The Gallery: Faces

I knew it had been sometime since I took part in Tara's weekly linky, The Gallery. What I didn't expect was when I checked when it was, it is almost 3 years ago!

My last link up was in June 2011 and focused on E being 4 months old. Now as we await the arrival of baby number 2 (less than a week and a half away!) it was quite a timely read and made me remember how precious those first few weeks and months are. They really don't last long.

This week's prompt is 'faces'. One thing we have always done with E is to take family selfies. I love doing this as they really catch a moment. The expressions, the location, the feelings at the time. Here are three of our most recent taken at Christmas and on our holiday back in March.

I really am looking forward to there being four of us in the next family shot!

If you hadn't guessed it yet I am linking up with Sticky Fingers The Gallery.

The Gallery: 3 Word Gallery - Four months today

...or 16 weeks depending on how you are counting :)

It has been far too long since I took part in Tara's Gallery on a Wednesday and this week I just couldn't resist due to the theme of 3 word's inspired by Simon Mayo's Radio 2 show. I used to always listen to that on my drive home from work...that certainly seems a long time ago!

Which moves me nicely on to my three words, E is four months today (or 16 weeks but that didn't sound as catchy!). The time has in one way flown and in another way, well it seems like a lifetime ago that he wasn't around. I, we, him have learnt so much in these precious few months. Here is a taster.

We started off by getting to know each other (1 day)

We have been making lots of friends, sometimes successfully (1 week)

There was a lot of crying and screaming in the first couple of months (2 weeks)

But we have received a lot of love and support in the real and virtual worlds (ongoing!)

Luckily there has been some sleeping too (6 weeks)

Along the way there has been lots of cuddles...

And lots of playing...

He loves his milk (14 weeks)

Which has led to this (14 weeks)

One thing is for sure, I certainly love my boy (15 weeks)

Happy 16 weeks! x

The Gallery: Chilled out - some of the time!

A great topic for this week's Gallery - Chilled out.

E has a great knack of being and looking pretty chilled out. In fact he looks pretty cool a lot of the time.
Funny that, he must take after his Dad!

Sorry this is so short and sweet, I used all my energy on last week's gallery post!

Why not look at the other entries for this week at Sticky Fingers. 

The Gallery: April - this year and last

April last year was all about freedom and exploring.

We had a wedding to attend and a hen do in Paris. It was also Mr B's 30th Birthday and to celebrate we went on a once in a lifetime holiday to Japan. It was amazing and I have been meaning to blog properly about it for a long time but words can never quite capture what a great experience it was. It is such a friendly country and we were made to feel extremely welcome wherever we went, even when they couldn't speak a word of English!

A fertility shrine - it obviously worked!

So this April was a little different.

It has been all about Elliott. About finding our feet and about family.

April is however for me always about blossom whether you are in the UK or exploring elsewhere...

Photo taken in the bluebell woods April 2011



I am very late (as aways) posting my entry for the Gallery but why not see what it is all about here.

The Gallery: Mother Love - The newbie

Well this is a lot later than I had planned to post but how could I miss out on the gallery when the prompt is about mothers.

Being a new mother (sorry if you are sick if hearing about it) of only five weeks has been a rollercoaster that's for sure. There have been some ups and downs so far. Some of the downs I am not quite ready to share but hopefully we are nearly over them.

I never thought motherhood would be easy but I really did not anticipate it being quite this hard. It has tested my every being and not being able to control every detail of my days and nights is still not completely agreeing with me. I am hoping however that we can meet somewhere in the middle of the current craziness and my control freakiness. We'll see.

One thing for sure though is that through all this has been love, words of encouragement and looks of kindness. From my family. From my friends. And from Elliott.

All I can hope is that as I start to work this all out I can continue the great motherly love that came before me.

My Mum, my Mum's Mum, Elliott and the new Mum (oh that's me!)

Why not have a look at the other entries for Mother Love over at Sticky Fingers.

The Gallery: Hair - Oh look at his hair!

I couldn't resist this weeks prompt for the gallery! Hair!

