Me and Mine

Me and Mine May 2016

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May has been a seriously busy month for our little family. Starting off with our lovely holiday then a trip out to celebrate my brother and my step-dad’s birthdays followed by the big event, Monkey’s 4th Birthday and his fab pirate party. Finally we have had hubs’ knee operation to prepare for… and start to recover from!

I had many a grand idea about getting lovely shots of us as a family but sadly they didn’t all pan out. I got a couple of shots at the very beginning of our holiday, in the grounds of Tattershall Castle, which I like, but you can’t really see us. (My phone has been in for repair and my camera is a bit old and doesn’t take the highest quality shots!)P1040375

Then, realising the end of the month was nearing I suggested trying to take shots of us when we had family round celebrating Monkey’s birthday the day after the big party day. I was almost loathe to suggest it for fear it would cause tantrums and I could see Hubs was not convinced that it was a good idea. Monkey did moan a little but we soon persuaded him, and you know what, actually got some pretty lovely shots!
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I mean my hair is a mess and hubs and I look a bit frazzled, but all 4 of us are actually smiling! I can’t believe it! LM was really playing up for the camera and giving gorgeous smiles to her uncles taking photos. Miraculous!IMG-20160522-WA0003 (2)

The Me and Mine Project

Me and Mine March 2016

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I really enjoy joining in with me and mine every month primarily because this community really encourages me to get nice shots of us as a family. Getting photos of the four of us can be so tricky as let’s face it kids aren’t always cooperative and having enough arms to take photos while keeping the kids happy isn’t easy.

That said I do feel my photos of our little family aren’t as polished as many other bloggers. We don’t have a tripod to take a photo from a distance and most are done using a selfie stick and taking a frame from a video (which we find generally leads to more likelihood of catching fleeting smiles) or on the front facing camera, neither of which are the highest quality. Add to that that LM is such a wriggly independent thing who does not enjoy being held in position and, well, you don’t get the best photos. Still, at least we have shots of the four of us that will show how much we’ve all grown and changed and that really is the purpose.

This month I have a couple of less than brilliant outdoors shots. My fave family shots are those that are taken outside enjoying the sunshine, and I really hoped for shots like that this month, but those are the hardest for keeping the kids happy and still. So we have this one, which didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped.20160312130553

This one with loads of my family in it actually turned out surprisingly well and is one of my current fave photos though not just a shot of the four of us!20160325154915

On the same day out we also got this shot of the 4 of us which is OK but was so sunny and neither kiddy enjoyed the sun in their face.20160325_145907

My fave shots of us as a family this month though are some completely impromptu, appalling quality selfies. The kids had been climbing all over me on the sofa with a bean bag for some reason, and I just got the camera out which resulted in some fab photos of all of us having a lot of fun.20160307182010 20160307182251 20160307182321 20160307181627

So they aren’t polished, they certainly aren’t very high quality and they aren’t in a particularly special location. I’ve cut hubs’ head off in one and LM is a blur in another. But I love them because we are happy and in that they reflect us as a family the most out of all of these pictures. Larking around and having fun.

The Me and Mine Project
And then the fun began...

Me and Mine February 2016

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My family shot this month is from our day out on the Stick Man trail at Fineshade Woods. We had such a lovely day so it seemed the perfect place to grab a shot of us all.

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As we so often do we used the selfie stick and took a very short video of us all and then captured a few frames. We tend to find this the best way to get most of us smiling. It worked well for 3 of us at least! Maybe one day I will get a shot of all 4 of us smiling!

It has been a bit of a month February… in many ways it has absolutely flown by but it hasn’t always been easy. The pesky illnesses that so many people have been hit by have struck us down at times too and it certainly made some difficult days. Half term was hard work which was a real shame and I was glad to get back to routine. I know that it was mainly hard work because of illness…. but I am apprehensive about the Easter holidays and hope they aren’t quite so hard! We have managed lots of lovely happy times too this month though and have a very busy month ahead so hopefully spring will be kinder to us.

The Me and Mine Project

Me and Mine January 2016

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It’s me and mine time and time to share a family photo of us all. At one point I wasn’t sure I would get one of us all but on our family day out a couple of weeks ago I managed to grab a quick family selfie.

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LM is a bit bundled up in her scarf and bewildered by the goings on so it isn’t the best photo ever… But I still love it. We are all wrapped up against the cold and Monkey has such a big smile on his face which can’t help but make me smile. 20160116_132147

 

Our Family in 2015

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So the end of the year is approaching and I am not going to do a full look back at the past year… but I thought it was a good opportunity instead to have a look at all the me and mine shots of our little foursome taken over the past year, to see how much we have all grown and changed.family 2015

Some shots are better than others (ahem June!) and the only shot I have of the four of us for December is a pretty rubbish selfie on the bed on Christmas morning… but it is a shot of all of us and you can see how different the kiddies look compared to January, with LM obviously changing the most throughout the course of the year.

There is much to come in 2016, birthdays, a wonderful holiday with my parents, hopefully house sitting for friends in Dorset again, Monkey starting school in September (eek) and generally enjoying our children grow and change every day. I know people say life with children doesn’t get easier it just changes. .. but I have to disagree. Yes there are always challenges, that’s life, but the challenges are different as the children grow and I personally find that things do get easier as the little onesgrow out of the baby stage.

