Documenting Delight: day three hundred and sixty six {completed}

Being the last post for 2012 I was planning to write a big reflection on what this project has meant to me. However  the more I thought about it the more I came to the conclusion I don’t think I will fully understand what this project has given me until I put the camera down and live a few days without needing to secure an image to represent our day.

I do know that right now I am happy that I made it to the end (minus the six week gap in the middle) and also relieved that it is over. While I am glad I took a leap, committed to the project and blogged about it, today I am a tad bit excited that tomorrow I will wake up and not need to take a photo. Look, I probably will take a photo, but I don’t have to and that feels oh so good.

So that’s it. Right now I feel happy, excited, relieved and proud. Reflecting and processing it all will come on another day. Today I looked at every image I took in this project and I smiled. That’s all I needed today.

Thank you to my dear family, friends and fellow Documenting Delighters for following along. Your support encouragement, inspiration, advice and thoughtful comments have meant so much to me.

Happy new year lovely ones. xx

*A little slideshow of the year. I would have loved to have select an Australian song to accompany it but I had to go with a Feist track because the kids and I adore this song.
Enjoy.

 

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and sixty five {right now, part 3}

The last instalment of the right now posts. You can find part one and two here and here.

As 2012 comes to a close this is Harper and Finn right now…

Finn James 4 years, 9 months

[LIKES]

Riding his scooter (fast), acting out fire emergencies (a la Fireman Sam), lego (or “big boy lego” as he calls it), learning about numbers and letters, making homemade pizzas with Daddy, crafting with Mummy, watering the garden with the hose (just like a real Fireman), spending time with our extended family, reading, drawing, being clean, special treat night and eating lychees.

[DISLIKES]

People touching, washing, brushing or cutting his hair, being interrupted whilst playing, meals with brown rice and dressing himself.

Harper May 3 years, 1 month

[LIKES]

Doing things “as a family”, fairy tales, princesses, making up her own songs, giving and receiving affection, dancing, breastfeeding (still….), role-playing in the play kitchen, having her hair brushed, playing with her dolls and teddies, seeing real babies, playing with her cousins and eating cherries.

[DISLIKES]

Having baths, sleeping, going to daycare on Fridays, wearing shoes or socks and eating mushrooms.

Documenting delight: three hundred and sixty four {window}

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and sixty three {backyard pool}

After a cool and rainy Christmas in Mittagong we returned to sunny weather in Canberra. Today we enjoyed having nowhere to go by catching up on some housey jobs and watching the kids getting in and out of the pool for most of the afternoon. Summer days have hit and it feels good.

My wild child, Harper May flicking her unkept hair around. Most of my favourite photos of Harper from this project have Harper sporting unruly, wavy, unbrushed hair. While she does look pretty with her hair in cute hairties it doesn’t really reflect her personality like her hair does in these photos. This is Harper; wild, spirited, fun and cheeky.

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and two {left over gingerbread house}

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and sixty one {fireman at work}

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and sixty {happiness on christmas day}

{testing out harper's new wooden cake}

{can you feel the excitement?}

{happy finn. I don't think there is anything better than experiencing christmas with children.....well apart from experiencing it AS a child that is ;) ) 

{present smash hit: one fireman sam helment that plays the theme song over and over and over.....}

{delicious christmas lunch}

{so who can read the cracker joke for me?}

{what do you do when it is too cold and wet to burn off your christmas lunch with backyard cricket? you raid the dress up box and dance to karaoke as a family of coarse!}

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and fifty nine {stills from our christmas eve}

 

1.       Waking up to raindrops on our fruit trees. The rain has been a long time coming.

2.       In charge of rolling the biscuit dough. Harper did a little more dough eating, than rolling.

3.       The last book in our Christmas Book Advent. Finn asked if there will be a new book advent after Christmas day. His love for books is intense.

4.       A Christmas Eve tradition: new pjs and a new Christmas book each. A Christmas Tree for Pyn is set to be a new Christmas favourite.

5.       Christmas colours special treat. The small chocolate bar to the right was given to Finn and Harper earlier in the day by our sweet next door neighbour. At the time I said that they couldn’t eat it straight away but they could have it after dinner. Finn was so concerned that someone would take his bar that he wrote his name in permanent marker over the wrapper and hid it in the fridge. Yes, he is going to be that kind of label- everything- in -the fridge -flatmate in 15 years time.

6 & 7. The ice-cream trance.

8. Another storm approaching.

9. Safe and loved.

10. Ready for Christmas morning.

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and fifty eight {fan}

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and fifty seven {co-operation is......}

…helping each other dig out pomegranate seeds.  

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and fifty six {christmas movie night}

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and fifty five {last day of playschool for mr finn}

While I was a little emotional about this phase in Finn’s life coming to a close, Finn, well, wasn’t….

Me: Finn, did you know today is your very last day at Playschool?

Finn: Yeah, I know but its ok, next I will be a Pre-schooler.

He is ready for the next stage, that’s for sure.

 

{starting the playschool day with puzzles}



Documenting Delight: day three hundred and fifty four {painting peacefully together}

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and fifty three {I'm berry, berry tired}

{3pm. sleeping at this time is not an option little chicken. you will be up till 10pm if I let you go to sleep.}

{oh no she's yawning now. Sorry Harps but you can't go to sleep}

{you're a meanie mummy}

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and fifty two {thirty three years old}

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and fifty one {backyard cricket}

Documenting Delight: day three hundred and fifty {an early christmas}

 

Being the only family members who live in Canberra, on Christmas Day we alternate between travelling to either my family’s home on the Central Coast or Lachie’s in the Southern Highlands. This year we are set to spend Christmas Day with Lachie’s family, so we joined with my family today in Sydney to celebrate an early Christmas.

We kept things fun and simple, bringing a picnic lunch to the Darling HarbourPlayground so the cousins could play together. Even though Harper doesn’t get to see her cousin Koby as much as she would like, within seconds they continued their laughter and love fest from their last catch up. The amount of photos I captured of the two of them dancing, laughing, holding hands and hugging was quite ridiculous. I really couldn't stop myself.

{Finn & Harper- I am not sure where all this sibling affection came from - but it was a lovely (if rare) sight!}

{Koby & Harper -dancing on the picnic table. adorable}

{Aunty Ash teaching Harper how to capture a good selfie}

{now what do we have here? a couples picture- no way! there aren't too many photographs of us together, so i am very thankful my sister Ash snapped this one.}

{big day coming to an end}