This weekend we celebrated Aiden's 4th Birthday.

Because of the weather forecast we decided to have it here at home rather than at the park as originally planned.

As entertainment we had hired a pirate who came to do magic tricks and games with the kids for a few hours.


















We had combined Adams and Aidens birthday parties so there were a lot of kids and parents and lots of food and cake.

Here is the Mothers day card that Aiden made this year.

The other day Aiden cam back from daycare with Spiderman face paint.

Normally he avoids face paint so him having the whole face painted was a first.

Yesterday Aiden went with his daycare group to the filming of 'Play along with Sam'.




All very formal with model release forms to be signed, what T-shirts they had to wear etc. Aiden said that he liked the dancing!

I hope we get a chance to see the show at some stage and it will be interesting to see if we can see Aiden in it (he was sitting to the side).

Earlier this week Aiden went with daycare to the local park and they happened to meet some of the players from the Rabbitohs (National Rugby League).




Apparently he went missing from the group at one point and when they went looking for him it turned out that he was chatting to the players.

Autumn has arrived and this weekend was really cold and wet so we decided that Sunday morning should be a museum day.

We had heard that the Australian Museum has a dinosaur exhibition on, so we thought this could be fun for the kids.



They had some pretty cool interactive displays on where you could interact with the dinosaurs.





The kids handled it pretty well without being too scared (although they jumped a few times when they heard the loud roars).

Some of the displays were pretty scary.





And Aiden certainly wasn't too happy about posing next to the big teeth (reminds me of a photo with a crocodile from last year).



...so dad had to show him that it wasn't scary at all.



The skeletons were really impressive.

















Lucas was hing a good time staying close to mummy.



And Aiden was having a great time exploring.

This weekend Kim and I went to the State Theatre in Sydney to watch the Russian ballet perform Don Quixote.



The performance was pretty good and apparently they will be back next year performing Swan Lake.

A couple of weeks ago we made a trip to Taronga Zoo.

One of the families from daycare had a spare pass that we borrowed for the day.

First we went through the bird sanctuary and the kids were not overly impressed and were more interested in the waterfalls and the leaves fallen off the trees.




After that we walked past the playground and Lucas immediately ran off (Aiden was a bit more hesitant as he is more cautious) and couldn't get enough of going down the big slide (by himself).




The seal show was more to the taste of Aiden even though he'd seen it before.





After this we went to the Australian section of the park to see some kangaroos (including a tree kangaroo) and other wildlife.

Here is some more photos from the shoot the other day. They are not my favourites, but good enough to share I think.



Model: Kerry Ann Peterson



Model: Gabriella Srage



Model: Emma Perceval

You would think that a country with access to some of the best seafood and freshest produce would have fantastic food.

Although the food was Ok, we didn't find it fantastic and generally very over prised.



There was plenty of restaurant in and around Port Vila and some of them serving specialties such as coconut crabs and flying foxes.

We tried the coconut crab...but it was overcooked and dry and had surprising little meat on it (no meat in the body itself).




So we stuck to more traditional seafood which most often was battered and deep fried.



And as usual Aiden got into the free kids menu desserts

This weekend we went up to Lake Macquarie with the family to stay for a couple of night at a resort. I didn't take a lot of photos because we either didn't do much or were too busy with the family.

I did however take this one photo one evening at Katherine Hill Bay.

The beach at the hotel was full of really big and colourful star fish....couldn't help but take a few snapshots.

Lucas is now 7 Months and for this month we decided to take his Monthly photos while he was on his first overseas trip to Vanuatu.

This series of photos was taken at Eton Beach on the east side of the island of Efate in Vanuatu...he loved the water and had a hard time to understand that it is unpleasant to eat the sand and drink the salt water.

He is now almost able to crawl...he just needs to figure out that it is not enough to just move the legs...you also have to move your hands.

I know it was a couple of months ago, but I only now got around to processing it.

Here is another photo that I took of Lucas when he was 4 Months.

The other night we went for dinner at Marks place. He asked us if we could help him take some photos of the kids Axolotls...our response was 'Their WHAT??'.

Anyway, it turns out to be some sort of Mexican Salamander and he'd attempted to get some photos using his point and shoot camera, but wanted something better that he could print and hang on the kids wall.

Here are some of my efforts:

When Lucas doesn't have any toys to play with then his favourit pass time is to suck his feet. Here is a quick snapshot from the other day when he was at it again.




He's now got two teeth, so hopefully he wont chomp off his toes.

Lucas is now 6 months and is enjoying the easy life...

On the weekend we went down to La Perouse to do these creative shots of him at sunset.

I always said that I would take a photo of him and put it in a frame...but not sure if this is what everyone had in mind.




It was pretty good fun trying to set it all up. A lot of other walkers on the beach were wondering what we were doing.

I have been planning this photo for a while.


The frame I had picked up from a garbage collection day last month outside a block of units with this particular photo in mind.

The chair and table are bath aids and foot stools from home.







It was really cool to see everything come together in the end. Unfortunately we missed just the end of the sunset as there were a few clouds on the horizon.


A lot of lessons learnt came out of it. Even though the photos came out almost as I had envisioned...I still had a few things that I could have done better....just small things such as two flashes to light frame and Lucas independently, CTO gelling the flash to match the ambient, using an umbrella to avoid hard shadows, bringing a mid range zoom to have more composition options and be able to get a bit closer, use black string to hold up the frame instead of white, bring a pillow to keep his head up and then stripping his clothes and then bring my light meter to check the setting to start with instead of chimping.

It was the first time I've used the D800 for this (in the past I've been using my D50 with a different shutter system) and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to balance out the ambient with the flash and still stay below the sync speed...but it worked out like a charm...or maybe I was just lucky!

Last night Kim made a very nice Creme Brulee...Yummiiiii!!!!

She asked me to take a couple of photos which I think turned out quite nicely.

On the weekend we went to the Sydney Wildlife Park at Darling Harbour.

It was good fun to show Aiden all the different animals (Although he was pretty tired by the end).

The highlight of the exhibition is the 4.5 meter long Saltie (Saltwater Crocodile). He is such a darling and he loved his girlfriends so much that he had them over for dinner (Ha Ha).





Aiden wasn't sure about the crocodiles and definitely wasn't happy with the big mouth and all the sharp teeth...



...Daddy came to the rescue and threw himself at the monster.



He was a bit more happy with the smaller cuddlier animals...



Such as the wombats...



...the Yellow Footed Rock Wallabies...



...or even the Tasmanian Devil.



The start of the exhibition is pretty amazing as you wank through a large enclosure with lots of butterflies flying around.



And besides from that there is of cause a lot of lizards, frogs and snakes on display.