Rachel...

Check out this photo of Rachel (my niece)... isn't she gorgeous! I instantly fell in love with this photo. It was taken at Phillip Island when we were in Melbourne at Christmas time.

I couldn't help myself... I had to have a tinker with it...

Here's the original:
A bit of colour pop:

Background added:

All sorts of stuff added:

Another Photoshop picture...

Photoshop

I bought a graphic art magazine the other day... I have always wanted to try using Photoshop in a more sophisticated way. Anyhow, here are my first three attempts...

You can see Aiden standing at the water's edge...

A (very) brief family update

Here's a look at a few events that have occurred over the past six months...

We had Dave's work Xmas party for the kids on the weekend.... here's a look at how Megan reacted to Santa last year...
...and here they are this year.... sitting patiently waiting for Santa to give them their presents... Megan was so keen she was slowly creeping closer and closer...

But she still wasn't quite keen enough to sit on his lap

Aiden & Santa

Santa asking if Dave has been a good boy??

The most exciting thing in the B-K household is the installation of a shiny new pool. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't figure out how to sink a full size below ground pool (mainly due to restrictions about how close you can be to a fence/house, etc). So, we went to K-Mart and bought this $500 metal frame above ground pool. It's only 3 feet deep so Aiden can stand and we have only actually filled it to about 3/4 so Megan can stand too. Of course, the kids LOVE it...

The patio had had a bit of a make-over to go with the pool. A general re-arrangement of furniture and some clear alsonite sheeting to replace some of the patio roofing...for the first time since we have lived here the patio area is actually appealing to be in...

It's that time of the year... the Christmas tree is up...

We tried very hard to get a family photo with all four of us in front of the tree... but this was Megan's thought on that matter...

They had an open day at the place where Dave & I were married so we took the kids for a look... this is just a nice pic of Dave & Megan. He was standing in that very spot for some of our wedding photos.

We were lucky enough to have some visitors back in September. Dave's Uncle Frank and Aunty Ellie were here from Melbourne... the kids adored them! The day they turned up was Frank's birthday... so we celebrated with some cake.

Hank & Vicki (Oma & Opa) came for their usual mid-year visit too.

Scrapbook Pages

It's been about six months so I thought I should post a few pics. The next six posts are all the scrapbook layouts I've done since July. The layouts are in the order that I made them... the date written above each page is the date the photo was taken.

December 2009 Hmmm.... obviously not a photo of one of us... it was a cat theme kit so I found this picture on the internet

Aiva... one of Megan's friends

Scrapbook Pages

December 2007 February 2007

August 2008

September 2009

June 2009

Scrapbook Pages

August 2009 July 2009

October 2009

July 2009

October 2009

Scrapbook Pages

October 2009 October 2009

September 2009

October 2003

October 2003

Scrapbook Pages

October 2007 September 2009

September 2009

September 2009

July 2009

Scrapbook Pages

August 2009 September 2009

September 2009

October 2008

February 2009

Scrapbook Pages

January 2009 April 2006

August 2009

July 2009

April 2008

Scrapbook Pages

Sorry.... it's been a little while since I posted some stuff. Dates are when the photo was taken.

April 2008 - 10 mths
July 2009

December 2007 - 6 months old

March 2008 - Aiden's 3rd birthday

May 2009 - our farm visit when Oma & Opa were here

August 2007 - Aiden 2 1/2 yrs

May 2008

March 2009 - photo taken by Kerri at Jordi's birthday party

Photos

Here are some photos that Kerri took at Megan's birthday party.

Megan & Grandad

Charlotte all dressed up!

More scrapbook pages

The kids helping me make the cupcakes for Megan's birthday...This is the look on Megan's face just after Nana had lit the candles and everyone started to sing Happy Birthday

This is an older photo from Dave's birthday back in March

I designed a baby theme kit for my store so I had to pull out some old baby photos to scrap!

Scrapbook Pages

It's been a couple of weeks so I have a few pages to show you...

Photo taken at Easter earlier this year
A really old (but gorgeous) photo of Charlotte

This was the morning of Megan's birthday... of course, Aiden got a present too

Walking to school in the rain... Aiden wore this jacket and I also had a particularly attractive bright yellow one... we looked like mother duck walking baby duck...

Another one from Megan's birthday... she hadn't quite woken up yet thus the faraway look

Megan's Birthday

Megan had a fantastic birthday! We had 18 kids (plus parents) here for a party and becasue of the bad weather we were stuck inside. They ran amok and let me tell you... it was noisy and chaotic... but fun.

Thank you to all the well wishes and birthday gifts.

Here are some photos of the day...

This photo was taken just as we started singing the Happy Birthday song... she turned a bit shy when she realised they were all looking at her.

This is our favourite photo of the day. When Megan first woke up we all piled into her bedroom bearing presents (she was a little overwhelmed by Aiden's enthusiasm!). They both received books from Oma & Opa and here they are inspecting them.

I decided to do cupcakes this year instead of a single cake - it worked a treat and I would DEFINITELY do it that way again.

Nana lighting the candles and Megan showing her excitement

Megan didn't quite wait for us to finish the hip hip hoorays before she blew out the candles so we weren't ready for the photo opportunity.

Enjoying her cake

Thanks to everyone who came along to help us celebrate Megan's special day. And a special thanks to Cass who took most of these photos for me ;)

Scrapbook Pages

This is a reeeaaally old photo of Aiden This photo was taken on Aiden's birthday back in March

This photo is a recent one - taken two weekends ago

Scrapbook Page

Me having fun on the bouncy cushion in Busselton...

Scrapbook Pages

Both photos taken in Feburuary this year by my friend Kerri (professional photographer in the making)

Hello again!

Yes, yes, I know... it's been 6 months since I posted here. I have been SO busy with my scrapping stuff on my other blog that this one fell a bit by the wayside. BUT, I am back now after succumbing to incredible pressure from my inlaws :)... OK, maybe it was just a little bit of pressure!

Apparently there are some of you out there who 1) are still on dial-up internet speed so you don't want to wade through all my scrapping stuff just to see pics of the kids and 2) some of you just don't want to see the scrapping stuff! So, here's the solution. I promise when I post a page where I have used photos of the kids I will attempt to remember to post it here too. And I will try to post some family photos too.

Here's your first instalment... some photos from our little family holiday down to Busselton when Hank & Vicki (aka Opa & Oma) came to visit.

It was Aiden's turn to take home his class dog, Dopey. Dopey came everywhere with us and featured in quite a few photos.

At the place where we stayed there was an awesome bouncy cushion (a bit like a trampoline) the kids (ahem... Dave) thought it was pretty cool.

Oma & Opa watching the bouncing

Our accomodation was just across the road from the beach

You can't go to Busselton without visitng the historic jetty (this isn't it... it's right next door to this one). I managed to snap a shot of the whole family all looking at the camera which is a first.

We made a special trip to an animal park where they gave each of us a bag of food to feed all the animals... Aiden was surprisingly fearless from the start...

Megan took a long while to warm up to the idea... it wasn't until we got to the small animals like rabbits and guinea pigs that she felt comfortable.