Happy mardi gras

The other day I was feeling nostalgic, as I'm want to do at this time of the year, so I pulled out my huge bag of mardi gras beads from under the bed.

This is what happened.








Happy mardi gras everyone!
And to my New Orleans loved ones? I miss you. Have a daiquiri for me ok?

Beautiful girl

She always catches me with one of her big smiles at just the right time.

Yesterday this beautiful loved up couple came into the library, looking fresh yet like they just rolled out of bed after having sex all day. They had that look about them.. you know? Like they had just gotten dressed so they can get some coffee and supplies and had nothing planned except perhaps watching a movie or two, reading a bit before having an uninterrupted meal and going to bed again.
'You want a dvd or something to read baby?' he had said as he passed the desk. They wandered around the library, hand in hand, pointing out books on crafting and the new best sellers. 'I hate you' I grumbled under my breath.

I never get to read, and if I do its usually when i should be doing something else and I'm racked with guilt. I never get to stroll through anywhere hand in hand with my love, since one of us is generally chasing after a toddler dead set on destruction and the other is holding a baby who probably just puked all over her self.

I was thinking about those two this morning, mumbling to myself as I rolled out of bed at 6am for the 8th time since going to 'sleep' (ha!) at 11pm the night before. Evie had thought 10pm was a good time to play and be AWAKE! ...and also 1am, 2:30ish am, between 4-5am and now at 6am she was back at it, squee-ing and bouncing around in her cot. 6am, by all means was a sleep in for us, but I could help but think those two arty gorgeous creatures who didn't look tired AT ALL were probably cuddled up happily in slumber-land.

But then she smiled up at me as I look down into her cot, shes always such a happy baby and always in a good mood. It contagious, it makes everything ok again.

I think about when I feed her a bottle, its so special considering I hardly get a chance to do it. I love the night time bottle the most when I can hear the chaos outside and ZJ banging some toy against the coffee table. But we are sitting in the dark and cool. I have her in my arms and she looks up at me and catches me looking, she will smile and her eyes do this light up thing which makes my heart skip. Her little tiny fingers will curl around my finger and everything seems right, and in its place and that the 5am wakeup calls, the misery of working my arse off... its all worth it.

One of her smiles fixes everything.

Eclair - 6 months

New Friends

I hope they grow up to be as close as their mamas. ♥

Eclair, 5.5 months

One day

six fifteen am
Waking up to Evie. She slept in today to just before 6. This is awesome.


six thirty nine am
After the shower, out the window.


Seven fifteen am
Time to get ZJ up.


seven forty eight am
I love this view as I come down the road into St Heliers. 


eight thirty eight am
Cris, being... Cris.


eleven twenty six am
Processing requests, for the third hour of the day.


one oh seven pm
Stopping by to say hello to some of the protestors down the road. I'm in the 'don't really care' camp about them knocking the houses down and i think whats being built is going to be kind of beautiful BUT, i get where they are coming from and alot of them a regular library patrons (and a couple of ex workers!).



one fifteen pm
Lunch.


three forty eight pm
Learning Maori in my breaks.


five oh four pm
Work done for the day and the court has ruled the houses won't be saved. Demo crew moves in.


six oh four pm
Home to a toddler tantrum.


eight oh one pm
Dishes, cleaning up the house after the Toddler hurricane has gone through. 


eight thirty four pm
Me.

Spotted through the rails

2010, a recap.

2010 has been a big one.
I celebrated the first birthday of my first child, saw him take his first steps and develop into a fabulous little boy with uber personality. I gave birth to my second child, a beautiful little girl who smiles at every chance she gets. I will always remember my first snuggles with her - the days i spent in hospital where she lived in my bed whenever a nurse wasn't looking and we would snooze and snuggle and wonder.

Theres been downs emotionally, loosing Simon's grandmother (who is ZJs namesake), his father and also my grandmother all in a matter of a month or two. 2010 saw the fifth anniversary of my nephew's (and ZJ's other namesake) death which was horrid and opened up emotions I had thought I had managed to tuck away. The bullying in hospital. Theres been lows financially too but I have no images to mark those and in 10 years time those nights I spent sobbing in the shower wondering how the hell am I going to continue feeding my family will all be a blur.

I would say I will remember 2010 as being hard, but also one of the best. I'm happier than I have ever been. I'm in love, I have beautiful children that amaze me every day and full my days with every emotion possible. I have fantastic friends who have my back completely and deserve a better friend than i make! I have my health (more or less, ha!) and we are going to be ok.

There are changes afoot

This incredibly bad picture of me (omg I need a haircut, or at least not to wake up and pat down my hair with a damp hand ...but its a cute one of the babe!) is brought to you to announce there are some changes going on around here. If you look to the left and right, there is a different background (honestly i mucked around with html all day but in the end it was freaking easy, gah) and some different menu buttons on the right, which I'm not entirely sure of (nor are they all working properly as of right this instant). Also, its missing a header, but I don't think I care right now.

These changes mark some bigger changes going on around there (well, for me), which I will talk about later in more depth, but one of them being is that im giving up doing paid photography work in the new year and taking some time to do some more, much needed, me stuff.

Recently...

Its been a while.

I've been working. Tired. Focusing on the babies and Simon. Oh and a bug or two.

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks.






Evie had her first cold the other night. Taking the kids to storytimes etc at the library is like taking them to visit a germ factory. She was all congested and grizzly and would only sleep if she was upright on me. so I took one for the team and sat up all night with her snoring into my chest. It was kind of nice and horrid all mixed together.
Simon relieved me at 5am and I got a couple of hours in before ZJ got up and switched on noisy toddler mode.



 



Zander's curls just slay me sometimes.
Also his inability to go to bed at night was slaying me. He decided that going to sleep was for losers and after spending two nights of going in there every five minutes and remaking his bed as well as locating his dummy we decided to just go hard-ass. He was so not impressed the first night we tried but eventually fell asleep around 10pm, the second night was less difficult and late and by the third night he was back to his old routine. Huzzah!







For the first time in 10 years we have a Christmas tree in the house. There never seemed much point when I was single (although a Christmas during my flatting years we turned the devil 3 pronged spike from a costume I had into a makeshift tree by wrapping it in tinsel and hung baubles on each of its spikes), and the [ex]hubby was not really into the whole thing. The first year I was with Simon I was heavily pregnant and just trying to survive the summer heat without either attacking people with Sporks or melting into a puddle of goo and last year Zander would of just destroyed a tree if we could afford to buy one - which we couldn't. We couldn't even afford gifts and we ended up wrapping up a couple of his toys just to give him something special to do on the day.

I gotta say, last night sitting with my beer in hand and the lights off except for the fairy lights on the tree made me feel so in the christmasy mood. I'm excited to make our on traditions with our kids and share enjoy a nice warm summer.