family life

30 November 2012

Tree light

The heat has arrived in Sydney. We’ve spent the day pottering around at home, watching the boys chase each other around and enjoying naps on the couch. Rick has now prepared a picnic dinner which we will take to a shady spot near the water, so that we can soak in the cool southerly breeze and hear the waves crashing onto shore.

These photos were taken on a similarly warm day at Balmoral beach two summers ago, only a week before we were expecting Jamie to arrive into our arms. It’s almost impossible to imagine life without him now…

What are your plans for the weekend ahead?

23 Comments

26 November 2012

These two…

Sunday mornings.

Rick leaves the house at about quarter past seven. As soon as the sound of the engine fades, another noise inevitably emerges.

The sound of small feet padding their way into the hallway. Then the hesitant knocks on my bedroom door. Then the gentle creak of the door as it slowly swings open, revealing two little figures in the doorway.

Yes, these two.

Looking all cheeky and sheepish, as if they know they’ve woken up too early for mummy’s liking.

Usually I’m tired and grumpy and instruct them to go back to bed. But yesterday was different. I felt cheerful, and couldn’t resist their cute little faces grinning back at me. I told them they could climb into mummy and daddy’s bed if they wanted to. They did so immediately, though it took some negotiation to work out who got to sleep on daddy’s pillow.

As I watched them giggling and chatting in hushed tones so as not to wake Jamie up, I could hardly believe that these two were mine.

They are such great mates, even if they don’t know it yet.

I am so lucky to be their mum.

Thank you to everyone for your amazing response to our announcement. We are incredibly excited, and I’m so happy that you are too!

(Linking up with Lou.)

17 Comments

05 August 2012

The golden hour, chapter 2

Spending time outdoors during the golden hour has been so much easier since Jamie started to walk. He’s just like one of the big boys now: strolling around, inspecting leaves on the ground, drawing on the driveway with chalk, shovelling pebbles into a bucket, peeking at the ants, and dragging a shovel along behind him. It’s so wonderful to watch the three of them running around and playing with each other like the best of friends.

Sometime last week, I prepared some peanut butter on toast for the boys for afternoon tea, and served it up with some tomato and cheese. Our boys love their cheese and their toast (though getting them to eat the crust is still an art form that we have yet to perfect), which is just fine with me considering how easy it is to prep both! Can you see that a fork is missing from the ‘after’ shot? 10 points for anyone who can work out where it’s gone…

There are days when I ache for these three to remain little boys forever. More than anything, I yearn to protect them from ever being hurt. I want to wrap them up in my arms, and envelope them for all time. But seeing as that is not possible, I shall be content with watching, listening and savouring as they learn, love and live each day.

You can read more of our golden hour story here.

(Linking up with Jess.)

46 Comments

30 July 2012

The golden hour story begins

You know what the best time of the day is for our family? It’s in the afternoon, somewhere around four o’clock. I love everything about that time of the day. The light is golden. Angus is home from preschool, and Rick is almost always around. The boys are usually in a good mood. There is nothing to stress about, because we don’t have to be anywhere or do anything; we’re simply spending time together before nighttime begins (along with the whole dinner/bath/bedtime ordeal). We’re usually all in the mood for afternoon tea, so I try to prepare (somewhat healthy) snacks for everyone. In fact, I love doing afternoon tea because it’s easy. It’s relaxed. It doesn’t involve cooking. It can be as simple as I want it to be. Or it can be fancy, if I feel like being creative. And the look on everybody’s faces – along with the little shouts of delight – when they see the tray of food and drink that I’ve prepared is just utterly precious. It’s one of those rare moments of the day when I actually feel like a great mum. (Silly, I know.)

And so begins our golden hour story: a series of posts featuring the food and moments from our golden hour. I hope you enjoy this small glimpse into our every day life.

