A Matter of Choice

Happy new Year! 2019 was a good year for us, and I hope 2020 will be even better. Of course at this time of year you can't help but look back over the year that has passed,  and with this year being a brand new decade ( By the way, it absolutely is a brand new decade, just in case you had any doubt.   I can't even begin to describe how cross I got reading a load of comments on facebook from people arguing that there was another year to go.  I assume these people have forgotten the well known decades of the 80's and 90's just to name a couple. Anyway because of the shiny new decade many people are sharing the #10yearChallenge photos.  I am loving them all,  it's fascinating me to see how things have changed in the last 10 years. The first change of decade I remember was the start of the 90's, as I was 12 in 1989.  It seemed like a huge thing to be happening and I couldn't imagine what I would be doing at the end of the decade, apart from part...

Can you believe that today is the 1st September? It really doesn't feel like it! Apparently it should cool down by a degree or two from tomorrow, and as much as I love the summer we are so ready for a little respite.  It's been a great summer but I'm looking forward to the routine and the gradual winding down of summer.  We have one week left of the holidays before school starts and 8 weeks left of the summer season.  I'm sure it will start to really feel like September soon enough

I noticed many people on Instagram sharing their #bestnine in the last week of 2018 and as I do love to jump on a bandwagon when I see one I thought I'd join in too.   I'm a bit later than most as the first app I found to do it was supposed to email me the image, which it didn't and then I forgot all about it.  When I remembered I found another one and it gave me an almost instant image to download! I joined Instagram several years ago, I'd been desperate to join for ages but didn't have a good enough phone at the time and couldn't download the app. My account was initially as @emsyjo  but a while after we started Klik Photo CY I changed to @klikphotoCY and it became our business account.  I mainly share work related pics, either photos from the booth, of the booth set up at different events, or random things that take my fancy at events such as sunsets, table plans and decor.  I also throw in a few family / day off pics as we are a family business an...

The obligatory end of year / new year posts are in full swing so I'm looking back over the year through my photos.   I took much fewer this year than in previous years, trying to live more in the actual moment than looking at everything through a camera.  I take many photos of the boys, this year I've been hard pushed to get one of them (especially Leo) to pose for a photo without dabbing.   It became a personal mission of his to 'dab' on anything, everything and everywhere, and most video clips taken would have included 'flossing' somewhere. I've got hundreds of photos of them over the year but looking back there are few that would be worthy of printing or framing.  I'm not a great photographer (that's Aaron's department) but I love a scenic pic.   I've got lots of sea and sky shots, many of the same place as I can never resist!  So here are 12 of my favourite photos, one from each month of 2018. January  I love ...

This week's Sunday post is a Halloween special!  I must apologise, Sam, if you are reading this, for cropping you out of the photo but it just lent itself to this! We had our now traditional Halloween get together for the kids - well I say for the kids but the get-togethers go on a bit later these days and include a little more alcohol as we are joined by the men and the kids get less demanding. The 'pack'   (as Leo now calls the 5 children we have between us all)  are less interested in the games we used to play,  happy now to disappear off to their bedroom and do whatever it is they do for hours on end, but they still enjoy a few once we 'drag' them out to be sociable. Hanging doughnuts had been requested once again so that went down well No themed gathering would be complete without a Tiny Acorns craft! And of course, you can't have Halloween without a bit of trick or treating. As trick or treating' isn't done generally ...

Although I'm not the best photographer in the world one of my greatest loves is my rather large collection of photos. Since going digital several years ago now I've gradually been taking more and more, and since getting a decent phone last year and joining instagram I've been even worse! The problem with digital though is printing them out, it's so easy to leave them hiding on your phone or laptop unlike the old days of trudging down the high street to pick up your little envelope. Here in Cyprus it's even worse as many of the online photo printing sites do not deliver here, or they charge extortionate fees for doing so.  So I was really excited to discover Instajunction , a great website which enables you to get your long forgotten instagram photos printed on a range of fantastic products.  After much debate I chose a large poster (£19.99) and mini photo book,  I absolutely love the poster, I chose the large size which is A1 size and uses 70 photo...

