52 portraits

After several years of attempting and failing to complete 365 photo a day projects this year I'm cutting myself some slack and attempting the 52 week project instead! I want to capture a special moment for each of my children, including our brand new baby German Shepherd boy Xen, once a week. This may be something that they are doing or simple a look, a glint in the eye, an amazing, infectious smile. Whatever it is it will be a moment that I want to capture and hold on to forever. At the end of the year I plan to publish them in to a book! 

Week One Alex

This is a little tricky this first week of January 2013 because Alex is having a week with his Nanny so I haven't actually seen him this year yet! So instead I have taken a photo of something that is special to him. At the end of November Alex planted some sunflower seeds in our garden and has been excitedly watering them and watching them grow for many weeks. He was so proud when the first one flowered just before Christmas. Now they are all in full bloom and in rather unfortunate timing he has not been here to see them so I've had to take a few photos for him. Here's one of my favorite shots for my special boy.  

Week One Ellie

We've had a lot of special Mummy/daughter time this week with big brother away so there have been many special, funny moments. Pretend play shopping, dancing in the rain, coffee and cake dates and watching new Peppa Pig DVD's amongst others.

This coy little smile behind her hand really hit me though. Those magic blue eyes, that wildly beautiful hair, her sweet little hand. Tiny details I don't ever want time to take away from me. 

Week One Xen

Just a little sneak peek of our boy this week. At just 14wks old he is already 14.6kgs and growing far far too fast, although I am looking forward to those puppy teeth giving way to far less sharp adult teeth! His paws are already so big!

Happy memories

I love how a photograph captures a moment in time. 

A pure moment.

A messy moment. 

On this afternoon last week we were all in very much less than perfect moods.

Some were tired. Some were teething. Some just needed a bit of time out (and some chocolate perhaps).

 We tried painting and in between getting these lovely photos there were tears, stomping and frustration.

We did however have fun getting messy and there were giggles and warm, happy moments that filled my heart with nothing but love. 

I caught those and will look back on them in the years to come and remember a lovely, sunny winters afternoon of messy play.

And the way she still curls her toes up like this.

And how, when looking around for something to put the paints into I saw this old mini muffin tin and it was perfect for the boy to mix his colours in and paint his special sticks and leaves :) 

Sometimes things just work out.

Muesli bites

Anikawa Flapjacks - or muesli bites as I call them

125g butter/or nuttlex

75ml golden syrup

1tsp bicarb soda

1 tbsp water

75g porridge oats

75g sultanas or raisins

150g plain flour (I use wholemeal)

75g sunflower seeds

50g desiccated coconut

100g demerara sugar

150g apricots (I don't put these in as the kids don't like them)

I also add 2 tablespoons of flaxseed.

Melt the butter and syrup together in a saucepan. Dissolve the bicarb in the water and then add to the butter mixture. Stir until the mixture foams then set aside.

In a large bowl combine the remaining ingredients. Pour the butter mixture in and stir well until combined.  Tip into a lamington tin (27 x 18) and press down firmly. Bake for about 30mins. Allow to cool in the tin before cutting into bars.

Or put them into mini muffin -or big muffin - tins to make little bite size muesli delights!

This recipe is adapted from one in Pippa Cuthberts book "Cookies, Slices and Squares"

 

Lemon and Yoghurt Cake

I love this cookbook - possibly the cheapest book I have ever purchased and almost everything that I have made from it has turned out so yummy! 

Last week Miss Almost 2 and I had a mummy-daughter day and made a lovely lemon-yoghurt cake.

I gave her her own mixing bowl with some flour and little bits of what I was making the real cake with. I found this easier that trying to ensure that she put the right amounts of everything in the real cake - she could make a mess and mix and add whatever she wanted then and there were no tears!

We used this yummy vanilla bean yoghurt and I really think it made the cake far more delicious using a good quality yoghurt. We also used lemons from our very own lemon tree - they were very strong and lemony and this made the lemon flavour very intense - YUM!

Miss E looked ever so cute trying very hard to squeeze in the lemon juice!

Licking the bowl and taste-testing things was defintely enjoyable!

 She even enjoyed helping to wash all the dishes afterwards

This cake turned out so moist and delicious, it didn't need icing and I may or may not have eaten half of it on the day we made it! Fresh is best!!

Very easy to make!

Grate the lemon rind finely. Mix sugar, rind eggs, oil and salt together with a whisk or food processor. Blend in the yoghurt and lemon juice. 

Add the flour and process just enough to combine with the rest of the mixture. 

Pour into a greased bar tin or a 23cm ring tin.

Bake for around 30 minutes.

Eat!!!!

Family Road Trip

 So last month we set off on our first family road trip. We drove from Canberra to Brisbane to visit Nanny and then back again. We decided to drive during the day and do an overnight stop to break up the 15hour drive. Each day we spent 7-8hours in the car and it was my job to keep a 22month old and a 4 year old happy whilst hubby did the driving. I packed the car with lots of new things that the kids hadn't played with before, lots of yummy but non-sugary food and the essential brand new portable DVD player!!!

The DVD player got a great workout and the favourite of the trip was the Playschool Nursery Rhymes DVD - we all learnt some new songs and the kids enjoyed interacting with the characters/presenters. It gave me a bit of timeout! 

Other things I packed in the car were:

- Lots of pencils, crayons, colouring books, plain paper and activity books.

- STICKERS (which ended up everywhere but were fun)

- some great USBOURNE activity cards that were reusuable using a dry erase marker

- magnetic activity sets, I got the tiger tribe ones - a transport one for the boy and a doll dress up one for the girl. 

- a cheap cookie tray for the magnets worked great and also came in handy for other things like containing slime!

The tray also came in handy for drawing on as it kept the pencils contained and stopped them rollling on the floor!

 

Wikki Stix from www.craft4kids.com.au! Great for creating and not messy! They peel off anything!

 

Most importantly though, schedule in some decent stops every couple of hours and let them run!!!

Potatoes!

I have found potatoes to be one of the easiest and most successful crops in my garden in Canberra. Plant, leave, wait till tops die off and dig up a lovely crop of fresh spuds! This year I went through a purple phase in the vegie garden. We planted purple capsicums (fail), purple beans (successful, till the dog ate them all), purple carrots (quite good) and purple potatoes (very successful and yummy).

The most enjoyable part of the vegie patch for me is getting the kids to help me harvest and see/hear their utter joy. It's a bit like a treasure hunt when harvesting potatoes because you never know how many you are going to find! We had fun. Master four could be heard squealing "look Mummy a potato" "ooohh another one" "look how big this one is Mummy". Miss One enjoyed digging in the dirt and then washing them off in a bucket of water!

Lego

I'm pretty sure that at age four (or almost four in this case), something clicks inside a little boys brain and he instantly becomes obsessed with lego!

Alex showed a little bit of interest in building this set at Christmas time,



and in the last 4 weeks he has been wanting new lego to build everyday! His trains still get a bit of a workout but lego is winning at the moment.




We've pulled out this set which I bought for my hubby for Christmas when Alex was just 9 months old.

His ultimate desire of course is the lego train set, the one available at the moment is red too, his favourite colour! Could it be any more perfect for a train loving, lego obsessed little boy who often tells me that we need to buy a red car and that we should paint the house red!
This may be something we have to put on layby for next Christmas!

Until then, little sets like the dump truck he got as an early birthday present from Nanny will have to suffice!

Of course, the box makes for a great fun for our little sister too.