On not keeping up...

Life is marching ahead too swiftly! I suppose it's that 'mother-of-young-children' stage I've heard of for so many years. I remember sitting in conferences and hearing the speaker say "of course this may not happen if you have young children" or "this may look a little different if you're a mother of young children" and I always thought to myself (ignorantly and ungraciously!) 'what a cop-out'. Of course now that I am a mother of young children I have been swiftly set in my place. Here are some examples of my current life circumstances:
- Humming small people tunes. I said "I have Humpty Dumpty in my head" at the dinner table last night to which Emma responded with a laugh, saying "Mummy, I have a spider on my head". I tried to explain but from what I remember it simply ended in me telling her to keep eating dinner without my laughing too much.
- Limited adult interaction. So much so that I find myself chatting to any moving adult in a shopping centre/shopping centre car park/shop/playground...and yes, even the postie - we have a female postie with a Russian accent. I saw my neighbour the other day, she was merely out to check her mailbox and we found ourselves talking for a good while, with both of us repeating "I'm sure that my boy is finished with his nap and wants to get out of his cot now" followed by further talk on educational standards in our local kindergartens.
- Not sleeping through the night even though my children are no longer babies. William coughs, wakes, cries or loses his dummy/paci, wakes, cries, or bangs his head, wakes, cries and while settling him I hear Emma stirring and waking from a bad dream - in the last bad dream she cut her thumb...?
- Lack of sleep resulting in tiredness.
- Tiredness resulting in the 'tired-mum' look. Caught an unflattering glimpse of myself today when I pulled out my phone camera and it was pointing to me instead of the kids - quite the fright I did receive!
The culmination of it all is that I don't really blog that much . . . (and have what feels like frustratingly limited brain capacity). But I suppose that's a good thing (the not blogging, not the small brain thing) - if I did my children may not have as many cuddles in their lives.

Picture time!

William is now in a big boy bed.

He has fallen out once but I happened to be walking in to check on him and caught him.

He did however wake up with a bruise across his eyelid yesterday morning. It explained what went 'bump' in the night.

 Our big girl is learning to READ! She loves it, I love it and it makes for some sweet Emma/Mummy time each day. Her word list currently includes: man, can, pan, ran, bee, see, the, Sam, bat, cat, hat, mat and possibly more but I'm getting tired.

 This was taken on Father's Day in September we took an afternoon walk after church.

 Swimming lessons. She has had 4 lessons and her hair has been fully wet ONCE.... but she is becoming braver and putting her face in more which is promising. 

 We have a fun walk through the "jungle" on the way home and see all sorts of imaginary animals. It's really a lot of fun.

(Will still smiles with his eyes closed)

 Speaking of Will - he got a tat! well, let's just say daddy pulled out the permanent marker at dinner one night...and then had the privilege of bathing our children all by himself. ha.

Making masks one afternoon. They didn't last long, most of our crafts don't unless I hide them and really there's no point in that because they're often made so poorly that they'll fall apart on their own anyway, so I take  pictures. I think subliminally I take the photos to make myself feel like I'm a good mum because the paper crafts, as helpfully time consuming as they are, make a big mess to clean up and inevitably end in one child crying at a destroyed work of art. But at the end of the hour I know somewhere in there we had FUN. At the same time. I have a good life.

New(er) Haircut

It's definitely weird to sit in front of a computer and take a photo of yourself and be pleased with the end result. I'm sure there may be a few people in the world who can do it, but I don't think I'm one of them. This is my latest 'do'. It's shorter than I think I've ever gone. So far one compliment has surpassed them all "You look younger". Janice (who said it) is my new bestest friend ever!

"At the Car Wash" and "The Girl Who Couldn't Smile"

The head car wash helper

I title this photo:

In desperate need of a professional haircut

 Thumbs up as daddy backs the truck around

 William discovered splashing is the ultimate joy for a 20-month-old.

Here he proudly slapped Lyle in the chest with the wet rag. I love Lyle's surprised face.

Flying Car Shampoo

"The Girl Who Couldn't Smile"

I know very few (read: one) photography tricks. I asked, nay, BEGGED Emma to smile...

"Emma can you smile for mummy sweetie?"

.......please?

.....PLEASE?

 Eventually this is all I got.

Although defeated, I vow to try again another day!

Great Haircut, Bad Idea

I had a hair appointment today and leading up to it I decided I wanted a change. I even did some research! I didn’t start with google though, I pinterest....ed? it first (or is that “googled on pinterest”?). In my 'medium hair styles' search I saw some beautiful swipey side fringes (bangs) and perfectly styled locks and each picture appealed more as my search progressed. I felt smug as, striving to be wise, gave myself a reality check knowing that these were picture perfect styles, posted on the internet very purposefully, hence, my hair may would not look this way first thing in the morning, second thing in the morning or even at 4pm in the afternoon with an entire can of hair spray. Nevertheless I took some sample pictures along to the hairdressers.

(side note: One was Charlize Theron - I knew her face but had to ask Lyle who it was....and was consequently reminded that I have two small children and am a stay at home mum!)

I don’t know what I was thinking. This stay at home mum wanting a hair change had a great idea that took a wrong turn. As I mentioned, the swipey side fringe was very appealing....but for a mum?! This is my day: I look down at little people . . .a lot. And when I’m not looking down at them I’m looking down at the ironing board, the sink, the vacuum, the broom, dustpan and brush, food, dirty floors, unmade beds . . .I think you get the drift. In fact literally the only thing I look up at is my husband (and occasionally a plane or helicopter my little ones see). A stylish sweeping side fringe and looking down all day a perfect match doth maketh not!!

