8/52

A portrait of my children once a week every week in 2013. 

A short hike in the middle of February (but we'll take what we can get). Our local state park has a small raptor center with a dozen or so usually injured birds. Visiting them required a short hike, reminding us all of how much we miss being in Australia where going for bush walks was an option any day of the year!

7/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

This week was all about getting more comfortable in our new space. Painting (with my trusty assistant doing the chalkboard paint), reupholstering and rearranging. Also Reed turned 10 months. Siena said it all when she said "he is the brother I wished for when he was in your tummy mum." Smiles, smiles and more smiles. In about 10 days I am heading out of town for a few days and I am very anxious about leaving the little ones, especially Reed, given that he still barely eats any solids and is still mostly subsisting on mommy juice.

6/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

This week was marked by rainy winter days, kids taking their first together-bath, and an overwhelming number of smiles. Reed seems to be in the everything-is-funny mode. He doesn't skimp on smiles for his mama, dad, sister or any random stranger. His happiness is contagious.

5/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Two lovely snowed in days- playing outside, hot chocolate and the slowness and calmness that comes from everything being muffled by the snow

4/52...I am soooo behind

So almost a year ago one of my favorite bloggy mommies started this portrait a week project. I thought it a great idea, and thought about doing the same for awhile. Then this year many others started joining in- giving me further motivation. But the last straw came after my computer broke down over the holidays and I lost months of not only work, but also my "notes" in which I tried to capture the sorts of moments that I knew I'd forget in a day or a month or a year; simple moments with my little ones; the sorts of moments that eventually all blend into one and stop feeling real. So having lost the last few months of these notes is what ultimately made me decide to participate. My hope is to capture those "boring" moments that otherwise get forgotten, meshed into one; the moments that ultimately make up my life. I wanted to start right at the beginning, but between the start of the semester and buying and moving into a new house time got away from me...and to top it this is a joint portrait, but everyone has to start somewhere.

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

It's been awhile

But I guess that's not too surprising. We've spent lots of time becoming a family of four. It is so amazing that even after falling head over heels for Siena that I was nonetheless surprised to find myself falling in love with my little man. Things once again seemed to come so natural. Of course we are a family of four!, of course I have a son!...not too long after he was born, it was already hard to remember a time without him; a time when I was actually not too excited about having a boy. But here he is now, gorgeous, smiling, with still a mostly toothless grin, charming his way into hearts everywhere.

To add to this big change, we moved cities; in fact, we moved continents, and have left Australia and our dear ol' Mosman and have returned to the U.S. We are living in a rather small, but progressive Midwestern town, in the heart of the country. We started new jobs, found new rhythms and made new friends and all of that takes time. So after nearly 8 months, here I am back in this space.

Family

Our little family has grown and we cannot be happier. We are incredibly in love with Reed.

Beginnings

Term 1 has started and with it Siena is finally back in a routine. After several months in Italy and the holidays, this is a very welcome development. Mondays Siena and I try to see our mother's group- usually at the North Sydney playgroup, Tuesdays are for farm visits, zoo and catching up with friends, Wednesdays Siena goes to her Waldorf-Steiner playgroup (where we made lovely bread bags this week), Thursdays she goes to "Rhythm Factory"- which is mostly gymnastics and some dancing and counting and Fridays she has started the Mosman Dance Academy. Seeing the utter joy when she donned her ballerina outfit today and as the other little ballerinas arrived was...well...utter joy. The Mosman Dance Academy is in the Gunner's Barracks at the George's Heights right on the Sydney Harbour, so Siena wasn't the only one enjoying herself. I too enjoyed taking the half an hour to have a cuppa and start (and almost finish) a little beanie for the soon-to-come addition, while I waited for the class to get out. She of course had to show her whole performance of the "Goldilocks and Three Bears" to daddy this afternoon.

This is the you-seriously-going-to-take-more-pcitures-of-me-mom-face?

End of an era

Siena turning three happened to coincide with the school holidays, which usually means end of many pre-school activities and programs and overcrowded museums and zoos. But this time, for Siena, the term break was not just a break from weekly activities, but an end of several of them.

Montessori (for under 3s) has been a big part of our rhythm- it signaled the beginning of our week and it was really the only thing we had as an official schedule, since Siena is home-schooled at this point (or should I rather simply say "she doesn't go to preschool or daycare". Saying that she is "home-schooled" seems wrong since it is not a result of a decision, but rather a lack of a decision). Anyway, I got surprisingly sad during her last class. It was saying goodbye to my daughter's first 'school,' first 'teacher;' it was one of the first things we did when we moved to Sydney...and it was now over. Siena loved it, and so did we- in part because it helped shape Siena into this independent, focused little human- that we deeply enjoy.

Awesomeness that is Siena turns three

Lots of love and lots of cheese.

Ballet, popcorn and friendship

Siena and her friend Tilly have been going to ballet classes last few months. It seems that seeing each other before and after ballet (while wearing ballet outfits) is really the highlight of their ballet classes- so instead of a post featuring their "concert," this post is about...well...popcorn and dinosaurs- because after all aren't all thing in life ultimately about popcorn, dinosaurs and popcorn dinosaurs (which is what the girls are pretending to be at the end of the video).

Rainy, sick days

 It's been raining here in Sydney for over a week. In addition, our little one was sick for most of that week- so our days all turned into one long, dark and rainy day. To kill the time and keep Siena happy we did all sorts of crafty/fun projects and they kept both her and us entertained. We cooked, baked gingerbread cookies, decorated them with an odd green (the only food coloring I had) brown sugar (the only sugar I had) icing, we made a tent out of some old Ikea sheets, and an Ikea chalkboard (yup, chalkboard) and I spent time doing some free-lance crocheting of pants. The crochet pants are just like all of my crocheting- no rules, just pure chaos- but she likes them and I like them so woopty-doo!

our little chef

the make-shift tent from Ikea chalkboard

Door to tent curtesy of another one of mommy's crazy ruleless crocheting projects

Crochet pants (the little white thing is supposed to be a flower)

No rainy day would be complete without a tea party (I discovered liquid chalk a week ago and have gone a tad bit psycho with it)