almost $10K!!!), the power pole and transformer went up today (but not connected yet so subdivision cant quite be finalised). Obviously we are now going to be delayed further by Christmas holidays but at least we are starting to see some progress. Makes a massive difference to our state of mind!

More photos (what a suprise!!!)

2006-11-26T23:34:00.000-08:00

Some from the past week.

The chair in the photo was just sitting at the beach all by itself, so I thought I'd try and get some of him sitting on it since it happened to be there! He didn't want to for more than a second though, no suprise there!

Annette asked what I did in PS to the pics in the Stomping lo, they were just adjusted in Adobe Camera Raw, contrast upped and vignetting, that was actually it on those (one of them is second from the top).

Was going to post a layout too but I'm being summonsed! Next time.

New Camera!

2006-11-16T00:54:00.000-08:00

Keep meaning to update this but I've been a bit scattered! But thought I'd pop another couple of pics on. Finally got me a DSLR! The Canon 400D, love it!

Getting grumpy with the camera!

Thats enough Mum!

Jordan has been telling me for a while that I can take photos with my silver camera, not the black one (before I got the new one!). So I thought I had better get a silver camera! I think it may have been a bit of a ploy though, he knew I didnt have a silver camera. When we bought the new one he said "But I thought you were getting it for Christmas"! He must have been thinking oh no now I have to actually let her take my photo!

And a layout - everything in this one is from Yvette Keohuloa's beautiful The Lucky Stars Kit at Scrapbookbling.com.

Removed For Publishing

More than Words

2006-11-02T04:50:00.000-08:00

I just can't seem to get any words down at the moment so I give you pictures instead.

Square One

2006-10-25T00:26:00.000-07:00

Well we're not really back to square one, it's just how it feels today. Lots more promises, no real action yet and the house company are breathing down our necks massively (we were supposed to be ready 2 months ago and they are charging huge interest every week we are late). So more of the same for us - stress and waiting. We've been almost at the point of giving up but we are too far in financially now and have to keep going. I went down the back before to remind myself why we are putting ourselves through this and thought I'd share a peek -

This is what we will be able to see from the front of our new house (well we can see that now I guess but only through one tiny window!)
But the view from the other side is really the reason for all this, the reason we moved here at all -

The Mighty Murray. The water level is ok at the moment but actually pretty low for this time of year. No water flowed through the forest at all this year, partly because of the drought and partly because the low level was maintained while the new bridge was built (the levels along the Murray are artificially regulated by controlling the flow through the weirs along it). Its definately extremely dry up here, though you woudn't know looking at the irrigated parts of land.

Jordy lightened our moods today when we were talking about the subdivision stuff, he started saying to himself "Believe you me", repeating it a couple of times as if trying to work out what it meant, then said to us "Believe you me - thats a funny word"!! (One of us must have said it!) Well tis a funny saying but believe you me, we will get this land chopped in two, this house done and it will be worth it. And it better be soon!!!

Some layouts

2006-10-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

The duck park near PomPom's, the idea inspired by Annette's beautiful layout with the ducks.

The one that I was trying to upload last entry!

These 2 are of my niece Emma, done the other week.Same photo I know but I wasnt sure which style they'd prefer. I made evevrything myself for them, I reckon I made a whole kit worth! (Thats the good side to not being able to sleep - you can get heaps done!)

And things are looking more positive with the subdivision today so fingers crossed it keep rolling smoothly!

Mr Determination

2006-09-20T02:21:00.000-07:00

He really is a sweet and loving kid, just dont try and dress him, groom him, subject him to loud or high pitched noise or feed him unacceptable foods (which encompasses most food according to Jordan!)!!

The positive side as Joel and I agree - he is so strong willed and determined - no-one will ever walk over him!!