COLLABORATE & LISTEN

Last week I was lucky enough to spend some time with the founder of the super cool online kids fashion and lifestyle shop/blog, Sunday Kid. Sometimes you meet people and you are blown away by how awesome they are, today was one of those days. Turns out that we have lots of fun ideas and by the looks of things, we just might make them happen. After lots of excited brainstorming over chai lattes, coffee and croissants, the morning ran away from us very quickly and before we knew it, it was time for me to run off and do the school pick up.

To check out her kids clothes and homewares, click here and to check out some of the photographs that I got to take for the blog, click here.

P.S. Thank you to LikeMinds Avoca for lettings us shoot up a storm inside your cosy cafe.
Love you. xo

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Images taken using Canon 5D Markiii//50mm 1.4

Please do not use my images without permission.

HAPPY WEEKEND

It's grey outside and the fridge is bare, all I had to fill my tummy this morning was coffee. Usually there is a bit of a commotion in the kitchen as we get breakfast ready on a Saturday morning, but today it was just the hissing of the coffee machine. As I hit the espresso cup onto the chopping board to release the coffee I went starry eyed imagining that it was a little teeny tiny brownie, which would have been the perfect pal for my coffee. 

My son was playing in a minefield of lego, cars, teddies, texters and paper on the lounge room floor and in the midst of his creative mess, I couldn't help but place the ground coffee in a tiny dish and leave it on the table for my him to find, it was a bit mean-mum of me, but it turned out to become fantastic leverage into convincing him that we needed to leave the house today, to go out for brunch today.

What do you do with your left over coffee grind?

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Images taken using Canon 5D Markiii//50mm 1.4

Please do not use my images without permission.

SUNDAY

Everyone looked fresh as they walked through the doors today. Something about a sunny and windy winters day that makes everyone look so crisp and bright eyed. Perhaps it's just the relief that naturally exudes when you find solace away from the wind and find yourself inside a warm and cosy space. I enjoyed watching them come in through the door. Today the boys kicked the footy out the front while Vinnie and I sat and watched and talked and laughed.

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Images taken using Canon 5D Markiii//50mm 1.4
Fuji 800z

Please do not use my images without permission.

LET THE HOLIDAYS BEGIN

What better way to start the school holidays than with a Birthday Party. We spent most of today celebrating with little superheroes who were literally bouncing off the walls. The best part of it was returning home with a very tired little boy and a sleepy little girl.

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Images taken using Canon 5D Markiii//50mm 1.4
Fuji 400H

Please do not use my images without permission.

WE RAN AWAY INSTEAD

 

No thank you. 

Not this morning. 

I stared at the bench heavied down with a cue of dirty dishes waiting to be cleaned. We packed our bags and ran away instead. We planted ourselves at a nice and airy café where we enjoyed a long breakfast and negotiated colouring pencils. After our plates were cleared, we walked down to the lake and picked at the exposed tree roots with sticks. We kicked the footy and as people appeared with their packed lunches and fold up chairs, we decided to keep on walking down to the park. We played for a long time and Pat made a friend. When the sun started to sink from the centre of the sky we readied ourselves for the walk back to the car. We were in no rush. That’s when we discovered a tree house. Pat slowly climbed his way up and sat at the top. Although I was in no hurry to leave, I called for him to come down from the tree house. We arrived home and there on the bench were the dishes which were waiting patiently. 

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Images taken using Canon 5D Markiii//50mm 1.4

Kodak Portra 800 & Ilford HP5

Please do not use my images without permission.

THE CALM AFTER THE SCHOOL MORNING DROP OFF

The start of this year has been a big time for my family and I. Pat started school in February and only a few weeks after that, we welcomed his little sister Vinnie into our family. We had the school morning drop off running pretty smoothy prior to Vinnie's entry into the world and sometimes we were that organised that we had time to share a hot chocolate at one of our favourite cafes on the way.
Now that we have another little addition to our clan, we have had some pretty frazzled mornings. Sleep deprivation and breast feeding can really upset the normal school morning routine.

Below is how I have managed a smooth school morning drop off with the addition of a newborn.

1. Aim to be up at least thirty minutes prior to the time that you would usually wake up. For me, if Vinnie has a feed at 4:30am, I find it easier to put her back to sleep and to stay awake and have breaky with Matty. Most of my crazy hectic mornings have been when I have gone back to sleep after that early morning feed and then slept in. So rule of thumb, if I put Vinnie back to bed and it's closer to 5am I stay awake (as much as it pains me).