This could not be more apt at the minute. Our new little arrival (when do I have to stop saying new and little?) has the most amazing hair. In fact it was the first thing we were told when we arrived at the hospital when I was in labour!

Well we weren't disappointed. Elliott has the most amazing head of hair. We were warned it might fall out, or he might get a bald patch. But nothing yet. The only change has been it lightening to my hair colour rather than the Mr's.

His hair is the first thing that everyone comments on. The midwifes in the hospital, friends and family, the strangers in the street.

So, here it is without further ado. My contribution to hair, my gorgeous little boy, his hair and one of his priceless expressions - yes I know it's just wind :)

Why not take a look at the other entries over at Sticky Fingers.

The Gallery: Trees - Thinking of Japan

I haven't really had chance to blog in the past couple of weeks due to our new little arrival, but at the minute I am trying to keep up with The Gallery and Silent Sunday just to keep me sane :)

This week's prompt is trees. I had hoped to get out in the garden with the SLR as there are lots of buds that seem to have suddenly appeared but this was a little unrealistic. So instead I raided the archives again.

I went straight to our photos of Japan, as I am sure it is in all of our minds since recent events. Crazy to think that we were there a just under a year ago! We saw many beautiful trees in Japan but this photo really captures it for me. Wishing Japan some brighter days.

Why not have a look at the other entries here.

The Gallery: Expressions - when girls get together

Well this week's prompt for the gallery is Expressions.

If this week had gone a little differently I might have chosen the expression of a newborn but that wasn't meant to be. Therefore I raided the archives again and through a mixture of reminiscing and laughter I stumbled upon the photos from my best friend's hen party last April in Paris.

We had such a great time, I had only got back from Japan a few days before so was a little disorientated and staying for three nights on a barge on the Seine, possibly didn't help.

There were many expressions over the weekend, but mainly laughter. The photo I have chosen is from the Eurostar on the way home. It certainly isn't the best photo I have ever taken but it captures the mood and memories perfectly. Champagne had seemed to be a theme of the weekend.

If you look closely you can see not only my friend's expressions but also those of slight panic in the passengers in the reflection of the window. Something along the lines of "great, a few hours on a train with a group of giggly girls drinking champagne!". Oh well, it was fun and this year we all turn 30 and should probably start to grow up a little. To be honest, I am not going to hold my breath! x

Why not go and have a look at some of the other entries now here.

The Gallery: Togetherness - in the sunshine

So for this week's gallery the prompt was 'togetherness' inspired by Valentine's Day.

Mr B and I have never really 'done' Valentine's Day, except for maybe our first Valentine's Day which was only a few weeks after we had met. Mr was still in 'impressing' mode and had booked a table at a local restaurant but when we arrived the restaurant had no record of it. I remember it clearly now, even though it was 9 years ago, his face dropped and he looked so worried. Anyway, it was all sorted and we had a lovely night.

Since then we always celebrated our anniversary in January which seemed too close to do Valentine's Day as well. Then this year, with all the baby craziness we both forgot our January anniversary so have decided to stick to OUR special day. Our wedding anniversary in June.

So for me togetherness is about our wedding but I couldn't choose a wedding photo as I hadn't taken the photo so teamed with going through some old memory cards I discovered photos from our honeymoon. We went to Singapore, Bali and Hong Kong and the two I have selected are from our relaxing time in Bali. I was going to choose just one but I thought they made a good pair.

So there we have it although we had been together for 6 years before our wedding, it really did formalise everything for me - true togetherness.

However, as the next few weeks progress and with the arrival of little Baby B I am sure I will have a new definition of togetherness.

Why not take a look at all the other entries for this week's gallery here.

The Gallery: 24 hours - the highlights

Tara over at Sticky Fingers has set this week's Gallery prompt as 24 hours. This one had me a little stumped as I couldn't just delve into my archives to find something and needed to actually take some photos. I also forgot until yesterday.

Not that this made much difference as my last few weeks have been a lot about getting organised for the arrival of Baby B, washing and cleaning. All pretty dull. And yesterday wasn't any exception so I decided to focus on the graphic and intriguing disguised in the mundane.

