After quite a few lazy days, I finally got off my bottom and took Gwen out for some photos this afternoon. Now, I know I’ve taken photos very similar to these before (angel wings, field, etc etc), but today Gwen wanted to use the wings, anything else and she wasn’t interested. So not only am I rehashing an old idea, I even had to include the added bribe of a candy watch for her to participate at all!

I must say, even though we’ve done these before, I do love some of todays! It’s very cool to look back and see how much more grown up she looks in the face, with her expressions, how she’s changed as my “model”. I can’t believe she’s growing up so fast!

Gwen posed herself today, so there’s a fair bit of her trademark poses going on! Oh, and if anyone’s wondering why her eyes are closed in nearly all the photos, the sun was too bright for her eyes and if I asked her to open them, it was just an argument waiting to happen!

I think this is possibly my favorite from today, but it’s too hard for me to choose!

I think this was the end of the eye contact for a while!

Gwen’s pose, through and through. The light was beautiful this afternoon, too. Pitty she isn’t really as sweet as she looks most of the time!

Love her little hands. I think she was being coy here. She could have looked at me if she really wanted to.

She was standing it quite the perfect spot for the sunray behind her… Well, perhaps one step her her right and it would have been perfect! Not quite sure what she’s doing with her hands or thinking, but it’s cute none the less!

Looking quite the grown up little lady.

Doing the “Chicken Butt Dance”. Apparently Mr Jones, her P.E teacher taught her class the chick butt dance. Now, I’d really love to know if she’s misheard the name, but since the first week or two of school she’s being going on about this dance and she get’s quite angry if I question her on the name.. So it really must be right!

Gorgeous light in this spot.. We were on our way back to the house after I was attacked by ants time and time again. How she didn’t step in all the nest’s I did, I’ll never know! Love how her hair looks here.. Beautiful! (If I do say so myself!)

We weren’t allowed to go to the house until she posed on the log. She’s getting quite brave actually, she lay down on the log, got dirty, and it was very tricky to lay down on it without falling off.. 6 months ago she wouldn’t have had a bar of it!

Due to the fact that I’ve had a sick little girl today, I’m afraid that yet again my POTD is quite Gwenless. For some reason, when ever I take my camera out in my bag with me, lifes generally boring, nothing exciting happens, I don’t see anything inspiring or beautiful. When I don’t have it, I’m certain to see something I *need* to photograph, something thats beautiful, odd, or just calling out to have it’s photo taken!

This afternoons sky had the my beautiful clouds. They were the biggest, fluffliest clouds I’ve seen in years! Of course just because it’s me, I didn’t have my camera, or a beautiful Gwen to stick in front of the beautiful clouds. Instead I got a terrible photo with it, sitting in the car whilst on the motorway. How unfortunate.. What a waste of such a spectacular sky!

Before I finish off tonight, my other interesting blog snippet was the fact that tonight I went to my first “Pash Party”. Now, I won’t go into details on my blog, because it’s not the *ahem* type of party I would discuss on my child photography blog, but it was a lovely night of fun and laughter!

This photo absolutely doesn’t do the beautiful clouds justice.. It was stunning! I’m so frustrated I wasn’t at a wonderful location with Gwen!

And just to finish off my blog post for a bit of cheeky colour, no pash party should be in a room without down light’s, and pink reflective material covering the goods! It illuminates the room and just looks so… Girly! Did I mention that I won a very pink… Feather wand for doing the um…. Best  playdough sculpture Apparently I’m artisticly talented with molding things too!

Boy am I tired! I must say first of all that my photos today are pretty terrible, and in short supply! I didn’t take my camera with me tonight unfortunately my camera phone is terrible. I was actually going to post a few photos but I just can’t bring myself to post them lol. Anyhow, I had a brilliant night tonight with a lovely friend I’ve had since my school days. We headed into the city, we haven’t been out together in ages! Everything fell into place tonight. I had McDonalds for dinner (naughty, I know.. I’m trying SO hard to lose weight and I’m sabotaging myself!), but not only did they get my burger right (add cheese, hold the mayo!), it was hot and fresh, with FRESH hot frie’s, a straw already put in my drink, with napkins IN my bag. Now that’s service! None of this get your own straw business!

