Our (not so angelic) angel & kittens

She looks like butter couldn't melt in her mouth, doesn't she? All big eyes and blonde hair.
And she does have her angelic moments, when she runs towards us, arms outstretched, face lit up, after we've been out, when she gives big hugs, with comforting back pats.
But this photo was taken when she'd climbed up onto the dining room table (again) and was busy throwing all the Christmas tree baubles on the floor.
These photos are more indicative of her frame of mind. The difference a few seconds makes, hm.

Folks, I do believe we've hit the terrible twos a few months early. It's a bit of a shock, as the other two skipped them. At two both the older two were little cherubs, all the better to lull me into a false sense of smug security.
Giggle-Bear is leaving us in no doubt of her true colours - the glaring, flashing neon of danger, mischief ahead. In no time at all she will be joining her siblings in painting the living room - and kitchen - in potions of red cordial (no, I didn't buy it, do I look like a masochist to you? that was Beloved) salt, and chilli sauce.

 While I take a deep gulp and prepare for the year ahead, let me leave you with some stills from Christmas. And kittens. All is peaceful, all is joy, for a kitten resides in the house, busily purring, and curling up to sleep in various poses of cuteness.

 Henry Thoreau and Jane Austin Candles. Mmm.

playing in a wonderful cafe up in the hinterlands at Maleny - the best kiddy play area - with many toys, high chairs and complete kiddy corner.

 with Aunty Bec

Nativity

Master of his own Destiny. No doubt scanning the horizon for fish. 

Stills (New Year by the Sea)

- One of my Sprocket's main loves. Crabs. He was delighted to scramble around the rocks looking for his beloved friends. Luckily, we managed to persuade him to leave them on the beach with their families rather than bring them home. Hopefully he won't discover crab-family dynamics for awhile.
-Sprocket walking through the water with a boat my grandfather made for me many years ago.
-The baby seal that turned up on the tip of the point. While I'm worried about it's survival without a mother it was a beautiful start to the New Year to see a seal. It's only the third we've seen here in thirty five years. (Which possibly does not bode well for it's future.)
-Poppet, playing with broken shells.
-Spindleweed.
-A much loved curve of coast.
-Fish 'n' Chips.
-Makeshift cranachan on New Years Day. Every New Years Eve we make cranachan - a lovely Scottish concoction of oats, summer berries, honey, cream and whisky. This year I fell asleep with the kids and only woke two minutes before midnight, just as my dad was nipping out the back door to come around to the front door and 'first foot' the house. I don't know if you know it, but first-footing is when a man (preferably tall and dark), is the first to enter the house in the new year. He should be carrying food, drink and coal. Fruitcake, whisky and a lighter tend to be the staples. Having slept so long I didn't have time to make cranachan for the new year- but this was a makeshift porridge/cranachan for the first breakfast of the new year. Obviously without the whisky!
-'For you, Mummy.' Flowers from my Sprocket.
-Poppet. I'll just throw myself down on Great Nana's driveway and pose, shall I?

Joining with the lovely Em, over at The Beetle Shack for moments from our week. 

Savour

Happy New Year and all best wishes for a wonderful 2014!

2014 is a massive year for us, which I'm looking forward to with a mix of trepidation, terror ('school run' - do just the words make anyone else shiver in dread?) excitement and joy.
This year my first born, my baby-boy, my darling, ever-active Sprocket starts primary school.
In roughly four months we welcome our third (and last) baby into the word, a little girl we've already nicknamed Littlest.
This year we're deciding where in Australia to apply for my Beloved to do his medical internship. While our first preference is for the Sunshine Coast near my Beloved's kin, we're also going to be putting down places like Townsville, Rockhampton, Cairns, Mackay, Geelong, Gold Coast, Melbourne. We probably won't know for sure whereabouts we've been matched until… December, a few weeks before my Beloved starts work.
Which leads me to… in ten shorts months, all going well, my Beloved will be a Doctor! The medical sort my dad calls 'quacks'.  These long (and somewhat challenging, if amazing) four years will draw to a close and we'll move on to the next step in our lives. Goodbye Student-hood! (Although My Beloved is already lining up the Masters he wants to start and depending on what specialty he decides on he'll have a further four to nine years of study while working, raking out thousands to sit exams, some of which have a fail rate of up to thirty percent.)
To celebrate my Beloved becoming a Doctor we're travelling to the UK for Christmas and New Year 2014 with my Beloved's folk. Come November next year we'll be packing up our house to sell, packing to hopefully move two states away to the tropics, and also packing for a white Christmas. With three kids.
Deep breath. Very deep breath.
It is going to be fantastic. And amazing and we are all kinds of blessed and grateful. But… deep breath.

