24. September 2012 07:45
by Rene Pallesen
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During the last couple of days I have been doing my first series of newboarn photos with the little one (still no name).
So far he is behaving like a typical newborn...wants a feed every couple of hours and sleeps a lot. He is doing his best to keep Kim awake at night...I try to get a good nights sleep and then look after Aiden during the daytime and get him out of the house (swimming, shopping etc.) so that Kim can get some additional sleep without too make additional interruptions.
Anyway...back to the newborn photos. I wanted to take these cute high-key photos with the newborn wearing a hat. It turned out to be a lot harder than I had expected...both due to the little one not behaving as desired, but also because there were a few adjustments that had to be made underway. In the end we ended up doing three sitting where the last sitting was the most successful one.
I knew that I needed to raise the head from the body to get the right pose but I found out that it was a mistake using pillows as they were too soft. After this I tried towels and linen but they were still too soft. In the end I used a hard camera suitcase with a towel on top which turned out to be perfect.
Over the next weeks I will get to take some more photos, so stay tuned...
13. September 2012 04:34
by Rene Pallesen
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During the last 9 months since Kim became pregnant I've been doing this project with a monthly belly photo.
12. September 2012 07:20
by Rene Pallesen
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On the morning of the 12th September 2012 at 6.10am our little boy arrived to this world. He was keen to get out and as expected (pretty much) he arrived two weeks early.
Labour actually started more than 24 hours earlier and was just dragging on with Kim getting contractions every 30 minutes or so...not close enough to quite panic about, but still with the knowledge that it is close to going to the hospital. At the time the little one arrived Kim had been in labour for more that 24 hours so she eventually ended up with another c-section.
Fortunately there were no complications with the procedure, the only downside was that everyone else in the whole area decided to have babies on the same day, so the hospital natal section was completely full. This meant that for the first three nights Kim and the little one were put in the acute section of the hospital. Very noisy and hard to sleep, but the good thing was that there was a 1:1 carer ratio and they don't normally see little newborns there, so both Kim and the newborn got a lot of attention and assistance.
After 5 nights in the hospital Kim and the newborn (still without a name) came back from the hospital.
The little one actually looks a lot like his older brother...same mold I guess.
9. September 2012 07:12
by Rene Pallesen
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Last night I went with Kim and Aiden to Darling Harbour for dinner. We wanted to go somewhere where it was also nice to go for a walk.
We ended up just buying a kebab and sitting on the steps outside eating it while Aiden had fun imitating the sounds of the seagulls trying to get to our foor (in the beginning he was a bit scared of the birds).
I had brought my camera along and took a couple of panorama shots of the harbour...love it, love it, love it. I was able to crank up the ISO and take this handheld with no problems and because of the high resolution it is amazing what I can do with it back home in terms of stitching photos together etc. The end result is a 100 Megapixel image so very big.
Afterwards we had coffee and tiramisu at Guylians...coffee was nice but had better cake before.
9. September 2012 02:29
by Rene Pallesen
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We are now 8 months into expecting our new little baby boy and we expect him to arrive any time within the next two weeks.
We did some pregnancy photos the last couple of days to make sure we have some nice ones as a family.
6. September 2012 11:13
by Rene Pallesen
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This Sunday it was Fathers Day here in Australia. Aiden had painted me a very nice picture at Daycare as a fathers day present.
In the morning he took me out of for a buffet breakfast at the Crowne Plaza in Coogee...and afterwards we enjoyed a the very nice warm and sunny day at the beach where he got to play in the sand.
25. August 2012 08:55
by Rene Pallesen
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This morning Sacha asked me if I'd like to do a sunrise shoot with him at the Opera House. I'd wanted to try out the new camera for landscape so said yes.
This was the very first photo I took and after that the light went pretty bad.
A very nice morning, but I am not sure if I'm cut out for the early starts (had to get up at 4.30am), especially not now that we are going towards summer.
Kim and Aiden stayed at home sleeping and they were still sleeping when I returned at around 7am.
21. August 2012 12:03
by Rene Pallesen
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This weekend we went with the family up to the Entrance 150km North of Sydney.
We stayed at a small resort in the middle of The Entrance close to the water and restaurants.
When we arrived on the Friday night it was really windy and cold...I had left behind my jacket in Sydney rushing out the door but fortunately I had enough jumpers to still stay warm.
We were staying close to the bridge across the Entrance and underneath the bridge there were some nice lines that I quickly rushed out to capture before sunset.
Next day we spend around the local area looking at the market, playground etc.
In the afternoon there was pelican feeding which definitely was worth seeing.
One of the birds had a fish hook stuck in its neck and the feeders quickly caught it to try and pull it out.
They also have this insanely long jetty going into the lake. I wanted to do a sunset photo but the conditions weren't great...no spectacular clouds and the water was full of seaweed that had been blown in with the wind.
21. August 2012 10:14
by Rene Pallesen
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This weekend we went with the Heng's onboard one of the last Tall Ships of Sydney harbour called 'Svanen. The day before it had been pouring with rain but we were lucky that the day we had booked was dry and sunny most of the day.
