49/52 {oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree}

{Harper} Being the tactile girl that she is, Harper spends a lot of her time touching the decorations on our tree.

 {Finn} According to Finn, it's not a real Christmas tree until the lights are on.
 

{The B-sides}

{cuddling up to one of her birthday presents. I chose her solely on her cute name - 'Paprika Mae'}

{snow peas are growing in abundance and Finn and Harper are the chief pea pickers...and eaters}

{searching, searching, searching}

{play matters}

{Harper received a set of face paints for her birthday and her first subject was Finn. He was a little apprehensive about all of this, can you tell?}

{character Finn requested= a robber. the yellow bit on his chin is a gold tooth. The robber fascination has come from his LEGO city creations. I'm not overly thrilled with this new interest, especially when Finn proclaimed when we were driving in the car "So mum, when I grow up I want to be either a policeman....or a robber" Hoping you sway towards the good side of that spectrum buddy.}

{switching roles}

{a fairy princess of coarse!}

{round two. Captain Barnacles from the Octonauts}

{summer is here}

31/52

{Harper}  Playing happily in her room, surrounded by the afternoon sunlight.


{Finn} An 'F' made from sultanas on his morning porridge. From time to time over the remainder of the day he would turn to me and tell me "Daddy put an 'F' on my porridge. Do you think he will do that again?" A gentle reminder that small surprises make a difference to our little loves.

The B-sides (because two photos seems a little minimalist for me

{lazy and cosy Sunday morning reading}

{hooked on lego}

{a simple blue rice* under the sea sensory box equals hours of imaginary play.
*quick and easy coloured rice method found here}

{a lip-smacking-good kind of apple}

{Oh the hokey pokey, oh the hokey pokey}

{he was only gone for two nights but we all REALLY missed him}

{a short tv break for two girls who spent a solid 4 hours in princess/wedding role play mode}

{making sure her baby can see the page}

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

Documenting Delight: day two hundred and ninety nine {not one but two snow white costumes}

After Harper's music morning with Kate, our four kids got together for a lunchtime playdate. Much to Harper’s delight Lily has the most impressive dress up collection, one that includes not one but two Snow White costumes. Sharing issues over that much desired dress up-  eliminated!

I love this busy and colourful image: two girls very happy with their costumes, one little brother who wasn’t going to miss out on a photo op and sweet Finn in the background engaged in his own imaginative play moment.

Documenting Delight: day two hundred and thirty four {I not Harper, I Snow White}

Following on from yesterday’s fairy tale post, today Harper moved onto role playing one of her favourite tales ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’. Harper was Snow White (of coarse), Finn was all of the seven dwarves (tough role) and dishing out the parts Harper told me:
“You da evil queen”

I tried not to look too deeply into my assigned character and put on my best menacing voice.

Above is the poisoned apple scene. Who knew Ms White wore Dora crocs back in the day?

Documenting Delight: day two hundred and thirty three {fairy tale love}

Over the past few months Harper has developed a deep love of fairy tales. It all started with ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and since then we have made our way through any traditional story we can get our hands on. I thought it may have been the princesses that were drawing her in, but princess or no princess she is captivated by these stories.

Lately Harper has taken to re-telling these stories. She mostly has the structure down but does like to make her own unique additions.

{Enter the big bad wolf in ‘The Three Little Pigs’}

Harper: I call him the nice wolf now.

I found some old felt board fairy tale cut outs in one of my teaching resource boxes and gave them to Harper and Finn to play with. Harper sets all the pictures up,  moves the figures around and adopts the characters voices. Today she placed all the cut outs on our computer desk and acted out ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ with a whole heap of enthusiasm. The top picture is Harper showing Goldilocks’ expression when she wakes up and find the Three Bears looking at her. Nailed it, wouldn't you say?

Documenting Delight: day one hundred and sixty {the dress up box}

{mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest bride of all?}

Documenting Delight: day one hundred and fifty seven {just making a call}

{me: who are you taking to?
finn: i'm just calling up emergency services on my mobile phone}

Documenting Delight: one hundred and twenty seven

I walked outside this morning to view Finn and Harper playing planes. This is Pilot Finn landing his passenger jet.

Finn can bring intensity to imaginative play like no one else.

Documenting Delight: day one hundred and eleven

If you are a follower of this blog you will have picked up these points about my two children:

a.       They are very different, both in looks and personality. The term chalk and cheese couldn’t be more perfect when it comes to describing my two.

b.       I rarely manage to snag a good photo of the two of them together. They are often just not phyiscailly in the same space and when they are, Harper is usually mauling Finn with her over affection that he is screaming. Not great photo material.

So when I walked in on the above play scenario between Finn and Harper, I scrambled to get my camera and snapped away like a mad woman. My camera settings were all out but I had to let it all go and just make sure I captured this moment. It may need a little explaining: Harper is all about imaginative/role play at the moment. She mainly likes to take on occupations and act out their work tasks. This week she has been a hairdresser, a cafe owner and a doctor. Today though she was a make-up artist, applying lipstick on her brother. Ordinarily, this would be a pretty cute moment but it was so much more for me coming from my two kids. Finn prefers his own space, doesn’t like to be touched and whenever role play is happening he likes to set the scene. To allow the play to be directed by his younger sister, to allow her to touch him and by golly just the fact that they were playing together meant this was a huge deal.  

{Finn, looking quite tense but going with it regardless.}

While we have been at Mum’s, to my complete surprise, there have actually been lots of moments like this. Quiet, co-operative play. Screaming, crying, snatching? Nope, haven’t seen any of that so far. I’m sure my Mum thinks I am exaggerating the truth when I drone on and on about their play difficulties when we are home, as right now all she has seen are two siblings who love each other and enjoy each other’s company. Trust me Mum, I ain’t stretching the truth. Whatever is happening, I am watching it and loving it.

{Oh look! Another play moment!}