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!

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.

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.

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.

Quick one from me today. I’ve been super busy (not to mention *so* tired after all my late nights this week!), but today we headed off to one of Gwen’s school friends birthday parties. Gwen was so enamored with the fact that there were *so* many girls! Until she started school, she’d really only played with boys her whole life. All my friends have had boys so it’s just the way it’s been! So today we celebrated Ebonique’s birthday, and the girls had a fabulous time.

Ebonique & Gwen. Can anyone tell that Gwen’s completely over me taking photos already?

They had to model their shoes before I walked away!

Gwen enjoying a lollypop.

Gwen’s never been a big eater. In fact it’s a batter to get her to eat dinner, her lunchbox always comes home full, and breakfast is always painful. If we go to a party, I could bet any money I’ll find her at the chip and lolly bowls all day. People would swear she’d never seen a lolly or chip in her life!

Gwen & Eb’s raiding the lolly & chip bowls.

Well, I’ve had a very boring day today. Started off by being up at 5:30 to take my husband to work which I was not happy about, in fact I have to to it again in oh, 4 hours. Oh dear, I best make this quick and get to bed! Anyhow, I spent most of the day cleaning my daughters *disgusting* pigsty of a playroom up in preparation for playgroup tomorrow, but everyone bailed on me! Oh well, it had to be cleaned anyway. How in the wide world does a 4 year old make it SO filthy??

So the sun went down again today, and once again I was completely unprepared with no ideas at all for my POTD. Someone on my facebook suggested teeth brushing.. Brilliant!  Well, I went in thinking I’d just do a quick “this is my child, brushing her teeth” type post. lol.. Creative, yes?? Anyway, it didn’t turn out that way! I didn’t get ANY of her brushing her teeth, just a couple of her foamed up after wards, and a bunch of her goofing off in front of the camera as she does.

Before I cleaned up her playroom today, I walked in to find her and our cat Blossom laying on the floor together (note the lack of clean space on the floor?? They’re laying on TOP of things!). When Blossom is full stretched out, she’s nearly as long as Gwen now!

This is what I got instead of brushing. I know when she’s in this mood, there’s no hope lol.

Nice, white, shiny teeth!

Perfect smile before she got a little silly..

And theeerrrreeeee it is. Loony Gwen.

Little rat bag. I was looking at her hair today, and I think she’s cut some more off.. I questioned her and she said maybe accidentally but she can’t remember…. Yea right!

Oh dear. And this is where she got a little grumpy.. She could peel paint off walls sometimes. I must have said something she didn’t approve of!

She blurted the word “bum” out. Instantaneous Gwen pleaser apparently.

Once I knew she’d had enough (and so had I!), I got up to leave and she had a bit of a break down, she wasn’t finished apparently. So here she is .. She picked her own prop and decided to pose with it.. How very vogue of her lol.

First of all, I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter! Gwen was stoked with her bunny visit, she slept in too which was great!

Gosh.. It’s 3am, I’m stuffed, but I just couldn’t go to bed before I finished these or I knew I wouldn’t do them. No doubt I’ll wake up in the morning, look at my late night edits and think wow, what a horrendous job I done! Anyhow, I’ll keep this short and sweet tonight. I had a lovely quite day at home with family, completely ruined my diet with a *lot* of very yummy things,  oh well – It’s Easter! I’ll just write the day off and pick myself back up tomorrow! This afternoon Gwen and I went to visit some friends, and before we went home I took her to a little field I know before we went home for some photos.

I’m so bummed, it’s been mowed!! I took some photos there back in January, the glass was beautiful! It was still nice today, but it just wasn’t the same without the masses of fluffy grass.  Ah well, I’m sure it’ll be back soon.  I’m glad we stopped there anyway, I think I got some of my favorite photos of Gwen ever today, she was pretty darn good to me! Once we were ready to head home, I noticed I’d lost my brushed that was in my pocket. Now, this isn’t just any ole’ brush. This is the greatest brush in the world that I’ve had for.. Oh gosh, at least 12 years?? After nearly 3/4 an hour walking about 2 vacant lots, we *finally* found the brush. It was not an easy task, given the fact that it’s brown and it blended in so well with the grass!

Anyhow, on with todays efforts so I can go to bed!

Gwen’s basket from the Easter bunny.

She left him a carrot last night, and woke up to an eaten carrot, complete with nibbled end and crumbs! Apparently I’m a very thorough bunny, the eaten carrot was one of the most exciting things ever!

Happy about her surprise.

She’s telling me that the bunny even left her a candy watch!

Inspecting the goods

Amazed at the bunny trail on the floor that leads all the way to the window.

Checking to see where the bunny came from after following the footprints.

Showing daddy what the bunny left her.

Candy bracelets are always a hit with her.

Posing for todays photos. She was quite lovely for me today!

The first photo was when we heard two *huge* dogs running directly towards us. The smile is when she figured out they were friendly dogs.

Trying to spot pictures in the clouds. I love her fingers in this shot. She does this a lot in photos, I can go through a whole sequence and she’s curled her fingers the same in every single one.

Getting creative with her poses.

Love this one of her. Love this dress too!

These two are 100% Gwen. She chose a rock to sit on and posed herself. Very prissy!

Watching a plane, I think?

Pointing at two very loud birds that were in a tree.

She was a little grumpy with me here!

Another pose by Gwen. She wasn’t to lay in the grass like an angel princess lol.

Love this one!

She’s starting to get better at twirling! She doesn’t fall over as much these days – Practice makes perfect!

Love this shot lol.. She’s even cheeky and animated when she’s running!!

Now, I made myself a promise that I was going to start taking more photos of Gwen and I, and the 3 of us as a family.. I *really* hate myself in some of these, but I love them at the same time.. If that makes any sense!! I would have appreciated a little more of the photogenic genes growing up.. Luckily Gwen got some! She’s such a beautiful little thing if I do say so myself! So here we go.. Some self portraits of Gwen and I.

Wow, there we have it.. I also want to say a quick thank you to all my followers, and to all of you who are checking back daily to see my POTD posts.. Thanks for the support, and lovely blog comments!  … And now I’m off to bed!!

One more sleep until Easter! I’m sure many children have been on the count down like Gwen has been. She’s actually been a little bit of a monster today, god only knows what come over her! Luckily tonight she’s been a little darling. She’s done *such* a fantastic job cleaning her room, and best of all – She didn’t shove everything into random boxes to hide the mess like daddy does, she cleaned up properly!

A carrots been left for the bunny on her bedside table, everyone knows bunnies love carrots! The bunny’s going to have to wait a little while before it delivered the goods, it’s 11pm and Gwen’s still awake!

We didn’t do anything too exciting or spectacularly exciting today, but we did have a fun time jumping on the bed this evening! Now *usually* she’s not allowed to jump on the beds… But.. It’s a heck of a lot more acceptable when mummy has no other ideas for her potd photos! Lucky I had such a willing participant!

She jumped in front of the camera while I was trying to see if I had the room to take jumping photos.. Little poser!

Ahh… We had a few knots to brush out after these photos! Love how happy she is!

She’s so uncoordinated!! It took her a quite a few jumps before she could get any height.. Love these two of her, especially the second one!

She had to have another pose before I put the camera away.