Winter Fun

 In a concerted effort to avoid cabin fever during the winter school holidays, we braved the frigid wind on Tuesday and ventured out to the playground. We had one thing in our favour, the sun was shining. We played for an hour. I chased Mr Darcy around the soccer oval, taking photos as we went. We had fun.

I'm still yet to achieve the photo shoot I want, the girls continue to insist on choosing clothes that aren't particularly photo worthy. Charlotte has worn a Rapunzel costume for the better part of two days now. She even wore it to the supermarket...with her red coat on over the top. She looked liked a confused character. Little Red Meets Rapunzel. Adorable.

The weather has turned even more bitterly cold, the kids were nearly frozen solid after we walked the 3 blocks to the supermarket today. We came home and snuggled and did some fun indoor activities.

I certainly am hoping for a return to winter sunshine before school goes back, they all need a bit of outdoor adventuring every day, Darcy especially. (Partly for my sanity, but mostly for them to burn off some energy and not spend the whole day bickering)...that's no fun.

 

Cindy..

 

 

 

Just Because...

 

As I was searching through my photo folders for 2013, I realised that I haven't been getting the camera out nearly as much as I should be.

I have been unwell with a terrible case of pharyngitis and forced myself to take a day off work...I wouldn't be very popular if I shared my germs!!

My sick day provided me with a wonderful opportunity to spend some one on one time with Mr Darcy, not something that I normally get a chance at. Unfortunately I wasn't well enough to get out and about with him, so I managed to set up a little backdrop in the lounge and get a few cute photos in the 15 minute window in which he co-operated.

I have been having some real issues editing photos on my laptop, so I would appreciate any feedback on the tone of these. I think my screen is far to cool, and as a result I tend to warm my photos up a little too much. I think I will definitely need to go back to editing on the larger screen.

Anyway, I am almost feeling well again, and my voice is back after 4 days AWOL. The kids (and some others!!) thought mummy without a voice was freakin' hilarious.

 

That trunk Darcy is sitting on here belonged to my Pa once upon a time...remember this photo of my tiny little man...they grow up way too fast.

 

Cindy xx

 

 

Celebrate

I am a little, well a lot, late in getting these photos up on the blog, but here he is...my not so little man celebrating his second birthday.

 

We started with a little dinner get together the night before his birthday...just us and the grandparents...nice and quiet and relaxed.

Then he just had time to open his present...tonka truck...before I had to race off to work.

We managed to squeeze in a quick lunch together.

Then I hurriedly iced his cake when I got home from work at 5.30...as you can probably see, I wasn't too successful on this count. Bit of a mess, but it still tasted good and he was happy to blow out his candles and lick the chocolate icing off the toy front end loader.

He is a little ball of mischief...and a smart cookie.

Love him to bits.

 

Check Out Those Eyelashes!

In just five more days this little guy will be two years old.
He is in the process of giving up some of  his daytime sleeps, so when he asked to go to bed I took the opportunity to sneak in and take some quick photos while he dreamed. This will probably be my last opportunity.
He is growing up way too fast.
 

 

His vocabulary is expanding every single day...

"I don't know" is one of his fave phrases, along with "me a bit"...especially when it pertains to anything food related.

 Booby, Dwink, Eat, Bed, Barbie, Don't Do That, Apple, Bath, iPhone, Out, Up, Me Too, Top Bunk,

Daddy at Work...the list goes on, including all the obvious words like Mum, Dad, Phia, and he can even say Charlotte.

He is still a co sleeping, breastfeeding mummy's boy.

An absolute bed hog, I often wake in the night to find myself with my legs in the bed and my upper body in the cot, very uncomfortable to say the least.

He wants to eat constantly...that is no exaggeration. He grabs me by the hand or beckons me towards the kitchen and says eat, eat, eat. He is also known to go and help himself to anything in the pantry or the fridge or the freezer. We finally resorted to child locks, which he still sometimes manages to circumvent.

He loves loves loves to snuggle. I adores it when he climbs up on my lap and leans right into me, when he wraps his chubby little arms around my neck and lays his head on my chest. He supplies masses of unprompted kisses, and says "I Love You"...gorgeous boy.

His curls are coming  back, especially in the hot weather when he sweats...but he also has the cutest little waves at the front. His hair is also starting to darken slightly...it's not the pure white that it used to be.

He injures himself so much more than the girls ever did...he chipped a front tooth. Unfortunately we have to live with that. Thank goodness its a baby tooth.

He loves to have a bath, or a shower.

He loves to torment his sisters.

He loves when Daddy gets home from work, and is excited every time.

Oh! and he loves nail polish and lipstick and makeup...guess that is unavoidable when you have big sisters :)

 

He's my blonde haired, blue eyed, Velcro boy...love him, love these photos.

First Haircut

Finally, we decided that the crazy Einstein hair was just too much for a little boy.

Even though those curls are beautiful...they had to go. It was frizz city at the back.

I wasn't prepared to buzz it myself...how was I going to take photos and operate the clippers at the same time?

