2012

I don't remember Gabriel growing so fast, but at the beginning of the year he was a baby, and now he's a boy.
Ronin is a month old and yet it seems like just yesterday that I was whinging about him being overdue.Some of his clothing he could only wear once, because while wondersuits were in the wash he outgrew them. Others he never fit at all (4.4kg anyone?)

I'm horrified by how fast this year is coming to a close.
So while it doesn't even seem like a year has passed since I reviewed last year - here is 2012

We took over the local park and the swimming pool in our complex for some intense athletic competitions. It was so amazing that we even attracted the attention of a local (highly eccentric) artist.

Also I turned 27.

 Family photos at Carrs Park - and the beginnings of Ronin. Thankfully I don't get morning sickness to any debilitating degree.

Still warm enough to take Gabe to the pool, and he's still too young to be scared of things that he ought to be wary of. Like jumping into the big pool when he can't swim.

Getting colder. Life and work goes on. 

My sister got engaged on her birthday to her very nice boyfriend. Gabe LOVES visiting his Oma and Papa and pestering all the guinea pigs and the ducks (RIP duckies)

Gabe hates getting his hair cut. We have to wrestle him to get any kind of cutting implement near his head. As a result of this, his hair cuts aren't so great. Visiting Lambs Valley and Grandma and Grandma is great though. 

Mum taught me how to crochet this winter, so I made things. Gabe and I escape whenever it's not super cold or wet because our house is boring. We are sick for this entire month.

The Brother in Law gets married and is supremely happy. It is a great excuse to visit with family who we rarely get to see. 

Gabriel goes for his first horse ride, bare back and unassisted - like the true grandson of his horse-lord Grandpa. This month is awesome, because it is full of family. We spend our last weekend at Blue Bonnet as it is SOLD :( but it is fantastic to spend that time with family. 

 

My sister gets married and is stunningly beautiful. 

Family travels from around the country and from New Zealand to be there and enjoy the occasion (and the great food)

 

Kyle turns 26 and we don't have to pay so much for insurance on the car.

 

 

Gabe turns 2. In the week leading up to his birthday he proves just how awesome his is by letting me potty train him. 

 

Kyle applies for film school.

I start study to be a medical transcriptionist.

 

 

After impatiently waiting for him to arrive, Ronin is born on the 9th. He looks like his brother's brother, but definitely has my nose.

I think he's pretty cool. 

Another wedding, the first that I get to go to NOT pregnant. 

Christmas is soon and I am wholly unprepared, but life goes on. 

There are four of us now and I still feel like I'm just playing at being a grown up.

Next year Kyle will be studying film, and to make sure that we have enough currency to survive we will be running several businesses out of our house. 

I'm nervous and a bit stressed about it, but excited too. 

We'll just have to see what 2013 brings. 

See you then x

 

 

The Art Journal - Page 3

THIS IS WHY... continued.

These pages face each other and so I thought it would be good for them to share a theme.

My husband is not an overly sentimental fellow. (understatement)

One day though, I know that I will be glad that I have bothered to write/create/spew these books, because it will help him, and our children, and their children (if they last that long) to know me, and perhaps even him, better.
It certainly isn't my primary motivation, but with one little kiddie-winkle running wild on this world and another one kicking my internal organs (even as I type this), it seems like a nice thought that one day they'd be able to look at these - my creative spewings - and get to know me at 27.

This page has... a wonderful drawing from Ky and Gabe during church, a photo of the boys in Raro, a rubbing or a lino cut plate, and more paper off cuts. (Art journaling is a great way to get rid of scrap paper!)

I also sewed some things on with wool.

Use photos in your pages!These boys are my favourite people, who are yours? Make a page about them! Art journaling is a lot looser than scrap booking and there really are no rules.

Some tips:

• Try sewing things on. If the paper/card is thick, stab the holes first with an awl. 
• Make your own paper - with stamps, leaf rubbings, drawings, hand prints...
• Alphabet stickers are awesome. I know I was all like 'love your handwriting' and you should, but variety is good too. 

 In other news... my camera is no good at taking photos of flat things - like pages of art journals. The edges are ALWAYS blurry.

Wednesday Words - July begins

Thursday 28.06

  

Friday 29.06

 

Saturday 30.06

 Sunday 01.07

  

Monday 02.07

Tuesday 03.07

Wednesday 04.07

Thoughts on Monday

I woke up this morning with great plans (and a complete lack of affection for my husbands alarm) dressed the boy, dressed myself, cleaned up a bit and headed out.

