pixel tree blog - geelong baby children family photography

So I’m still not back

Adrienne — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 04:30:35 +0000

When is that regular little time slot where I sit at my computer and tap away as planned… when is that time going to arrive? I think I need to change the question. When am I going to realise that I never will find a regular, scheduled time slot to collect my thoughts and write a blog entry? I need to accept that instead, I must force my fingers to the keyboard in the midst of the domestic chaos. The realisation comes when you finally do it… and I did. I just did it. I just pushed every bit of mess on my desk to the side and started writing. In one swipe I just dislodged glue sticks, doctor’s bills, battery chargers, travel wipes, Nell’s artwork, DVDs, a roll of gaffer tape, two phones, a ventolin inhaler, Olivia (the pig) doll, multiple notebooks, USB drives, thumbtacks, magnets, sewing needles, officeworks (and other retailers) receipts, photo paper, a torch, stickytape, unopened mail, hairbands, various writing implements, a ruler, a half eaten salada, numerous photographs and a word from my box of ‘words of wisdom’… BALANCE! Then I opened Photoshop and I found a photo and I typed a little line of text and breathed life into ‘Love is’ once again. Today I am thinking of all those busy, busy working Mums out there, either at home or at their work place, and I empathise. And now I hear my sick little girl crying in the other room and although I would love to stay, the choice is easy. A x

Today, a little bit of our Stanley.

One of my recent favourites…

Adrienne — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 11:46:11 +0000

I look at her… I can’t believe we made her. She is a miracle. A x

This photo was submitted to the I Heart Faces photo challenge – www.iheartfaces.com

Love is… more.

Adrienne — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:59:00 +0000

So many moments, so much joy. Lucky, lucky life. A x

Fabulous Green Friday

Adrienne — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 02:44:13 +0000

I think I’ve written about Fridays (and my love of them), before, but here I go again. Some of this story is from my very old blog that nobody really knows about, so I won’t feel too bad that I have swiped some of it from there.

Friday has been my favourite day for as long as I can remember. Friday holds so much promise. For someone like me who struggles to ‘live in the now’, no matter how many yoga classes I go to, or hours I spend in the self help section of my local book shop, it seems I’m often caught either looking ahead or behind for my joy. But I’m trying. Living with two small children, and Phil, has taught me a lot about living for today. Phil does it joyfully and with grace. And Nell and Stanley just do it. So back to Friday. Most people might say their favourite day of the week is Saturday or Sunday. But Friday fits in well with my philosophy… I’m living in a permanent state of great expectation. Strangely I found out years after discovering my penchant for Fridays that I was born on a Friday, and Nell was born on a Friday too. And then I discovered more recently that Phil was ALSO born on a Friday. But no, Stanley wasn’t. Strangely enough he was due to arrive (by caesarean section), on a Friday. But in total defiance of my obstetrician, I postponed it for one more weekend in an ultimately failed attempt to give birth naturally. It wasn’t to be, and I’m OK with that… am I??!! But that’s a whole other (very big, very long and very interesting), story.

To me Friday has a green aura. Unfortunatley this has nothing to do with either recycling my cardboard or tree planting. I know it’s because on Friday at primary school we wore our green sports uniform. Friday was swimming day back then, and it always gave me an odd butterfly sensation in my stomach. I loved it that we went on the bus to Musgrave Park, but I wasn’t a great swimmer. I was always particularly skinny, and although not inherantly shy, I chose to change in the toilet instead of the open plan change room. I was embarrassed about how skinny I was. My ribs protruded and my legs were like skewers with marshmallows in the middle for knees. A couple of years ago a girlfriend and I had a conversation about the sad reality of young girls (like five years young), having body image problems these days. I repeat, five. Apparently she knew some tots who were already worried they were too fat, and wait for it, watching what they ate! Her daughter is actually very thin, very much like I was as a child, but one of her little friends was worried about their ‘shape’ (being fat) at that point. We were both obviously flabbergasted and appalled at the effects of the media (clearly), on children these days. I mentioned from my personal experience that you also need to be careful about making too much of an issue about girls who are skinny. Then before you could say Twiggy, I was bawling into my morning coffee! I thought I was pre-menstrual at the time, but this was just ridiculous. I hadn’t sobbed like that since, well actually probably the previous night when I was watching TV. Nevertheless, it was slightly embarrassing. A flood of memories, including the actual togs that I wore at the height of these feelings at primary school… probably grades six and seven, rushed into my consciousness. I was so thin that Mum had to take my swimming costume in. And even though her pre-nuptial trade had been invisible mending… have you ever tried to take in togs? So I just sobbed for a while. Lucky for girlfriends. I finally collected myself and we agreed that the skinny kids need a break too, and due consideration before shooting a few skinny jokes their way. And then of course as soon as my memory soaked tears had dried, I decided I was going to write a heartfelt, funny, award winning book about the trials and tribulations of being a skinny girl. Like the time my sister told me my mum would send me back to Biafra in the Cornflakes packet if I didn’t eat my breakfast… but that’s another story. Anyway, it turned out the tears were more than sadness for my plight as a skinny girl. I was about 5 seconds pregnant with Stanley and clearly quite hormonal. But the sting of this information still concerns me. The other day Nell told me she was fat. Oh no. Honestly, what do you do with that? The media has caused mothers to be as equally frightened of eating disorders and the inner panic was instant. I couldn’t believe my beautiful Nell, at the magic age of five herself, is already body conscious, even for a second! As long as she is eating healthily and exercising, she should just be the size she is. And she is! For now I choose to forget she even mentioned this… as I’m sure she has… and pray I won’t hear it again for at least another ten years, when I will remind her that she is neither fat nor skinny, but just right.

