Sunday, August 25, 2013

34/52






"A portrait of my children, once a week every week in 2013"


A perfect morning spent at our favourite riverside location while the winter sun was shining and its warmth enticed us outdoors.  I look forward to many more days like this with my girls as the days become hotter...

Sophie:  She carted bucket after bucket of water to the pool she was creating on the sand. I whipped off her leggings when they became wet... not long after, she was saturated from head to toe... but grinning from ear to ear.

Grace: Watching her grow has been tugging at my heart strings lately... as the months edge closer and closer towards the end of the year, I've felt sad thinking about her starting full time school in only six months time.


Joining in with Jodi


Wee little Alma snoozing on the couch was my favourite shot from the week just gone...

Sunday, August 18, 2013

33/52






"A portrait of my children, once a week every week in 2013"


Grace:  I was trying to capture her giggling with her little sister in an attempt to portray her joyful, playful side.  Instead, this simple shot of the 'every day Grace' was the one that stood out for me this week.

Sophie: At a cousin's first birthday party today... I had to have eyes in the back of my head, guarding her from sneakily stealing treats from the food table.  Here she is, mouth filled with Burger Rings, having a ball on the play equipment.


Joining in with Jodi


Bo helping her mama with a renovation project and Evita walking along the beach were among my favourite photos last week.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Embracing Winter Reflection



During the past few wintery months, the pace of my days has slowed down a lot as I've followed the lead of this season and embraced simple days filled with pottering around the house, enjoying the comfort of heaters and ugg boots and allowing myself time for quiet reflection.  With not long left of August though, I feel the need to take things one step further in order to welcome in spring with a more energetic and motivated frame of mind...

On Monday night, as I lay awake in bed ill with a virus, I did as I always do when I get sick... fall in a heap and think about how I'm not as 'on top of things' as I'd like to be, not as healthy as I'd like to be and not getting as much achieved in each day as I'd like.  Strangely enough, only days before, I'd been reading an article about using times of sickness in a positive way to listen to our bodies and our inner wisdom which is exactly what I did...

For the next few weeks, I'll continue writing but my posting may be a bit less frequent as I focus on a few things I feel I need to sort out and tick off my to-do list as we come to the close of winter.  Removing the pressure from myself to blog as often as usual will free up time for me to complete a few projects in the coming weeks and implement a few small changes to our daily rhythm... and then hopefully, just as spring is approaching, I'll be feeling as though I'm refreshed, energetic and all set for the new season...


There are only a handful of our bright pink camellia blooms above left on our bush now -
things are looking very green but rather bare in our garden at this point in winter...


Saturday, August 10, 2013

32/52



"A portrait of my children, once a week every week in 2013"


Grace: I see so much of myself in this photo of her.  An over-thinker and sensitive soul, she shares many of my personality traits.  In this shot, with soft curls bouncing on her shoulders, she looks a lot like me too.

Joining in with Jodi

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Home Office Makeover Progress



Gus and Lula print  |  Gypsya Kantha quilt |  Vintage enamel cup from Babyshka's Attic |  kikki-K vision board


Over the past few weeks, when I haven't been busy with my little ones, running errands or 'keeping house', my focus has been on our home office/guest bedroom makeover.  What was once one of my least favourite rooms is slowly becoming one I'm really happy with and one where I am content to spend more time.  Since the beginning of the year, our old 'doctor's-waiting-room-style-furniture' has been sold, fresh new white pieces have been purchased and lots of organizing and sorting has been carried out... and finally, I am up to the fun part of decorating.  

The two things holding me back now are lack of time for shopping and my inability to find what I'm after, hence many of Sophie's nap time slots have been used for online browsing.  For once though, there's no procrastinating or deliberating happening on my part and I have a definite vision for this decorating project.  In the spare bedroom half of the room, I would love a white and blue doona cover, similar to the fabric you can see in the photograph on my sponge recipe post or alternatively something like the kantha quilt above.  

On the home office side of the room, I have a literal blank canvas with my vision board waiting to be pinned with snapshots and inspiration and all things lovely.  Paul has been complaining about it still being bare (despite four weeks having passed since he put it up for me)... and so this week, I've been trawling through old photos searching for favourites and pulling together a collection of quotes and words of wisdom to display.  

Hopefully soon I'll have some 'after' photos to share... in the meantime, I'd love to know which quote you find most inspiring...

