He was so cute

Saturday was Patrick's BB display, the first of many, no doubt. This was a major deal for us because for a few months during the year he didn't want to go and we went through phases of arguing with him, ignoring him, bribing him and finally giving in and not sending him. Not that he actually hated it - he loved it when he went, but he had been sick for a few weeks and couldn't go and then he just got out of the routine. And you know how important routine is! So to finally get to the display was nothing short of miraculous.

The brief snippets of chat that we got out of Patrick along with the plethora of notes from the leaders led us to believe that he was going to need to dress up as a band member (a pop band, not an Orange one!) Someone from Westlife, to be precise! So you can imagine our excitement about cool jeans and a new t-shirt along with his new jacket and Ninja Turtle shades (I may e-mail a suggestion to Westlife that they change from Ray Ban or whatever to the Woolies' range of kids' shades - tres cool indeed!) The cool costume was also to be accompanied by a dressing gown, tea towel and tie for the bible story - no idea what that was going to be about at all!

Off we trundled with his Spiderman case laden with the required items, deposited him at his table with his leader and headed into the hall to grab our vantage point. It's a pretty big hall for little boys but all the seats were filled with eager parents, siblings and grandparents, just waiting for their little ones to make their big appearance. It would have to be said that Patrick's appearance wasn't really 'big' - it was more of a realisation as all the boys came in in their uniforms that the massive jumper moving on its own with a tiny tennis ball-like head was actually Patrick! He and his little chum looked so tiny among the bigger boys. It's only when you see them in the context of actual bigger boys that you realise they are really still only tiny. So often I think Patrick is older than he is and set my expectations too high, and on Saturday I was reminded that he's not even 5 yet. Still very wee!

Anyway, the night consisted of lots of relay races, lots of singing, some silly games and a fantastic rendition of 'Music Man' complete with actions galore! Patrick was having such a great time and it was so lovely to see him part of something else, doing his thing and being himself. The leaders there are great, and even the ones who had no chance of winning a cup, ie Patrick, got a prize for attending. He was so chuffed at 'winning' his football he even took it to bed with him! Needless to say I took a ton of pictures - all a bit blurry, but you get the idea.

Running in the relay races

Doing the bagpipe bit of 'Music Man'. Seriously, he was the most co-ordinated boy on the floor! And I'm not just saying that - independent onlookers made similar comments! And are you checking the shadesand new t-shirt?

Doing the aeroplane bit of 'Music Man'. Who knew that the Dambusters music was part of that song?!

And the biblical dressing gown/tea towel combination. Turns out it was the story of Joseph and Patrick was one of the mean 11 brothers. And they sang 'Any Dream Will Do'. Must crack out the soundtrack one of these days and see if we can usurp Charlie and Lola's reign in the car!

Looking forward to further blogging over the Easter holidays which start at 3pm tomorrow, hurrah!

Best & worst

I've been thinking a LOT lately about being a mum - the good bits and the bad bits. It's been fairly up and down at Casa Boyd this past week or so and at this point I feel pretty drained. Lots of sleep deprivation thanks to a Conor cold and then just Conor being Conor! Patrick is exhausted with BB activities, school and a weekday birthday party (after a school outing to a farm for added tiredness!) and tiredness+Patrick+mummy=no one very happy:( The past couple of mornings have been pretty traumatic leaving him to school, just a special treat for me I suppose! So there was nothing else for it but to do a layout. I'd been checking out Jamie Waters' blog just before I did it and it's pretty obvious! Not my usual linear style and more patterned paper than I can usually cope with but it's my favourite layout of the year.

I also managed to complete Ali Edward's weekend creative challenge this week too - shocker, I know! I decided on Mother's Day that I wanted a photo of all 4 of us, one of me and the boys and one of Michael and the boys. I got the first! But I was pretty chuffed to get any given how long it took to set up and get the timer on the camera working! It's a very different layout to the one above and I'm not sure how 'me' it feels. Struggling with the lack of colour, but I think I like it. If nothing else, at least my grandchildren will see how we looked as a family!

