Crabbing Adventures - The Ordinary Moments

I talked a couple of weeks back about how being by the water is my favourite thing, and I'm continuing that trend today with some photos of our recent little adventure crabbing. 

With Dann on paternity leave, it meant we had access to the car and a lot more freedom to go exploring during the week, which also meant everywhere was a little less busy (school holidays broke the week Dann returned to work). 

We've attempted to go up to the pontoon at Hamble River Country Park a couple of times at the weekends, but always found it so very busy, but luck was on our side this time, with only a handful of other people around. 

We grabbed a bucket, string and some bacon to tempt the crabs and sat out in the sunshine. 

How to train your insta/blog-husband to take photos how you like them

The Insta-Husband.
The man behind the camera.
The guy tirelessly shooting images, usually that look almost entirely the same, but you know, from an ever-so-slightly different angle.
The bloke who helps you bring your grid to life.

Your trainee.

Let's be honest, 90% of us did not marry, or date, or whatever you call it, a photographer.
Dann is not a photographer. In fact before I met him, I'm not sure he ever took photos outside of drunken nights in the pub. However, nowadays, you'll find him with a camera in hand almost as often as it's in mine. And sometimes more!

Seaviews and Country Parks - The Ordinary Moments

I think one of my favourite places to be is by water. 

I'm not overly bothered by what kind of water - river, lake, sea or a pool. But beside water is where I feel my most relaxed. 

Of course, luckily for me, we live on the South Coast. We've lived in homes where you could literally see water from our window (twice) and have lived within 15 minutes driving of a coastline for the last nine years. 

And I'm glad that we do. Not only for me. But for our kids. 

Henry is already a huge lover of water. Water play is my go-to when I need to entertain Henry in the house. He's been in swimming lessons since he was six months old. He adores splash pads and bath time. And now he loves being by the sea! 

Can you tell he's my kid yet?

For me, nothing beats being by the sea. The glittering sunlight off the water. The cool chill of the splashing waves. The nostalgic memories of summer holidays gone by. The calming sounds. 

Christmas Gifts for a Photography Fiend

You guys know I'm like the biggest photography fan ever right? I'm still learning, and feel like I could keep learning new things every single day, but I love photography and camera stuff.
To be fair, if you've been reading this blog for a while you'll know how much I adore photos, so I think this might be my favourite of all my Christmas guides. 

For your favourite photography fiend and camera lover, here's my top pics.... (yes that was intentional!)

Photobook fun with Lifecake

We're a little obsessed with photos... in case you hadn't noticed. 

I take literally so many, and I can't share them all on social media. Well I could but I think a lot of people would probably start to get a little frustrated with the photo spam. 

And I really think my photography addiction has escalated since I had Henry. I just don't want to miss a cute photo opportunity, or capture a memory. 

Although I do really believe in being in the moment too, I just can't help having a camera in hand to grab those candid moments and the fun family photos. Plus I have literally the worst memory, so I find having photographic evidence really helpful for remembering all our little adventures and family moments. 

Since last year, we've been using the Lifecake app to store a good (read very high) percentage of Henry's photos. These include ones of him on his own, but also family ones too. And we basically have an online photobook, in time order (the app reads the meta data of the image and orders them in date order based on the image information - though you can edit if it isn't correct). You can read all about the app in this post from last December - look out for the very cute Henry photos at six months old!!

Although I do love having all our images backed up (again... I literally have our photos backed up in so many places as I worry I'm going to lose them all!) and the timeline is fab, nothing beats real printed images. 

I, of course, have photo albums to put my printed off images, because they are my ultimate faves. But I also really love photobooks, especially as gifts. 

Lifecake have now introduced their own photobook* service, and I was asked to make a little video all about the process.

Pumpkin Picking

It's my favourite of all the autumn pastimes.... Pumpkin picking!!
And luckily for me, we live literally about three roads over from a Pick Your Own farm which also has many pumpkin patches where you can pick your own pumpkins!
I think this year they have three pumpkins patches to explore, each at least the size of a football pitch.