Over at Maxabella Loves the wonderful Bron is asking what 'word' people are focusing on for 2014.
And I didn't have to think hard to realise what word I'll be focusing on.
Savour. 
I want to savour every moment of 2014. Appreciate it. Revel in it. Drink it in.
Because time is racing by so quickly and these precious days of my kids childhoods are just disappearing.
This is the last time I'll feel a growing baby kick-boxing within me. That I'll put my hands to my tummy and feel new life within, with all it's wonder and promise. This is the last year that I'll exult in my own newborn, spend hours admiring the ever changing expressions, the tiny curling toes and little grasping fingers as they slowly reveal who they are.
I suspect this year is one of the last that my Sprocket will reach for my hand while we're walking, will climb into my lap when he's nervous, will come to me to kiss it better and for a cuddle for no reason at all.
This year I intend to stop and let my heart sing as my kids run and play together on the shore, carefree and light as birds.
This year I'll savour their amazing, emphatic stories, wallow in the giggles as they tell me of tiny, invisible flying sharks that have hidden their toys and the ubiquitous Super-Villain who moves the bricks, spills the milk and generally wreaks havoc and mayhem.
My kids will be small for such few short years and these years will never come back. I want to savour every moment. Even the ones that have me pulling my hair out and asking the sky various aggrieved, rhetorical questions.
Savour.

Sunday Stills (First of 2013!)

Summer is passing in a lazy whirr. Our days up here in Queensland are coming to a close and we're beginning to plan the drive back down to Gippsland. Another adventure.
It's so lovely to look back over the photos of the last week and see all that we've crammed in. Culling the photos has not been so fun. I keep aiming to keep my Sunday Stills to seven (see all those lovely sibilant 's's! But no. Fail! (Again!)
Despite my failure to adequately cull, it's lovely to be joining - for the first time in 2013 - with Em over at The Beetleshack for Sunday Stills!

1. Poppet and Sprocket at the beach. Waiting for the 8pm New Years fireworks at Bribie Island
2. Sprocket searching for crabs (and sea monsters!)
3. Poppet - very festive for the New Year. In the costume her Nana brought back from Egypt (Doubling as a nightie!)
4.Hibiscus
5. Gotta love a glowstick!
6. My precious monkey boy (Costume courtesy of Lifeline op-shop, Brisbane CBD)
7. Unknown but lovely white flower from Brisbane Botanical Gardens
8.Poppet holding her first fishing rod
9.S-s-s-nake. I'm originally a Melbourne girl. Snakes are a rarity for me. This was a red-bellied black up the street from my in-laws. Yep. Photo taken from the car. Luckily I didn't see the brown snake that was removed from the front doorstep yesterday. Gulp. Have to say they move beautifully. Like a dream to watch.
10.From our first ever family fishing trip

Time's Winged Chariots

But at my back I always hear 
Times Winged Chariots hurrying near

Andrew Marvell - To My Coy Mistress*

As we glide into the new year # I can't help a little heartache for time passing, an ever increasing awareness of how quickly my little ones are becoming not so little. These are the days I will always look back on with the greatest nostalgia. And they are passing o so fast.
These days of having my lap full of children, of smooth arms around my neck, of funny ways and phrases, of endless negotiations and adjudication of squabbles, of kisses and little hands in mine, of my children falling asleep in my arms and their boundless wonder in the world, will not last for ever. And they are going o so fast.
I know that what comes next will be equally wonderful and that each age brings its own joy, but this age seems very perfect.
With the new year I'm reminding myself to savour this time, to drink to the full of the moments that will never come back. To hold on to the moments I want to keep safe in my heart (and shonky memory) forever.
This year I've challenged myself to live joyfully in the now and tread gently upon the earth.
In aid of living in the now my Beloved and I drove to the shore and sat at a shaded table. We listened to the birds call, watched the play of sun on the water and the fishermen's good haul and wrote up timetables.
This year we're going to keep on track. This year we're making time for the stuff we really love - and we're going to try to keep up top of the (say it -bleah) housework at the same time.
We're also going to tread gently on the earth - I've set myself the challenge of only buying secondhand or handmade stuff (apart from food) this year. I don't think I'm going to shop less, or more cheaply, but I am hoping to be more mindful of what I buy - and actually enjoy the process!

Have you set yourself any challenges for the new year?

*Seriously, they just don't write pick up lines (or poems!) the way they used to!
#My Papa is calling this year 2012B. Giggle!