Birthday Boy: Has It Been Two Years Already?!

Next week for most kids it's Easter time and currently many parents have their children at home for the Easter Holiday period, but in the Petit Household (Or Flat-hold? Err... let's stick with household!) our little man will be celebrating his birthday as he turns 2 years old.

I sometimes wonder what it'll be like for him when he's older. On the plus side he will never have to spend his birthday during school time, but then again some of his friends may go away for a week, though to be honest I think he's lucky. One thing I always wanted to do on my birthday was to go to Alton Towers, but sadly my birthday is before the theme park re-opens so this will never be possible (we tend to go as a couple for our anniversaries instead!). Of course the downside is if we wanted to go somewhere for his birthday the prices go up! I thought about how he'd love to go to see Thomas with his mummy and daddy (he went with his Auntie and cousin and loved it) and they has Thomas themed bedrooms so I had to check these out. £135 for 1 night during Easter period but the week after his birthday? £80 per night. Not impressed! But lucky for us it's about 40-45 minutes drive from where we live, but still an amazing shock to see big price differences.

I thought I'd post a few of my favourite pictures of Petit Boy over the last 2 years and write a little about why I picked these pictures.

Not even a day old, very special picture.

First smile!

Weaning and loving it.

Like Father, Like Son.

Cruising around Tesco in the trolley.

COLOURFUL BALLS!

Reading Peter Rabbit before bed time.

Every kid loves Thomas.

The Gallery: Landscapes

Since I got a new camera I'm going to try my best to take part in The Gallery more often. This week is Landscapes and I thought I'd show you my landscape from my apartment balcony doors. You see I have a very busy road literally right up against our flat, but doesn't stop us having some nice views every so often.

See I love taking photographs of this tree just outside our kitchen window, however I can't take photographs from my kitchen due to the window being super high and since it's a safety window it opens a tiny amount from the bottom. This is from the balcony facing the road. You can see an old building block (I think it's apartments) as well as the top of Tesco Extra and the lamp post that some reason is faced to light up a muddy 'parking' area.

This is what I love about my view. The bare tree branches showing against the late afternoon sky as the sun begins to sets behind some clouds and past the Tesco Extra - yes that damn building is great for having all our food and stuff but it messes up my chance in catching some sunsets from our balcony. I found my love for photographing trees like this when I moved here and joined the world of Instagram. I saw loads of amazing trees during a sunset and sunrise so I thought I'd give it a try myself with my iPhone. Now I have a DSLR I'll be doing it more often and learning to get better as I do.

Oh and to show you bit more of what it looks like from outside the balcony door... here's a photo with the zoom out as far as possible.

Not so beautiful, but maybe one day I'll find a way of making that unused warehouse look fantastic... don't count on it though!

Photography Bug

I have been a huge fan of photography since I can remember. Infact the very camera I use to borrow (read: take without asking) from my dad is still around and every time I come up I want to take it out for a spin, but sadly it needs a new battery which isn't cheap and it's a film camera as well which I haven't used since my days in college.

This week I'm borrowing (you'd think I would ask if I could use it first after all these years) my parents' new digital camera. It's a Luminx with a 12x optical zoom and I love that I can take some fantastic close-ups and not have to be super close. I enjoy taking pictures of wild life but have you tried taking a camera out and kneeling up close to a squirrel or a blackbird? They don't take kindly to it and usually flee so I love a good zoom.

I love sunsets the most, I find them easier to photograph on my iPhone at the moment than a compact camera, but soon I shall have my very on SLR and I cannot wait! I have always loved photography and I really miss taking pictures and snapping some special moments that look better than crappy iPhone shots.

Silent Sunday - 22/01/2012

Eyes - The Galley

Seeing this week's galley prompt made me join in the fun. I hope to do this more often! Petit Boy has got a lazy left eye, infact it's very bad for a little one of his age that he's been given an appointment to get some glasses specially made to help fix his sight. Because of this eye not working properly he is very badly long sighted, which means he can see far away but close up he has problems. It explains why he hates things close to his face so much! His dad not only has a lazy left eye but is also partly blind in it as well (Petit Boy isn't blind which is least some relief) and his Auntie and Nan also have a lazy eye too. There's different types of lazy eye. If the muscle isn't working right they usually can help with surgery. However most of the time surgery is just to help look "normal" and doesn't tend to fix the sight in that eye.



I wear glasses because I'm short sighted, meaning I can't see far away. Actually my sight is so bad anything past my nose is blurry for me, though it has been slowing down over the last few years and think its been getting better. I'm one of the few in my family who wear glasses all day as anyone else who uses glasses is only long sighted and thus wear them to read! Why not check out the Gallery or join in? You can find more blog posts on this week's theme over at Sticky Fingers.

Silent Sunday - 31/07/11

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Silent Sunday 24/07/11

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Petit Boy

My Little Star

Now if I can just get rid of the soother...

Credit to John Arnold for these fantastic photographs (aka Geek Daddy from GeekMummy.com)

Day In The Life...

Baby Al's 1st Birthday

It's a shame that it is raining today, although I have no idea what the weather was like when he was born as I was in hospital til 12th April and I even then it was dark by the time I got out.

Here's some photographs of the big day!

Gift from a lovely PR company and some of his cards he got from family.

Leapfrog Learn & Groove Musical table from Gran an Grandad G.

Mega Bloks Rescue Adventure from Mummy and Daddy.

Baby Einstein toy from Nana and Grandad H.

Baby Al eating sandwiches and chicken just like a big boy.

The cake that Mummy made... Sorta.

The cake was almost gone by the end of the day. I cheated with the cake and bought a swiss roll and ready made icing. I just shaped the roll to a 1 and pasted the icing onto it. Added some blue icing as a border and voila! I'm no baker but for my first cake I think I did alright.

This time last year we were in Walsall Manor Hospital, Daddy went home to catch some sleep and I enjoyed a nice meal in a private room with my newborn son.

Happy Birthday, My Angel.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Our Week Away

We were away for a week, well Baby Al and I were. We spent a whole week with my parents in the countryside, enjoying time away from the busy urban life we live and got to go to The Deep in Hull as well. Here are a few pictures of our time away.

"Hello, just taking a morning crawl around the house!"

I think the cute-o-meter just broke.

Over the Humber Bridge... looks gloomy!

A power nap before an exciting day at The Deep.

"Ooohhh! Fishies!"

Looking into the big tank with Granddad.

The floor reacted to feet or hands and the fish would swim away!

Back over the bridge and it's sunny and warm!

"Can I have some Omega 3 tablets, Mummy?"

I did a few videos at The Deep as flash photography was not allowed and because it was very dark in most areas photographs without flash didn't come out very well. I shall have to make a video at some point of the fun you can have there and all the interesting things you can see.