Busy, busy, busy...

doing lots of fun things with our friends Jeff and Jo and their two gorgeous sons, Matthew and Callum, who have been over visiting this week. It's always great to catch up with them, despite the constant bickering and pushing between Patrick and Matthew!

Typically, another of Janine's great plans was thwarted by the stupid weather - no picnic at Mountstewart for us :( We had to resort to coffee inside (I think much to the dismay of the 2 ladies at the table next to ours who had their peace unceremoniously shattered by the 8 of us!) Jo and I could almost feel Michael and Jeff begin to panic as the noise levels rose, so they were ushered out with the boys and some frisbees!

The one plan, however, which did finally fall into place was Jo and I getting out for a whole afternoon by ourselves!! I know you can identify :D It was weird having coffee and chatting without the sound of the boys in the background! Such a novelty, although we think we'll instigate this as a new tradition each time they visit since the boys always get out for a game of golf!

Today we had another shocker of a family outing - the the North Down Traction Engine and Vintage Car Rally no less! We really have to stop doing this. £10 entrance fee to look at lots of tractors and country bumpkin stalls. We'd be better off just flushing it down the toilet. Thankfully I didn't even take my camera since that would just have been a waste of battery!

And I know challenge #3 is up but I'm wearing part of what I'm going to use so I can't do that today. Check back tomorrow!

Hmmm...

Not so sure about this one. This is my page for Ann(i)e's challenge #2. The challenge was to cut a photo on an angle and use triangles of paper as a background.

I have learnt several things about myself (and my style) whilst doing this, and I'm not sure any of them are good!

1. I don't do angles very well! I couldn't just put the paper in the trimmer and cut -oh no - I had to measure each piece exactly. Clearly the control freak within won this time!

2. I hate it when lines don't meet up. Thank goodness for ribbon to hide the gaps!

3. A change is not always as good as a rest! I spent way too long on this for it to be just ok in my mind and will no doubt regress to my simple style very soon.

Well it was a learning experience if nothing else. I've looked at some of the other pages for this challenge and they are pretty amazing.

Anyway, that aside, today we decided to have a great family day out. Our plans to go to the North coast, however, were thwarted by Angie the weather girl using the word 'autumnal' twice in the forecast yesterday. So we went to the Ulster Museum before it closes for refurbishment. Apparently this is a bad thing to do so soon after visiting the Louvre! It brought back some shocking memories of primary school outings as it hasn't changed a bit since the 70's! But Patrick liked the dinosaurs so that's really all that matters.

This is his scary dinosaur face!

Next time we will do more research before setting out on an adventure!

A note for Sheila

Ha ha! You make me laugh! Anyway, my e-mail is not working so I've put a temporary album on here for you but I'm going to delete it later. Let me know what you think

Thank you, Karen...

..for all your kind words earlier! It really means a lot to me to hear those things. Look forward to taking more photos of your gorgeous boys in the future. Hope you don't mind that I've posted a few here to share with anyone else who stumbles in here!

 

Challenge #1

A fellow designer for TSBM set us a challenge based on Ali Edward's new book about using patterned paper more effectively in scrapbook designs. Check out the challenge on Annie's blog - you can get there by clicking on the link on the left. There will also be links to other people's designs on there too. This is my first page for the challenge using 6 scraps of patterned paper and 3 photos. It sums up my whole experience of pregnancy both times in that it just wasn't what I was expecting (also a good pun don't ya think?)Journalling says: 'swollen ankles...heartburn...sore back...sleepless nights...support belts...physiotherapy appointments...pelvic pain...special exercises... Obviously I forgot to mention the palpitations, the hives, the lack of clothing choices!!

Annie - I hope this doesn't bode ill for you!

Can't wait for the next challenge. My stash is ready and waiting!!

Excuses

Well, I'm clearly off to a bad start with making a better effort to keep this blog up! I could come up with plenty of excuses, but won't bore you with them. Suffice to say I've been pretty busy with photography, scrapbooking and generally being a mum to 2 small boys. And a perfect wife to my husband, obviouslly!

Things are starting to pick up a bit with the child photography. I've done a couple of newborn shoots recently and have several more babies and toddlers lined up over the next few weeks. Plenty to keep me busy, and keep Michael happy that one of these days he'll be married to a top notch photographer and can retire, ha ha! I have had my first paying customer but I'm guessing that it will be a long time before any of us can retire round here. If you know of anyone in my general vicinity with kids who would like to take part in a portfolio building offer, please direct them here. The more practice I get the better.

And on the scrapbooking front, my exciting news is that my layout is going to be on the cover of the next Scrapbook Magazine! Now I know that this is not very exciting news for the majority of people I know, but I know enough people who care to share this news! Hurray!!

I'm posting a few recent photos just in case anyone has been missing the boys! And there are a few new pics in the portfolio album if you fancy a look.

The first few of these were taken yesterday at Mountstewart. The boys and I went for a walk and a picnic snack. And I pestered the boys with my camera trying to practice!

Do you think Patrick was fed up with me taking photographs of him?

Look how cute these two are! All hot and bothered but still not able to leave each other alone!

This is a new face Conor has come up with all by himself! Don't tell me this boy isn't going to be trouble!

Think you're having a bad day?

Then check this out and see if you still feel sorry for yourself.

Trying harder...

to get into this blogging thing. Spent a lot of time yesterday and today working on the site and looking at other blogs from the girls on the SBM design team. There is an article about blogging in issue 17 and lots of the other sites are in there and they have links to here so I thought I better get busy! If you have time take a look at their sites - some are v inspiring and have other great links.

There. That's 2 entries in 2 days! Only tomorrow will tell if I can continue the flow!

This heat...

...is fantastic

...is making me lament my post-pregnancy summer wardrobe!

...is the perfect excuse to eat ice creams and ice lollies since all the calories will be sweated off while lying on my lounger!

...is almost more than the boys can bear :(

...making sleep almost impossible (at night, that is, since I could happily sleep anywhere during the day!)

...is the perfect opportunity to take silly summer pictures like these!

Happy weekend!

A discovery

I've recently realised that while this blog is subtitled "Life with the Boyds", it's really only my input about Patrick and Conor! Clearly Michael will not be posting any time soon, and while Patrick is a dab hand on the CBeebies website I'm pretty sure he would wreck this one. So it's really my site! And to that end I've added a new album of my scrapbook layouts. Feel free to browse, comment or indeed not bother looking! Just thought I'd share!