I prepared this particular ‘bento’ over the weekend, on our day off, while the boys and Rick were all enjoying their naps. Our pantry was rather empty, so I decided to just bring out some Fruity Bites and Cheerios from our cereal selection. I also grabbed the leftover fruit buns from earlier in the day, and hid them in the metal teapot as a little surprise. Our boys also love their fruit so bananas and oranges were added to the mix. Sadly, we’d run out of milk but we still had a carton of So Good left so as an extra treat, I decanted the remaining soy milk into the little glass bottles from Jamie’s birthday. I was slightly hesitant about the possibility of breakage but then I remembered how careful they’d all been – including Jamie – so I decided to risk it. Turns out, there was nothing to worry about at all – they all held their bottles perfectly and they absolutely loved the novelty of it! I’m guessing I’ll be using those glass bottles a lot more from here on.

p.s. Part 2 of the Snap Me Happy series will go live tomorrow! (Finally.)

41 Comments

16 July 2012

As of this moment…

…we are battling The Flu in our family. It struck our household last week and meant that Rick and I couldn’t even go out for the date that we’d planned on my birthday last Thursday. Thankfully, the worst is behind us in that we’re both on our feet again (literally) though I suspect it will be a whole week before all five of us are back to our normal selves. I’m not quite sure how we would’ve pulled through these last five days if it weren’t for our amazing parents. Rick’s parents even stayed over two nights in a row so that they could help look after the boys during the night. Do I have the best in-laws or what?

Anyway, a huge thank you to everyone for your lovely birthday wishes – it’s so lovely to have such awesome bloggy friends! I’m also overwhelmed by the huge response to The Happy Closet – who knows, maybe we can start a movement together?

32 Comments

28 May 2012

The perfect light, and thoughts on weekending

With winter fast approaching, the days are getting shorter. It feels like evening begins in the late afternoon, before the day has yet reached its fullness. Most days I watch the sunlight fade from the sanctuary of my studio, as that’s when Rick and the boys usually go out to explore the yard and bush around our home. Due to my studio facing west, the sunlight is soft and golden at that time of the day, but as night continues to fall, the gold morphs into a silverish grey which I find utterly beguiling. Saturday afternoon was no exception.

We had tentative plans of driving down to the Southern Highlands this weekend but in the end opted to stay close to home. We enjoyed just being with the boys both inside and out, and in the evenings, I carved out some time to work on Pete’s scrapbook. It was one of those weekends where we had no particular plans and didn’t go to any effort to do anything ‘exciting.’ Just hanging out together as a family was enough.

What am I saying – it was perfect.

It’s funny – even though both Rick and I thrive on being around other people, we are also perfectly content with each other’s company. Unfortunately, this means that we are rather bad at making plans with friends. Combined with the fact that we’re not particularly spontaneous people, it means we usually do end up spending our day off with just us and the boys. When we lived closer to our parents, we would sometimes drop over at one of their places on a whim but even this doesn’t really happen anymore seeing as we’re a good fifty minutes drive away from their neck of the woods.

Part of it is a stage of life thing – seeing as Jamie and Pete still have a midday nap, our outings are usually restricted to the mornings or the afternoons. For special occasions or the occasional road trip, we don’t mind if boys end up falling asleep in the car, but for the most part, we do like to stick to a solid routine for their sake and ours. I guess as the boys get older and we all need less sleep (hard as that is to imagine right now), there will be more things that we can do and hopefully more people whom we can see.

But for now, this is our life, and honestly, I don’t mind it at all.

So tell me – how was your weekend?

29 Comments

09 May 2012

Two things

I love watching flowers go dry. They seem to develop a certain richness and character as they age and wilt. We’ve had these blooms on our sideboard in the foyer for more than a week now, yet they only just caught my attention tonight. I love how simple and pretty they look, and am considering drying them properly and putting them in our bedroom.

We hardly got any sleep last night, because a certain little munchkin kept us up. Poor Jamie has quite a bad cold – his first cold in almost eight months. I feel terrible, because I’m certain that I gave it to him. This recent cold weather has certainly gotten the better of our family. Only Angus and Pete remain healthy, which is kind of a miracle in itself. Anyway, here Jamie is in Nan’s arms, looking completely at home. It reminds me of this photo of him and Pa.

Our boys are so blessed to have grandparents who love them.

