At The Beetle Shack

We had such a lovely time with Tim on Christmas eve. We showed him our baby ducks, took a stroll around the lake and visited my parents for a slice of mum's famous Christmas cake. There are too many images to cram into one post so I'm going to spread them out over a few. You know, I'm a narcissist- it's only natural that I assume you have nothing better to do than oggle my kids.

Dave wears shoes by Twins for Peace

Lady Baby wears 'Laura' dress by Rowantree Designs and shoes by All About Heidi

Emily wears dress from a long forgotten Parisian holiday. Shoes by The Horse

The Young Man wears shorts by Rowantree Designs

Tomorrow will be New Years eve, how do you plan to spend it?

The Horse

Australian shoe company The Horse kindly sent me the most delicious pair of pink flats to swan around in for our shoot with Tim. When they arrived I could hardly contain my excitement, dancing around in front of the mirror (and my children) immediately. They are the perfect blend of modern vintage and boast the most fabulously soft leather imaginable. My feat have scarcely spent a moment without them.

Olive wears dress from Rowantree Design

all photo's taken by UberTim

Head over to The Horse and check out their entire range (currently on sale, yes sale). They have a smoking hot men's collection and it's all seriously affordable.

 Don't resist the temptation my friends. 

I'm off to add these suckers to my cart but not before liking them on Facebook.

Thanks The Horse for letting my feet live, wear and groove in your leather.

I'll post some more of our family shoot tomorrow

Places I Love To Visit

We had SO much fun this Christmas with our families and I'm looking forward to telling you all about it. But for now I thought I'd share with you a few of my favourite blogs.

One Claire Day - Claire writes with such ease and shares snippets of her life at home with Lalie. I pester her often for style advice and hit her archives all. the. time. Seriously beautiful stuff.

Dear Olive - Visit Kellie and have a sneaky at the letters she writes to her little Olive (wonderful name). Full of truths and trivialities- the stuff Olive will treasure forever.

This Cup In My Hand - My sister- need I say any more. I hang off every word she says. In the midst of starting her own glass art business, moving towns, setting up a new home and starting a new job. Amy, you better blog daily- I can't even begin to imagine how much I'm going to miss you (not to mention Dave and the Kids) in just 2 short weeks.

Rummey Bears- Pretty much the coolest Mumma Bear in blog land. She uses every outdated 80's word you can think of (think 'ace', 'rad'- I bet she uses 'bogus' too) and has a spirited child much like mine.

Che and Fidel- My neighbour and Friend. We share fresh green over the fence, drinks at birthday time, parenting advice and hot tea- pretty much every day. Daniel, her partner made a shor film of the Young Man- you can see it here.

Seventy Tree- A talented artist, fabulous blogger, amazing photographer and seriously nice person. You'll be addicted the minute you hit the link.

Berry and Fin- HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIC- you big fuzzy wuzzy legend. Another one I consider family. She makes custom swimwear- your body needs them.

Tim Coulson- C'mon, you already knew this. Pretty much the most talented photographer out there and the nicest guy. We had another shoot with him on Christmas eve. You can see past shoots here and here.

Baby Mac- Beth is naughty. She swears, talks about sex, drinks Moet all the time and lives in paradise. If you have not yet encountered the scandalous woman, you must.

Rewind- Merry Christmas Eve (by tim)

We had such a lovely morning with our friend Tim and feel so very blessed by his generosity towards our little family. If you haven't yet booked him for a family session then you better get in quick- the dude is switching to focus on weddings.

Here is a sneaky peaky with more to come in the new year.

I'll be reflecting on the goodness of God (and eating my weight in prawns) tomorrow. 

 I hope you enjoy all that is important to you.

xxxxxxxx

Merry Christmas

Party on Wayne, Party on Garth.

We will be partying with Tim today, why not head over and read about the year that changed his life.

New Life At Christmas Time

There is no better time for new life than Christmas. Our little eggs are finally starting to hatch. 

