Black & White Wednesday.

Today is my Birthday...

I wanted to feel different...

My daughter had been wanting short(er) hair for a long time, so she followed suite...

She look dolly ~ it really suits her (although I was a little sad to see her locks falling to the floor) :-)

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

To join in with some B&W fun head on over to Lisa's.

Communal Global ~ "Around the World" ~ Birthdays

June is a month of Birthdays in our house (AND Father's day)!

Paul (Daddy) already had his, but it was a bit of a flop really ~ the kids had just all got back from camp and the weekend seemed full of them and their stories. Sorry honey :-(

Then DD is next ~ he had a great day. He's asked for a camera and a teddy bear, so we bought him the camera to add on to his Leapster Explorer and took him to Build-a-Bear in the afternoon ~ one HAPPY boy!

Here's one of my favourite shot of the day ~ the other is in the collage - where is opening his Lego Sticker book - you can see what he felt about that!

The rest of the pictures I've story-boarded as there were so many :-)

Tomorrow it's my birthday ~ I've decided to do something drastic ~ watch for pictures in a day or so..!

You Capture - Flowers

This week's theme was a little easy and thereby irresistible.

All these shots are no more than a month old - I LOVE shooting flowers!

The last few are last week's captures (it's rained all week this week!)

Aliums ~ simply stunning, but so short lived :(

Pear blossom

Elderflower (heralding our supposed summer..!)

Lupins

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Paeonies (beautiful 'double' ones!)

My poor paeony bushes have not endured all the wind and rain well ~ their glorious blooms bowing sadly down and hiding their heads in the grass :( ~ Any tips??

My other bush however seems a lot more robust and is really spendid to notice as you draw up to the house!

But not all the beauty to be seen is in the planted variety ~ I really love some of the 'weeds' on my lawn..

Not only are the so daintily pretty, but the bees love them too!

Sometimes we miss the minor beauties in life, because we are too busy focusing on the more obvious..

Remember to bend down and see life in detail...

Often the best things in life are right at the end of our fingertips toes!!

To see more beautiful flowers this week, head on over to Beth's ~ see you there!

Black & White Wednesday ~ Manual Focus

I thought I'd have a little fiddle with manual focus this week ~ and WOW ~ I think I am in love! Of course it would be no good for my everywhere-at-once kiddos, but for nature and things that are a little more 'still' I found it to be awesome! 


A question though ~ at some angles I found it really hard to see my 'little green light' (indicating it's in-focus) and my glasses got in the way of my actual eyes 'seeing' the clarity. Most of my shots were accurate, but the odd one or two had sad-I-missed-the-focus results.


It all began with this shot ~ I wanted to have a go at focusing closer and putting Lilo out of focus in the background. Manual seemed to be the simplest way to go for that... (This was going to be my iheartfaces 'in the distance' entry this week, but I changed my mind).

Then I looked at the grass through my glass and couldn't resist...

The Papaya seeds caught my eye too, when I was making Baby's lunch.

I left the camera in MF and a little later had the opportunity to shoot some more, when the children took the animals outside.

Stitch invented a lovely game with a few and played in a puddle on our picnic table for ages...

(this is one where I had aimed for focus on the frog's face, but missed and hit the tiger instead! ~ still love it though)

To join in with BW Wednesday ~ head on over to Lisa's and link up to your BW blog post :-)

I ♥ Faces ~ "From a Distance"

WOW ~ was this a tough choice this week! I whittled it down to 16 shots and then it was agony!

I shoot from a distance A LOT ~ I have 8 children, they are always on the go. I like to capture life as it happens and hardly ever make them 'smile', so shooting on a long lens is the way I play, but HOW to choose just 1?


I wanted to end up with something out-of-the-ordinary, something that was a different take from that of the masses, a picture that stood out as different, but also one that was 'clever', well composed, well lit, pretty, interesting, nicely processed  & tells a story (after-all, every picture should tell a story, yes?)~ worthy of a placing maybe! Hmmm!

So here it is ~ I hope it fits the bill! :-)

I also thought it might appeal to Dan's (this week's judge) sense of style ;-)

I hope I get to share some of my other choices with you sometime, only many did not have 'faces' in as such...


Don't forget to check out all the other fabulous entries this week over at iheartfaces...

Games, A Fair & A City Trip

This week our big four have been away on 'camp', so Paul & I decided to make the most of it! 

On Wednesday we took the 'smalls' to Liverpool ~ they wanted to go on a train and a boat. Lilo is into Art (and wants to be an artist) & Liverpool has a tonne of galleries, and then there is 'The World Museum' with it dinosaurs and fish ~ plenty to see and do with four small children :)

Best of all for me though, was the AMAZINGly beautiful architecture ~ fabulous to photograph...

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Thursday we took them for a picnic & play in the park,

but when we got there the fair was there ~ a total added bonus!

My beautiful babies have had a brilliant week :-)

To join in with either Lisa, or Beth's 'meme' click the logos at the top and link up your post.

If you want to join in with Communal Global link up with the linky below  ~ see you there :)