I know it’s not long since I blogged Austin’s newborn photos (albeit a little late!), but I’m back again as I couldn’t help but share some more photos. Austin is 15 weeks old today, growing up before my eyes! He ‘chats’ away now and his little smiles are so infectious – even in the middle of the night! He loves lying on his activity mat, still loves his tummy time (especially with no nappy on), and he just loves watching the mobile on his change table. It’s just so incredible how quickly they go from being a little wrinkly, helpless newborn to developing their little personalities and starting to express their wants and needs!

It’s sad saying goodbye to the little newborn stage, and hard to pack away all the teeny newborn clothes. (Although I do have a little box of my favourite outfits I just can’t bare to let go of and have to keep – I blame my wonderful Mum for my ‘sentimental keepsake’ side! <3). Austin is still in his bassinet - just - but will be moving into his cot sometime in the next couple of weeks, and it's also time to take the bassinet off the buggy and move him into the seat so he can sit up and look around. All little steps in growing up. And although it's sad to do all this, at the same time, there is so much fun in seeing your little baby growing, and it's exciting seeing them do something new - grabbing that toy that you've been holding in front of them, trying to put everything in their mouths, trying to roll over, sit up... This first year of life is just incredible really. Just no crawling for a while yet though please!

And so, here is Austin at 14 weeks. This little outfit was one of Hayden's when he was a baby, and was always a favourite, hence I had to take some photos of Austin in it!

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The summer holidays seem like such a distant memory now, but since I’m catching up on long-lost blog posts, I thought I’d share a few of our holiday snaps, and wish you all an incredibly belated Happy New Year!

Over Christmas and New Year, we spent a lovely relaxing two-and-a-half week break down in Central Otago. The weather was wonderful, temperatures hitting 30 degrees and above most days; it reminded me of summers when I was a kid, with every day hot – a ‘real’ summer! With a new little baby, we didn’t venture too far, and spent most of our days relaxing around home. I think Hayden spent half his holidays playing back-yard cricket (along with the rest of us of course!), and the other half riding his new bike, his present from Santa this year. Down time for him was beating everyone at “Connect 4″ on the iPad!

In fact, my blog feels a little empty this January, as last year you may remember me doing a “Photo A Day” project, a fun summer project that many of my photographer friends do each year, taking a photo/s each day of January (You can find my 2011 Photo A Day HERE). However, this year, somehow with a newborn in the house who decided that sleeping was nowhere as much fun as being awake, I decided in my sleep-deprived state that Photo-A-Day just realistically wasn’t going to happen for me. Some days even the thought of picking up my camera just seemed like hard work! Thankfully now though, my camera is well and truly back in hand, and I’m already looking forward to attempting Photo-A-Day again next year!

In the meantime, just a few shots that pretty much sum up our summer holidays for 2011 – 2012.

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Here’s to a wonderful 2012 and lots of photos!
Kylie xo
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Just a few more newborn photos of Austin, and of course, I couldn’t finish off this series of posts without including some big brother shots, a very proud big brother at that!
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Austin, 9-13 days old, and Hayden, 4 1/2 years old
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The next time I’m back (which hopefully won’t be as long!), my baby will be growing up before your eyes. And, yes, since I’m still currently on maternity leave, you’ll probably be seeing quite a lot of my two boys over the next few months!
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As promised, here are some more newborn photos of little Austin in all his cuteness, and yes, of course I’m biased!
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Austin, 1 week old
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It is finally time for me to introduce you to our newest family member, our little boy, Austin Carter. He was born into the world at home (unexpectedly after a very speedy arrival!) on Thursday 27 October 2011, at 12.04am – 4 minutes past his due date! He weighed 7lb 14oz (3.59kg) and was 50cm long. He is, of course, a squishy little bundle of joy, who makes us smile and fills us with love, despite the sleep deprivation! He also has a big brother that loves him lots, although that may change when he’s on the move interrupting games and grabbing toys!

As you can imagine, life has been so busy since his arrival, and the days only seem to go by faster and faster. My camera was definitely at hand in those first couple of weeks though, and I took lots of photos, wanting to capture that newborn cuteness as much as possible! However, it has taken me a long time to actually find the time to sit down at the computer and get back to my blog again. Austin has become a real little catnapper and is completely unpredictable on the sleep side of things, so there’s not too much time out to update blogs and the like at the moment!

So, even though a few weeks have passed and my baby is no longer a little newborn, I really wanted to share some of my favourite photographs of Austin at a few days old. I loved taking these images, and I know I will always look back on them with fondness to a time when our little boy really was that small! Since there’s quite a few, I’ll split them into three posts, so there’s more to come really soon.

Welcome to the world little one. We love you lots! xxx
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Austin Carter, 4 days old
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If you have been following my blog for a while now, you will probably know that each spring we make a trip into Hagley Park to take photos in the daffodils. With the earthquakes that have been, we haven’t been to Hagley Park nearly as much as we normally do, so it was lovely to head into the city and spend some time there a couple of weeks ago.