Not only that, but I’ve been searching for *the* perfect bag for well over a year and a half. I wanted a bad with TWO separate zippers, not one zip with 2 bits inside, purple, phone pocket inside, big enough to hold my huge purse, heavy camera and all my other crap, looks pretty! I don’t ask for much, do I?? I’d come to the conclusion recently that I just was not going to find the perfect bag and that  should just settle on something that would do the job… With one zip. Well, I took Rach to a shop I knew to show her a really beautiful umbrella and inside like a moth to a light, I was drawn to the most beautiful coloured bag. I just knew it was going to be completely dysfunctional, have one stupid center clasp instead of a zipper, let alone have TWO zippers. I opened the bag and what did I see? Not one, not two.. But THREE separate zippers, perfect for keeping all my things seperated, room for my camera.. I don’t like the straps, but I can live with that! Oh boy, talk about perfect! What wasn’t to perfect was the price tag.. Opps. Needless to say, after going away for a while, I really didn’t want to part with it so I layby’d it instead! Can’t wait to pick it up.. It’s just so me! A hangbag may seem like a completely ridiculous trivial thing to be excited about, but you have no idea how long I’ve been searching, the hundreds of bags I’ve inspected only to skulk out of the shop, bagless and disappointed! lol.

To top off a lovely evening, my favorite place to buy frozen yoghurt is selling it again. I went into the city 3 or 4 times over the last few months JUST for this yoghurt, only to find out that their machine still hasn;t been repaired, then on the last time it was gone completely.. So I had a delicious, MUCH too big dessert! Once we were finished, we were going to head home but the traffic was horrendous, so we went back into the mall and were drawn to some loud music and a crowd. We ended up watching some live beat-boxers (one of which was amazing!) and some hip-hop B-Boys… It was awesome to watch live!

Anyhow, I’ll stop babbling on for the night and go to bed! Must thing of something fun to do with Gwen tomorrow for photos, I’ve neglected my POTD this week a bit I think lol.

The *perfect* bag! Don’t *really* like the tiger stripe lining, but it’ll do lol

Rach & I outside right after watching the B-Boys and beat-boxers.

If there’s one thing Gwen loves to do, it’s write and draw. She could sit there for hours drawing pictures, writing us “letters”. She certainly goes through a lot of paper! It can definitely be hard due to the fact that she desperately wants to write things but her little 4 year old brain just isn’t old enough to take in all of the information she want’s to know!  Over the last couple of weeks she’s been working very hard trying to figure words out just like her teacher has taught her. She “stretches” them out and figures out how to spell them. Go phonics baby! Unfortunately due to the fact that the english language is ridiculous at time’s, she get’s frustrated with me when I don’t help her the “right way” lol. For example,  try explaining to a four year old why moon and book both have two o’s when one makes a short O sound and one makes a long O sound, or why the word “shoe” has an oe, instead of a u!!

Here she is doing her thing. She’s writing her teacher a card (who I think she has a crush on lol), and she sounded out and wrote the whole card all by herself. Her choice of words, her spelling!

Using her finger to measure her spaces.

Her picture to go with the card. On the left we have Mr Shane, in the middle we have Gwen (you can always pick her, just look for the page long hair), and on the right we have.. Wait for it.. Santa! They’re in Canada, in the snow. Apparently.

Drawing another picture because the other ones upside down.

Translation: Gwen – Mummy

To Shan – To Shane

I lik pones – I like ponies

The cat sat on a mat – Wooo no explanation needed!

The pig and the frog had fan – The pig and the frog had fun. After two attempts, she was finally happy!

From Gwen – Clever girl!

Oh and the picture on the left. Gwen and Mr Shane, in Australia under the sun, with a blue sky and two trees.

Bit of a quickie tonight, I still have to make a school lunch and find a uniform and it’s 12:30am! Gwen’s behavior hasn’t been tooooooo bad lately, so as a treat after school today I took her to get an ice cream while we were shopping to kill some time before her swimming lesson. The ice cream shop have started selling ice cream cupcakes (which I must say, looked better then they tasted lol), so I thought one would be a lovely treat for Gwen rather then just plain ole’ ice cream in a cup. Well. I wasn’t expecting them to be quite so expensive .. $4.50 for a little bit of ice cream, frozen cream which tasted old, and some sprinkles!! Oh dear. Lucky Gwen didn’t mind! Now that I’ve seen how they’re made, I’m quite inclined to try my own, with nicer cream and better flavours of ice cream.. Shame about that diet!

Pretty! – Pitty it didn’t taste quite as good as it looked!

Sooo ready to eat it!

Mmmm sprinkles. Gwens favorite part I think!

And her favorite ice cream.. Rainbow.

It’s no secret that I have a special place in my heart for moody black and white photos (especially of Gwen because she’s usually such a ham!). It’s one thing my POTD has been missing so far this month! We didn’t have much of an opportunity to do anything today, between visiting a friend and picking up my husband from work we really only had a few minutes and it was already dark!

