7/52 - jenga joy

Lily

After an afternoon session on the Slip'N'Slide, the water run-off turned the event into a full body mud bath.

Cue shrieking kids happily squelching, digging and gleefully rolling around like little piggies ;)

PS Then you should have heard the shrieking later when Daddy hosed them down, haha!

Eli

The kids got Jenga for Christmas - a very popular gift from Auntie Annie.

It's the new favourite family past time, and we play a round before bed most nights... and any guest who comes over has to play a round too! It's such a great game!! Fun for all ages, and always full of excitement.

The boys decided it was a clever idea to pull out the very bottom pieces... and just look at the lean on this thing!!!

Although the kids carefulness in extraction often amazes me when we play, you can guess what happened shortly after this piece came out, can't you?? However, the kids kinda think whoever knocks it down is the winner, such is their joy when it all come crashing :)

Miles

This week I took another milestone pic of Miles with a 'One' sign (rather than 12 months) just so the future annual pics will all look similar with the years listed. 

I quickly sat him on the couch, gave him the board and he immediately did this! Rested his little toothypegs on it and looked so crazy adorable I just had to share this now rather than wait a year :) 

Makes me laugh everytime. Oh, Miles!!!

Mark

It's his nightly ritual and bonding time with his youngest boy.

Each evening, while I'm cleaning the kitchen or reading to the other two kids, he goes and gets Miles ready for bed. He always takes his phone and cranks up some music, and they laugh and bop around together while Mark lathers cream, changes clothes and (of course) makes silly faces together with him.

Tonight I snuck in to take a little memory-shot of this special father/son time.

Precious :)

Project 52: A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013.

More highlights from the week that was....

Lily's turn

Should I get this one??

Easssssy does it....

Crash!! (then laughter!)

Slippy, sloppy mud!

They have recently taken to awarding each other stickers for 'making good choices'. This amuses me no end as I don't think I have ever really done 'sticker reward' type things (maybe Lily got it from school?).  I eavesdrop with a smile as I hear them choose stickers for each other and give encouraging reasons like 'You unstacked the dishwasher so cheerfully' and 'You did a good job listening to Mummy'. Ah, kids.

This reminds me of a little moment I want to record so I don't forget it. Lily was unstacking her part of the dishwasher (she does the top rack and the cutlery) but then when Eli came to do the bottom section, she happily revealed that she had done the whole thing 'as a kindness to Eli'. I thought that was so lovely and praised her sweet gesture. Eli said oh, thank you nicely though didn't seem particularly overcome with gratitude ;) It was all forgotten about until later that day, it was time for them to tidy their room before dinner, when Eli piped up that he was going to do the whole room himself as a kindness back to Lily. *melt* Just want to file away that sweet moment of reciprocal sibling kindness... good work, kids :) Ahh, moments like that are a parents small reward for the umpteen hours put in when things don't go quite as smoothly!!

Lily has already become enveloped in school life, and I eagerly listen to any tidbits I can
extract about what exactly happens in those six hours. This whole other life she has now!
After school last week, she asked 'Do you want to see our fairy garden?'. She and a clan
of buddies have spent every lunchtime working on this project, as she's told me in snippets
each day. How sweet it was to discover amongst the tan bark, under the trees, little
gathering places of 'boats, bridges, creeks and camp fires' assembled by eager and
imaginative little hands. A fine place for fairies to gather out of school hours, I have no
doubt. I hope one day Lily reads this and enjoys seeing the handiwork of her first
week of school. Could not have been better spent, in my humble opinion.

Another daily occurrence I wanted to memorialise.
Most mornings when it's time for Mark to leave for work, the kids race to the
carport to wave goodbye to Daddy as he leaves (from a safe distance!).
Mark tells me 'it's one of those moments that stays with you forever',
watching them jumping up and down, waving and calling
goodbye so happily. A pretty sweet way to start your workday, huh?

Is it possible to eat too many Kale chips?? We might be in danger of that. Our clan CANNOT GET ENOUGH of these.
As soon as they come out of the oven, they are devoured by all of us. So yummy. So moreish. And as an added bonus
you get to feel smug while you eat them as they are just so healthy too. Mmmm. Must make more. I've been using this general recipe guide (I think the lemon juice is key!)
(Seriously, we can eat an entire huge bunch of Kale in one day. They just disappear! Kids keep asking me to make more).

My Valentine really surprised me this year! We had V-day plans for Saturday night that ended
up not working out. But before we knew that was going to happen, on the 14th Mark sprung a
beautiful candlelit dinner on me (he cooked ribs!), stunning roses and a gorgeous vase he
picked and even a new top!! We are not normally ones to do the roses thing for V-day, so
I was very touched and surprised by the whole thing he managed to sneakily plan! Love :)

'I hope this says something nice??' 
(And hmm, maybe I should have taken the time to write the text a little bit nicer...oops)

'What about a crazy one, Mum??'

'Hmm, maybe I should give the chalk a lick.'