So here it is, my 24 hours, Tuesday this week...


Celebrating the sunshine by wearing my trainers for the first time in months!


One 'last' trip to stock up on baby essentials and ended up buying more unnecessary treats.


Hoovering (again!).


Quick relax and cup of tea with Charlie.

Welcome home.


And to bed...(never realised before how much this looked like a smiley monkey!)


I am now off to make another cup of tea and enjoy looking at everyone elses 24 hour posts. And guess what, Charlie boy is sat in exactly the same position as yesterday! Some things never change.

The Gallery: Shapes...Spanish style

Another great prompt for The Gallery this week and it is 'shapes'.

This one was right up my street and made me think of all the architectural and graphic photos I take. I can't help it. I am drawn to the abstract. Spotting parts of buildings or my surroundings to zoom in on and crop.

I think this comes from when I studied photography and we started off with our black and white 35mm film and manual SLR. Contrast and graphic elements were the name of the game for a strong shot and I discovered the work of  American Ralph Gibson. This never seems to have left me.

So, I started going through lots of old photos, which is hard work these days because all the digitals are stored on a hard drive (which we have lost the power cable for) and the actual prints are in the loft which is getting harder for me to access with the bump. Most of my photos would have fit but I decided to focus on some photos from when we went to Barcelona in 2009 - luckily stored on Facebook!

One of these weeks I will actually use the prompt to go out and take some 'new' photos, maybe in the summer when Baby B is here!

You can see all the other 'shapes' here.

The Gallery: Children - what will mine be like?

Another interesting prompt from Tara at Sticky Fingers this week for the Gallery - Children.

With the birth of my first child 2 to 7 weeks away I have actually started to wonder what they (there is only one but unsure whether it's a girl or boy!) are going to be like. What is he/she going to look like and what type of personality are they going to have.

I have also thought about my Mum when she had me. What was she like, what was she thinking. So for this week's gallery I have chosen a photo taken of me and my mum at my christening 29 years ago (apologies for the quality, I have had to take a photo of a photo!).

Looking forward to seeing what you have all come up with!

The Gallery: Mother nature on a good day

I really enjoyed taking part in The Gallery last week for the first time and feeling part of a community. So I was very excited when I saw this week's topic posted, Mother Nature, and the encouragement to get out and really 'use' a camera.

I did a photography course a few years ago which introduced me to manual SLR cameras and their features. I loved it. I borrowed Mr's Dad's Pentax K1000 which got me back to basics. Shortly afterwards we decided to invest in a digital SLR, the Canon EOS 300D which is continuing to serve us well. Once we got it, to be honest, I got a bit lazy and started to use the 'auto' function more than I should. In order to spark my interest again last year I bought a Macro lense for it. It was nothing special, very cheap but is good enough for me. I hope to be using it, and the manual camera features a bit more this year as part of my 30 before 30 project.

So, to capture a photo for the theme Mother Nature - unfortunately, the weather has not been kind in the last week and has been very grey and rainy not making it great for photos. I used this as an opportunity to look back over old photos, it didn't take long as I have only recently been looking at the hundreds of photos we took in Japan last April.

So, with cherry blossom a plenty in Japan I went a little macro crazy :).



I hope it brightens your maybe otherwise grey day, it certainly did for me. I'm now off to enjoy everyone's contributions here. Thanks for stopping by!

The Gallery: The body part I am going to miss

I have only recently discovered The Gallery after seeing it crop up on a few blogs. Set up by Tara Cain at Sticky Fingers it is a virtual art gallery of photographs which opens its doors every week for everyone and anyone to join in.

The first topic of the New Year is Body Parts and seemed perfect as my first entry. I already had an idea of what I wanted to capture. Being 33 weeks pregnant the one body part I am particularly aware of is my bump! I am already worried about how much I am going to miss it when it's gone but hey I'll have a little baby to distract me.

So, below is a picture of bump and a very wonky baby that loves to wiggle around when I lie on my back.

Baby wiggles, body pops and tickles me. I love him/her so much already.

Body parts, originally uploaded by theprojectlab.