Anyhow, we did end up trying but unfortunately my camera takes appalling photos if it’s even a little dark so the 10 or so photos we took today really weren’t salvageable. I did however attempt to save one of them because I did like it, and I couldn’t really post another photo of my toes lol. I don’t really ever try to *save* photos, it’s far too much effort but I’m glad I did today. I could never really print this which is a shame because I do really love it. We’ll have to go back and try to do some more when it’s actually light out.

Here she is (not that everyone hasn’t seen enough of her!), my beautiful girl who I think pulls off moody and pensive equally as well as giddy, funny faced ham.

What an abysmal effort from me today. I have a horrendously sore back and I’ve not felt well tonight at all, I’m been dizzy, had the shakes, nearly fainted and had a thumping heart – On top of the back pain. Ahhh excuse me while I have a wallow. I’m going to go to bed I think, but I couldn’t cop out and not post anything at all.

Not that I really want to post another photo of my ugly mrs man feet on my blog, I was pretty hard up for ideas tonight. In any case, when Gwen and I were shopping on the weekend went to choose some new fingernail polish (mainly because she left the lid off my favorite bottle, littler terror) and I was nice enough to let her choose the colour. Wow.. was I surpised. No. I’m not dripping with sarcasm. Honestly. Pink. Again. lol.. we must have 5 different shades of pink! Although, I was happy to buy this one as a change. It’s “chrome” fingernail polish (even though my crappy foot photography doesn’t do it justice) so if I have to wear pink again, at least it’s a really cool shiny pink! Oh and just a disclaimer – My feet are not dirty, I have a weird foot tan from my shoes!

First of all, please do excuse any typos, it’s 2am here and I’m very tired!

Well, the holidays have absolutely flown by for us. I can’t believe there’s only one more day left until Gwen’s back to school. I haven’t done NEAR as much what I wanted to do with her this holidays, so I’m having a bit of mummy guilt, but I have enjoyed just having her at home with me again. As much as I do love her being at school (especially when she’s a being  a pain in the rear!), I do miss having her at home sometimes.

Anyhow, after a blissful sleep-in today we spent the afternoon shopping with her dad and grandma which was lovely. We spent an hour or two at home this afternoon (playing with some froggies!) before going over to our friends place for the night. Well, we were just going for a tea and a quick visit, but it turned into an all night bludge and have a chat on the couch which was lovely, we haven’t done it in ages! Gwen had a marvelous time playing with Jack & Alex, and she was so well behaved tonight on the way home. Not a tantrum when we had to leave (although I’m sure the two biscuits she had right before leaving did sweeten the deal a bit!), she ate a *whole* banana in the car on the way home for dinner (*ahem*.. 11pm dinner, a banana in the car. No mother of the year award there!), got herself dressed when we got home, brushed her teeth without arguing, and here’s the clincher – She let me brushed her whole head of matted hair without a single tear or whinge!! (erm, see very, very messy hair in photos.. those are 2 day old plats lol). She finally went to sleep like a dream at 12am lol, 7:30pm tomorrow, here we come!

All in all it’s been a lovely day, other then the fact that I’ve hurt my back somehow, and now I’m in a lot of pain.. Boo hoo, I know, I shouldn’t whinge! I hope it’s not too bad tomorrow!

Here’s my squinty eye’d girl, that decided it’d be far nicer to play with her toes then pose for me.

Now, we have a little pond out on our front porch, so we have little frogs everywhere!! They’re THE cutest little things you’ll ever see, and they’re deceivingly small! They’re the most gorgeous little frogs, they sit out there and croak all night (although, sometimes it’d be nice if they stopped at bedtime!). If you go out during the day, they all hop away and hide so fast, it’s hard to see them, but if you go out with a torch at night time it’s spectacular. I’ve never seen a frog croak in person, but if you shine light on the lilypads, you see all these little frogs with their throats puffed out, croaking away to each other. It’s spectacular to watch!

Here’s how tiny he is, he’s smaller then my fingertip!!

Here’s Gwen inspecting the frog on my fingertip. She wasn’t keen on holding it at all!

I do actually have a little story to go with this frog if anyone actually wants to indulge me and read along! It’s actually quite scary! He was sitting on the leaf (in the first photo) just minding his own business, so I picked him up (well, it wasn’t that easy, it took me a few minutes to catch him lol) to show Gwen. Anyhow, after a few minutes of holding him, taking photos etc, Gwen wanted to put him in a bowl to see him swim. Well, he didn’t want to do that lol. He just kept climbing to the edge which was very cute in itself, it was like he was popping up to say hello! Anyhow, The poor little thing had enough of us, so he made one swift hop over to the wooded retaining wall, when all of a sudden this huntsman literally jumped on the poor, beautiful little baby frog. Oh my gosh, I wanted to cry!