In other news:

Michael arranged for a decorater to come and do the front room (painting as I type) despite having no colours picked. Now we have two whole rooms of stuff lying in the hall, landing, kitchen etc. If health and safety call we're stuffed!

Patrick has his first BB display on Saturday night. Not overly excited about the 7.30 start since he's usually in bed by then, but super excited to see him do his thing! Will obviously post photos later.

I went to see Westlife in the Odyssey with mum and Lesley last week. I couldn't claim to be their biggest fan - don't even own one of their cds, but there's no denying everyone loves a bit of Westlife! It was a really good show and I thoroughly enjoyed it. And some of those boys are just too good looking for their own good!

And now I'm going to close my eyes for 20 minutes before collecting Patrick from school. I can only hope he's happier than when I left him this morning!

Playing

Me. Not the boys!

I've been having a bit of fun playing recently. I've completed some more layouts (new scanner not making me happy yet) and spent shocking amounts of time on flickr just checking out some of the images that have been uploaded there. You could seriously lose massive chunks of your life just trawling through there. Such good fun. Amazing inspiration. And as ever, inspired by Ali Edwards to create a mosaic with some of the images that have really caught my eye. I'm pretty sure I should mention who took these photos to avoid copyright issues (like any of them will ever be over here!) Top to bottom, left to right they are:

1. it rained, by teddy;   2. 37 / 52 value your time, by teddy;  3. daughter in the sun by she saw things;   4.Hello kitty by ya7obeelk   5. 02.08 Elena 244urban by emiliekarun    6. bridal shoes by gwynethcolleen  7. usage by moS 8. by rottnapple   9. Valentina Del Carmen bynRiot !

Just looking at this makes me a) want to take some pictures and b) feel pretty cool! Not as cool as I felt earlier when I saw that Ali Edwards had also commented on a photo of mine on flickr! Was positively giddy for the rest of the evening, with not a drop of wine in sight I may add!

Making me happy

I realise it's been over a week since I last posted but the new simpler me isn't worried about that. Instead I am inspired by soule mama to list 10 things that are making me happy right now.

1. This week was a short one at school. Always good to look on the bright side of the negatives!

2. Patrick's room, the one that will have bunk beds for sharing (!), has been painted and is having carpet fitted on Monday.

3. Ikea is really close to our house!

4. Michael has no idea that I have a stack of stuff from aforementioned Ikea that I intend to drill holes for tomorrow while he is at work haha! (Working on the principle that it's better to show him what I mean than tell him so he can disgree with me. This way he will have to fill holes if he disagrees with me!)

5. Watching Transformers today after Patrick got home from school with a sneaky packet of Smarties each. The list of things Michael knows nothing about is getting longer!

6 This collage I made for Michael following the weekend creative prompt from Ali Edwards.

7. The tv show 'Extras'. Just started watching it with Michael and laughed so hard at things that really aren't funny at all!

8. How great Conor's chat is now. Still hard to make him out sometimes but oh so cute!

9. I have completed 2 more scrapbook pages this week. New scanner being installed tomorrow so you will have to wait to see them.

10. This photo of my friends J & A with the delightful baby C:)

And to top it all, sickness has left the building. Thank you, and goodnight x

Recovering

We just don't seem to be able to shake illness this winter. Shunning the germs was part of the simplify plan, but it seems the germs don't care! So the simplest thing to do was just to lie low and get through it. Patrick has had a cold/cough/tummy bug and missed nearly a week of school. I've had a bit of the bug and missed 2 days of work (boo hoo!!). And Michael was hurt at work and has been off for a couple of weeks. Talk about one thing after another. Patrick went back to school today, but so far this evening has been punctuated with wails and trippy noses from Conor. It was bound to happen eventually!

Other than sickness, life has looked a bit like this the past few weeks:

1.I've been pretty busy with photo shoots the past few weeks, even managing 2 in the drizzle.

2. Star Wars has taken over our lives! All 6 episodes. And as a result, my knowledge of each episode is really rather amazing for a 36 year old! Look, there's even a tiny Lego Anakin Skywalker on the new unit!

3. The Ikea storage is finally here. Obviously it merits an entire post of its own, but for now a quick pic will have to suffice!

It truly is a thing of beauty!

