Every term I spend hours looking over books and websites coming up with new ideas for the children. It can take months for an idea to form or other times it just naturally materialise.

This term is going to be great and I want to focus on communication and team work a bit more. These aren’t exactly art programmes I know but it is important to teach children in life skills. I am finding it more obvious that some schools are just so focussed on Academia and they don’t concentrate on important life lessons, morals, integrity, honesty, responsibility, goal setting, listening, I could go on. So im going to bring these into Treehut.

This term consists of movie making, art, guitar lessons, radio station, creative writing, sports, gardening and cooking. The children from last term told me what they wanted and this is exactly what we will be rolling out. All last year children are returning which means my waiting list gets a little longer.

We will be going on a few more field trips to the parks and beaches this term to enjoy the summer weather and I know the boys are going to be so excited about sports day. We have had a huge increase of boys the last 2 terms; our ratio is now 70/30. The boys bring a great dynamic to the group, I just love their energy.

As most of you know we didn’t receive Funding last year due to the huge amount of applications so this year we really will be relying on friends of Treehut to donate craft, art, cooking supplies to keep running.

We also have a sponsorship programme for parents who can’t afford Treehut. We are always looking for Sponsors. Sponsoring a child can cost as little as $150 for a whole term. (ten weeks)

No donation is too small.

Treehut will expand to Takapuna where we will be running a Movie Making class and a Photography Class. I will also be starting up a girls club for one Saturday a month ( haven’t decided on location as of yet) where girls can learn anything and everything. These Girl clubs are to help girls get confident and self aware of who they are. The workshops are about trying new things. It will be a fun place where laughter is a requirement on the day.

I am very excited about running these workshops. Girls will be aged from 8 to 12 and we will only take 8 girls. We will go on fun educational field trips, the girls will get to meet profound New Zealanders and they will have a lot of fun doing it!

well i had better get to it!

The last two weeks I have started to talk about my wedding more and more and I have had a huge amount of people ask me who my wedding photographer would be.

Due to Jason and I being photographers we both have been debating who to get. Both of us know what we want and we have incredibly high standards. It is hard as we are both different photographers, I am very artistic and Jason is very documentary in style.

In November I got to meet Jayson Kingsbeer a photographer from Gisborne who I had been following on Twitter for quite awhile. He is only 14 years old. I was standing in Queen Street watching Kingsbeer talk with passion in his eyes for his photography, I just knew instantly he was the one. (Plus my daughter adores him)

I rushed home that night and showed Jason all Kingsbeer’s work, his website, facebook and twitter account and Jason was blown away and nearly fell of his chair when I told him Kingsbeer’s age.

Jason said “Do you think he would like to take our wedding photos?” off I went to phone him, and thankfully he said yes.

For me, choosing Kingsbeer is all what I am about. The foundation of Treehut is to harness youth’s passions so having a youth photograph the second most important day of my life is just fitting. (First important day was the birth of my daughter).

Mr Kingsbeer is coming to Auckland and Jason and I are extremely excited. We will be able to take him around Auckland so he can capture some landscapes and maybe we can all learn something off each other.  

Im so excited!!!

There has been hundreds of blogs the last few weeks with everyone’s goals on them and i have been sifting through them trying to decide what my goals are.

So i am not going to post my personal goals but I decided I wanted to post 20 things I want to achieve this year. I see people have done 100 or 50, I feel 20 will do for now and if I get to June and I have completed most of them i will do a further 10 and see how we go from there.

I think it is so important for us to sit back and take stock of our life’s, as you find you are so busy most of the time things slip you by. I don’t know how many times a whole month has gone by and i haven’t completed one thing, and it is because usually I have sat back and got lazy.

Me lazy, yes it is hard to believe but I am way more lazier than I used to be and i can only put it to one thing, it’s a devil of a thing and it is called TV. You know, I bet you do it yourself, you have dinner, you’re full and happy and then you sit down in front of the TV and then Woosh..... 3 hours go by and it is bed time. It is amazing what you could have achieved in those 3 hours.

When my daughter was younger I refused to have a TV, I didn’t want to be one of those parents who had an in house babysitter, so I didn’t have one for 4 years. It was great, I got a lot done. Anyway I’m getting off the subject, I have just explained goal one

 

1.       Two nights a week no TV

2.       Be more creative, knit, sew, felt, paint

3.       Complete one project a month

4.       Once a month go to a new destination to take photos

5.       Spend a weekend on Rangitoto

6.       Blog at least weekly

7.       Start Girls Club

8.       Write letters

9.       Finish my children’s book

10.   Move Treehut to its own location

11.   Do more studio work

12.   Have 2 personal exhibitions

13.   Complete a small triathlon

14.   Creative workshops

15.   Have a holiday every 3 months, (3 days at the least)

16.   Complete my photography book

17.   Be a great friend

18.   Be more generous

19.   Go to a night class

20.   Be Happy

I am not sure how I am going to complete all these things but I am going to try. I will place the list all over the house and I will have goals each week to work towards some of them.

Some will be easier than others.

 

Lets see how I go!

It has been great having a break. I had a small hiccup with having to be in isolation for 5 days as the doctor thought i may have Whooping cough, so it was quite amusing when i found out that we didn’t have it.

It was good though, it was the longest time i have been in once place. I am always darting here and there and this Christmas we just chilled out at home.

I have been getting back into photography, i took 8 months off and now i am feeling the urge to get back into it. I have had a few requests to take photos for companies and i have been saying no as i have been uninspired but i feel like my creativity is coming back. It has felt great getting behind my camera.

The above image was taken on New Years eve and i like this image as it reflects my year.