Sleeping Beauty - Lighter Photo

Here's the same photo again, but lightened up.

Sleeping Beauty

Rachel had a good look around at her new surroundings, and decided that it was a peaceful place to sleep.

They're Home!

Andrew was very pleased to have Mummy home this afternoon.



Coming home took more energy out of Mummy than she had expected, so she was tired and sore, but she has had a good rest, and is pleased to be home.

New Family Photo

The family is larger now, so we all got together for a new family photo:

I tried to catch Rachel with her eyes open.
While she seems to open them quite a bit more than Andrew did,
they do not stay open for long.

Here's a closer shot.

We'll start a new blog someday soon, but will make sure that if you currently get these posts sent to your email, that that will continue.

Bruises and Bumps

Andrew Advises Avoiding Landing On Your Face On Stairs

(It tends to leave bruises!)

(We're still quite happy though)

This pose is a repeat of one from a couple of years ago, though Andrew is now sitting where Daddy was standing.

(Charlie Bear is covering his eyes)

Andrew & Mummy had just read the baby in the bump a story about bears. Andrew seems aware that there's a baby inside Mummy, but has no idea how much his life is about to change.

Andrew's rugby allegiance

Tonight the Crusaders and Hurricanes are playing in the super 14 rugby here in Wellington. Stephen has gone to the game. We asked Andrew if the Hurricanes or Crusaders were going to win. He said Hurricanes. Here he is wearing Daddy's Wellington's lions cap and holding his hurricanes bear Uncle David gave him. Mummy thinks Andrew and Daddy will be wrong.

AutoStitch Panoramas

Carolyn forwarded an email to me regarding a product named AutoStitch, which automatically stitches together photographs into panoramas.

I had some photos taken from our Auckland holiday, that I took with the intention of creating panoramas from them sometime, so I tried it out.

Unfortunately, because it does the stitching automatically, you can't guide it when it does the wrong thing. If the photos have sufficient overlap, and enough detail, then it works fine. Otherwise there are a small number of obtuse parameters that with much fiddling and regenerating, you may be able to get something acceptable.

My recommendation: download it, try it out for your panorama (do check the output size that you wish to generate before you begin), if it works with the default settings then that is great, otherwise try a different product.

The Gannet Colony photo is only two photos stitched together. AutoStitch had no problems with it.

The Whatipu photo was also produced without much trouble, however I had another panorama I took from another location in Whatipu where I accidentally just missed having any overlap between portions of it. AutoStitch completely refused to let me abut the photos, even though with very minor image enhancements that would have looked great. (The result of the remaining photos joined together looks good, but the interesting detail was in the single non-stitched photo, so I haven't shown the results here.)

I persisted with a large number of attempts to get (four) cave photos joined, trying different settings. Eventually I suceeded. The difficulty with these ones was the large difference in brightnesses.

I also tried to create a panorama of the Manukau Harbour from Little Huia (not included here). I had great difficulty with that one as I had an overhanging tree in the foreground, and hadn't taken care to keep the camera in the same place. In order to stitch the photos without the horizon having severe kinks in it, I had to crop out the overhanging branches.

From my experience using AutoStitch I learnt not to be so cavalier in my photo-taking in future when I take shots I intend to stitch together.

Here is a brief list of some things I was wishing I had paid more attention to:

1. Use the camera's panoramic mode so that the brightness, shutter speed, etc. stay the same for each photo (and hold the shutter half down when pointing at the mid-brightness part of the horizon, then turn to take the first photo).
2. Have sufficient overlap (if in doubt, overlap more).
3. Rotate the camera around a point close to the center of the camera's lens.
4. Keep the camera level so that less rotation is needed to stitch the photos together (resulting in more usable vertical pixels when cropping the result).
5. Try to keep close foreground features in a single photo, not overlapped.
6. Check to make sure you haven't left the camera adjusting its white balance for tungsten lights! (I take far too many outdoors photos that turn out looking turquoise!)

However I still think it's better to simply take photos whenever you like than worry about any of the above.

(Click the photos below to go to my Picasa Web Album, where the pictures can be viewed without being cropped. Full size images may also be downloaded... not sure why you would want those though.)

Gannet Colony at Muriwai

Whatipu

A Cave at Whatipu

21 months update

It has been a while since we blogged what Andrew is up to so I thought I'd better.





Andrew seems to have grown up a lot in the last few months.





While he still doesn't have heaps of understandable words that he says spontaneously, he loves to yabber away, and will copy what you say lots. His comprehension is pretty good most of the time. If he is in the mood he will follow simple instructions like "go and put this in the bathroom". If you say "lets go out" he starts looking for shoes and will bring you a pair if he can find them. Often they are behind closed doors.





