A portait a Week: 6/52

Isabella is now starting to grow into her cardigans and jumpers/ jerseys knitted by the family and we have been trying them out this week. We've been walking just about every day this past week. It's actually now still light until after 5pm which means I can go for a walk while she has a short nap between 4-5pm without having to try and get her to nap in her cot. Napping on-the-go is just so much easier when you're a baby.

This could be a picture for a knitting pattern don't you think. Our little model!

PS She is warm enough in only the cardigan, don't worry! She has two warm blankets over her and the rain cover on the pram so she doesn't feel the cold air and is quite warm and toasty in there.

A Portrait a Week: 5/52

A portrait a week of Isabella, every week during 2014.

Watching her mobile while lying in her cot.

38 Weeks

It was a beautiful sunny day here last Sunday. Andre wanted to fly his quadrocopter somewhere on a field and we found this area of farmland near our house.

After some flying he took these photos of me. I'm exactly 38 weeks pregnant in these photos. Now less than 2 more weeks to due date! Let's hope baby Mostert won't make us wait too long...

Baby room and more photos

We found curtains for baby's room this weekend. We decided to go with the shorter ones for now as there were no longer ones we liked anyway to fit the window.This way they're also above the radiator and cot and take up less space in the already small room. They're black out curtains but we might have to get a black out blind to go on the window as well as some light still does come in. We'll see how it goes, might work for winter at least when she arrives. Normally I would not have hanged curtains with creases but the label said no ironing... I suppose perhaps because of the black out lining it has. The creases will now just have to hopefully "hang out".

We're still waiting for the wall stickers to arrive. They're coming from HongKong. Nowhere could I find ones I liked from the UK and they were way more expensive here too.

A couple of weekends ago a good friend took some pictures of Andre, me and bump. This was done at 32 weeks. We didn't plan to do photos as a couple but I'm so glad we did and have these pictures now. Not long to go now! Less than 4 weeks left at work!

Some people asked on fb how Andre managed to smile so sweetly on the photos I posted. Well, below is the proof that he didn't half the time and just about each pose had some funny faces first before I told him to smile! (You can click on the photos to see them larger.)

Not very flattering, but we clearly had lots of fun!

Andre does prefer being behind the camera, even if he has to take a 2year old's camera away from him!

Underwater photography

Swanage

I told you a few posts back that Andre started his underwater photography specialisation. Saturday he did his ocean dives at Swanage. The photographer he did the course with is Keith Lyall. Have a look at his website for some really great underwater photos. Also see his partner, Jo's, underwater videos on her website. They inspired us both to do more underwater photography and video.

Andre with the camera- photo by Keith Lyall

We got up at 3.15am. I packed yoghurt and muesli for breakfast and made sandwiches for lunch. We left home at 4am. It's a two hour drive if you leave this early, any later in the day it will take longer with traffic and even longer if you have to wait for the ferry. We went the long way round as the ferry doesn't wake up as early as we do and we anyway prefer to keep driving rather than sitting in a queue waiting to get on the ferry. We did it once before here.

Swanage

We arrived at Swanage pier at 6am and ate our breakfast while waiting for the gates to the pier to open at 7am. There were already about 5 cars waiting in line ahead of us. There's only limited parking spaces available on the pier and it fills up quickly. It helps the guys to not have to drag all their heavy diving gear too far and it's nice for me to be able to sit in the car while they get ready and are in the water. It was freezing cold early in the morning so I was very happy to have a warm car to stay in! The sun did come out at times during the day and it warmed up a bit, but still far from bikini weather!

Ready for their first dive. Drysuits against
the cold water.

Their first dive was off the pier. This next picture was taken from where the car was parked and those steps you see is where they enter the water so I could really watch them from the car.

Swanage pier

For the second dive they took a boat out to a nearby wreck. Best to click on the first picture which will enlarge it and then keep clicking to see them all better. To return to the blog click outside the picture on the black section or click the X in the top right corner. I've added a few of the photos Andre took below during the two dives.

Loading dive gear onto the boat to go to the
wreck site.

A tompot blenny

sea anemone

Part of the wreck, the Fleur de Lys

Nudibranch eggs

scorpion fish

Diving & Studio Photography

My sister asked if I could please write about something other than our walks along the canals and in parks around here. We've unfortunately not been doing much else the past month. No new interesting places visited... So here we are again on Thursday evening along the canal, walking the other way this time!

But I do have some other things to share too: Andre completed his Open Water diving qualification last week Friday. He's loving the diving!

And on Sunday he and a friend attended a studio photography course. Here are a few of the photos he took at the course. (The girl isn't me- one of the ladies presenting the course. And the guy is the friend that went on the course too.)

He was going to go diving with another friend today, but he's been trying to sort out a problem at work since he got home yesterday afternoon. Not very nice. He is still on the phone as I'm typing now. I was going to go with to the dive site so I would have something new to write about. All I've got now is this sad picture of his diving equipment which he rented yesterday waiting to go in the water.

It's a stunning day here today and I think it will actually be quite a hot one. I might even be able to change into shorts later. Yippee!

As soon as Andre can find someone to take over from him with this work thing we might still drive down to the dive site to go check out what's happening there. One needs to be out on a day like this, the sun doesn't shine here every day!