Enjoy green Friday! A x

Me and my skinny little legs and knobbly knees… I had no idea about these ‘attributes’ until I caught sight of myself in a full length mirror at an airport one day around the time this photo was taken. We didn’t have a mirror like that at home, and that was probably a good thing! I was more than a little bit horrified at the time.

Adventures with Nell & Stanley {PART THREE}

Adrienne — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 02:11:49 +0000

The adventures continue! And as this is real life, sometimes our adventures aren’t all fun and games. I forgot exactly what happened here (but I think it may have involved the little brother and a right hander, or what it a thrown object?), but there were more tears from the perpetrator… one little Miss Nell. Oh Eleanor Valentine, you do know how to get yourself in a pickle. Lucky he’s mostly oblivious and still has a short memory when it comes to sibling harassment. But it did turn out to be very useful to her mother who wasn’t even trying to get one of her little Ouch! clothing shoots in… she happened to be wearing one of her favourite Ouch summer dresses and while I was trying to get her to look up from her tears, she picked up one of the Ouch tags and started fiddling with it. I know, it looks so contrived! But I swear, in THAT mood, I couldn’t have got her to pick it up and dangle it if I had promised her six chocolate crackles for dinner and a milo smoothie as entree. So here she is, in all her upset glory, yet the perfect model. Still beautiful… always beautiful to me. A x

Children’s and family photographer in Geelong and Victoria wide. Interstate bookings also available.

A shed… a girl’s best friend

Adrienne — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:05:38 +0000

We live in a house with little storage space… very little. And this family has A LOT of stuff. I have personally tried almost every creative, crafty, arty hobby in existence, and Phil has been a musician since forever ago. That leads to a lot of extra stuff. Things that you just can’t throw out… like Mozart’s 5th symphony charts (I’m guessing he had a 5th but apologies to the classicists out there for having no idea), French Gypsy Jazz DVDs, music stands and amps that will be fixed one day (sure), Super 8 cameras that will be fixed one day (sure, sure), old Macs, boxes of cassette tapes, baskets full of expensive knitting wool, vintage fabrics and those old chenille bed spreads in mint condition that you practically ripped out of another woman’s arms at an op shop but have never done anything with, flower presses, stamp albums, computer cables, picture frame samples… and that’s just looking around one room, hardly using my peripheral vision. Then there’s the camping equipment, spare mattresses, boxes of trinkets and keepsakes from when the babies arrived, photo albums, tax records, artworks and photographs still unhung… you get the picture. For years I have been wanting a new shed, but Phil, being the quiet achiever, sensibly wanting to wait until the old shed could no longer serve us, sat tight and held firm. That was until a month or so ago when tripping over the mower to enter the ivy covered, spider infested, dark cave that we called our shed to find some old framed photos from school, he finally gave in. I discovered that the once DRY, ivy covered, spider infested, dark cave now was a WET, dripping, smelly, ivy covered, spider infested dark cave. And more importantly, our ‘not quite important enough to be inside but not quite detached enough from to throw out’ belongings had become a wet, dripping, smelly, mess. The panic of “What is in here? What have I lost?” rang throughout the neighbourhood. Because of course that’s what happens with a shed. Out of sight, out of mind. I’m sure all of those belongings are screaming out, “Why are you abandoning me? Why don’t you just throw me in the skip instead of leaving me out here until the cockroaches come and eat my eyes out? You’ll forget I’m here. Please!” And they’re right. It isn’t until you’re searching in the shed to show your girlfriend that photo of you and your second boyfriend at the Bruce Springsteen concert that you find yourself sitting down on the cold concrete, pouring over old greeting cards that your primary school buddies wrote you back in 1975, or dusting off a peach and black crockery set from 1989 that you just couldn’t throw out because it was the one you bought from Kmart for your first share house. They were all but forgotten until you entered the shed to find that one, small item. That day, when I discovered the mouldy, festering mess of belongings, and particularly when I did lay my hands on my treasured black and white photographs of a series of chairs from my high school in Brisbane, I finally demanded it was time. A new shed hit the top of the priority list, rocketing past trip to Bali, shelves in the laundry and re-roofing the bull nose verandah. That was after I got over my fear that I had inhaled spores from some rare mould and would need be on a ventilator and farewelling my children within days. And believe it or not, today is the day. I’m having palpitations just thinking of how wonderful my life will now be. Of course I’m kidding myself, and even with that mature, inner knowledge that it isn’t going to eradicate my manic state of mind (I still haven’t filled in the Working with Children police check in order to serve at the school tuckshop), I’m still excited! Retail therapy? Who needs it! They always say every man needs a shed. Well I’m rewriting the domestic history books. Every woman needs a shed! Stay tuned for a photo update soon. And all on a Friday… my favourite day of the week! Happy days everyone. I’m getting a SHED! A x