4. Scrapbooking has happened! I know, some thought it never would again, but I love it. Just don't get enough time for it. But sickness has its upsides - lots of naps and lying around watching cbeebies. Perfect for mummy to do her thing for a bit.

Feeling rather proud of my creative achievements. Really loving the sense of satisfaction of cutting and sticking and pushing things round on the page and then ending up with a memory saved. I have much other rambling to share, but I shall leave that for another night. Back to work tomorrow, so I shall make a cup of tea and get me to bed.

few new faves

These are a couple of shots from the second session I did with lovely friend 'A' and adorable baby 'C'. I think I am in love with these new ones! I'm really very impressed with the complete beauty of the babies my friends keep producing. Must be something in the Bangor water.

 

I do hope to be back later in the week with further simplify updates - still going well, feel free to pat me on the back in the comments! Hope you're having a good week:)

When will it end???

The getting up in the middle of the night, that is! I actually don't think I want to know. Maybe it's better to live in the hope that tonight will be the night. So Conor is back in his lets-just-check-that-someone-can-hear-me mode. This involves several trips down to his room to put his dummy in, wipe his nose and generaly provide the high calibre room service he's become accustomed to. Compounded by the incessant rain on the skylight in our bedroom the only course of action is to use earplugs! Tonight I intend using them from the outset. Too bad if anyone actually needs me - I am unavailable! How much simpler can I make it?!

On that topic, I think I'm going pretty well. I have simplified my school life to doing what I can in the time I have and generally delegating or ignoring all the stuff I haven't got time for. And I also find that it's fairly easy to simply not get sucked in to caring too much about all that other stuff. There are plenty of people who get paid way more than me who can do the worrying about that. Although, more than likely, they aren't worried at all. Therefore, why should I be? SIMPLIFY. It's a revelation!

I really enjoyed this post on Ali Edward's blog - it's a challenge to photograph your one little word in various places over the weekend. I pinched the magnetic letters out of Patrick's set and just placed them in a couple of relevant places. Places I'd like to simplify.

1. Scrapbooking. I've found it really hard for ages to make time to do pages. Too many things to organise. Photos to select and print. Papers to choose. Embellishments to place. This weekend I just found a layout I really liked in the latest Scrapbooks etc and went for it. This is definitely the way forward. I haven't scanned the actual layout yet - will post later.

2. The toys! This will involve careful planning of a storage system, working out all the bits we need, going to Ikea to spend a fortune on it all and then some fun self assembly! Perhaps not simple in its creation, but I know it will revolutionise our lives!

In other news, Conor is now officially a full fare paying passenger on any future flights we take after turning 2 on the 16th. I really can't believe it's been 2 years since he made his debut in the Boyd family life. Time certainly flies. We had family for birthday tea on Wednesday and a small, if rather chaotic party, on Friday. The party was really just to appease Patrick who kept asking if he was invited and if there would be party bags! Selfless to the end! Plus I know from my sister that eventually Conor will want photographic evidence that he was denied nothing that Patrick had, and so I thought I should just go with it!

I've been pretty good too with my photoaday challenge. It's interesting the shots you can find when you make it a habit to carry your camera with you all the time. We went for a walk a few days ago just before tea. Admittedly it took us an inordinate amount of time to walk a relatively short distance, but it was worth it for the photo opportunities. I'm uploading my daily photos to the flickr site, but my sister has revealed that unless you have a bt/yahoo email account you have to register. Time will tell whether my blog stalkers go to the bother of creating one, or whether in the end I shall also put them on an album here. I'm sticking with flickr for now just because I love the interactive badge at the side! One photo I thought was worth sharing, though, is this one.

It's hard to resist comedy shots when they're begging to be taken! Hope you have a good week:)

By the way

It would seem that I am a technology genius. Evidence to prove this is the flickr badge I just managed to upload to the sidebar where you can view my photo a day photos. I'm not super organised on this one yet, but aim to make it a simple and enjoyable experience over the weekend! You can view my photos by clicking on any of them which will take you to my flickr site. How very exciting! And on that note, it's another hot port and a nosey into a few other lives before bed:) Sleep well.