He sat in the chair all by himself without even a whimper of protest.

I must tell you, this a boy who LOVES to have his hair brushed at home. He's first in line after a bath to be groomed. So I guess it's no surprise that he didn't object.

 

It took me a good two or three days to get used to him with much less hair. Every time I turned around I looked at him I got a mini shock...is that my boy??

Now that I am used to it, I think it looks great. I doubt that we will ever let it get as long as it was again.

Now I wish the weather would be kind so I can take the little munchkin into the great outdoors for some photos and some fun.

Cindy.

Cars!!

What could be more fun than tipping an entire bucket of cars upside down?



Impromtu

I was supposed to be photographing a gorgeous little girl on Friday afternoon, but the weather wasn't playing nice. It was atrocious in fact, cold freezing, wet, windy. So we rescheduled.

I couldn't resist just setting up a little backdrop anyway and snapping away at my favourite little subject.

Hence he is dressed just in what he was wearing for the day...no fancy outfits, just in socks.

He is my little piece of gorgeous though, whatever he is wearing.

My plan now is to recreate this photo with him wearing something cute so I have a nice photo of him to frame for his Gran to put on her wall.

 Hoping it goes as well second time around.

Cindy..



A Week Of...

Sickness, School, Photos, Doctors Visits, Working, Creating, Laughing, Crying, Driving, Worrying.

It all started on Wednesday night, after a frustrating day at work all I wanted was to get a good night sleep. Darcy thanked me for working by waking up every hour during the night. I get it baby, you missed me, but EVERY HOUR! Then I heard Charlotte making strange noises at 3am. She vomited all over herself in bed. Cleaned that up. She was sick all day Thursday. Mr Pixies headed off the the football on Saturday night. We had a cruisey Sunday. Darcy coughed so hard on Monday he vomited, took him to the doctor, what a waste of time that was. Sorry can't do anything for him. He suffered with gastro all of Monday. Took the kids over to the park in an attempt to get some nice photos for Mothers Day. Didn't really go as planned. Work on Wednesday. Nice little break from the kids. Come home to find that Sophia now has Gastro. She threw up all Wednesday night and stayed home from school Thursday. Darcy again thanked me for going to work by waking every hour from eight until midnight. Got him up and watched the Nascars at Talledega on the TV. He slept better after a little one on one Mummy time. House looks like a bomb hit it. Don't even know where to start cleaning. Kids constantly arguing. Trying to find my Zen. Sometimes it's difficult to find the silver lining.

I know I do a lot of complaining on this blog. It's just my nature I guess. It's my "Princess Bitch Face"!

I prefer to read about reality instead of the saccharine sweet crap that alot of people post about. Some people would have you believe that their lives are perfect. They like to blog only about the good parts of their lives. I like to blog about the everyday! It is for this reason that I have dramatically culled the list of blogs I read. I like a dose of reality, I don't need to be made to feel like I don't measure up. I don't need to feel that if I don't enjoy my kids 24/7 I am a bad parent. It's an Illusion.



Wordless Wednesday

Daybook Monday

FOR TODAY...4th of July 2011

Outside My Window...Grey skies, then sunshine, then grey skies...this is Ballarat.

I am thinking...hello is there anybody out there??

I am thankful for...a sleeping baby.

From the kitchen...Homemade Pumpking Soup...pumkpin currently roasting in my now working oven ($300 later). I don't think a day has gone by since the oven was repaired that I haven't used it.

I am wearing...something comfortable.

I am creating...I have been drafting patterns and cutting out fabric...but it's so bloody freezing in my sewing room I wouldn't even dream of venturing out there at the moment.

I am going...to stop wasting so much time on facebook this week...an hour goes by in the blink of an eye...wish I'd never joined back up. Of course I could delete my account.

I am hoping...to get some more photos up in frames and onto the wall. I have a ridiculous amount of frames in my buffet and almost bare walls. Just need to find the time to sort out what I want on the walls.

I am hearing...Miss C pretending to be an elephant...totally annoying, but cute at the same time, how it doesn't wake the baby up I don't know.

Around the house...clothes all washed, folded and put in there appropriate places...kitchen almost clean...new standard lamp in the lounge room...TV on ABC4kids (so what's new)...heater going...

curtains closed against the chill.

One of my favourite things...Listening to Miss 5 talk about something she is excited about...her facial expressions and her tone of voice almost remind me of what it is like to be young and remind me to find wonder in the small things.

A few plans for the rest of the week...No Kinder, make playdough and pikelets and do some paintings with the pixies. Try to wramgle some time for myself. Photograph some stuff to list on eBay. Meet my Mum for a coffee.

A photo to share...a little cliche, and he's a bit old now...but I still had the fluff from his newborn photo shoot and I never got any of the basket photos that I wanted...so here we are...a "baby" in a basket.