2. Write down the contents of the school lunchbag on a whiteboard or piece of paper and have it in the kitchen/food prep area. It sounds silly, but when you are half asleep and trying to function, having this check list can make life a little bit easier. I also get Pat to empty his lunch bag and containers as soon as we get home from school so that they are ready for the next day. His school has a 'no litter' policy, so that means no pre-packaged foods, so we use little lunch box containers to hold his biscuits, fruit and sandwiches, which we place into his lunch bag. After I have breakfast and lunch sorted out it's usually around 7am, I will wake Vinnie up and give her a top up feed and get her ready for the day.

3. Upon waking, Pat has his morning jobs which we established from the first day of school, by using a 'tick chart' on a whiteboard in his bedroom. He has his kitchen jobs, which is to enjoy breakfast and clear up after himself. His bathroom jobs involve brushing teeth, washing face, moisturising and brushing hair. His bedroom jobs are making his bed and putting on his uniform. I help with his neck tie and shoelaces. If he gets all of his jobs done with time to spare, then he can watch television or play on the ipad. Otherwise, the T.V. and ipad are out of bounds.

4. It is approximately 10 meters from our house to our car, but for some reason it takes about ten minutes to get from the front door and into the car seats. We aim to leave by 7:50am, but I factor in another ten minutes to actually get to the car, so we start to leave the house at about 7:40am.This gets us ahead of the traffic and Pat gets to have a good play before school starts, which I think is very important for children.

That's it. Some mornings it goes awry, and it could be easier for Paddy  if I tried to do everything for him, but I have found it to be more stressful for both of us as I seem to be nagging him. Having the mornings set out like this allow for Paddy to develop his independence and work at his own pace, knowing the timeframe that it all needs to be done. And besides, no one really likes a nagged.

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Photograph taken using a Nikon D3100

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SUNDAY

Out of all of the days in the week, Sunday is my favourite. It’s the one day of the week that we are all definitely together. Matty usually works six days a week and Sunday is a nice reprieve to the daily grind for both of us. Early on this particular Sunday morning I curled back into our warm bed after feeding Vinnie and drifted back to sleep. It must have only been for ten or maybe fifteen minutes before she started to make some protesting cries from her bassinette. Sleep drowsy, I rolled around and took some deep breaths to re-energise myself before jumping back out of bed, but he beat me to her. With Vinnie in his arms, he leant down and planted a fuzzy warm kiss on my forehead and disappeared out of our room. I must have slept for an extra hour. In a foggy state I followed the smell of breakfast wafting in from outside. Matty was outside on our front deck cooking up our breakfast on the barbeque. I saw Vinnie playfully sitting in her bouncy chair snuggled up in a grey woollen blanket and there was Paddy crouching on the lounge and coiled up in a furry brown throw. He looked like a delicious cinnamon bun. 

The smell of breakfast materialised on a large white rectangular plate. Bacon, eggs, tomatoes, onions and grilled Turkish breads all lay out in the shadows of tall standing condiments; tomato sauce, barbeque sauce, Kewpie mayo and sweet chilli sauce. In our PJ’s we sat at the table and started the construction of our breakfast burgers. The boys like mayo and barbeque sauce splashed across their tower of bacon, eggs and cooked onion. I like plain old barbeque sauce, bacon and eggs with a sprinkling of tasty cheese.  Sometimes I add a squeeze of sweet chilli sauce, but not today.

Matty enjoys making his coffee at home and usually, we push the little black button on the yellow Bugatti to warm up while we tidy up after breakfast. At first, we disliked our coffee machine. It was the source of frustration and disappointment. Neither of us could get it right. We imagined dark brown honeycombed crema topped with silky milk, but our coffee always looked murky or the steamed milk was too bubbly and burnt. Since then, our skills have improved enough to enjoyably get us through the dark mid-week mornings. So when a dear friend of ours opened a café and creative space across the lake from us, our Bugatti was also given reprieve from the daily grind and lately we have been making our way over there to finish our Sunday breakfast and welcome in the new week with several of his amazing coffees.

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All photgraphs taken using a Nikon D3100.

Please email me if you would like to use my images.