He likes to play at his friend Aleesha's house. A few weeks ago I drove down their drive to discover I couldn't park down there so had to turn around and go and park on the road. He got upset that we weren't going to Aleesha's house.





He is better about being left with other people and not so clingy to mummy. Which is a relief for mummy.





We talk lots about we are going to have another baby but I am not sure how much he really understands about that. He does like to lift up mummy's top and poke baby.





He is doing lots more walking and can now walk from our car to the house or vice versa. For those who haven't been to our house. There is a steepish slope down to our car from the steps. This is great on mummy's back.





He still likes his sleep and sleeps about 12-13 hours most nights and 2-3 hours most afternoons. he is a good eater. He has gotten over whatever was causing him to not eat dinner back in November and December. He discovered stone fruit this summer but stills thinks that bananas are essentially for a balance diet.





We get some temper tatrums but he isn't too bad.





This term we are involved in playcentre, Church mum's group, antenatal group and a council run music and movement programme.





Now I'll post this, and send some photos later.

Trip to Auckland

We just enjoyed a lovely week at Orewa, just north of Auckland. Once again we stayed in a holiday home we get access to through Stephen's work.

We all drove up taking two days, stopping overnight in Taumarunui and then Andrew and I flew back from Auckland and Stephen drove back in one day.

We did lots of tripping around to the north and west of Auckland. Some of the places we went to were walking around Orewa Shakespear park at the end of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, Kumeu, the Gannets at Muriwai, Puhoi, up One Tree Hill, Warkworth, Matakana, a reptile park near Leigh, Piha, Whatipu, to name a few.

We also caught up with a friend of Stephen's from uni and some of Stephen's cousins who live in Auckland.

The biggest negative about the trip was that Andrew decided he didn't like the portacot where we were staying, and it was taking all or half the evening to him to sleep most evenings. He has been pretty good since we got home.

Andrew and Stephen at Shakespear Park

Gannets at Muriwai

Kathryn and Andrew at Shelly Beach

Kathyrn and Andrew at Wenderholme Reserve

With the Bonis family

Carolyn (Stephen's sister), her husband and kids Sophie and Ethan came up at new year to Stephen's parents place. Here are some photos are Andrew with the Bonis family.

The three kids on the piano

Playing in the sandpit

Andrew with Carolyn and Sophie

Andrew and his uncle Matt. Matt taught Andrew how to do high 5's. He now is practicing on the wall.

Walking in the bush

While in Whakatane we went for a walk in White Pine bush. Andrew didn't want to walk much so was carried by Granny and Daddy.

Granny, Andrew and Daddy

Mummy, Granny and Andrew

Looking up

It is a long way up that tree.

Whose's presents!!!

Andrew's Christmas present were enjoyed by more than just Andrew.

Here Daddy is playing with his blocks.

Mummy needs some help working out the switches as she keeps crashing the trains into each other. Andrew got the train set from Mummy and Daddy.

Granny did you buy this puzzle for Andrew or for you to play with.

Christmas day 2007

Over Christmas/new year period we spent two weeks in Whakatane at Stephen's parent's place. I really enjoyed being able to put my feet up and let other people take responsibility for looking after Andrew.

Andrew was really in opening his presents. We spread the present opening over Christmas Eve and Christmas day so he could play with them after opening them. We also opened a few before we left Wellington.

Andrew got blocks from Grandma and Grandad Harris. He really enjoys playing with them.

Unwrapping his present from Uncle David. He likes the Concrete Truck , especially the noise it makes. Mummy likes that it isn't too loud.

Giving Granny her present.

Giving Grandpa his present

Visit to Great Grandma Gillard

While we were in Whakatane we went to visit Stephen's grandma in Tauranga. It had been over a year since she had seen Andrew. He had definitely changed.

Four Generations

Is that me on the Granny's camera?

Seventeen months

We're running way behind in publishing monthly updates, but here are photos of when Andrew was seventeen months old, taken on Labour Weekend in Blenheim.

"Daddy! I know how a car exhaust system works now! You'll never guess how I found out!"

Granddad Harris and Andrew plan a joke.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

This year Andrew was able to help decorate the Christmas Tree, which we have decided to place on the fireplace, out of reach behind the fire guard.

We had to rush out the door to get to our Church's End of Year Celebration, so we don't have any photos of the finished tree yet.

Andrew really likes the twinkling lights, and is happy watching them for ages.