Life With Lisa - Lisa Kelly Photography Blog

Sigh….this little one was just perfect, so content and sleepy.  He was just divine.  He is sure to break some hearts when he is a big boy but for now, he’s just content to be loved by mummy and daddy.  Thank you so much for sharing your perfect little miracle with me J & C, I’m so happy to be a part of your journey…

I love this shot with mum, she is just in heaven now that he is here…

This rug has special meaning because mum knitted it with her own two hands, can you believe how neat the stitches are,  I was completely in awe…

Is that a tiny smile I see peeking out?

I have the most exciting, amazing, wonderful, mindblowing news for you all…………The Kelly’s are off to the US at the end of September!!!!!!!!  YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Now it might not be exciting news for all of you, but my oh my, it is a dream come true for me.  I have always wanted to visit America and most especially to visit “The Happiest Place on Earth”, of course I mean Disneyland.  I have wanted to go to Disneyland since I was 7 years old, have dreamt about it, talked about it, hoped upon hope that one day I could go and meet “the mouse”.  So to now have the opportunity to take my babies there too, and see the whole thing through their eyes, well life does not get better than that my friends.

We leave on September 28 for 3 weeks and will be visiting LA & Anaheim, San Francisco, Las Vegas and New York.  We only made the decision a week and a half ago and The Singing Chef and I were sitting having a few drinks later that night, talking about how excited we are to go on this trip, and after a few more drinks, and maybe another couple, we somehow managed to buy Bruce Springsteen tickets for his concert in New York in October.   So the next day it dawned on me that we might need to buy some flights and organise some accommodation and now the whole trip is being planned around Bruce, hahahaha.  Trust the Kelly’s to get things the wrong way around, but that is just how we do things.

The most exciting bit was trying to find a fun way to tell the children.  I wanted to make it exciting so that they would always remember when they found out.  They had been home sick last Thursday and Friday and so I decided to do a treasure hunt with cryptic clues, with the clues all printed on Disney character cards (see below).

I had everything ready and was anxiously waiting for The Singing Chef to get home so I could surprise them with this little game.  It’s funny how slowly time moves when you are waiting.  They were just so cute, squealing and running from one clue to the other.  I made the clues a little tough actually so many hints were needed.  Finally the last clue led them to a Hangman Game that spelled out “there is a present under your pillow”:-

Once they found the present, it had another clue on top:-

Inside the present was a Disney t-shirt and their passports.  I must admit they were still looking a little bewildered so I then handed them a scroll with our itinerary on it telling them all about where we would be going and what we would be doing.  I swear Olivia jumped around for an hour (just like Tigger, hehe) and Fraser was really excited too but maybe not as crazy as Olivia.  Their faces when they read that there were only 101 more sleeps (we are now down to 96) were just priceless.  I swear watching them enjoy that game and their excitement once they found out was so perfect, I barely need to go on the holiday, it really was one of the most wonderful moments ever.  The trip will just be the icing on the cake.

Here they are in their new t-shirts…

Whew, I got tired just reading all of that myself, haha.  It certainly is not an itinerary for the faint hearted.  I am sure we will be dragging those kids around near the end but you just gotta pack as much in as you can right???  I can’t wait.

So that is my news.  So much to organise and do and decide and stress about, and juggle this great business of mine and my family and friends, the next 3 months sure are going to be interesting.  I don’t have to tell you what this trip away is going to do to my schedule in September/October.  It will really limit how many sessions I can offer from September until the end of the year so if anyone reading this was considering booking a session before Christmas, please do it soon because I really will only have limited spaces this year.  But I’m not going to stress about it, I can only do what I can do, and in the mean time, I will be having Disney dreams, hehe.  

This little bub was just so cute, and she just loved loved loved to suck on her dummy and her hand and her own tongue and lips.  Quite a few of her images were taken with someone whipping her dummy out and me shooting like crazy before she got riled up that we had taken it away, hehe.  It was a system that worked well though as you can see from this little preview, she is just adorable…

Wow it’s been busy here and with the terrible Canberra weather (what is with this rain), rescheduling, fitting newborns in and life - blogging has been the last thing I could fit in.  I have also just gotten back from an amazing 3 days away with my Olivia in Sydney to celebrate her 11th birthday (sob sob, where does the time go?) and let’s just say she shopped until she dropped.  Wow, she is a shopping queen.  I myself don’t really love aimless shopping for days on end but it was fun to watch her.  She had a ton of birthday money from family and it was weird and hard to step back and just let her spend it however she wanted.  I am such a control freak about that sort of stuff but I remembered what it was like to be young and just buying frivolous things that I might only wear once, just because I could.  You remember that feeling right, not considering how each purchase will match in with the other items in your wardrobe so you get value for money, hehehe.   At last count I think she bought 2 hats, 4 scarves, 1 pair of shoes, a new purse, a vest, earrings, necklace, tights, legwarmers, some new dancewear, a t-shirt, hair clips and I may have missed something.  I bought a scarf, hahahahaha.  And we had an amazing time on the ferry and the monorail is always good fun for seeing some different walks of life, hehe.  Good food, great company and the whole thing ended with the PINK concert last night.  Wow, we had seriously bad seats, LOL.  Last row in the whole place and the flight of stairs to get to our seats were ridiculously steep and after 4 trips backwards and forwards, my legs were feeling the “burn”.  I might have actually felt some chest pain after my last trek up those stairs, man what a workout.  PINK was absolutely amazing as I knew she would be, I love love loved all of the amazing costumes and her acrobatic work is beyond words.  She didn’t miss a note and the whole concert was a cross between a stage show and a rock concert.  It was simply wonderful.

So I’m back and I’m tired but I’m happy and what a way to celebrate Liv’s birthday.  This week is going to be so busy, shoots everyday, weather forecasts to make any natural light photographer cry and the kids with far too much stuff on so I will try my best to update the blog and to any of my clients waiting for sneak peeks, I promise I will share soon.

What do you get when you combine bad weather, natural light photography, a tiny baby and two boisterous big brothers??????

You get two sessions, hehe…the day this session was booked for was beyond gloomy but completely rescheduling was not an option since Baby L was just a week old and I was then going out of town for a week.  So we decided to just do Baby L’s images that day and then scheduled a second date to capture the whole family and those adorable boys.  Sweet Baby L was just soooo beautiful and was happy to just let me do my thing whilst she slept so soundly.  I just adore her images, she is perfect.

In the end, I think mum and dad were glad we spread it over two sessions because the boys were just full of energy and kept all of us running nonstop, hehe.  But nonstop in a fun “make us laugh” way.   They are both at those great ages where the world holds lots of wonder and everything needs to be explored.  I wish adults could keep that childlike curiosity but alas we get boring as we age, hehe.  Nothing boring about these gorgeous little men though.  C & R, you already know how much fun I had with your gorgeous family.  Enjoy this sneak peek…

He’s got the whole world in his hands…

Babe in the woods…brrrrrr it was cold this day

A boy and his trains, so cute

Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, I love this image

Here he is, Mr. Dribble and he just loved to smile and stick his tongue out, although I am sure it wasn’t at me (or was it?)

He looks so different with his beanie on