17 Comments

26 April 2012

On the kiddo table

Lately I’ve been inspired by the amazing Miss James from Bleubird Vintage to try and think more creatively about what we serve the boys for dinner. So these last couple of weeks, Rick and I have been brainstorming ideas and attempting to coax our boys to consume dinner more eagerly (and efficiently) by serving up meals which we thought they would be interested in eating. Well, the results are in and here they are:

Preparation time:

Approximately 40 minutes

Components:

Meat balls, bok choy, pumpkin and mushroom

Response from Angus (3 year old):

Consumed two kebabs by himself. Told us that he liked “the funny things on a stick.”

Response from Pete (2 year old):

Refused bok choy. Refused pumpkin. Refused mushroom. Finally accepted two meatballs. Accepted yoghurt with great delight.

Response from Jamie (1 year old):

Picked up meatball, and ate it. Picked up pumpkin, and ate it. Picked up mushroom and ate it. Picked up bok choy and attempted to chew it. Discarded bok choy. Picked up the remaining meatball, pumpkin and mushroom and polished it all off. Consumed one entire kebab (minus bok choy remnants) happily and willingly.

Our conclusion:

2 out of 3 liked the kebabs. Success!

Addendum:

Sadly, when we tried the same kebabs again a few days later, 0 out of 3 liked the kebabs.

Preparation time:

Approximately 30 minutes

Components:

Veal schnitzel, beans, peas and cherry tomatoes

Response from Angus (3 year old):

Consumed schnitzel with much persuasion. Consumed cherry tomatoes. Consumed 1 bean. Rejected all peas.

Response from Pete (2 year old):

Ate 2 pieces of schnitzel under great duress. Rejected all greens. Did not even look at the small red things. Instead, ate Jamie’s ‘Organic Only’ fruit muesli (read: baby food) from a jar. And a banana.

Response from Jamie (1 year old):

Allowed schnitzel bites to be put into his mouth. Tasted schnitzel bites. Spat out schnitzel bites. Accepted my offer of porridge, which we had as back up.

Our conclusion:

Try again when all three are over the age of five.

Addendum:

Mummy polished off the schnitzel bites.

Preparation time:

Unknown, because these were made by Nan (on Pa’s birthday)!

Components:

Chicken nuggets, potato fries

Response from Angus (3 year old):

Finished most of the food on his plate, along with a few tomatoes from the grown-up’s salad.

Response from Pete (2 year old):

Climbed on and off the chair about five times. Ignored nuggets. Ignored chips. Ignored mummy’s look of immense exasperation. Accepted six mouthfuls of porridge.

Response from Jamie (1 year old):

Ate grapes. And maybe five mouthfuls of porridge.

Our conclusion:

Invest in the shares of a company that produce rolled oats.

Addendum:

Mummy ate the nuggets. Mummy ate the chips. And then mummy had lasagne. And pie.

Despite everything, we shall keep trying. Round 2 here we come. Brace yourselves, boys.

p.s. I am also over at Johanna’s blog today, sharing the big and small things that make life with three little boys easier and extra special. Head over there for a few peeks into our home!

26 Comments

22 April 2012

The time that was and is to come

When Rick and I first got married, we used to go over to his parents’ house for lunch or dinner at least once a week. Sue, Jess and Mark – Rick’s two sisters and brother-in-law – would often be there too. Mary, Rick’s mum, would usually have something roasting in the oven, be it pork, beef or lamb. There would be also be gravy, baked vegetables, salad and apple cider. Sometimes instead of a roast, mum might make a lasagne, which would be equally delicious. Whatever she made, there would almost always be an apple or peach crumble to follow, served with creamy vanilla ice cream and a hot cup of tea. We would chat, laugh, swap stories and some of us would even catch up on a nap now and again (okay, I admit, that was often me).

Though I wasn’t aware of it then, that was a truly special time in our married life. It was through those conversations over the countless meals we shared together that I got to know Rick’s family – my family. I learnt family history, family trees, family stories, family rituals and family jokes (and boy were there many of those). I learnt why Rick is the man that he is – so expressive, so gentle, so loving, so warm and so kind – because that’s what his parents are like. I learnt that in the Mason clan, family comes first, and nothing is too much trouble if it means helping each other out. Words cannot express how blessed I felt to be included and welcomed so unconditionally into such an amazing family.

