spring in pictures :: day 9 (and a giveaway!)

Without wanting to put the scud on it, it must be noted that we, in usually cold, wet, grey Northern Ireland, have been enjoying some unseasonable lovely weather. It's the first time in ages that I can remember being off school and being able to get the boys outside every day! And with the newly beautified back garden it's been absolutely bliss. So the images for today are pretty much what you could expect to find at our house on such a day - on this occasion with the added bonus of Nanny and Grandpa as extra playmates! Aside from the super shot off Nanny's right foot I love that so many of the pictures I got of Patrick were blurred. I'm sure there are technical reasons like ISOs and shutter speeds that explain it, but not being one for technicalities I'm going to put the blur down to the fact that he moves at lightning speed most of the time. His life is literally all about football right now and that means running, passing and shooting and it's hard to do that without a bit of blur. And for me it's important that my photographs reflect our lives rather than technical perfection (which obviously does have it's place).  No doubt they'll end up on a scrapbook page sometime in the future so that I can properly document this little stage of his life.Which leads me neatly to an exciting giveaway, whoop whoop! You can hardly have failed to notice that I'm contributing to Maegan's Creativity Bootcamp: Spring Training programme which runs for 2 weeks in May. I am so excited about this programme I can't even begin to tell you, so it is my absolute delight to be able to give away one spot on the course to one of my lovely readers. All you have to do to enter the giveaway is leave a comment here on the blog before 9pm on Saturday 30th April and I will draw a winner randomly to announce on Sunday 31st. I'm leaving it open through Saturday because I'm sure that most of my UK readers will be far too busy with Royal wedding fun and shindigs tomorrow to be bothered checking in on the blog. As, indeed, shall I! So on that note I will leave you to your preparations and wish you all a great day tomorrow, whether you're celebrating the nuptials or simply revelling in an extra day off work this year!Eta: Giveaway extended until 9pm Sunday 1st May.