Helping hands

My little helper that follows me around all day. Lending a hand whether its safe or unsafe, required or not. I've learned to make it safe and require help always...

{30 Days of Gratitude}

Birthday

Birthday well wishes from all directions letting me know that I'm loved

{30 Days of Gratitude}

Pausing for Gratitude

I have been a subscriber to Notebook magazine for a few years now. Unfortunately I won't be renewing the subscription because it seems to have taken off in a direction I'm not loving. But that's not the reason for mentioning it...

In the April 2009 edition they featured an article called 365 Reasons to be Grateful. After reading the article and viewing Hailey Bartholomew's life in pictures and all the little things she found gratitude for during that year, I got to thinking that it would be an exercise worth doing.

So I have committed to recording just 30 days of gratitude. It's a start, and part of me feels a long shot...given my tendency to leave this space unattended for long periods of time. But a commitment I have made, so I will enjoy this journey into myself to focus on the things that I am grateful for. Big and small.

I hope you enjoy the journey with me.

The website dedicated to Hailey's 365 journey in gratitude can be found here.

(Image taken from Hailey Bartholomew's blog)

Some Amy love...

I love rugs. I only have 2 in my house (not including the circle rugs scattered in the nursery), but if I had more space...or floorboards...there would be more.

I also love beautiful things. In my humble opinion, Amy Butler makes beautiful things. She has now come out with a range of rugs (which I found out about via this talented maker of beautiful things). My two loves brought together Amy Butler style.

I covet these rugs. Big time. Perhaps I could convince the Big Fella to invest in floorboards throughout the house and then invest in a couple of new rugs. Sounds perfectly economical to me.

I can hear him now..."ah, let me think about it - no".

(Images taken from Amy Butler's website)

Summer Daze

I spent the day with my sister on Saturday. She spoiled me all afternoon as an early birthday present. We went to see Marcus Graham (a mutual lurve) in the play Pericles. He was great. The play was wonderful. His abs were awesome.

Anyhoo. While we were chatting over coffee with ricotta doughnuts & chocolate sauce (de-licious!) afterwards, Alisa remembered that she had some photos of my little girl in her bag. She'd been meaning to give them to me for ages.

This photo is of S enjoying a warm summer day at Anglesea beach. To me it reminds me of my childhood summers spending hours in the sun and sand. Playing in and out of the water, and only remembering to eat or rehydrate when my parents would call me in.

I love this photo. I love that it has captured my little girls summer of 2009 when she was 2 and did all the fun things that her parents did too at that age. I love the clouds, the chubby toddler cheeks and the wind blown hair. I love her. I love it.

I think this was the best birthday gift of the day. Never thought Mr Graham could be upstaged so easily...

Tutu love

Having a girly girl for a daughter is heaps of fun. Most days. Except when the weather or activity calls for tracksuit pants and warm jumpers. Then we need to negotiate the prettiness factor.

So I'd been looking around at kids dress ups. Something she can throw on over her jeans or long pants and still feel pretty at a moment's notice. With the added bonus being that there is no inconvenience to me. Pricey sums the majority of my dress up research. So it was off to get some fabric and some research on the internet (and discussions with one of the talented members of my knitting group - thanks Nicola!) and we are now a two tutu household.

I was delighted. S was somewhat nonplussed. She's worn one of them twice but won't even try the other one on. Hmmm. Take a deep breath.

I had visions of a little photo shoot with my happy toddler dancing around the room in each tutu. Apparently that is reserved for her fairy dress or her princess dress. Not a tutu.

So in order to show you my creations I had to get pictures of the tutus using her largest toy - whose sad puppy dog eyes don't look too wrapped to be roped into it either...Oh well. Into the dress up box they go for kids to use when they visit.

Fresh air, wide open spaces

We drove up to Hepburn today with family friends. The object of the day was to take a chainsaw to a felled tree and bring the firewood home. That was for the adults. The kids had a whole other plan.

Fresh air. Wide open spaces. Muddy ground. They were in heaven.

With all the fresh air and running around the kids were zonked by the end of the day. As a parent its beautiful to witness. Even better for a quiet drive home.

Stepping out of my comfort zone

Our weekly knitting group is going great guns (how old am I again? Knitting group at 32?).

One of our group members, Jo, is a long time friend and a creative inspiration to me. She has the courage to tackle things she doesn't necessarily know how to do in order to learn more. So she was the first to whip out the Double Pointed Needles (DPNs) which looked scary to me. She has taken on projects that require yarn to be put all over the place, back and forth and every which way...or so it seems.

So with Jo having tested the waters, I took the plunge and copied a pattern she had made earlier. A beanie. A cute one at that. And it worked! DPNs and all...

What I'm NOT lovin'

I know it's the blogging norm to quip about the joys of motherhood, the comfort of rhythms, favourite family recipes and precious family moments...I know. But in this space of my own I just have to admit that whilst I love my job, some days are shit and I need to be able to vent about it. At the moment my pooh days are literal - it appears we have a smearer in our midst.

My S is a toddler with great zest for life. She loves all things sparkly and pretty, loves dresses, loves her baby "Daisy". She's right up there in the girly stakes. So it was with some surprise that I discovered her penchant for playing with pooh. It's just not lady like.

After cleaning up her cot on several occasions in the past, I'd thought we were perhaps over this stage. That was until this day. Anthony and I had moved her out of the nursery and into her own room and a big bed. Granted the room was empty but for her new bed and bedding. She is also a climber, and after pulling a chest of drawers on top of her we weren't taking any chances.

So when it came to nap time we unveiled her new room, new bed and bedding. And we left her to explore it and then have a sleep. What I discovered 30 mins later is pictured below. Talk about marking your territory...

Within 3 hours we had cleaned the carpet, the walls, washed the bedding and put everything back together. The next day the walls got "painted" again.

I'm all for artistic expression, but I'm feeling that this is taking it too far...

What I'm lovin'

Winter has certainly settled in at home and it's cold!

We have a delicious open fireplace that we tend to use about 5 times a year due to the smelly, messy nature of it. And the fact that I didn't really know much about lighting and keeping a fire burning. So we only lit it when my Big Fella was kind enough to tend to it...as I said, about 5 times a year.

Anyhoo. This year I'm really feeling the cold. The family room that hosts our fireplace is hard to keep warm due to lots of windows, so I've taken to learning how to keep a fire going. And it's been going. Every day. I'm lovin' it big time. So warm. Hypnotising. Beautiful. Lovin' it.