10/52 - 14/52

"A portrait of my little boy, once a week, every week, in 2014."

I've been a bit pre-occupied in the past few weeks. Mainly with work, a bit with crafting and generally with life...but I've still been snapping...

From the top:

10/52 - 'Choo Choo'. He's slightly obsessed. The tracks come out, they go away again, they come out and go away AGAIN. 'Oh no, track broken' (when he steps on it), 'Oh no, Zebra on the line' (always the zebra, the cheetah and lion don't get a look in). 'Oh no, CRASH!'. There's always some kind of emergency/imminent peril in his stories.

11/52 - A quiet moment at the garden centre whilst people watching with his bestie

12/52 - Owen bypassed all of the age appropriate park structures and went straight for the biggest. Then spent the next half an hour going up and down the enormous slide. He's turning into a bit of an adrenaline junky! 

13/52 - 'Look mummy' (he says as he drags me across the garden) 'Truck in da bush!!!' ... with rising intonation as if 'how on earth did that get there?!?!'. He'd been told all afternoon to be careful of the plants.

14/52 - He was having a rough day. After falling onto his mouth at the weekend, lots of howling and a trip to A&E, a week day follow up visit to the dentist and the start of a cold on this particular day had pretty much finished him off. This was about as much enthusiasm as he could muster for home made popcorn.

I finally have a proper camera again - hurrah! So hopefully I'll get to have some practice with it for this project again soon!

Joining in with Jodi's 52 Project on Practising Simplicity

9/52

"A portrait of my little boy, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Owen: Enjoying his babychino. 

He is such a joyful little chap. I felt this picture captured the twinkle in his eye well.  He was filled with such delight at even the thought of sitting with mummy to have drinks in a cafe. It obviously felt like a treat to both of us. :-)

I found it nigh on impossible to choose between the nine slight variations of this photo. I was very tempted to post a whole string of them but figured that it wouldn't really be in the spirit of the project!

Joining in with Jodi's 52 Project

7/52

"A portrait of my little boy, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Bit late this week as we were dealing with 2nd birthday madness Friday - Monday so I've barely had time to think about anything else. Also (I shamefacedly say) I'm cheating on two fronts:

1. This was actually taken at the very start of this week (Monday morning). To be honest up until Monday lunchtime it all felt like last week anyway. Well that's my story anyway and I'm sticking to it!

2. Its an instagram pic which I had promised myself NOT to use. Doh! 

Regardless I love this picture both in its composition and because its soooo Owen. He was out for a birthday woodland walk with his friends and decided to have a lie down. There was no apparent reason for the lie down. Maybe he was listening to the woodpecker... or watching for squirrels... or literally just having a rest...who knows...

Joining in with the 52 project on practising simplicity

6/52

 

"A portrait of my little boy, once a week, every week, in 2014."

'Peepo!'

Its all been about play this week. We have had lots of 'hide and seek' and lots of story telling with people and vehicles all getting stick in the mud ... that and singing...all the time! 

Still without my proper camera but the camera on my phone is bearing up reasonably well so far.

Joining in with the 52 Project on Practicing Simplicity 

 

5/52

 

"A portrait of my little boy, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Love, love, love him! Thats all!

Joining in with the 52 Project on Practicing Simplicity 

 

4/52

"A portrait of my little boy, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Killing two birds with one stone this week as I'm joining in with the 52 Project on Practicing Simplicity and Handmade Monday on Handmade Harbour.

This photo (please excuse the detritis from the junk room spare room) was taken in the middle of a rainy, lazy Sunday afternoon. I was sorting some washing, when Owen got involved and all of a sudden we were playing shop through the clothes airer. He was very entertained by the whole process but I felt I could make the experience a bit more exciting, so I grabbed a few bits of felt i had and not too long later we had a jaunty looking shop front (with added post box ... just for fun). 

Better photo of the shop. He LOVED it! So simple but so effective.

Sadly again using camera phone pictures (and even a borrowed one - the portrait).

2/52

"A portrait of my son, once a week, every week in 2014"

Owen enjoying a well earned rest at the country park after digging up at least half of its mole hills!