These days, we don’t often get to enjoy a family meal together at mum and dad’s place like we used to. Everyone lives further away, work commitments are more demanding and for us, having the little ones means that it’s hard to go out at night or at lunchtimes, because that’s when sleeps and naps (theirs, not ours) take place.

On Friday, however, we packed the boys into the Discovery after their nap time and made the trip to Pa and Nan’s place. It was dad’s birthday, and mum had invited us over for a family meal. We arrived to see a meat pie baking the oven, a lasagne on the benchtop ready to go, and homemade chicken nuggets for the boys. Jamie jumped straight into Pa’s arms, while Angus and Pete bustled about emptying the toy cupboard and trying to get Nan’s attention. Being the amazing grandmother that she is, Nan of course managed to keep both boys happy whilst finishing off dinner preparations. Honestly, I aspire to be like her one day.

After dinner, which was admittedly a slightly chaotic affair, we bathed the boys and put them in their PJs. Then, with much excitement, Nan brought out Pa’s birthday cake and one by one the candles were lit while the boys looked on with great anticipation. We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Pa, with both Angus and Pete joining in. In fact, as I watched Pete shout “Hurray!” along with everyone else, I was suddenly struck by how much he’d grown up in the last few months. Naturally, the boys devoured the chocolate cake (if only dinner went down as easily) and Pete even asked Nan for a second serving, that cheeky little monkey.

Even though we had to rush off after the cake and had no time for cups of tea, the family time together gave me a beautiful taste of what is to come in the future, when the boys are a bit older and can stay up later. As for now, I shall cherish this wonderfully chaotic stage of life, because this shall surely pass in the twinkling of an eye.

p.s. Happy birthday Pa! We love you to bits.

22 Comments

04 April 2012

The last days of summer

The beaches here in our new neck of the woods have been such a wonderful blessing for our family. Neither Rick nor I grew up near the beach, so being able to drive seven or so minutes to see the ocean is a real treat. However, one of our favourite beaches so far is Clareville Beach, which is about twenty-five minutes drive from our home.

It’s a small, cosy beach with shallow water and no waves. The beach itself backs onto a row of houses, which adds to the intimate and friendly feel of the beach. Angus and Pete can run, jump, splash and play to their hearts delight without us me worrying about their safety, and on a Friday which is when we usually go, it’s almost completely deserted. Which makes it feel like we have this beautiful beach all to ourselves. It’s as close to idyllic as a day out can get. In fact, I have been so won over that I recently bought my first swimsuit in six years!

One of the very best things about spending time together at Clareville Beach is that Rick and I actually get to relax. Yes, you heard me parents. Relax. We don’t have to worry about them getting lost, making noise, being run over by a car, being snatched away by a random stranger, falling off some play equipment from up high, or spilling drinks and food onto the ground. It is awesome. Last time we went, I even got to lie down on our beach towel at our spot in the shade for a full ten minutes while Rick had all the boys down by the water, each doing their own thing. You guys, I actually got to stare up at the sky and switch off. How often does that happen? (Never.)

As you can see, we’ve come a long way from our first family holiday with Angus (bottom left) on the South Coast when he steadfastly refused to let his feet touch the sand. It brings me so much joy to see how much he loves the beach now. Pete, our little tornado man (top right), rushes straight into the water as if he were made for splashing. He doesn’t even care when his face goes under. Methinks that swimming lessons are in order.

Our days off are just so precious, because it’s the one day when the boys get Rick’s complete, undivided attention. It’s the one day that Rick is not distracted with the never-ending list of things he needs to do for church. I just love seeing them hang out, have fun and be ‘boys’ together. I’m very blessed to have the family that I do.

All in all, we’re simply soaking up these last days of summer before the chilly season sets in.

Are you doing the same?

(p.s. I did some guest blogging over on Kristin’s lovely blog Bonbon Mini a couple of days ago. About the boys, no less. Read it here if you have a spare moment! And while you’re there, check out Kristin’s store Miniluu which is filled with beautiful, natural goodies for your little one.)

20 Comments

← Previous Entries