The first Christmas for Lucas is approaching. This also means that he is being subjected to all kinds of Christmas rituals such as posing for his Dads Christmas photos.

This year we celebrated Kims Dads birthday with a big lunch for the whole family where everyone brough along something to eat.

Afterwards we did some family photos with Kim and all the grans children as well as my Dad and his two grand children Aiden and Lucas.

I finally had to bite the bullet and get my eyes checked out for glasses.

I had started developing a headache if sitting in front of the computer or reading for extended periods of time



So I now have some reading glasses that I can use...makes me feel old.

Needless to say that our lives currently revolve around looking after Lucas and Aiden.

This Saturday I took Aiden swimming in the morning and I must say that he is getting more and more confident in the water. We reached another milestone with him being happy to just swim around (in circles mostly) wearing his floaties without holding onto me.

In the afternoon it was really hot...36 degrees in the shade, so we decided to let him have some more waterfun at home in the inflatable pool.

This weekend we bought some playdough for Aiden to play with.

Initially he wasn't sure what to do with it, but after a while with a bit of guidance he started getting a bit more creative.

It is now the first of december and the Christmas shopping has started in the shopping centres.

The other day the mall has a big sale and with that sale they has different characters walk the floor...in this case a Teddy with a girlie Santa.

Aiden was very excited but a lille scared of the big teddy bear.

Last week Kim asked me to bring the camera an take some photos of Lucas on the bed.




He is now two and an half months old and is now able to smile and get excited when he sees you and when you talk to him.







He is still keeping mummy up at night although we think he is getting a bit better on that front.

This photo was actually taken more than 6 months ago, but going through some old photos I found it too good not to post.

I was setting up for a pregnancy shoot (then Kim was 4 months due) and Aiden was trying to assist me with the setup. He happened to sit down it the perfect spot and give me a pose that tells so much about his character at that time...sucking his fingers and everything.




...and by pure coincidence it happened that the photo was perfectly lit.

I took this photo a couple of months ago, but haven't come around to finishing it until now.

It is a photo of Lucas' foot in my hands.

I found this old photo of myself that my dad took of me when I was about 3 years old (I think).




Looking at Aiden today there is a strong resemblance in the facial features.



The photo was badly damaged and requires a fair bit of restoration, but at least I now have a digital copy of the photo.

My Dad wanted to see the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race again this year.

Unlike the last time we were there in good time this year and found a great parking spot and a fairly good vantage point of the race without too many crowds.

While waiting for the race to start the James Craig was cruising back and forth outside the harbour.





Once the race started and the boats passed the heads it became very busy both on the water and it in air with all the boats and helicopters (at one point I counted 11 at the same time) and my Dad was busy clicking away.










This year turned out to be a new course record, so great conditions all the way to Hobart.

Christmas Day we celebrated with Kims family at her sisters house.

It was the usual crowd of our familys and everyone bringing dishes to share and as usual there was a lot of different foods to try.



It was great to have the whole family together (Aiden was again eating too much).







And even Santa made an appearance again this year...Thank you so much Santa!!!!!

This year we celebrated Christmas at home with my Dad and his partner with the traditional Christmas Duck and Ris-a-la-mande.





It was Lucas' first and Aiden's third Christmas...Aiden is now getting old enough to enjoy the experience...



...especially the food



After dinner we opened presents according to the Danish tradition and Aiden was very excited about the big box from Bedstefar...



...containing a big truck.



From Mummy and Daddy he received a Lightning Mcqueen car (radio controlled).





...and also a drawing pad.





Merry Christmas...

On one of the days we took my dad to Maroubra beach for breakfast.





It gave them a chance to check out what out local beach is like and also Aiden a chance to have a bit of a play in the sand.

At around Christmas time Kims dad asked me if I could take some more photos of him and the grandchildren.

Last year I took some of him using a blue background and he asked for something similar (although I am not a big fan of blue)

Every year I like to take a Christmas family photo.

This year having my dad around meant that I could get hime to assist us with taking the photo as I needed someone to stand on a ladder taking the photo while we as a family was lying plat on a bed.

Merry Christmas 2012 Everyone!!!!

Every year some of the houses in Matraville puts on a spectacular christmas light show.

Every night there are hundreds of visitors and it is worth seeing.

Here are some of the lights from this years show.

This holiday season my Dad and his partner is visiting us from Denmark.



It has been a while since he was here and in also a while since we were in Denmark, so Aiden had grown a fair bit since.

The first couple of weeks we bought then some trips to various places such as Hunter Valley and the Blue Mountains.

One the weekends we would treat then to various dinners Thai, Indian, Moroccan, Brazilian, Aussie, Chinese etc. as well as try to make time to take them to see some of the sights around Sydney.

The first weekend Aiden was sick so we had to cancel our trip up the Northern Beaches to Barrenjoey Lighthouse so we had to stay home and let them explore by themself. On the second weekend we managed to go there and bring Aiden along as well sitting in his little backback.