As you know, I LOVE my photos - who doesn't?    I do miss the pre-digital days of going to collect the little packet of prints and hoping that they have come out well and standing in the middle of a shop looking at them because I can't wait any longer but I wouldn't give up digital for anything! For a long time now I've been using Snapfish online digital photo printing to order my prints as I didn't want to fall into the habit of never having an actual photo to look at rather than hundreds stored on my laptop where no-one could see them.  I've also used them before for their excellent photo gifts - my mother-in-law loved a calendar we gave her just before we left the UK of photos of Leo, and I also have a photo book of our wedding photos.  One thing I'd never tried though was the photo canvases so I was thrilled when I was offered the chance to try one, it took me a ridiculous amount of time to pick a photo but that was the only hard part of creatin...

Continuing with playing catch up on the 'Life is a Journey' prompts from Save Every Step, the next prompt is Old School Portrait. The official school photo was always taken around by birthday, in fact in some of the early photos from Primary school you can see my 'birthday badge' -  you got one if your birthday fell on a school day.  Looking back at my school photos, some are obviously better than others, the early ones are cute and the last one is not too bad but there are some in the middle which are not so good! I even voluntarily printed these pictures to put on the wall at my 25th 'School disco' party! I've recently got all my childhood photos in digital form as my Mum has scanned them all in, I've spent ages now (although not as long as she did!) backing them all up and storing them online, I'm very excited now about having easy access to them all and having a play around with editing and collage making (my new favourite obsession i...

Flashback Friday is coming back! Last year the highlight of my blogging week was Cafe Bebe's Flashback Friday and I was very sad to see the end of it, so I'm very pleased to say that Karin asked me if I'd like to take it over, of  course I said yes! I love old photos and stories, from as long as I can remember I badgered my Mum into showing me the family photo albums again and again and I love to see other peoples photos and hear the stories behind them.  Flashback Friday is a way of sharing those moments, ones that you probably would have blogged about if you'd been able to.  A way of remembering the little things that often get forgotten about through the years and a way of bringing those old photos to life for yourself and maybe the next generation.  Next week I will be opening up the linky and I'd love you to join in and share your photos, it can be a picture of you as a child, your parents, or even your Great Grandparents, from last year or ...

One of the first things asked of new parents seems to always be 'Who does he/ she look like?' I always hated this question as I'm usually unable to see any likenesses in people. It's often been said that I look like my Mum, and try as I might I just don't see it myself.  Many of Aaron's family have said that that Leo looks like Aaron, and occasionally I've been told (mainly by my Mum) that he looks like me. Again, I've never really thought he looks like either of us, so I had a look through some photos, and this is what I found...

My love of photos goes way back, longer than I can even remember, My Dad was a photographer before I was born and therefore we had lots and lots of photos in the house, each with the date written on the back and lovingly put into albums. (Dad was a photographer but Mum is really organised!)  As I grew up I spent many an hour looking through all the albums and between my Mum and I we have now scanned all the photos onto disc, and backed them up, and uploaded them to two different websites... well you don't want to be losing all those irreplaceable pictures now do you!    I'm so pleased that I have this lovely record to look back on and share with Leo as he gets older,  and how else could I prove that my eyes were once blue! These photos were taken in Estepona in 1983... Growing up, people often said I look like my Mum, and my Mum says she often sees glimpses of her Mum in me but as a child I definitely had my Dad's blue eyes. I'm ...

Sometimes you just can't beat lollipops and a bit of television to give three Mum's a chance for a decent conversation!  For other Project 52's and 366 entries head over to The Boy and Me's  weekly link up.        

Welcome to Project 52...... a photo a week for a year.   After deciding not to join in with the 366 photo challenge that many of my fellow bloggers are doing as I didn't want the pressure of having to do it EVERY day I realised that Project 52 would be a much more achievable goal.  It also means that I no longer have to be 'completely Silent' on Sundays! This was actually the very first photo of the year, taken just after Aaron had made a mad dash through painful hailstones to protect our glass dining table. Can you believe the size of those things!            