Have a good week...if there's anybody out there actually reading :)

Cindy

A letter to my 5 month old

Dear Mr D,
My oh my how quickly the last five months have flown by. How much you have changed and learnt. I would never have imagined that you would be rolling and sitting up on your own at four and a half months. Very clever of you really.
Unfortunately your not so clever when it comes to sleeping. Don't you think it's time you started sleeping more than 45 minutes at a stretch during the day? (Even if you do wake up happy on most occasions). Or perhaps you could think about sleeping longer than 2 hours during the night...I must admit that although you do tend to wake often in the night, you barely ever wake up completely. It's just the kind of awake where I can roll over and give you what you need to drift back off. Which isn't to say that it's not exhausting, because it is.
For all your catnapping, you are a remarkably happy little bubba...I love the way your sisters can set you off into mad giggling like no one else can.
I love that you are happy to sit on the floor and play with your toys for a while now.
I love that you breastfeed to sleep (could cause problems later, but it's lovely to live in the moment).
I love that you are right there next to me every night...so I can hear you breathe and feel you reach out for me. I wasn't so happy when you started screaming every time I swaddles you, so I think graduating to the sleeping bag was a good move. It hasn't made you sleep any worse...nor any better.
I love laying in bed and watching you sleep when I have the opportunity, not that your sisters afford me that opportunity very often.
I love your gorgeous blue eyes, and those divine eyelashes...not so keen on the constant dribble.
I love that you have been cold free for two weeks now...yay!! (knocks on wood so as not to jinx it!!).
I am so glad that you are in our lives, that you make our family complete.
Of course it hasn't all been sunshine and roses...there have been some very dark days for me, but I think at last that the fog is lifting. It's time to focus on raising you to be a good man. To raise your sisters to be good women, to be respectful, to dream big.
I look forward to watching you grow, to being a family...to being the best we can be...looking forward.
Love you more than you can ever imagine,
Mumma.

4 months

At four months he is...

rolling both directions

sleeping terribly

distracted while breastfeeding

sitting up momentarily by himself

bouncing when held in a standing position

recovering from a nasty cold

grabbing everything within reach

mouthing everything

fighting being swaddled

catnapping

"talking"...such cute noises

six and a half kilos

wearing mostly 00 clothes

drooling...this boy can soak a t-sirt through in a matter of minutes

loving attention from his sisters

loving getting out and about

staying awake longer between sleeps

growing way too fast

being a pill

being a delight

asleep on me at 12:30pm following waking up screaming (immunisations??)

Time for bed....zzzzz

Cindy

Photo Book Woes

I am really struggling with my Photo Book for Miss C, so I thought I would make a start on one for the little man. These photos are all fresh and on my computer after all.

I have decided to make his really simple and tell a bit more of a story, while the stories are relatively fresh in my mind.

I will be using these fab album templates from Vol. 25 throughout his book...with a few adjustments obviously.

That's a very abreviated birth story...

What do you think??

Cindy

The Next Installment

Of Photo a Day in May

Really struggling here with poor light and lack of sleep. We had a day from hell on Monday...MCHN and doctor on the same day. He couldn't have his 4 month vaccines because of his rattly chest...and we didn't get a photo:(

Mr D's sleeping has been absolutely atrocious and his sisters hasn't been much better. Miss C that is! She gets up at 4 in the morning and turns on the lights in the lounge room...ready to start the day. We put her back to bed and she gets up repeatedly. Solution?? Have her sleep in our bed. 4 in a Queen bed is a little crowded, especially when Mr Pixies sleeps diagonally (grrrr!).

Anyhow...hoping the days and nights will start to improve. Winter has hit with a vengeance around here and I got drenched picking S up from Kinder on Tuesday. Hoping for more of those glorious Autumn days before real winter sets in...not likely to happen.

Until next time

Cindyxx

Oh My!! Too Soon

My little man rolled from his back to his tummy.

He wasn't happy about it..

He's been out of sorts for the last couple of days...lots of crying, not feeding to sleep, only wanting to feed when he's truly hungry (hello full boobs), only happy when being held constantly....sigh 

I put him on the floor for just a minute to do something and he threw himself over effortlessly..What The! Not once but twice. That's a week earlier than his sister rolled...and I thought she was early.

Stop moving so fast little fella...you need to be my baby for a while yet.

Cindyxx

3 months

Wow!! How quickly 3 months goes by.

I looked at him today and thought "he doesn't look like a tiny baby anymore"

Well, he was never really tiny...but you know what I mean.

He's lost that new look.

His eyes are focused, his cheeks are full, his skin is smooth, his hair is growing.

At 3 months he is

Growing rapidly

Feeding 4 hourly

Sleeping in the family bed

Waking at least twice in the night for a feed

Catnapping

Giggling

Smiling

Drooling

Likes his new mode of transport

Being smothered with love by his sisters

Asleep on me right now

Loving nappy free time

Happy to lay on his play mat...for a little while

Adores his Pa

Grasping things and bringing them to his mouth

Still being swaddled

Rolling from tummy to back

Trying to roll from back to front

Loving to shower with mummy or daddy

It makes me sad that he is growing so quickly...and I really miss this

but it fills me with joy that he is learning and changing and engaging.

Life with 3 is hectic and sometimes chaotic, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Cindy xx