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- Littlest, on the rug with her favourite toy. It is true love.
- Littlest, rugged up for the beach with grandpa.
-Poppet, by the shore in evening light.
-Poppet, walking the beach paths in her princess dress.
-Sprocket, engrossed in sand and water play.
-Sprocket, in the ti-tree grove.

We've had a blissful week at the beach - but I rarely got out my camera. In fact, only really on the one overcast morning of the week.

Joining with Jodi for a portrait of my little ones once a week every most some occasionally in 2014. 

Countdown to a white Christmas.. One dream trip, coming right up...

So.

The kids passports have all just arrived in the mail. Our hotel in Paris is booked. And the flights. The hotels in London, Paris and Amsterdam and the house in Edinburgh are likewise sorted. I think I can finally believe it's really happening. In a few short months we're heading overseas for what will hopefully be our first ever white Christmas, and our first trip overseas as a family, travelling with my Beloved's folks. (I have big plans for sitting in Paris cafes with my beyond-compare sister-in-law while the wild ones are at Euro Disney with their Nana and daddy...) We are over the moon excited. 

While this will be my eightth trip to Scotland,* ninth if you count the time in-mum's-tum, I've somehow skipped Christmas every visit. My last visit - my first with my Beloved, Sprocket and Poppet in-my-tum, was the closest I came, arriving in the UK just after Christmas, so in time to enjoy the decorations, but missing the actual celebrations.

This year we'll be spending Christmas in Edinburgh, New Year in London and have a few follow up days in Amsterdam and Paris before hurrying home for my beloved to begin Doctoring in early January...in ta-da, Queensland. (Yes, packing for a major overseas trip as well as moving interstate will leave us a little busy. We are the experts at biting off more than we can chew. Hello sweet chaos, our old friend.**)

Of course... in order to revel in a white Christmas we need to travel twenty-four odd hours on a plane with three rowdy kids. Well, Littlest isn't rowdy (yet), but I suspect she'll be crawling by then, if not well on the way to walking…

I'm alternating between envisioning myself and my beloved strolling along the snow-banked Seine, hand in hand all chic in black velvet (me, not so much him with the velvet) and bereted, snow falling softly on our chic selves (I will of course have lost all trace of the baby-belly, while my Beloved will have Littlest, also tres chic in a little beret, wrapped to his belly) with the wee ones strolling along before us hand in hand, and nightmares of us rolling off the plane with newly grey hair, clothes covered in baby diarhea and vomit and hauling screaming children - also covered in various sticky substances. I suspect the reality will be somewhere between the two.

But I'm thinking now is the time to ask - recommendations for things to do with kids in Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam and Paris?

And any tips for long haul flights with young kids? Neither drugs nor alcohol are an option…

*Yep, keenly interested in the referendum. The suspense is so hard! 

** Just because where there's chaos there should be more chaos, I have a terrible hankering to do Nanowrimo this year - you know where you write 50,000 words in a month. Which would be November, the month before we fly overseas and move state... Will I, won't I? Will I won't I? It might take my mind of the insanity of it all...

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- Sprocket, up a tree. A favoured place. He was throwing down blossom for me - delightfully fragrant.
-Littlest. She loves to be standing, and standing on the trampoline with all the pack is the biggest of delights!
-Poppet. My bold and brilliant girl. Red suits her - she is flamboyant and dramatic and full of stories and  vitality. She's finding Littlest taking up so much of my time, and so much of everyones attention hard, but she's trying so hard.

Joining with Jodi for a portrait of my little ones once a week every most some weeks in 2014.

Addicted...

"Mummy, put them back, we can't read all of those!" Poppet tells me. We're in the library and I'm selecting stories to read her. This looks great. I love that one. Ooo. Another one to try.

"Are you sure?" I ask. She nods.

I bring the ones I've chosen over and, Littlest in her sling on my tummy, we squash into the armchair and begin reading.

Despite Poppet's doubts, we do get through them all, and each one is a treasure.

However, I suspect my other pile of library books might be more problematic. There they are above. I'm finding so many things of interest I'm thinking of putting interesting quotes on Facebook.

All those jokes about a bookworm working in a library being similar to an alcoholic working in a pub? Sadly true. (Although less damaging to ones health.)

And of course with all these books? The one I just stayed up most of a night reading was a completely different kind of book - a young adult fantasy book Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas, the third in a series of six.  I've been waiting on it for months and it was every bit as good as I hoped it would be, which is to say brilliant. Now I am in deep, deep mourning that it will be months again until the next book in the series comes out….

What has everyone else been reading?

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- Littlest, enjoying the big circle swing at the park. Wearing Poppet's bonnet - just a tad big!
-Poppet. Running to the blossom. She bored of the blossom far far more quickly than I did. I could have stayed all day. We stayed half an hour, but it was very lovely!
-Sprocket, at the park. He has 'sticky' feet. Shoes come off and he can climb just about anything.

Spring is glorious at the moment. Blossom and magnolia and camellia and jonquils. It is just heavenly. I keep sighing and sniffing and grinning and sighing. Nostalgia over real seasons is already hitting and making it all the more precious.

Joining with Jodi for a photo of my children every most some weeks in 2014

Littlest: Four months

Sweetheart, 

You're four months today and such a gorgeous delight of gurgles and giggles and triumphant grins. I know I only completed your three month letter a couple of weeks ago but even in those two weeks you seem to have grown hugely. 

Your little giggle is deep and wheezy and completely delighted. Heh-hehehehehe! Sometimes when I just giggle at you, you giggle back, sometimes I have to work for it, blowing raspberries on your belly or smooching your neck. You also think your brother and sister are your own personal entertainment system and you'll often giggle at them.  

You are exceptionally bad for my ego - on seeing me your whole face lights up in a beaming grin. I'm sure such blatant adoration can't be good for me. 