You may notice a slight discrepancy in the mother/ child situation here. That's because this little beauty disappeared mid sit, possibly taken by this? My besties broody hen took over and did a wonderful job.

Welcome little duckies!

Have a fun night friends! Tonight marks the beginning of the holidays for my darling Husband, we are celebrating with cold beer, paella and fabulous company. 

See you on the flip side!

To Leave

It's often difficult to get the Young Man to willingly leave his Nanny and Pa's house, in fact it's always difficult to get him to leave. He loves them crazy, when we are not with them we are talking about them. Take today for example, after returning home from Nanny and Pa's house I noticed that Zephies super cool fringe had been butchered trimmed just before our Tim shoot. I asked him if Nanny (but let's just go ahead and call her 'naughtynanny') had given him a hair cut - he answered 'yes, yes she did'. After asking him why he explained ' because I wanted her to cut my hair, I wanted to look like a nun... a hairy nun'. Why the hair cut was actually necessary is still unknown (care to defend your actions naughtynanny?) but a hairy nun he is. We have conversations like this one every day, the joy on his face when he recounts exciting events is contagious- so much so that a bad hair cut is easily forgiven... kinda.

Anyway, another one of naughtynanny's redeeming qualities is that she always has tricks up her sleeve along with those half used tissues. Todays trick was a tin of shave cream. 'Just squirt some onto the back table, darling' she said. Being the ever obedient daughter, I did as I was told. You should try it too- my mum would be so proud of you.

I'll be honest- I got my hands in there too. It feels good.

Oh and talk to me about your turf and enter the giveaway.

Delicious Soft Grass

 My brother and I had a flat, semi fenceless back yard when we were growing up.

 Living on the headland meant that we could see the ocean from everywhere. The ocean and rolling green hills. It's the thought of these two things that fill my heart with a light feeling- the feeling of freedom that only comes with carefree, frivolous youth. We used to run around under sprinklers, ride cardboard boxes down slippery slopes and crash down from the trampoline onto delicious soft grass. In my mind, the sun was aways shining, a warm breeze was forever in my hair, water was never too cold to splash in, skies were cloudless and the grass was always green.

Childhood was hyper colour for me and I can only hope that my children will remember it in the same way.

 Dave and I are dreaming of actually doing something with the lower level of our back yard. The kids need a place to run.

Our current green.

Golden Pooch Belt

Some of my friends have been finding some excellent things at the Op Shops of late- I'm not competitive but I do seem to have an impressive drive to hunt down something better. So what should I discover at my local oppie this week? The golden nugget, that's right- I just said NUGGET. A golden belt with the most fabulously fabulous faux gold puppy buckle. If you tried to tell me right now that golden puppy buckles aren't cool- i wouldn't believe you.

It's awesome, right?

I also found some vintage linen and a couple of excellent knits.

Not quite as great at this loot- but it'll do.

In The Mail From Rowantree

A few weeks ago I found this website filled with the most amazingly delicious children's clothing range ever- think vintage patterns, liberty florals, pin tucks, sweet buttons and an organic range to boot. I promptly emailed designer and owner Roberta to confess my undying love for everything she has ever done (no, it wasn't over the top at all). She offered to send me a little something for the Lady Baby to wear during our next meeting with this attractive man. 

I was delighted at the thought of dressing the Pipsqueak in something so special, but imagine my complete and utter amazement when Roberta send me an ENTIRE WARDROBE of outfits for the little one. Seriously, I'm totally overwhelmed by her generosity. 

That's not all of it either- i'm saving some as a surprise

Honestly- this clothing is exceptional. Each piece is hand made with love, you can feel it. It's in the quality of the fabric, the stitching, the detailing, the designs.  Do yourself a favour and make a purchase for some small people in your life. You'll be seeing my kids in this stuff all the time.

See the Boys range here

Girls range here

and Organic range here

oh, and see ever more at Roberta's blog.