This time next year LM will probably be talking… she may not be napping anymore and at 2 may even be on her way to being toilet trained. Monkey will be at school and hopefully doing well. It will be a very different Christmas and our lives will be different. I can’t help but be excited to see what else 2016 has in store for us and I plan (or hope) to enjoy every minute as much as I can.

Happy New Year to you and all the best for 2016. Thanks for reading!

Run Jump Scrap!

Me & Mine September 2015

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Yep that time of the month again to share some family shots so we can look back at how much we have all changed over the year as the months have gone by.

We had some, er, fun, trying to get family shots of us while we were on holiday – and some shots were far more succesful than others.

We took some on a boat… one where LM was not interested,

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and another where she just wanted to grab her brother’s head (one of her favourite pastimes).

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Then we tried really hard to get a shot of us in the evenings as the sunsets were gorgeous, but with just our phones, well we weren’t very successful! This one is nice but the lighting is terrible.

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This one is just awful, good shot of Monkey but not sure what happened to my arm, it looks about 3 times the size it normally is (I hope) and hubs looks a bit pained!

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Then we tried the flash and well neither kid remotely looked at the camera. This snap actually reminds me of the kind of shots you used to get pre-digital photography, with the flash on and nobody looking at the camera, do you know the type I mean?

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Ah to be a good photographer eh? Still good for posterity I suppose!

dear beautiful

Me and Mine August 2015

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For this months me and mine I am using some more of the gorgeous shots from our family photoshoot, taken by the wonderful Chris at Distant Cloud Photography.

September marks Hubs and I being together for 5 years (we had our first date on 08.09.10) and wow how things have changed in those 5 years! Things are really chaotic here at the moment with all the building work so I nearly didn’t write a me and mine post at all but as it is nearly our 5 year anniversary I thought I should make the effort.

So here is our little family as we are right now. I think these shots capture the chaos that life with 2 kids is generally!

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dear beautiful

Silly Selfie Videos – Me & Mine July 2015

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You may have seen that we have been on a lovely holiday recently so it seems apt to share some of our lovely family shots while we were away. It can always be tricky getting photos of the whole family. We use our phones as cameras these days and don’t have a tripod so selfies are the best way to do it. BUT the front cameras on our phones aren’t that amazing (how I miss the Galaxy S6!) and my arms certainly aren’t long enough to get a good shot of four of us.

Enter the selfie stick! And a fab feature on hubs’ phone whereby you take a video with the main camera, and then can go back through, select the perfect frame and save a high resolution image. The downside is that you can’t see the screen so there is a bit of guesswork involved.

We did this a lot on our lovely holiday at some really gorgeous places so I have loads of family shots for this month’s Me & Mine. Some of the shots worked surprisingly well… but others less so. As after all we can’t see the screen and the stick moves around and we have a 3 year old and a 9 month old who aren’t always cooperative and who don’t always smile or look where we want them to. So sometimes there are 3 of us similing, sometimes we cut off heads, cut off whatever is in the background of the shot… and trying to make kiddies smile, oh the videos are amusing to watch!

So here are some of the best shots… and some amusing out-takes… and, purely for fun, one of the videos we took to get these shots!

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So if you fancy a chuckle have a look at one of the examples of the videos… one where Monkey is being particularly uncooperative and driving us potty! 🙂

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And then the fun began...Mummascribbles

Me & Mine June 2015

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I can’t believe it is the end of June! Seriously where is this year going??? Anyway it is Me & Mine time, time to share some family snaps to show how much we have grown.

I haven’t got the best photos, just a few family selfies I took while we were testing out the Samsung galaxy S6 for a few days.

First up was a very early morning photo call – I am not a huge fan of 5am starts thanks to a crying toddler waking everyone up, but the cuddles together on the bed as a family were lovely so I had to take a couple of snaps. I inadvertantly had “beauty” mode on so hubs and I look very smooth skinned compared to normal!!

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Then there are a couple of selfies from our day out in London. It appears I need more practice with the selfie stick as for some reason mine and hubs’ heads are stretched in one shot!

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Monkey doesn’t have a clue what is going on and LM is completely uninterested so not the best shots but definitely a change from our usual sofa shots 🙂

dear beautiful

Me and Mine May 2015

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For this month’s me and mine I had originally planned to use a photo from a family photoshoot that we had planned last weekend… but with poorly children, and poorly us too in the end, we had to cancel and rearrange that :/. So instead I asked my little brother to grab a snap of the four of us at Monkey’s birthday party.

The results are amusing as Monkey was not in the mood to sit still at all so he took a little bit of restraining. Considering how poorly hubs was he looks surprisingly ok, while I look a complete mess with my hair all over the place! We were about to put LM down for her nap so it was very much impromptu and I didn’t even have time to look in the mirror lol!

So here we are, in the order they were taken.

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Mummy not ready…

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Monkey being restrained…

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Mummy & Daddy trying to make the children smile

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Mummy resorting to tickling Monkey – probably my favourite shot of the bunch!

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Arguably the best pic of everyone else but the worst one of me!

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And he’s off – photoshoot over lol!

I do like our growing collection of family photos sat on our snuggle chair in the living room and would love to keep taking shots like this as the children grow – but will try and get a shot taken somewhere else next time I think – just to mix things up a little!

dear beautiful
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