My favourite of the chair series… ruined by a shed! This was my first real foray into photography in 1984, learning to process our own black and whites at school. I received the highest marks in the class and was so proud of these photos. I actually loaned the negatives to a friend’s sister for art college. When I asked for them back she said they had been stolen. A sad time.

The before shot… the slab, all guerneyed by Phil, ready for the new shed! Oh joy.

Breathing it in

Adrienne — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:44:12 +0000

“This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever.
These are the days to hold onto
Cause we won’t although we’ll want to.
This is the time, but time is going to change.”

Thanks Billy. A x

Taking more photos of the family in Geelong and surrounding areas… Thirteenth Beach, just near Barwon Heads, Victoria. Sublime.

Thirteenth Beach

Adrienne — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:33:21 +0000

Our most glorious moments are mostly surrounded by sun, sand and surf. Thirteenth Beach, Victoria. Our haven. A x

I’m back!

Adrienne — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 13:27:28 +0000

I have been on a pre-1st day of school hiatus! Much of the last few weeks have been spent away from the computer, enjoying the company of our first born before she launched into the world of school. School… such a small word, such a big concept. After five and a half years of nurturing our darling Nell at home we have handed her over to the Catholic education system for a large portion of her days/months/years/life! Deep breath. So far so good. A little scary when she came home after day two showing us how to make the sign of the cross. I must remember to head on up to mass one of these Sundays and reacquaint myself with the hymn book. So not too many tears on Nell’s first day… from Nell anyway. In fact there were no tears from her, but copious from me and Phil. Lucky for Phil he sounds like he’s giggling when he cries, but not so for the Mamma. Only a solo tear has to leak out and my eyes are instantly ringed in bright crimson and are as puffy as a toadfish on steroids. Thankfully one of my wonderful mothers group friends was waiting outside the classroom after having dropped off her little chick. We’ve watched each other’s children grow up from newborns and to land in her arms was so incredibly comforting. Here we were, on their first day of thirteen years of unsatisfactory lunch boxes, asphalt scraped knees, tombola stalls and thons… spell-a-thons, walk-a-thons, sleep-a-thons, read-a-thons. There were so many thons at my Catholic primary school that one night my father walked in after work, and after one of my siblings cracked it because they weren’t happy with his 5 cents per word donation, he loudly banned all ‘thons’ in the Campbell household. “NO MORE THONS!” I laugh now, but I quietly wonder how long before the thrill of these first weeks wears off just a tiny bit, and the mighty thon and the like, jolts us back to the reality of this long journey ahead. Until then, we are so proud of our little uniformed girl. Here she is on her first day in all her shiny, school glory. Oh, and hopefully I will have a little bit more time to spend here. Hope to see you soon. A x

Adventures with Nell & Stanley {PART TWO}

Adrienne — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:36:13 +0000

Nell has been a scooter girl for so long now. I can hardly remember a time when she wasn’t hurtling down the concrete footpaths of our neighbourhood. And now Stanley is on the edge of his scooting career. He watches on with interest and grows greener every day. Occasionally he reaches out, but she is way too fast for him… and not yet willing to share her speed-filled thrills just yet. She swings into the driveway, a flurry of wind and tangled hair, and throws her trusty steed down with a twang of metal on red brick. “Stanley can have a go on the three wheeler when Dad gets home”, she offers to nobody in particular. I thank her for her munificence, gather up the babe and inside we go to feed and water Scooter Girl and her apprentice. And although I tisk her about her shoeless feet, shirtless torso and high and mighty attitude… I secretly love it. I un-secretly love her… and her little brother. A x