Simple update

Well it seems to be going well so far. Although given that we're not yet a fortnight into the year I don't know how much pride I can attach to that! The main thing is that I survived a week back at school. As part of my simplify plan I am choosing not to rant and rave about that, but I will say that I am determined that 2008 will be the year that I get a business plan together to get me out of teaching. It really wasn't awful at all, but each day I am convinced that my days there are numbered and that there is something better waiting for me.

Today I got to photograph my friend A's tiny baby - only 4 days old! As I was driving to their house I was physically excited about the prospect, not just because she is my friend's baby, but because taking photographs feels like what I'm meant to do. I absolutely love everything about it, from the feel of the camera in my hands to the sound of the shutter as it captures the image, right through to the digital processing. Wouldn't it be great if you could feel that way about going to work all the time? I'm not so naive that I think each shoot would feel so amazing, but surely it is possible to love almost all of your job. I've decided I'm aiming for that anyway - it would make life a lot more fun and simpler by default! Success all round!

I think it would be rude of me to not post just one image from that shoot, so just to keep everyone happy, here it is.

 

And so it begins

As you may be aware, I am a huge fan of Ali Edwards (who wouldn't be?!) She is such an inspiring woman in so many aspects of life - creatively, as a mother, in caring for our world, in creating the kind of life she wants for her family. If you haven't checked out her blog you really should. I know that at least several of you reading this know exactly what I mean! Each year she challenges her readers to play along with the 'one little word' concept - choose a word you want to apply to various areas of your life and then set about working on it. Last year I chose the word enjoy, although moving house less than 2 months later pretty much scuppered a lot of my enjoyment! I know that for much of last year I spent far too much time worrying about silly things and wasting time over non-essentials that I really forgot to stop and enjoy my life. I even felt that way through Christmas - nursing sick boys, running around trying to get everything I thought we needed, worrying about how the house looked etc, and then before I knew it it was over. And I had forgotten to stop and enjoy a lot of it. So I've really thought hard about my word for this year. I want it to be something that could make a difference to me, to my family, to my outlook on life, and to my creative little self! So I unveil it now - my word for 2008 is .....

SIMPLIFY

This word reflects much of what I am trying to do. It is very much a part of my control freakish self - my love for order, routine, storage (IKEA anyone?) neatness and so on. Michael mocks me for much of this, but I think even he realises that my efforts to make our lives more organised and just a little simpler could have an impact on our family life. So, I shall begin. In small ways. Like not fighting with Conor when he wants to bring another huge truck downstairs to play with - it is SIMPLER to let him bring it and have him happy and then tidy it away later. Do you see what I did there? I made a simple choice! Well done me!! All too often, in my quest for tidiness, I will end up fighting with the boys over silly things that don't matter, so my first step is to stop that.

My next step is one you may be able to help me with. Or if not, do feel free to watch for updates and laugh heartily at/with me! I shall strive to make meal time simpler by making fewer than 3 separate meals. Sounds simple, but when your youngest eats almost nothing except bread products and grapes it can be a bit tougher. Yesterday I made one tea - pizza - and hoped for the best. Patrick loved it, I loved it and Conor ate nothing. He muttered something that vaguely resembled the phrase "Yuck, don't like it". Put me in mind of the Lou and Andy characters in Little Britain! So he went hungry. I would be very grateful for any tips any of you might have to help me along with this one! There are moments when I feel Dr Tanya Byron (she of Little Angels and House of Tiny Tearaways notoriety) is watching me from afar and telling hidden cameras exactly what I'm doing wrong! I have no doubt she could have him eating steak and baked potatoes by tomorrow night if I gave her the chance.

So those are just a few of the things I am going to be working on for now. I will try to post regularly with progress and other new notions I've had on the topic. I'm hoping to carve a bit of time to create something for my studio to keep me focused on my chosen word. I'd also love a bit of feedback from those of you that are reading this, be you regular commenters or lurkers. I know there are lurkers! I'd especially love to know if you have a 'one little word' and what you might do to apply it to your own life.

And with that I am off for a few last Roses before the serious cut down commences tomorrow! I hope you like the new banner - it only took the best part of two nights to get it working properly!