It seems at the moment it's all about the photos, the blog world is full of people starting 366 projects, where they plan to take a photo each day to have a record of the year to look back on. The Boy and Me successfully completed the project last year and I did consider joining her and the others this year but as much as I love my photos I don't think I could manage to keep it up for the year.  Maybe if I was using a smartphone to take and post my photos it would be a lot easier, but the thought of using my camera, finding the lead and uploading a photo a day seems a little ambitious!  Also I didn't even take a single photo yesterday meaning I would have failed before I'd even started! Instead I think I'll be focussing more on the photo blog I started last year - Discovering Cyprus. I started with good intentions and then got a bit distracted but I will start to look back through my large collection of Cyprus photos and gradually share them with you. Talk...

Way back in my early days of blogging one of the first blogs I started reading was It's all about the photos , being a bit a a photo fan (but not great photographer) myself I've been reading ever since.  I love the simplicity of her blog and the fact that it is literally 'all about the photos' I asked if she would be kind enough to guest post for me, and as so many ex-pat Brits (but not me this year) make a hasty exit from Cyprus during August I thought I'd see if she could find me a little bit of my old home. I'll hand you over to Photopuddle ..... When Emma asked me to do a guest post for her I was thrilled as I love reading her blog. She’s asked me to show you a picture which says “ English Summer ”.  I wanted to use one of my own photos and it was actually really hard to decide on which one. I was very close to using one I took of tea and scones but I thought that might be a little stereotypical. I also thought about using one I’d taken in Brighton...

When you are planning your wedding there are so many things to think about, the dress the catering, the venue, the flowers... it goes on and on. But looking back the photos are the most long lasting thing of the big day (well, the Groom obviously but I'm talking about the actual wedding not the marriage!) I had the most amazing time on my wedding day , I would like to say that I wouldn't change a thing and although your ideas change over the years and I would do a few things differently now I do look back at my photos and wish they were better. We had a family friend as our photographer and although it saved us a fortune with hindsight I'd rather have cut back on something else to get the gorgeous shots that so many people have. I am lucky though that our photos were not terrible, and we do have some nice mementos of the day, for those who haven't though help is at hand.... Lorraine Deakins Photography has the answer - Wedding SOS (Save Our Shots) She explains al...

One of the things I love most about my blog is the opportunity to use my much-loved photos and share the stories behind them. I am a big fan of both The Gallery and Silent Sunday but am quite excited to find that Karin at Cafe Bebe has started a new photo link up. Introducing the first ever Flashback Friday...... For now, let’s just get the ball rolling. Look back in your photo archives. It can be a picture of you as a child…your child in the early days/months/years…your house before a makeover…a winter photo…a “one year ago today” photo…The sky’s the limit. Just take us back in time. Share some words to take us there and we can all get nostalgic and smiley remembering “when”. This photo was taken in our garden, I can't remember it being taken exactly but I can remember the kind of day it would have been. It was 1992, a week day as I am in my school uniform and  obviously  quite warm. I like this photo as it's a rare snapshot of a normal kind of day from t...

2010 was the year of Mummy & Leo, it was our first full year together and our first year in Cyprus. We had a great time, met lots of new friends, played on the beach, in the park and spent lots of time in the pool. We laughed, cried and sang 'Row Row Row your boat' a million times. When I spotted the 'Year in Pictures' Meme at Mummytips   I couldn't resist joining in because not only do I love my photos but it is also a competition to win a ticket to Cybermummy 2011 . (and I'd love to go to that!) I made a photo montage in honour of our year.

Check out the other Silent Sunday  entries at  Mocha Beanie Mummy's blog

I loved seeing all the posts on last weeks Gallery so this week I thought I'd  continue in a similar vein but using the prompt for this week which is Black and White. I give you two generations of happy families..... and jumping forward about 30 years (30 years.....how did that happen!)......