The Gallery – Week 72 – Animals

31st August 2011

I like a challenge and I enjoyed this one immensely 🙂

I’m pleased I stumbled across The Gallery because I love taking photos and I’m always trying to improve my limited skills! I only have my camera phone but from what I’ve read, it’s quite good and can do lots of things I never knew about.

I decided to do some investigating and found that I can change the settings to take better pictures of things like ladybirds and ants so guess what I’ve been doing all morning……yep, chasing bugs around the garden, trying to get them to sit still and smile for the camera. They seem a little camera shy if you ask me but I did manage to grab a few good shots before they realised what I was doing. You have to be sneaky when it comes to bugs, you know!

Here’s my entry for this week’s gallery.
This spider was sitting on the blanket on the chair outside. I’m so pleased I noticed it sitting down!

Just after I got the spider, a bird came for some food and stayed still long enough to have his picture taken. I think he was posing really!

I look forward to checking out all the other entries over the coming week 🙂

Mummy, why did you want an Ella?….

31st August 2011

This is the question I face every couple of days just lately!
The first conversation between my four-year-old and I went as follows:

Ella: Mummy, why did you want an Ella?
Me: Well because we wanted another baby after we had KayCee and we got you *big grin and cuddle*
Ella: But why Ella?
Me: *penny drops* Ohhh, you mean why did we call you Ella?
Ella: Yes *smiles*
Me: Well, daddy’s grandma was called Elsie and we wanted to name you after her but Elsie was a bit old-fashioned for us. Daddy thought about it and split her name into El and C then picked Ella and Cerise 🙂
We decided to also use Heather after my Mama so we called you Ella Cerise Heather and we love your names 🙂

Ella was happy with this answer and now likes to hear the story of why we wanted an Ella!

KayCee, listening to this conversation…..

KayCee: So why did you call me KayCee?
Me: Well, you know daddy had 2 baby girls who died, Katy and Chantelle? We wanted to remember them and bring a link between daddy’s first family and his new one so we took the K and C and called you KayCee. That’s why we spell it with the capital C in the middle. Your middle names, Ann Gwendoline, are after your Nanny and Mama.
KayCee: Ok *smiles* Why did you call Aiden, Aiden?
Me: Aiden’s not named after anyone. I thought I was having a girl and had the name Jasmine in my mind when he was born. When he turned out to be a boy, I was shocked and couldn’t remember what I’d picked for a boy! The first name that came into my head was Aiden Lewis so that’s what I called him 🙂 When I got home and checked the baby name book, I remembered I was going to call him Bradley John, John is after my brother and I just liked Bradley!