One of my favourite parts of newborn sessions is to capture the little details that are easily forgotten.

Like the sleepy grasp of a baby looking into your eyes, desperate to convince you, and themselves, that it isn’t really nap time yet

or the cuteness of a round tummy full of milk, punctuaed by the most perfect little belly button I’ve seen!

(this little miss was determined to show me that belly button, we’d just get her singlet smoothed down, and she’d lift it up again! )

We headed to the beach (Red Rock on the NSW North Coast – lovely spot) on the weekend, and I quite liked this random photo of a washed up log. I decided to have a bit of a play with textures as well – not my usual, but sometimes one has to step out of one’s comfort zone!

A couple of new “grateful” photos for you!

I am grateful for… a tiny toddler who is a big help! After going shopping this morning, I asked O to take his shoes to his bedroom – this is how I found them:

(The black & white shoes are the ones he was asked to put away). I was very impressed by his effort, very neat & tidy!

I am grateful for… the generosity of strangers. Last week at one of my many mummy-type gatherings, I casually mentioned that O liked to try & help me hang the washing, and I was thinking of getting him a toy clothes line. Two days later, we had a lovely little surprise at our front door…

The parents of one of the other mums had this old toy clothes line stored under their house, and very kindly gave it to us! How lovely is that?! O thinks it is the best thing since sliced bread, he loves putting pegs on & off while mummy hangs the washing beside him. Keeps him out of all kinds of mischief!

What have you been grateful for this week?

A couple of things to be grateful for today…

Why am I grateful for empty bottles? This is O’s reminder to me to look & think before I speak. Whilst packing the dishwasher yesterday, I could hear him playing with the recycling behind me. I told him to stop playing with the empty bottles, and put them away. I turned around, and he’d set them up like this – I haven’t touched a thing. Next time I will make sure he isn’t perfecting his spatial skills before I tell him to stop!

I am also grateful for beautiful autumn days, and fun with small boys. The last couple of days have been just delightful, perfect weather for walking & trip to the park to feed the ducks. No photos of the ducks, as I was by myself, and a desire to keep my son out of the water takes precedence over a photo opportunity. Autumn also brings lots of falling leaves, so O had a delightful walk home, dragging his feet through piles of brown leaves that made lots of “noishe, mummy!”. I am very grateful for all these beautiful little moments with my tiny son.

What have you been grateful for this week?

I am grateful for…

Rainforests!

I am grateful that we have a large tract of beautiful rainforest so close to our home.

I am grateful that someone had the foresight to protect what was left of the Coachwood & Cedar trees before the loggers took them all.

I am grateful that my husband has taught me how wonderful it can be to go for a long walk and just listen. I always thought it looked pretty before, as I drove past, but M has shown me the true beauty of the rainforest is best appreciated from within.

I am grateful that O will be able to grow up knowing these areas, and that they are preserved for him to enjoy.

I have cheated today – this is a photo from a couple of months ago, but O was asleep as we drove through the rainforest on the weekend, and a sleeping baby takes precedence over a photo!

Tuesdays are my Bible Study days, so i thought that would be a great theme for today’s post.

I am grateful to live in a country that allows freedom of religion, so I need not fear persecution for my faith.

I am grateful to have found a wonderful group of ladies to study with on a regular basis. We are a really close group, and it is truly a blessing to call these ladies my friends.

I am grateful that older ladies from our church very generously give up their Tuesday mornings to run a creche so we can study without the distraction of small children.

And I am grateful for the opportunity to expand my knowledge & deepen my faith.

This photo is of my Bible & study notebook. I covered the notebook so it would match the funky coours of my Bible.

Be grateful!

Sometimes, life can get so busy, we forget to stop & be thankful for all the little things that make our day nice. So, I’ve decided to start another photo-a-day project, called Grateful Daily. It’s all about taking the time out to appreciate the wonderful things in our lives.

I am going to use the last two posts as days one & two, both pretty self-explanatory. I am very grateful for a happy, healthy little boy, and for the blessing of a second babe joining us in a few short months.

For day three, I went with this image:

I am grateful that we live only a couple of hours away from some absolutely stunning beaches, that the small one can delight in the feeling of sand between his toes, and salty wind in his hair. I can only hope that these beaches will still exist for their children, and that they are not under quite a deal of water due to global warming.

Day Four – a lovely tradition of ours, coffee on the back lawn with M & O after church on Sundays. On a lovely, sunny, autumn day, it’s a delicious way to ponder life, the universe & everything together.

Anyone else want to celebrate the small things with me? Leave a comment & a link to your blog if you want to join me, I’d love to see what you are grateful for!

… but about to redeem myself!

I have gotten very slack with posting, but things have been a bit crazy here lately, and, unfortunately for you, dear reader, the blog is the first to suffer.

But will you forgive if I say I have SIX photos to add today? So not only will I catch up on the las few days, but I will also have caught up on the few days I missed at the beginning of the month.

So, grab a coffee, take a big deep breath, and here come days nineteen to twenty four!

Day nineteen:

We have recently put in a vegie garden, and O loves helping daddy raid the garden for some fresh vegies to snack on. This cucumber had been picked only 2 minutes earlier.

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Day twenty:

The O cheer-squad. He had just “thrown” the kong to the dog, and was so proud of himself, he had to give himself a round of applause! Cheeky little thing!

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Day twenty-one:

One of O’s many Christmas presents, a ride on excavator. I was just playing around with perspective on this one, getting down low in an attempt to replicate a toddler’s perspective.

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Day twenty-two:

Actually taken before the image I used for day nineteen, O is following Daddy to the vegie patch to see what’s going on.

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Day twenty-three:

The light coming through our decking boards. I’d never noticed this before, until I was sitting on the steps watching the boys playing. Amzing what things you notice when you look outside the ordinary!

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Day twenty-four:

Playing with the texture created by the pebbles in our garden.

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Congratulations if you made it this far! I will try & blog everyday for the last week of the challenge to spare you from the mammoth posts!

Thanks for all the lovely comments I’ve received over the last month, it’s nice to know there are people out there who find my images interesting enough to comment on. I’ve been enjoying this challenge, but I also think I’ll be glad when it’s over!

Just a detail shot of the doo-hinkies (the technical term!) holding up my mantlepiece. A bit different, I was having a play with light, shadows & photoshop.

I’ve edited this photo quite a bit, moreso than my normal style. But I’m using this challenge to motivate me to try new ideas, angles, and techniques, including photoshop. I’m quite happy with how this turned out, and it’s alwasy fun to try new things!

Mister Garbage-Guts helping himself to the cream in his grandmother’s apple turnover…

He just kept digging until he found the cream *roll eyes* – I think he’s inherited my sweet-tooth!

I just realised I haven’t been linking the blogs I’ve been commenting on. So, some from this week:

A Thousand Words – Elizabeth Harris

Jessica Claire

 Audrey Woulard

Rachel Absher

Until tomorrow!