Sunday, August 4, 2013

31/52




"A portrait of my children, once a week every week in 2013"


Sophie:  We left home early on Sunday morning, meeting a group of friends and their children for a day by the river to watch the boats zipping past as part of the Avon Descent.  Driving down gravel roads through a misty haze of white fog, we settled on a camp site beside the rocky water's edge where we lit a fire, enjoyed a barbecue lunch and then found a spot to sit in the winter sunshine and watch the competitors zoom past.  Getting out in the fresh air and letting the little ones explore was lovely... making boats from leaves and twigs, using nets to 'fish' and skimming pebbles - all simple pleasures that beat television and toys any day.  Sophie loved the creek... splashing on the edge of the river in her gumboots Peppa Pig style and eventually ending up saturated from the waist down (luckily I'd packed a spare pair of shorts!!)


I'm finding it hard keeping up with this weekly photo project lately... the end of the week rolls around and I find myself disappointed as I scroll through my photos and discover half either out of focus or unsuitable.  With Grace at kindy two or three days each week, I like to spend the days she is at home enjoying her company as opposed to being behind the camera and out of the action.

I've contemplated not participating in this project on a weekly basis anymore.  However, I'm not one to just give up on something I've started and with only 21 weeks left until the end of the year, I feel I should persist.  I'm also conscious of not feeling as though photo taking is a burden though, and so this week, I've accepted that I am only able to share a photo of Sophie and that next week, to compensate, I will focus on just taking one shot of Grace that I'm happy with...


Joining in with Jodi

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Sophie's Nursery And Farewelling Babyhood



At each stage of babyhood, there have been so many 'lasts' that I've found so very sad... so many moments and memories I've found myself desperately wishing I could freeze and hold onto forever.  When Sophie moved from her bassinette in our bedroom to her own cot at six months, I was devastated.  Ten months later, I felt tears pricking my eyes as I watched her cot leave our house, the same cot that Grace slept in and whose rail she gnawed bite marks into during one particular episode of teething. The same cot I spent many a night sitting beside, patting my girls to sleep and comforting them.  The same cot which I stared at many times during my pregnancies, dreaming of the babies we were yet to meet.

Farewelling that cot seemed so final, a sign that babyhood was well and truly over... and so it was that at sixteen months, our little one began sleeping in her toddler bed.

Slowly, since that day five months ago, Sophie's nursery has been morphing into a toddler room.  The once relatively bare, simple layout and decor beginning to take shape and growing alongside our little girl, coming to life in an effort to match her little character.  One of the blessings of keeping this blog is having a record of our family and our home and so today, I want to freeze time just once and capture Sophie's nursery in its current state before it too becomes a thing of the past and is made-over into a 'big girls' room'...


Sophie's nursery back when she had a cot






I love that Sophie's room (like Grace's) is filled with touches I've crafted with my own hands such as the owl cross-stitch above (Grace has an identical one in blue), cushions, pillowcases and basket liners.  I love that it has pieces from my own childhood (such as the pale pink bed cover) as well as from our family history (the green bunny on Sophie's shelf was a gift of my own Dad's when he was born.


The empty spot on the top shelf above is where I'm hoping to put a clock from my own childhood bedroom... 
I just need to re-claim it from my Mum's house...



With only three months until our little poppet turns two, I'm almost ready to begin sewing a patchwork quilt - a bed cover of pretty fabrics in mint and aqua green, pale pink and grey with touches of red and yellow. Come summer when she moves into a 'big girl's bed', I'm hoping it will be complete.

Other 'toddler touches' are slowly creeping into Sophie's room too, the latest being an adorable wooden doll house (an early birthday present) which Sophie has been playing with every single day recently. Low shelving or a small bookcase beneath the window which I can deck out 'Montessori style' with Sophie's favourite toys and knick knacks is also on the cards and will see me farewelling another well used piece of nursery furniture... the feeding chair...

I guess that's what decorating a house is all about though... nothing will ever stay exactly the same forever as the people living within its walls grow and change... and so as sad as it has been saying goodbye to many much loved baby pieces, I know deep down that in doing so, our house is becoming more of a home and that the chapters of toddler hood and childhood ahead of us will be filled with just as many memories and moments to cherish just as precious as the baby ones we've farewelled.