It was a very sunny, although cool morning, but the daffodils were as beautiful as ever. And as you will see from the images below, we wandered through the flowers, took some time out by the river, and had lots of laughs at the same time! Lots of smiles and giggles in these photos!

Happy Spring everyone!

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A few weeks ago I received an email inquiry from a daughter about giving a ‘birthday present’ session to her mum to have photos taken with her grandson. I thought that it was such a wonderful gift to give someone, and so that’s how I got to meet the cutest little Jeffery (9 months) and his lovely grandparents, Leureen and Eric.

Last week, Jeffery, Leureen and Eric came out to my studio and we took lots and lots of photos! Jeffery was the perfect little model and was so happy sitting, playing and then getting lots of cuddles of course from Gran! It was such a relaxed and enjoyable session to shoot, and as is often the case, I have found it very hard to choose just a few photos to share!

So here is a little sneak-peek of our session together.

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Ricci, Leureen and Eric, thank you once again for allowing me the opportunity to photograph your family. I hope that these photos and the others in your gallery will be wonderful memories for you in the years to come.
Kylie
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The past few weeks have been pretty busy here, so it’s been a little while since I last posted. We’ve also just been away for a week’s holiday down in Clyde, our usual family holiday spot, which also means no internet access. It’s amazing how much ‘extra’ time you have when you’re not checking emails and catching up with everyone in the land of the web! We had a wonderful week relaxing and even had a couple of days of snow when we first arrived. We did get out and about later in the week though, and managed a day’s skiing at Coronet Peak in Queenstown, along with the compulsory bike rides and game of mini golf!

Back in Christchurch, life has sped up once more, and I spent last week photographing the children at Hayden’s pre-school as part of the centre’s first birthday celebrations. Every day was busy, and I literally took hundreds of photos, but it was fun getting to know all the children better as the week went on. (Although I have to say I definitely won’t be re-training as a pre-school teacher!) Unfortunately I am not able to blog any of those photos as I don’t have releases for them. But the week ahead is another busy one, with a couple of shoots in the next few days, so I am looking forward to sharing some sneak-peeks from those sessions with you!

And now for a little announcement and to get to the main reason for this post! I am no longer taking any bookings for sessions for the remainder of this year, and the first few months of next year as I am about to commence my maternity leave. We have a new little baby due at the end of October, so it’s time to start winding down and take some leave for the next few months. It is a really exciting time for us, and of course, there’ll be a little newborn to take lots of photographs of soon. And I’ll definitely be sharing some here!

But in the meantime, just because I can’t have a post without a photo, a little shot of some of the gorgeous scenery on the Lindis Pass on our trip back to Christchurch a couple of weeks ago after all the snow. Even though it’s the first day of spring, I had to share this wintery scene as this particular view is one I never tire of, no matter how many times we drive this road. And since the weather here today isn’t exactly spring like, it feels somewhat appropriate! There will be lots of spring photos coming in the next couple of weeks though!

Lots happening!
Kylie xo

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Last week I got to meet the gorgeous little Annika, 8.5 months, in my studio. This is truly one of my favourite ages to photograph, so I had been really looking forward to this session. And I definitely wasn’t disappointed! Annika was such a contented wee girl, and although she was keeping her smiles to herself for the most part, she was the perfect little model, happily posing for the camera. By the end of the session, her wee personality was really shining through too, with lots of bubble blowing and clapping to keep us entertained!

As well as taking the photographs, it was also a chance for Annika’s Mum and myself to have a bit of a catch up. We went to high school together, now many years ago, so it was lovely to see a familiar face and sit down after the session for a coffee and chat!

So, here is a little sneak-peek with a selection of some of my favourites images from our session! As usual, so hard to choose!

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Andee, it was great to see you again, and it was a delight to finally meet your precious little girl. I hope that you and Geoff like your sneak-peek and I will be in touch very soon with your full gallery for you.
Take care and looking forward to catching up again soon.
Kylie xo
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Earlier this week, Christchurch had its largest snowfall in 16 years! So Monday was a “snow day”, bringing back great memories from being a kid and getting the day off school! No school for me to miss this time, but Steve did have the day off work, making for an unexpected nice long weekend!

Hayden waited patiently for the heavy snow showers to ease, and then it was jackets, ski pants, hats and gloves on, and outside to enjoy the white winter playground! There definitely wasn’t a shortage of snow to play in, and it was the most beautiful dry powder snow, that reminded me back of times when I lived in Europe for a couple of years.

Snowballs, snow angels, snowmen and getting pulled around on Dad’s old snowboard were all part of the fun, and of course, we had just as much fun as Hayden! Can you tell I love it when it snows!

Thanks to a couple of warmer days, the snow is all gone now, but we’ve got lots (and lots!) of photos to look back on and remember the snow! So it’s a fun, personal post today because I couldn’t help but share a few of my favourite pics!

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