'Svanen' was built in 1922 in Denmark in Fredrikssund of danish oak frames, where she traded as a grain
carrier between Denmark and Greenland for the tuborg beer company until
1969. She and James Craig are now the last tall ships in Sydney (The Bounty was sold to china some years ago).
She ain't a big ship, but large enough to carry about 90 passengers.
The interior of the ship is almost in its original state. It is still possible to see all the hand chiseled timer in the cabins.
The ship itself is pretty much still operated as it was back then (although she now has a motor...not sure if she would have had that originally).
And all the rope work is still the way it should be as well.
The cruise lasted a couple of hours and during the trip we were served lunch, beer and wine. This was one of the special deals that Kim had found us so it ended up being a great day.
15. April 2011 11:04
by Rene Pallesen
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Every year there is an Ester show at Fox Studios...it is not as big as the show out at Homebush, but it is a lot closer to where we live and entry is free.
Last year and again this year we brough Dylan there as it is difficult for his mum to go there. We normally allow him to get 1 ride or one game at the show, but because we this year brough Aiden along he got three rides as we though we'd check how Aiden would reach to the rides.
The first ride that Dylan chose was a Camel ride (Although they are not actually camels, but Dromedary's).
Afterwards he was complaining about how smelly they are.
In the mean time Aiden was watching the action (It was a pretty cool day and he had been sick the week before so he was dressed in his bunny outfit).
We tried to get Dylan to look scary with some of the local performers, but I think this is the best he could do.
After this I took Aiden and Dylan on the Ferris wheel and the Merry go round.
These are Waaaaayyyy to scary for Kim, so she was waiting down on the ground taking photos.
11. April 2011 04:32
by Rene Pallesen
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This Sunday we went to Ethans 10yo Birthday at Maroubra. It also happens that Aiden was 10 Months a couple of days ago and it was a nice and overcast day, so good to take some monthly photos of him.
He is pretty happy to show off his new chompers (teeth)...he's got four now. He's been a bit sick for the last week with a cold. Probably something he picked up in daycare, but he is a lot happier now.
He now knows how to sit up straight, but he is still not able to crawl or get to/from sitting position, so the way he gets around is by rolling. He has learned to repeat one word from up and that is 'Dada'...but he still doesn't know the context or meaning of the word.
He is also a lot more reserved when it comes to other people...the general rule is that he likes me and grandad, but everyone else depends on the day...even mummy is sometimes given the cold shoulder (which Kim gets slightly upset about when it happens).
7. April 2011 10:26
by Rene Pallesen
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Last month we received our new bi-folding doors to the garden. The old doors were old aluminium sliding doors that didn't allow us to open up the dining room towards the garden properly, they only allowed us a metre of opening to walk through.
We really wanted to open up the outside and inside areas. The old door really wasn't ideal.
Before christmas we ordered new bi-folding doors that would allow us to open up the whole area (about three metres and would allow us easier and better access to the garden).
It took the two tradespeople the better part of a full day to remove the old door and install the new one.
The new door looks really good, it was delivered in raw cedar wood and yesterday I spent most of the following weekend sanding and varnishing it.
The new door comes with a sliding moscito net that allows us to open the whole area and still keep the little critters out. It is almost invisible to when we have the family over we will need to keep it open to prevent the kids from running through the net.
The trades people couldn't take the old door with them so I had to find a way to dispose of it. Eventually I put it on Gumtree (a free site similar to eBay) and said that whoever wanted the door could come and pick it up for free. Within a couple of hours I had a dozen interested people and a couple of days later hey came to pick it up.
28. March 2011 10:06
by Rene Pallesen
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Saturday Kim and I went with a couple of friends to the Lyrics Theatre to see the Doctor Zhivago the Musical. It is a large production that they hope eventually will make it to broadway.
If you would like to know the story then rent the movie of the same title...worth watching.
For those of you not familiar with the story behind the story: It is about the cultural revolution and civil war in russia during the years 1917-1921 (mainly). The book was written by a russian Boris Pasternak during and after the cultural revolution. It was smuggled out of Russia in the 1950's and the author was awarded the Nobels literature price much to the dismay of the russian government (the book is very critical of the revolution).
We did have tickets booked a couple of months ago, but when we turned up then they said that the lead actor (playing Zhivago) had an injury in the afternoon. They said that they would still show us the first 20-40 minutes of the performance as this was all that the understudy (replacement) was familiar with and then let us either rebook or get a refund. Very dissapointing, but not much we could do about it.
It was actually worth seeing the whole performance (and not just the beginning). The acting and singing was great (Kim was so-so about the actual songs, but I thought they were ok).The stage setup was very clever and added a lot of depth to the stage, it allowed them to show what was happening in several locations at the same time using the same stage.
We had left Aiden with his grandad for the evening and this time we decided to let him sleep there all night rather than wake him up really late to take him home.