Thankfully for a bit of fast thinking, I chucked the bowl of water he was swimming in on to the spider and poked him with a stick a few times to make him let the frog go (he HAD him in his fangs!!). Rather sadly, I thought it was too late for the little fellow. He wasn’t moving much, and I was trying to pick him up out of a hole with a leaf to move him away from the spider but he just got more still. I wanted to cry, he was just sitting up on the leaf so innocently! His little heart was still beating so I put him in the pond hoping he’d swim away, but he just sat there, his legs didn’t even come out into a star. Oh my gosh, what did we do?? Anyhow, after about 5 minutes of poking and prodding in the water, he hopped out onto a pipe and sat there quite happily. Gosh, I don’t know if he was just playing dead (I probably would have too, if I was just in a spiders jaws!), or if the spider really did stun him. Either way, I’m glad the poor little fellow’s ok! I’ve never felt so bad about picking up a frog in my life lol.  I won’t even think about WHY that naughty spider has a home right next to the pond.

Here he is, peeking out of the bowl.

Here’s said spider. He was actually VERY big!! Ewww it gives me the creeps just looking at it!

And here he is after he jumped out of the pond with a second chance at life. I didn’t take any photos of him um.. Floating. I was too distressed, and that would have been rather morbid, considering I did actually think he was dead lol.

Here’s our little self proclaimed Canadian. She’s sooo… Patriotic.

Another of our beautiful little green froggies.

Here’s the kids tonight, proud of their block tower they made. Mr Pose at Mum, Miss Cheesy, and Mr Stiff. Always entertaining in photos! (note Gwens horrendously messy hair. Under that scarf is plenty of matted knots, and the plats were like 2 big dreads. Ah, that’ll blame me for telling her that when it’s the weekend, I don’t have to do her hair. I’m not even allowed to BRUSH it some weekend days!)

Oh dear, Gwen got a little cranky when it got knocked over! Lucky it was short lived crankiness!

Here they are building another tower. Love Jacks cheesy grin on the right lol.

Since Gwen started school at the beginning of the year, as much as she loves her new school friends she desperately misses her close friends who she spent the last year or two with numerous times a week. The school holidays have been great, if only for the fact that she’s been able to play with her friends a little more. I haven’t done as many productive things this holidays with her like I was originally going to (they seem to have gotten away from me, only 2 days left and it’s back to school already!) which is a bummer, I’ll just have to try and do something tomorrow, Monday, and then after school some days to make up for it!

Now, I did mention in my January POTD that Gwen has a terrible fear of heights. This is one of the parks where I really see it over come her. This slide is actually quite scary to get to. It’s really very hard to explain, but there’s no platform to stand on, only skinny beams you have to climb across to get to it and they’re high! It really is the most ill designed slide I’ve seen, but most kids seem to love it. It’s just terrible for the littlies. Gwen turns into a stiff, sobbing mess when she tries to climb it, and one day I affectionately (albeit angrily!) named the way she COULD go the “Chicken way”.. It went something a long the lines of “Fine, if you don’t trust me to help you without letting you fall, go the chicken way then!!!” Oh dear, that certainly didn’t win me any mother of the year award lol. Needless to say, the name has stuck, Gwen now calls it the “chicken way herself”. I live in hope that one day she’ll actually give it another go. I’ll really never understand how phobias appear of  nowhere!

Anyhow, here she is at the top of the slide after climbing all by herself – The chicken way!! Looking mighty proud of herself too.

Here’s Gwen  and her friend Sammy who’s let me think, about 1.5 years younger or so, and brave enough to climb the slide the tricky (read: correct) way, even if it was a bit scary and he did need a bit of coaxing at first! He was so very proud when he made it there himself. Maybe if we go a little more regularly, Gwen will learn from her younger peers and get the courage to try again!

Another quick one from me tonight I’m afraid! I did have more plans for today, but after puncturing a tyre  on my car and having a flat camera battery (whoops!), it just didn’t really happen for me today!

Now technically, because this was taken after midnight I *should* be using it for tomorrows post but I’ll let it slide because I was so slack and took nothing else today! Every night Gwen goes to sleep with 2 things. One of her Carebears, and a white terry towel. She hugs bot to sleep, but I usually end up moving the terry (like tonight) because she has it right up around her face and the sweats and gets so hot! So here she is, beautifully peaceful – Asleep with her Carebear.. This one’s a collectors edition gold bear (with beautiful swarovski crystal eyes and gold fur, the photo doesn’t do him justice!)  so he doesn’t have a real Carebear name. She’s affectionately named him Goldie.