We caught the bus, did some shopping, ate some food and all the while he was a very well behaved little 20 month old.

... and then...

Is that a bird in the middle of the road? I better go get it! No? Let me just lie down on the curb then and see how far I can reach into the road. 

A leek! I think I should shred all the leaves off it. 

Oh, mum's shopping bags broke and all our food is spilled in the middle of the road. I'm not going to wait on the footpath where she put me, I want to splash in that filthy gutter water!

I am sure that Ky thought something was seriously wrong when I called him up crying, sitting in the cemetery (which is right beside our house) shopping bags right where I had thrown them when I went to save our selectively deaf child from being hit by a car in the gutter of a main road.
Bless him, he swung by before his next appointment and picked us up, dropped us off at home and had some stern words for Gabe. Gabriel sat very quietly, listened to his father, said "uh-huh" which I think is what he just says to make us think that he is agreeing with us (this kid must think we're chumps) and went and sat himself quietly down in front of the TV.

I haven't quite forgiven him entirely for ignoring my road side shrieks, but I'm venting now and it will never be mentioned again.

This quote came to mind, and as soon as I get off the computer, I am going to work on getting a real life version of this photo going on.
Because naps do make (most) days better... especially when its the baby who is having the nap!!

Merci pour l'aventure.

Pixar created one of my most favourite love stories when they made 'Up'. Of course it doesn't hurt that Ellie and Carl is very similar to Ellie (me) and Kyle (my husband) but asides from the name similarities, their story of loyal, enduring and life changing love puts the movie up there with my favourites. I used to just sit and watch the montage of Ellie and Carl's life together because it's definitely one of my favourite montages - even though it's sad. (really sad)

Ellie's love of life, despite never getting to South America as she had planned as a girl, her happiness in her marriage (despite the bitter sadness they both must have felt when dealt the cruel blow of infertility) and most of all the way she viewed all of these things, small and big as adventures - is all a great inspiration to me. 

You can tell how much she valued her life experiences, her memories, and her time with Carl, because she recorded it. 

Wah! Such a wonderful thing to leave behind. So full of love and fond memories and moments and all those good things that you want to remember about life. How I would love to get my hands on similar creations (if such existed) from my grandparents/parents/friends/whomever. 
As a side note, this is another one of the reasons why I feel so strange and melancholy about seeing family photos and albums in second hand and vintage stores.


I totally cry nearly every time I watch Up (Its strange, but I cry more about animated movies than I do about others... hmm) 

The point though is that I often feel that things are far too mundane in my life to deserve recording in anything by the briefest of notes. I think that it would help me as much as anyone, to record things as the adventures that they are. (Small though they may be) So in the coming months you can expect a lot more journaling, tutorials, scrapbooks, art and photos as I try to capture some more, try to be more grateful for, more productive with, and do meaningful things with the life that I have. 

And just to be clear, my whole renewed energy in this is not entirely supplied by a wonderfully rendered animation, but also by some of the other more diligent record keepers in my life - like my mum and mum in law, a certain graceful ballerina I know, and others. 

I do know people in real life. 
Just sayin'.

"Thanks for the adventure - now go have a new one! Love, Ellie"

 

Oh dear

So ah... its been a while huh.

Over a month in fact. I have no excuses. I DO have a clean house, which frankly could easily fill in the time since my last post, but there has been a little bit more going on over at my house than that.

Like my third wedding anniversary which was all about Mexican food and watching the Hunger Games.

Then Diablo 3 came out... which was actually only last week... but it feels like the fourth member of our family because we spend so much time with it. Our second child (due in November!) is in great danger of being called Deckard Cain. (JOKES - I would never do that)

We got a washing machine and a fridge, so we can freeze things and actually keep food in the house. (the bar fridge was tragically inadequate for both of these tasks)

The rugby season started and Ky's hurt both shoulders, dislocated a finger, sprained an ankle, and bruised his nose. Ah rugby.

I started another blog called Dirt Ball which is about news stories and things that concern me about the world. (Its also been neglected since Diablo 3 arrived)

And on the Diablo 3 theme, a while back, before the game was released, Ky entered my art into a competition to win a beta key so that you could play the game before it came out. I won one.
This is what the drawing was.
Leaping through the air is a demon hunter (my character) and shooting her like a meanie is a Barbarian (Ky... you wife basher)

the whanau

This is my family.

Last month we gathered together at Carrs Park and the wonderful Clarissa of Art of Joy Photography took photos of us and here we are!