You are reaching out more and more, to touch, to feel, to move. While you feed your hands are constantly sweeping, moving, patting, kneading. You reach out for food, grab for toys. You like to hold my fingers, clasping, unclasping, furling, unfurling your fingers, and then moving on to reach for my book. 

You have discovered your own soft, downy head, and for a few days there you were constantly reaching up to feel the softness at the back of your skull. It looked very affected and droll. I don't blame you - your little head is so silken and warm. 

We are calling you the Drool-Meister at the moment because you are just swimming in dribble. You are constantly chewing on one hand, or both hands or your fingers and drenching at least one bib a day. I don't like to put you in a bib over night in case it covers your face, so you always wake damp chested. 


You are more accustomed to tummy time now (although it tends to make you posset) and struggle to move around, making odd swimming notions, pushing your little backside in the air, raising up your head. Even on your tummy you want to be in control, lifting up your head and legs with better tummy muscles than I have. (Not precisely hard.) 

Your daddy took all three of you for two afternoons recently while I was at work and he was pleasantly surprised with how well you took the bottle - and how easy it was to delight and entertain you - as long as there was milk in the offing. It's the first time he's been able to feed one of you while you're milk-dependent, and it was clear he liked it. He has talked of mummy-envy - the envy of being able to instantly settle a baby, and this seems to be a solution - although I can't say I'm a fan of expressing. I feel distinctly bovine. 

We took you to the beach last weekend, and you lay on the sand and gurgled up at the blue sky (you were carefully in shade: note to self, we need to get you a sunhat). Your sister put a pile of sand on your tummy so you could truly experience the beach and you got little sandy toes from kicking. We put your tiny feet in the sea - you looked startled. We put your tiny feet in a sun-warmed rock-pool, where soft weed swirled around them - and you smiled. 

You are joining the pack on the trampoline now - loving being 'one of the kids'. Your sister loves to hold you as you stand, so strong on your podgy little thighs. 

Your brother saves his softness, his tenderness for you. His voice changes when he talks to you, takes on a tone he uses for no one else. Your sister loves to hold you, loves 'girl-time' with just the three of us. When we got home from the beach on the weekend, cold and sandy we all tumbled into the bath and you thought it was the best of fun. We've given up using your little baby bucket - now you either have a shower with your daddy or I or a bath with the kids. 

You went back to waking frequently in the night again - after weeks of sleeping through I found it a bit of a shock (the night earlier this week that began with your brother vomiting all over the bed, then the floor, and continued with you waking continuously was a bit of a downer) but we think we have solved the mystery - you chew on your little hands, get them all wet with slobber and then they freeze. We are now ensuring you have little mittens that don't fall off and you are sleeping much better. 

Your daddy has started a new rotation in the city so he's walking up to the train station before you kids wake up, (putting a coffee beside my bed for your first feed, leaving the porridge in the microwave) and returning just on bed time or after. He was sick all last week and we reveled in the daddy-time, but this is a new week. 

Four months wee one, A third of a year. You are still so small, so new, and yet are becoming so known. In your face and good humor, the way you smile so beguilingly at strangers, the mischief in your grin, we are increasingly seeing who you are. You are a hip baby now, happy to see the world from my hip, although you are often in a wrap. You are becoming increasingly less happy in a bouncer (unless you're outside). 

You are still wheezy - you've never really thrown of your sickness. You grunt so much your daddy calls you 'Hoggy' -although I always tell him off. My poor little darling. I hope the move to warmer weather clears up your chest, I always get a pang at your shnuffling. There was a report about the fires earlier in the year and it talked about babies with respiratory problems - that's you sweet. It almost made me cry. And of course we don't know that the fires and smoke caused your wheezing... but I'll be glad when we're well away. 

Your little baby pimples have disappeared and your skin is so delicate and soft - bar a tiny bit of cradle cap. We are thinking you'll have dark hair and your eyes are looking decidedly blue. You take more after your brother than your sister - he was a solid little bundle of cuddles - your sister was all elfin lankiness. 

My chubby little cherub - you bring us so much laughter, your smile is so infectious (in a good way!) it is so lovely to see you take your place in the family, our little Drool-atron.

moments - pink cotton candy spring (and little toes)

Leaving the school yesterday, the kids running ahead in the rain, my Littlest wrapped to me, a little bundle of warm in the chill, my coat wrapped around us both, I heard another school boy tell his mum -
"Weird yeah, rain on the first day of spring and that sun yesterday on the last day of winter."

Indeed.

The last days of winter were completely glorious, all blue skies and pink blossoms and trips to the beach. Our blossom - no slavish follower of seasons - has been coming out beautifully over the last month and I've been delighting in the delicate scent in the air and the lovely blooms.

These first days of winter are all wet and rain and wind, but hey, here are moments from the last days of winter.

- just because. Darling little baby feet. If I didn't already have a baby they would makes me so clucky. Oh, wait. These baby days are just going far too quickly.
-beautiful unknown ornamental blossom from the side of the house.
-cherry plum blossom
-camellia. Our big bush is a riot of pink.
-and um. more little toes.
-little big eyed one.
-jonquil. Poppet wrapped the verandah in the pink cord you see in the background. It looks very festive. This was just before Poppet picked the jonquils and I had to rescue them and float them in a bowl.
-more blossom.
-Poppet studying Littlest's little fingers out in the sun.

Joining with the lovely Em for (very pink) moments from our week.

These spring shots are making me all deep-sighing and nostalgic.

This will be our last full season in Gippsland - we'll be moving up North in the first days of summer, and these last few days have seemed to be designed to pull at my heart as lush green hills, blossom and beautiful beaches have shown off.

We will be back (but it won't be the same…)