We decided to pop along one Monday afternoon and it was peacefully quiet so we had the patch all to ourselves.

How to get the best self-timer family photos

One of the biggest first world problems we face, especially as a blogging family, is getting family photos.
Admittedly this is not helped by the fact I'm actually really particular about photos, especially of myself.
But my favourite photos are definitely the ones of the three of us together, and I'm a little gutted that I've only just learnt the great success of utilising that self-timer on my Canon 200D, as we don't have too many photos of the three of us together from when Henry was little, bar the odd selfie, and two photo shoots we had done.

However, now that I've learnt a few little tips and tricks, and had a few rather lovely comments on my Instagram on some of my successful photos, I thought I would do a little blog post.

Countryside Adventures

One of the perks of living away from family is that you get to go and visit them. And luckily for us, our family (most specifically Dann's parents) live in very places. 

We keep our weekends free for travel and family adventures, and the a couple of weekends ago we decided to drive back up to visit Ninny and Grumpy for a Saturday chill in the sunshine. 

Of course I took along the camera as the village Dann grew up in so perfectly photographic and is pretty much an Instagram dream. 

Thank You Notes #5 - The Woodlands Edition

I can't be the only one who is a little dismayed that the summer is basically over - although I am pretty excited for Autumn, because we know I LOVE autumn! 

This summer has been one of the absolute best though as Henry is walking about and just generally been a pleasure to have around. I feel like we're making the most of our summer weekends which is always a good feeling too. 

So here's to another month of thank you notes....

Thank you Holly Hill Woodland for giving us a new favourite place to visit when we kind of accidentally found you whilst in search of a play-park! You were WAY more than we were expecting and I'm very much looking forward to lots of summers of exploring!

Strawberry Picking

I think it's a blogger's summer rite of passage to get themselves to a 'pick your own' so obviously we had to go and have a visit to our local farm. 

Luckily for us Pickwell Farm is walking distance from our house so last Saturday when we had a free afternoon we toddled off to get some fresh fruit and veg and a run around in the fields. 

Of course we got a load of photos - which I LOVE - but I also decided to test out the video function on our Canon 200D and start our journey into Youtube!!! I've embedded the little video at the at the end of the post so make sure you have a little watch, and subscribe to my channel! 

Lights, camera, action - capturing kids on the move!

One of the perils of being a parent to a toddler is that they're constantly on the move, which can make photographing them somewhat tricky. 

We all want photos of our little ones to look back on, but this wonderful fun stage does seem to lend itself to many a blurred and occasionally out-of-focus photograph of your smiley rosey-cheeked angel. 

With this in mind, and having had A LOT of practice taking photos of Henry - it feels like he is never ever still,but that might just be me - I took up the challenge with Lifecake* and Canon, to share some of my top tips for photographing kids on the move! 

A picture is worth a thousand words - Canon EOS 200D Photo Challenge

A picture is worth a thousand words.
Never has a truer statement been made.
And it's a philosophy that I live by.
Yes I'm a words girl. I live for writing. But I also live for photos. Photos have the ability to bring back so many memories, create new opinions, endure feelings. Photos... they're my jam.

And I'm a Canon girl, through and through. Ever since my university days when I would hire out a DSLR from our media rooms to do my photojournalism course.

Although a fujifilm was actually my first ever DSLR camera of my own, it was a cheap buy from a friend, and my heart wanted a Canon. So I saved up and bought my 1100D.
It's lived a very good life, even surviving a four foot drop from a bookcase (thank you cat!) and has toughened up with a toddler too!

But now I'm upgrading, and I've been put to the challenge by Lifecake and Canon, to truly road test the brand new Canon EOS 200D* and show you how each photo is worth a thousand words.

All about that park life

Oh I do love a little park trip. 

We try to get outdoors as much as possible, and this can include simply going to our local park. 