After all the photos we were all starving so we headed over to Paul's Burgers and filled our faces with award winning burgers and super delicious shakes. YUM.

Wooden Tree

I love trees. I love family. I love art. 

Conveniently they are three things that go together super well. A while back I drew up a family tree for my own family and I now have a few templates that you can use for whatever you want. Be creative - get finger printing, write names, stick on photos.... you know - stuff. Here are some of the cool trees that I found on the internet. 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/fancyprints

People Tree via http://piccsy.com

http://www.marthastewart.com

Here are the trees that you can get the pdfs for. From pdf most printers can print these up bigger. (The originals are A3.) 

... there is no word on the pdf

This is what I did with them:

Go wild. 

Skeleton tree

Coloured tree

Reasons to be grateful

I live next to a cemetery.

I get the impression that it hasn't always been the safest of places given the hints of broken glass around the place, but I like cemeteries and I have no real issue walking through it to get to the main road. (I only avoid it when I see people loitering around in there)

I'd left Gabe's pram in the car so he had to walk on his own little legs all the way to 'town' and then all the way back. When he got fed up, we jumped on the free shuttle and rode it all the way around till we were back a few blocks away from our house.
He was asleep - so along with a bag of groceries and my bag, I had to carry a 13kg baby.

He was so heavy and so sweaty and the grocery bag was so awkward that I quickly became fed up and was ready to get back on the bus.

Then we got to the cemetery.

I often read headstones and think about what kind of people the named might have been. The headstones of children make me sadder than any others, and one in particular more than most.

A long time ago there was a little boy named Samuel who had parents who loved him and lived on a property that had a well. Left open by a negligent female servant, three-year old Samuel fell in and drowned. His head stone tells us that he was a lovely boy full of potential, as all little boys are...

... and suddenly I was so grateful for my little sweat machine. For his beating heart and bright eyes. For his grubby hands and bruised knees. For his potential.

Sometimes its big things, and sometimes things that would seem highly insignificant to other people, but when we look for them we can always find reasons to be grateful.

Doing it for the kids

Our Gabe only got his own room when we moved to The Tower at the end of last year. It was a total revelation to me, and to him too apparently because he magically started sleeping through the night.

I would love to be able to put all sorts of awesome art around his room so he had this inspiring environment to exist in... or some kind of developmental jargony thing... This is one of the reasons why I am so interested in children's illustrations.

some of my attempts

Would really love to get some bold coloured fairy tales, and typography type things. I don't really get the whole alphabet poster thing in the general sense (I know my abc's I don't really want them on my wall) but it makes more sense in a kids room. 

Last Sunday Gabe was given a framed picture of Christ teaching some children which I thought was a great thing.

What kind of things do you have up in your kids rooms? What kind of things would you love to put up but can't find? Let's collaborate! (Let me poach your ideas!) 

2011

A few days ago I went through all the photos I have on my computer and thought deep thoughts about the meaning of life and how motherhood has shifted my perspective on things... you know... pretentious intellectual stuff.

It's not the end of the year yet, but I'm unlikely to think about this later, so here it is. I am already planning to "seize the day" for the whole of 2012 (much like I did this time last year) but (as always) I am convinced next year will be different.

We shall see.

This reviewing the year exercise has illustrated a few things to me.
Those things being:

• I take a lot of photos of Gabriel. 
• I take many photos of Kyle. 
• I take very few photos of me. (the key words there being 'I take' which means the photos I have are myspace beauties from arms length)
• It takes me longer to lose weight than I think it does... 
• Much like a small nomadic tribe, we have traveled a fair bit this year. 
• We have lived out of suitcases for an annoying length of time. 
• I never want to move again. 

So here it is. 2011

 We lived in Sydney.

I turned ... older. 

Stayed with Uncle Hugh and Aunty Dorothy

Art Galleries and Games Workshop

Gabriel learned how to crawl

Packed the house up.

Moved to Rarotonga (via New Zealand). 

Visited Aitutaki.

Went to the beach lots. 

Gabe learned how to walk. (ie. the beginning of the end)

Ended our contract in Raro, headed back to Sydney

Kyle's birthday. 

Gabriel's first (proper) hair cut.

Gabe survived one whole year of us being his parents. 

Moved to our own place.

Close to pools, parks, cemeteries and shops (ie. perfect)

Our first Christmas in our own place. 

Gabriel's new best friend is Peter Weatherall.

Bring on the new year (after Christmas naturally.)... just maybe skip the part where its my birthday again.