Looking back over the school holidays

Well we are about to enter the week when all things fall back into place...well hopefully that is. Kyra starts back at school in year 1 (it seriously feels like yesterday that she started kindy and a whole year has past) Tahlia starts Kindergarten (yay for having 2 kids at the one drop off this year) and Finn starts day care (kindy) 1 day a week on a Friday so yes it's a BIG week for me. I could be one crazy, happy/sad emotional woman this week but I'm going to love it because I know they will all love it. We have everything ready and in place at this end of the week, ask me again on Thurs/Fri and I can't be to sure how organised I really am :)

In the spirit of things going back to normal (ha ha I have to lol when I type that because what is normal anyway???) I thought I post some favourite photos from this crazy time that we called school holidays. Note, not much time for scrapping...hopefully that will change in the next week :)

WARNING...lots of photos to follow.

Waiting in line to ride Santas railway in Myer/city, Halle Kyra and Tahli in front and lisa and it in background.

Hanging newly made photo baubles on the christmas tree

I know this photo is blurry but i love it. Yummy food at our 2nd annual christmas traditions dinner with grandparents.

News Years Eve with my buddies Michele and Lisa in Currarong.

Kayaking in Currarong (Thank you so much again Lisa for inviting us we had a ball). Thats me in the blue kayak with Finn and Kyra in the pink kayak next to me out the front of where we stayed.

A moment in time...

Next Holiday...Salamander Bay.

The girls, loving spending everyday together,

We had soooo much fun when we hired bikes

How cool is this little trailer, all the kids had a turn.

Back in Cronulla...Gunnamatta with my boy he is so divine at the moment, I could just eat him up!

Check out these great photos from Di's photography blog, scroll down the post untill you see 4 gorgeous kidlets, they are such good buddies and are still willing to put up with Di and I clinking a million shots each time we hang out :)

Saturday night was a well deserved night out with no children with our great friends Lisa and Ash to the city for dinner at The Malaya and rocking on at Bungalow 8 (too bad it wasn't the night Prince William was there I would have said hi for sure). I felt young again going out in the city and having a crazy fun time. I'm so going to do that more!

With my yummy Hubby With Lisa A delicious meal..(go the self portrait, I'm getting good at not getting my arm in the shots). And last but not least tonight i went to check on Kyra first (it was 9.30pm) and she was no where to be found...then I heard giggles and Kyra had made a bed for herself in Tahlis room(more photo on her room later). How could I be cross? It was school holidays afterall. So I turned on the light, fixed her bed up properly and jumped in to pat Tahli to sleep and of course grab a photo...trying to take every opportunity possible to capture moments. My little crazy cats, I love them so much! They would play all night if they could possibly stay awake...actually I think kyra could, she needs zero sleep!!??! For all their fights, they really are best friends.

Special Moments

Like I said in my last post I'm catching up on blog posts that i missed whilst I was away and tonight I have been visiting Shannon's blog. We are both on the same wave length after reading some emotional posts from some inspiring women. Like myself Shannon wants to be in more photos with her kids and she has totally summed it up when she says in this post
"MAKE the effort to get into photos with your kids, they don't care if your hair isn't perfect or there a few more wrinkles than you would like, they just want to see you. You sharing time with them recording life moments, moments they will treasure because we never know what tomorrow will bring."

So I'm going to make the biggest effort to capture everyday moments with me and my kids in it. Here is what I caught tonight...

and this...

and this...

Every night I take time to pat my kids when they are going to sleep, tuck them in, draw on their backs, make them feel safe and wish them good dreams when they are falling alseep. I clearly remember my mum and my nana doing this for me as a child and I so wish I had a photo of it. For me this is a special time of night where no matter how busy I am I make time to do this and I hope my children remember this and do the same for their own kids. I held my camera above my head and hoped for the best. I think my aim was ok.

Lovin the SIMPLE things :)

Here I am again...in 2010

Well Hi there everyone!
It has been just forever since I posted properly and I’m not really sure if I even have any readers out there now that I have been gone so long but anyway here I am again. I feel like I have been in a whirlwind of holidays and end of year things. Since October Nick (DH) and I have with the kids been on 5 holidays and in amongst that Nick has been to Singapore for a week and Italy for 3 weeks in Dec. Add in Christmas and end of year events for School, Preschool, Playgroup, Church, Friends and Family events and I just haven’t stopped to take a breath. It has all been great but I’m ready to put the breaks on. I feel like I say that so often, that I need to stop running through life, but 2010 is the year for "Go Slow" for me. Stop and smell the rose’s type stuff. Enjoy the simple things, Celebrate each day, Hang with my kids and more than ever put them first in everything. When Nick was away for 3 weeks I really wanted things to still feel normal for them because 3 weeks for children can feel like a year. I just stopped all my busyness and hung with them. It was really refreshing to play games all day if we wanted, do craft, read story after story, eat dinner with them at the kids table and so on. I made no plans that didn’t have them as the focus. It was a great reality check of time that I might have missed out on especially in the busyness of Christmas.

One thing I have definitely missed is blogging and reading all my favourite blogs. When I start reading blogs they all inspire me so much and I can sit at the computer for an intended 10 minutes and look up at the clock 3 hours or more later and realise I’ve blog hopped all over the place. This is exactly what happened last night. I started at Di’s blog and got to her 2nd most recent post and became so drawn in. This post “Look after your precious kids…” just made my heart break and made me realise the importance of passing on simple messages to help keep our kids safe, so take the time to read that post. My heart breaks over and over again for you Di when I think of your loss of precious Mark but you inspired me over and over again with your strength and ability to capture all those precious memories and write down feelings and thoughts past and present so that they are never forgotton. Thank you for inspiring me in that way. Then reading on to this blog by Sheye Rosemeyer about her precious Ava and her tragedy of getting stuck in the car and overwhelmed by heat. Here is Ava's postcard. From there I hopped around a bit and landed here to another heart breaking blog with another loss of a child, but also another woman that is being inspiring as she shares her journey and her photography. Reading her thoughts and emotions in her blog my heart was heavy. It made me want to go and hug my kids…which I did, even though it was the middle of the night. I sat on the edge of tahli’s bed and lifted her up and hugged her tight! I leaned over onto Kyra’s top bunk and patted her head and hugged her as tight as I could. I let the side of Finn’s cot down and leaned all the way in and hugged and smelt his yummy shampooed hair. I watched each of them as they slept and prayed they would be safe. I went to sleep last night feeling emotional but inspired to take photos and capture memories. Not just posed photos but the everyday things that are the most important things. I’m going to try to get myself in more photos with my kids and where I had slackened off on photos the last few weeks I’m about to step it up a notch and accelerate back into photo taking to capture all those priceless things.


So here is a recent picture of my kidlets from our holiday in Salamander Bay last week...


And just because this was a cool boat to use for photos here is one of the whole family...