It’s been 6 hours and it’s bugging me. Of course I’m going to ‘deal with it’ - as I said to Lyle before the cut, worst case scenario is that I don’t like it and it grows out. Two other alternatives is to pin it back and look like I’m trying to be a cutesy 16-year-old or shave it (I shall do neither). I may invest in a hair product company.

It does however, look Great! (Yes that is Great with a capital G)

A Smattering of June

I realised today that the reason I haven't blogged much lately is because I use my phone to take photos - so they don't end up on my computer as frequently and hence, they aren't here on the blog!

Here's a smattering of our June...

 Such a boy, loving dirt . . .I caught him with a stick in his mouth just before taking this photo. Gross!!!

 I have acquired a sewing machine and this was my first effort (the skirt)

(the pose was her own creation)

 and my second attempt! I quite like my new table cloth, however I take it off when we eat to avoid the children's messes!

 Waiting for art class to begin

 We often go to a local zoo (yay for the season pass!) for a morning.

Here Will is looking at the sheep dog herding.

 And of course, kangaroo feeding.

I'd love to know what a 1.5 year old would be thinking in a moment like this . . .

 Daddy horsing around - unfortunately for him, this has become a 'must do' after bath time now, they LOVE being wrapped up and carried. I must confess I can see why though, doesn't this just look like fun?! I mean, when was the last time you were suspended in mid air in a bath towel?

 Emma: (clockwise) taking a photo of a bush turkey; in the back of daddy's truck; wearing daddy's jumper; posing with her new skirt.

We went to an art gallery that offered some special children's activities during school holidays - including cupcake decorating, yum.

 AND face painting. She was so precious, I couldn't believe how still she sat while her face was done.

 I'm not sure what we did on this morning, but whatever it was, it was exhausting! He fell asleep a good hour before his usual nap time.

A visit to the ER...before the age of 2 he now has a chipped tooth (that happened last year) and a scar on the back of his little hand (which thankfully will shrink as he grows). Here's hoping he makes it to 2 without any broken bones . . .

 Friends

As you can see, life has been chugging along. It's amazing how my days sometimes feel intolerably slow and yet the weeks and months go by so quickly. Too quickly as it happens. We've taken to telling Emma to stop growing, a request with which she refuses to comply! If I could have a day off each week I think I would choose to have the children stay at their current ages. This, being impossible however, I'm content to remind myself to enjoy the laughter of an Emma 'schnickle' (tickle) and Will's whiney "UP!" at the most inconvenient moments of those intolerably long days. He certainly won't be asking for that when he's taller than me (or too cool for me, whichever comes first I suppose) so I'm trying to enjoy it now while he's still my baby.

A Funny

I find this hilarious

(I haven't stopped blogging, I just haven't been blogging....)

18 month old William photos

We did a little 'photo shoot' of Emma when she was 18 months old and it was lovely fun. Our sweet 18 month old chatty, playful, giggly, cute girl. Who, incidentally, sat still for more than .0783 seconds. William . . .on the other hand . . .is a boy. And he is ALL boy. Definitely playful and cute, but I think 'chatty' could be replaced with 'grunty' and 'giggly' with 'screamy'.

We couldn't not do an 18 month old photo shoot after all we're not into favouritism but he certainly gave us a run for our money. Here they are:-

This is the most typical shot of the day, and is probably my favourite one.

 Getting some energy out

With handsome daddy

and caring big sister...

...who made sure we remembered she was there to have her photo taken as well.

my little charmer

loving his bikkie

~Our 18 month old gift from God~

Those EYES!

I am undoubtedly biased, but I think she is just beautiful.

The big 3-0 for the big guy.

May is a fun month in our household as both Lyle and I have birthdays.

This year was significant as it was Lyle's 30th (he's finally catching up to me, ha!)

I took him away to the sunshine coast, (1.5 hrs north of Brisbane) for a few nights without the children (HUGE shout out to my folks, thank you, thank you, thank you!)

We had a delightful time away, eating out, sleeping in (sleeping all the way through the night too, what a treat!) walking on the beach, looking at cows on the hill without having to say "kids look at the cows! wow...mooooo, can you say mooooo?", and best of all just reconnecting with each other. OH, and having starbucks.

One unfortunate occurrence was completely forgetting the camera! But here's some snaps I was able to get on my phone.

These flowers were scattered along some the hill sides as we drove through Montville and Maleny. They are weeds (of course) but nonetheless delighted us no end. It was a stunning surprise turning a corner on a  windy road to see a wall of yellow.

One of the lookouts we enjoyed

(that we would ordinarily ignore on account of having the children in the car)

When we were in New York, Lyle received a starbucks with "Sly" as his name, we figured being in a foreign country that can happen, but now I'm . . .Elise?

The B&B we stayed in was beautiful. It's only been open for 18 months as a B&B and from the guest book, they seem to be doing well. I loved it so much (the fireplace probably sealed the deal) that I want a sitting room in my house just like the one at the B&B!

These are some goodies from the tea tray (that was always refilled despite our best attempts to clean it all out)

 One corner of the lounge. It was so cosy!

The Beach! (taken from the "Loo with a view" at Mooloolaba)

Lyle, thank you for spending a few days with me for your 30th birthday. *smile*

I love you. xo

Mummy the hairdresser

From thisto this

And this

to this

So, I'm sure there's a part of every girl that always wanted to be a hairdresser. I just didn't expect my children to be the unsuspecting targets of my inner calling. I must say though, Emma's hair actually looks great! I think it's years of my observing my hairdresser cutting my hair that did the trick as Emma's hair is exactly like mine. I think (if this is even possible) that it's doubled her cuteness factor.

Williams hair is questionable, but he's much more wiggly than Emma and the only this distracting him at the time was a toothbrush. But a the very least he can see whilst walking. Rather a necessity for a 17 month old boy.