Some of my best childhood memories are from playing outdoors and specifically the park. One that really stands out is Higginson Park in Marlow, Bucks, which is the town my Granddad lived, and we would visit the park every time we went to see him. It was pure happiness for a kid. And that's what I want for Henry as much as possible.  

Honey and Bee's at the Farm

One of the things I've loved most about being a parent, and especially a parent of a one year old, is filling our weekends with trips and new experiences. 

I've had quite a few comments recently that we're quite a social family, and always seem to be off doing things, and I am seriously OK with that. Getting outdoors is one of my favourite things to do, and I really do think it's a big contributing factor to how Henry is so chilled, he isn't cooped up too much. He's given lots of space and fresh air, and lots of opportunities for learning. 

A couple of weekends ago we decided to head back to one of our new found favourite places, Manor Farm, (we went there for the first time for Henry's birthday) for their Honey and Bee weekend. 

Lavender Fields

I'm not sure much can beat a sea of purple in the middle of a field!

It's the season for the flowers, and in particular, lavender. If you've been about on Instagram you've probably seen the influx of lavender field photos, and I'm here to say I love them, and let the purple sweet scented spam continue for ever! (can you tell I'm not entirely over the blossom spam of March?!)

So on Sunday we headed out to our local Lavender Fields, and to be honest I have ZERO regrets. Not only to Henry nap the entire way there (about an hour), he was good as gold too, plus I got a shed load of beautiful new photos that I'm obsessed with!

A Farm Birthday

So you know we went to the zoo just before Henry's first birthday? Well to continue the animal theme, we decided to take him to Manor Farm for his actual birthday.

Being a Monday we both took the time off work, and after his morning nap, headed out to the farm. As it was during the week and during term time, the farm was really quiet, and in places it genuinely felt like we had the place to ourselves which suited us perfectly.

We loved seeing the range of animals and introducing Henry to different kinds of wildlife. He was quite taken with the baby goats (as was I) and the horse in the main paddock.

The entire place is absolutely perfect for children, with the old farmhouses set out as wartime homes, including a school room (and a taxidermy dog that creeped me out and gave me quite the shock!) as well as animal greeting sessions and a chance to milk a cow (unfortunately Henry was too young, and too tired for us to stick around for this). Plus they have a huge outside play area with sand pits and a mini racetrack, and play equipment. It was so good we went in twice!

Here's a farmload of photos!

A first birthday at the zoo

For Henry's first birthday last weekend, we decided instead of a party, we would go to the zoo with a few friends and family.

With him still being young, and not all of our friends having little's we wanted to do something that everyone would enjoy, especially as we know well how tedious children's parties can be for non-parents, and well parents too.

So last Saturday we packed up a picnic and headed on over to Marwell Wildlife.

One year as a parent - what it's taught me?!

I'm going to be going on about this for a while yet, so hold on guys and girls, but I'm still somewhat bewildered that we've kept a small human alive and well for an entire year!

A year of ups and downs, and swings and roundabouts (literally sometimes). 

There's been days that I genuinely wondered if I was really cut out for this and worried that I wasn't good enough, and then days of utter bliss and joy and happiness. 

So what has a year as a parent taught me?

Happy First Birthday Henry!!!

Today is the day, and I am so far from prepared for it, it's unreal.

My baby boy is one!!
Happy birthday my sweet boy.

This past year has been the most surreal, amazing, hard, exhausting, brilliant and over-whelming year of my life. But I wouldn't change it for the world.

I absolutely my sweet Henry. He is the kindest, happiest, cuddliest, and contented child. His smile brings smiles from everyone that meets him.

Nothe Fort: Weymouth

When I started researching places to visit for our trip to Weymouth, Nothe Fort came up many times in the top 10 places to visit, so of course it had to be added to my list.

We finally got a break in the rain and decided to drive over for a late morning/lunchtime visit. 

I wasn't 100% sure what to expect as we haven't visited a fort before I don't think, and the last castle I visited was back when I was in school.