So I managed to keep my promise to myself to pull out my digital SLR and get to grips withsome of my light issues. The light out in the woods was gorgeous a bit problematic  - alternately lots of light then lots of shadows. I'm really proud of this one as its totally unedited and its captured a rare moment of Owen staying still with a natural smile. At the moment we ususally get a screwed up 'cheese' face. Entertaining as it is I've been desperate to get a natural smile from him!

Joining in with the 52 Project on Practicing Simplicity

1/52

I came across many blogs last year who were taking part in the 52 Project over on Practising Simplicity. I only became aware of it half way through the year and was sad that I had missed the start of it, so this year I am happy to say that I'll be taking part. 

Jodi quotes the writer Gretchen Rubin on her blog saying this about parenthood: “The days are long, but the years are short.” I feel that keenly at the moment. Life with a toddler is full of joy but not easy. The tiredness can seem crippling but with Owen growing and changing at a rate of knots I look forward to having the reminder to be mindful and present in the time I spend with him (as opposed to using his playtime to finish a load of washing or something else horrifically mundane) and to bottle a little of the time we spend with each other. Cursed with an awful memory I hope that the 52 project will act as a bit of a diary to how he has changed over the year.

Of course, like pretty much any other parent with a camera on their phone, I seem to take a million and one photos of the little one on a daily basis. One of the reasons I love the idea of this project though is because I'm looking forward to the process of choosing just one picture that defines the week, be it one that captures a big, small, nervous, exuberant or other moment. Inevitably a lot of the photos will be taken with my phone. Its almost a reflex action now to reach for it and snap away. I'm going to keep my SLR closer to hand though to see if I can teach myself a bit more about portraits and light. I've been meaning to for years ..so why not now! 

Owen absorbed in construction work with diggers from Christmas of varying sizes. Its a very serious business!

Quietly Enjoying ...

...wintery forest walks, foraging and christmas preparations with the family...

...in the meadow at dusk collecting willow
 

... homemade wreath making

... fun in the woods

...tree decorating (love this bauble)

Feeling very lucky to have what I have this year. I hope you are enjoying the Christmas build up too. X

Joining in with made by hand on a little bird told me craft

Not a crafty week

I have absolutely nothing on the crafting agenda for this week, due to having spent a wonderful weekend and start of the week with family and friends.

I have to admit to feeling a slight sense of loss for my crafty corner. It is only a very slight sense of loss though, as not only did we have lots of fun in the outdoors, but I finished the weekend with armfuls of apples from various peoples trees, a bag of onions to keep us going for some time and some magic beans for the boy to plant out next year to grow his own giant beanstalk with!

With thoughts turning to food, I've also been doing a spot of baking.

This recipe for Banana Breakfast Cookies is (photo doesnt do them justice) from Petite Kitchen. This blogger's whole remit is about simple nourishing food. The way she photographs her food makes my mouth water...that and the fact that it all looks and sounds sooooo good for you.

I've been meaning to give coconut oil a try for a while as both a food stuff and moisturiser and thought this was a good recipe to start with (as a food stuff - natch - I think it might be a bit bitty as a mousturiser!). I haven’t been disappointed with it on either score. As a moisturiser coconut oil feels and smells divine. As an ingredient in these cookies, its delicious! So far these cookies have been eaten for breakfast, second breakfast, as a lunchtime/tea time dessert and as a late night snack, so basically, any time is a good time to eat them!

Weekending

Lots of fun in the outdoors had this weekend.  Amazingly we didn't get AT ALL wet! Writing this with the sound of rain pouring down though. I think autumn might be reasonably close so my wellies and a splash suit for the little one are on order (used to be a city dweller. No real need for wellies!) and thoughts have turned to what colour winter woolies I'll be sporting this year!

Two weekends in a row!

What a luxury! I have just spent 2 weekends in a row enjoying unseasonably good weather (sun and warmth in April in the UK is almost unheard of. Would you believe it – I even broke into shorts!!!) in beautiful countryside/ beach surroundings with my entire family.

We had sooooo much fun...

We walked (many many walks) and talked, giggled until our sides and faces ached and ate tons of very tasty food. I loved every second!

As for that wedding, I don’t know about you, but I did end up watching it and thought the dress was lovely. I thought it was suitably regal on the bottom half and I LOVED the lace on the top half. Gorgeous! Mind you, now that every detail of the wedding has been on the TV and radio about 10 times over already I have more than reached saturation point. Enough said...