Little Hay Barn

Some more images taken at the gorgeous Arolela Guest Farm, in and around this delightful little hay barn.

It's a huge struggle to get them and then they fall out

During the past two months, Joubert has lost all four of his front teeth. I love this phase in his life and find his toothless grin totally adorable!

Portraits for me

I've been wanting to get canvasses done of Joubert and Emma for the house for ages, but I can't decide which photos to use. I hardly ever spend more than 10 minutes at a time photographing my own kids and I'm just never 100% happy with the result. And the more I look at the images, the less I like them.
So anyway - I took these about 2 weeks ago and jazzed them up with textures etc, but now Henk doesn't like the editing that much, he says it's too drab and needs more colour. But when I do more conventional editing on them, they seem too boring, so I guess it's back to the drawing board.

Flying high

I've been a bit bored with my work lately and have started to experiment more on the editing side of things. It's actually quite amazing what you can create with just a standard digital image. It's a great creative outlet and even though I have started out as a purist (take the picture as you want it to be, with minimal editing afterwards) I've started to appreciate more drastic techniques in changing my images. I'm considering printing this one on canvas to hang in Joubert's room. It looks more like a painting than a photo this way and even though I know it's him in the picture, it could be any boy, anywhere.
Anyway. It might not be your cup of tea, but I quite like it :-)

Petting tortoises

We saw loads of tortoises in and around Yzerfontein and the kids (especially Emma) couldn't resist taking a closer look. Joubert is a little more cautious around them as the last time he picked one up, it emptied it's bladder all over his hands :-) Emma just loves them and kept on shouting "stop, STOPPP", whenever we approached one. After the 30 millionth time we decided to develop sudden loss of hearing :-)
It was a small miracle that we didn't drive over this teeny tiny little baby - I don't think I've ever seen such a small tortoise!

Flower children

The other side of the lens

We went camping at Yzerfontein this past long weekend and had an absolute blast. On Saturday we went searching for the last of the wild flowers and Henk took the opportunity to snap a few pics of me and the kids. I have almost NO photos of me and the kids together, so even though I despise being in front of the camera, it is nice to have these images and I think Henk did a great job of capturing us!
Might I just add that minutes after these were taken we not only saw a scorpion, but also a puff adder. Nothing like taking a walk on the wild side, heh.

Joubert turns six

So Joubert turned six last week, which not only means that he is getting scary big, but also that I am getting scary old (-;

After paging through my birthday cake recipe books, Joubert decided that he wanted a pirate party which is such a fun theme and I thoroughly enjoyed planning for it! The party was a great success with all the usual party treats, a pinata, jumping castle and Henk even agreed to dust off his old chest of tricks (he used to earn extra money by performing tricks at parties and restuarants when he was still studying) to entertain the boys. I must just add though that I had no idea 15 little boys could be quite that exhausing to supervise!!! Good grief, by the time the party ended Henk and I were both dead on our feet! But we had one very happy little boy, which makes it all more than worth it.

Emma turns 3

The "baby" of the house turned 3 on Monday and on Saturday, she had her first real birthday party with all the trimmings. She was so excited and had such a great time, I am really grateful that we were able to do this for her. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by. I know I've said this before, but in many ways I still think of her as a baby. Clearly, that must stop now! And though it's very tempting to have another baby, I realise that no matter how many babies I have, they will all eventually grow up and rather deal with it now than coping with half a dozen children!

Friends on the beach

Playing in the water

A while back, we spent a weekend in the beautiful village of Greyton. It was quite cold and very wet.




Off course, wherever water is involved, children have to play.



The sensible thing to do would be to keep you pants and boots on and tread carefully so as not to get wet.



But whoever said that Emma was the sensible kind?