It was a warm day and the climb is fairly steep so especially my dads partner was pretty hot by the time we reached the top where the light house is.






The view was definitely worth it.



Walking back along the beach we decided to make a drink stop to clench the thirst.

First of all Merry Christmas everyone!!!


With a bit of arm twisting Kim finally agreed to let me do a series of 'sexy' Santa photos.




A lot of work had to go into these couple of photos in terms of getting the outfit, but the right colour wrapping paper, wrap all the boxes, set them up to it looks nice, getting all the lighting right and not least convince Kim to do the actual shoot.

Then I had to sort out the photos I needed and then do all the editing...I think the end result is pretty good and very much in the spirit of Christmas.

And did I mention that I am married to the most beautiful (and sexy) Santa there is???

Lucas is now three months young and the other day I did a series of monthly photos of Kim and him on our bed.

It is the 29th February and the last day of the bet I had with Kim....and believe it or not, but Aiden started walking by himself today.



We are very proud of him and I am double proud of him as he delivered the goods just in the nick of time...one day later and I would have been cleaning the house (lucky that this year is a leap year)!

Aiden is now able to stand up by himself.

He is now 20 months and should have been walking ages ago, so he is a bit behind on that front. Hopefully I can get him to take one step before the end of next week...I have a bet with Kim going whether he will walk before the end of February.

Today we went to Centennial Park to take some family photos. I had been complaining that I didn't have enough (good) photos of myself and Aiden so Kim offered to take some.

We found a nice spot in the park and managed to take a couple of shots before my camera ran out of battery...and unfortunately I had forgotten my spare at home.



Kim just came back from a business trip to Singapore a couple of days ago and it is really nice to have her back. I missed her but I am not sure Aiden missed her as much as he is such a daddys boy. When she was back he just turned away and would rather stay with me.

Also the little tiger is now 20 months and he is still not walking...what is going on?

Last night Kim and I went to the Ronan Keating concert in State Theatre in Sydney.



Kim is a long time fan of Ronan and really wanted to see him live. I am to be honest not really familiar with his music but had a good evening nonetheless.

The warming up band was Sharon Corr (from The Corrs) and I really enjoyed her both playing and singing...she is pretty talented on the violin.

Chong brought his Tinny (Australian slang for boat) to Tomakin and every morning the guys went out fishing for a few hours (I only went out one morning because 1. I had to look after Aiden and 2. I am not a morning person).





We caught lots of fish, but none of them were worth keeping as they were too small.



Just as well we didn't keep any, because on one of the days the fishing inspection gave us a visit.




In fact the only thing we caught that was above the size limit was this blue swimmer crab (and he was allowed to live another day).




We also had a visit from two massive sting rays (about 1 meter in diameter).

The house we stayed at had a table tennis table in the garage. We had enough people to form three double teams and we spent quite a few hours playing each other.





Kims dad is 78 years old and is still going strong...he loves playing games.

On the last couple of evenings we went to the beach to do some nice sunset photos. Tomaking is very onique in that it has some beaches that are facing west so you can use the nice light in the evening.

We did some family photos (some of which are on the previous blog post) as well as some of just Kim, Aiden and I. Kim still looks as beautiful as the day I met her.











I also did a rush job taking some long exposure shots of the ocean and the cliffs (not sure if I like the post processing...may have to come back to it some other day).

This years christmas family trip went to Tomakin on the NSW south coast (about 5 hours drive south of Sydney).



We rented a house with four bedrooms (for 9 adults and 5 kids) very close to the beach and fishing in the river. Fun with this large a group of people.





As usual we spent some time at the beach and I was showing Aiden how to build sand castles again.



He is still not walking so we had to hold his hands walking on the beach and in the water.





Right next to the house there was a nice litte organic coffee shop serving really good coffee and scones.



One morning we went to Mogo to have a look at the shops. There was a lot of art and crafts shop that Kim was interested in. The town had very conveniently created facilities for husbands as well.

Christmas day we spent at Bondi Beach with Sacha and Mavis and their daughter. We met up at the kids pool at the end of the beach to let our kids have a splash in the water.



Aiden couldn't get enough of walking around in the water with myself and Kim holding his hands (he still can't walk by himself), he is very fond of water.



Sammi, Sacha and Mavis' daughter was wearing a flotation suit which was causing her a few problems as this photo series testifies.

Christmas Eve this year was celebrated with Kims family. Normally we do this on the 25th like all other Australians, but this year we decided to do it the day before like in Denmark to avoid a lot of leftover food before going down south on out family trip to Tomakin.



Later in the day Santa Claus arrived to hand out presents for the kids.



For the lunch I roasted two ducks and Kim baked a chocolate ganache and made a salad.





Aiden was very excited and played with all Ethand and Kaylas toys.