Late last year we were lucky enough to be invited to an “S” themed fancy dress party.
Hmm, what to wear? I needed something that would work across all family members, including a newborn, and would allow me to baby wear and breastfeed. A hard task!
Sunflowers? Spiders? Scooby Doo? Star Wars? Sesame Street?
And then I had a revelation. Space! Satellite, Saturn, Sun, Stars. The entire Solar System really…
For now though, I thought I’d share some photos from the party.
These photos were all taken by Megan Webb, who was shooting on the go, in poor light conditions, at the same time as co-hosting the event. What a multi-tasker! Megan’s just launched her own Megan Webb Photography blog, and one of her first posts is about this very party.
Intergalactic Love
Me and my girls
Chocolate Spoons ticked off my To-Do List!
Thanks Ness from One Perfect Day for the idea, they were great!
You’ve come out of your newborn haze this last month. Smiles and laughs abound! There is something truly magical about the sound of a babies first laugh.
You also love giving big sloppy open mouthed pashes. You may have vomited a little bit into my mouth on one of those open mouthed pash occasions. Ewww.
You’ve discovered that you have knees. If we touch one of them, you’ll look down, grab it with both hands, bring it up towards your face, and study it intently. I don’t think you know that your feet exist yet though.
Noticing your hands
You seem to know that you have hands. You’re holding things and bringing them to you mouth to suck on them. You do like your teethers, but you seem to have a special liking for sucking on fabrics. I understand it. I prefer fabric over plastic too. Maybe you’ll grow up to love sewing…
You’re starting to really vocalise and experiment with your voice, sometimes at 4am, which is just adorable, except when it’s 4am.
You continue to be a star tummy-timer. You prefer being put down on your tummy and then flipping over to your back yourself. If we put you down on your back straight away, you get all sooky like we’re abandoning you.
You can totally roll like an expert from your tummy to your back over your right shoulder. I haven’t seen you do it over your left shoulder yet however.
Almost rolling from back to tummy
And you’ve started to almost roll from your back to your tummy. You get your legs over but the top half of you only gets about 3/4 of the way. But you’re pretty happy with flipping back and forth from these two positions that you don’t seem to mind that you can’t make it the whole way.
You’ve just gotten yourself addicted to a new swaddle that Santa brought you. Nice and light for the summer’s heat. It has detachable wings. I have tried you with the wings off once or twice, but you couldn’t sleep. With you almost rolling, I guess that means we’re going to have to wean you off your wings. Damn.
Pre-Christmas, in your old flannel swaddle. Apparently JJ thought you needed decorating…
Up til now, you’ve been *one of those babies* who can go to sleep fairly easily. {Hopefully I haven’t just jinxed myself.} It seems I can recognise your tired signs, swaddle you, pop in a dummy, lie you down awake but happy and tired, and walk away. OMG! I never knew this existed outside of books before. A lot of people have been saying it’s because I’m a second time mum and I know what I am doing now. Bollocks. It’s all you. There’s no way that JJ would have slept this way. Ever. Seriously, like never ever.
And another thing, you don’t cry anymore. You’ll call out if you’re bored, or hungry, or tired. But you don’t actually cry. I know there are a lot of mums out there who are swearing at me right now. In my defense, I’ve done my dues with version 1.0.
I was so excited when my friend Megan offered to pop over and take some photos of our new little family. You see, Megan is a photographer. And a bloody good one at that! So I knew this gift was something I was going to cherish for years to come.
Megan runs her own little business, Megan Webb Photography, in Sydney’s Northern Beaches area. She’s not a studio photographer – her photos are honest, natural, real. Her passion for photography shines through. As she puts it “Capturing the spirit of life and love and sealing it in a memory.”
But shall I let the photos tell the story?
Our new little family
Baby Bee
Fast asleep
With her arms up in the air!
OK, you’ve won me over!
And Daddy’s smitten too.
Kisses from big sister JJ
And cuddles!
Sisterly love
Move over Version 1.0, Version 2.0 has arrived…
Hmm, I’m not sure JJ is going to give up so easily…
First, there’s those eyes…
Next trick, this cheeky grin
Daddy loves JJ!
And JJ loves her Daddy too!
You’re so funny Daddy!
And we mustn’t forget Charli, caught here licking her chops…
Yay from all of us!
Thank you Megan for these beautiful memories. Now I just need to choose which ones to frame. Help! I can’t choose them all. Which one is your favourite?
Linking up with:
Trish from My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday.
Bree from Twinkle in the Eye with Flash Blog Friday.
(Disclosing that I did receive this photoshoot as a free gift.
I did not receive any money to write this post, and all opinions are my own.)
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JJ loves to jump at the moment. And who needs a trampoline when there’s a bed to jump on? She is quite capable of jumping on her own, but she likes to hold on to my hands so I can help her jump even HIGHER.
My good friend Megan took these shots when we popped over for a visit last week. It’s so nice to have a couple of action shots of JJ and I together – one of the benefits of having a friend who is also a photographer!
She also captured this one below, of JJ snuggled in under my bump. She fits quite well under there, don’t you think?
Our spirited little daughter, JJ. How do I sum her up in a few measly words?
JJ as a newborn
She’s chatting non-stop these days. Her pronunciation and grammar still have a long way to go, so a bit of translation is often required. Usually JJ says her favourite colour is purple, but occasionally she’ll answer pink. And then she’ll tell us what our favourite colour is, according to her anyway!
JJ, around 6 months old.
She is running, climbing and jumping non-stop too. Forever fearless, she follows the big kids down the steepest slippery dips and up to the top of the tallest climbing gyms, and can usually get down again with only a little bit of help. But jumping is her main love. She jumps on the bed about 5 times a day. She holds my hand and jumps down the steps (or sometimes she’ll hop down instead). She jumps on the trampoline at playgroup and gym class.
For such a skinny munchkin she eats well. We go out to lunch or dinner several times a week, and she’s used to dining out and sharing whatever we eat. That doesn’t mean that she’ll necessarily sit still for long, so Nathan and I have learnt to order and eat quickly. She is quite adept at using a small fork and small spoon herself, although her fingers still do get used from time to time. The only things that she won’t eat are bananas, avocados and spicy foods (although we still offer them, you never know, she might change her mind one day…)
JJ’s going through a bit of a royal fetish at the moment. This last fortnight we’ve made crowns every other day, and she drapes a bit of fabric around her shoulders as a robe, puts on a necklace which she calls her “royal jewels”, bows like a king or waves like a queen, and sits on her “throne”. She then starts to say / sing “I a queen (or a king, or a prince, or a princess). I wear crown. Every day, I walk town.”
She loves craft. We do some form of craft every day, although maybe I should call it art because often there is no end goal in mind. We use pencils, crayons, textas, paints, sticky tape, masking tape, stickers, glue sticks, clag glue, paper, cardboard, fabric, pipecleaners, wool and that’s before we’ve raided the recycling.
