Aside from the intense screaming and crying…
Baby boy had a photo shoot today. Swaddled in blue, it brought out his beautiful eyes, and it’s something I’m trying hard to hold onto as I enter into the most intense newborn period.
People keep telling me it’ll get easier… meanwhile I’m just finding it harder and harder.
But, blue eyes. Beautiful blue eyes. 💙💙
“Singin’, don’t worry, about a thing
‘Cause every little thing, is gonna be all right.”
56 weeks ago I went to a pretty local lookout, took a photo, shared a song.
I know this because my insta account told me.
Tonight I played the same song. To think what I was worried about then, I have now, and what I’m worried about now, I would have killed for then, but also, hopefully, I will have… soon… very soon.
“Singin’ sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true
Sayin’, “This is my message to you, whoo-hoo.”
I never got to take special pregnancy photos when I was pregnant with baby girl.
It’s not that I wouldn’t have loved to. But it was a different time, place, and very different situation. Apart from our first baby arriving in the world, we were dealing with quite sad and traumatic events relating to Hubbie’s family.
A pregnancy photo shoot did not even cross our minds.
But today, one of my pregnancy dreams finally came true. 🙏
I got to have a photo shoot with a professional photographer in our happy place, our local beach, surrounded by the sun, sand and sea.
You probably want to know who took such stunning shots? Well it was none other than my sister. ❤
Photography is her calling, always has, always will be. I hope after today she’s realised that. 🙏
We are thrilled to bits with the hundreds of photos taken, and we haven’t even had a chance to preview them all.
But one thing I know, is as I said… this pregnancy dream of mine has been fulfilled.
Tick. ✅ Thanks sis. 😘
The photos app on my phone does that thing where it gives me memories of what I was doing this day last year, two years ago, three, etc…
On Wednesday it gave me a memory that blew my mind a little.
The date was the 16th of November. Year, 2021.
And the photo, me, Hubbie and baby girl with Santa hats on.
WHAT? That could only mean…
Yep. We had started putting up the Christmas tree.
I mean, I always plan to do it about the last week of November. That’s my thing, and it is the best thing. You feel like you get in early by starting the tree early, it’s one less thing to do in December, AND it gets you in the Christmas spirit.
What’s not to love?
I had considered doing it this weekend or next, but after seeing that photo it was decided… it was happening sooner rather than later!
Tonight, we took all the boxes and bags out, put on our Christmas pjs, our Christmas hats, and Mariah Carey went on the stereo!
Putting up Christmas stuff is a process. Even more so, being pregnant… there’s only so much bending and picking up one can take. So the only focus of tonight was doing the bare bones… assembling the tree.
And while we were doing that, it just hit me. The togetherness. The music. The love in the air.
The baby in my belly.
And I started to cry, thinking of all the Christmases that had gone, that I also loved, but where I had a deep longing, yearning that no one knew about…
This year was so different. This year my Christmas excitement, happiness, gratitude and festive cheer were DEEP.
All happy tears, all happy tears. 🥲
And in a funny turn of events, even Mister F decided to help us out with our Christmas set up…
The only way he knows how!
🤣😻🎅🎄
Tonight was a big, fun, birthday night.
And yet I have very little photos to show for it. 🤦♀️ (That’s OK, I have my sister the photographer 😉)
We had some fam and friends over for Hubbie’s birthday, and it was fun! It feels like this year we’ve been having heaps of people over to make up for the last couple isolating, non-sociable years.
Having people fill up our house has been great, laughter and voices and music filling the air… and it’s all a good kind of busy, a good kind of noisy, but soon there’ll be another good kind of noisy, that of an additional family member in the house!
I know the way we are now will be absolutely different to how we’ll be in 4 months time, but I embrace it all. I love it now, and I’ll love it then for whole other reasons.
It’s about appreciating, and living in the present moment.
And all of these reflections, from a birthday party. 🙏❤
More great, happy, fulfilling times are ahead.
Abundance. 🥰🥰🥰🥰
I don’t know if it’s the pregnancy hormones or what, but I had a very teary day.
Just soooo emotional. Emotional about everything – health stuff, feeling overwhelmed, feeling stuck.
Feeling in the middle of nowhere. Feeling neither here or there.
Was it the weather? Was it the stupid neighbours’ kids beeping their car horn 20 times this morning and waking me from my deserved weekend sleep-in?
Feeling like there’s never enough time. Feeling like there’s never enough time for me. Feeling like I have so much to finally say, bursting at the seams, with no one around to finally listen to it.
I was in a sorry state.
This lasted most of the day. Punctuated by some good moments, but generally this cloud followed me around everywhere.
So much pregnancy confusion. So much life confusion. So much health confusion.
But you should be grateful! Look at what you have!
Conflicting thoughts made it that much harder.
But tonight I walked into baby girl’s room as she got ready for bed, and my gaze just lingered a little on a photo.
A photo of her in a christening frame. Her christening. In it she’s 11 months old, dressed in white, holding her cute little soft shoes on her feet, her short hair with a bit of a fringe, sweeping over her face.
This cherub, just looking so darn sweet and looking back at me.
And that was kinda the reminder I needed. The reason for my being, for accepting things as they were… because something greater, bigger, sweeter, lovelier, was coming.
A little one, just like in the photo. 🥰💖🤰😍
It put EVERYTHING in perspective. Suddenly I was teary, but now for a whole other reason…
Not whiny tears, but grateful ones. 🙏🙏
I’ve been watching our garden blossom and grow in life.
Here are a collection of photos of plants and shrubs and the like that are bringing me happiness at the moment. 💖
From our little rosemary with flowers growing (it’s the newest one of the bunch, we have loads of rosemary shrubs)… 🤭
To our birds of paradise reaching high for the skies…
Our rose bush that started off as the tiniest growth in the ground, now sprawling out of the pot…
Our cactus that needs to be pruned often, so out of control it gets in its sunny position at the front of the house…
To the small grasses Hubbie literally divided from one and split into 3, they are all now producing new fresh growth…
And finally, our neighbours tree, blossoming pink and white. It’s not ours, sure, but it bends over our fence and provides me with much joy in September each year, when it fills with colour and vibrancy before it all falls away in late Spring.
Every year this Spring growth makes me happy, and finally this year, something is growing that means more to me than any garden item.
It’s the icing on the cake. 🤰🤰🤰🤰🌿🍀🌱🪴
The sky was on fire tonight. 🔥🔥
You know it’s getting harder for me to run up and down the stairs to catch the right shot, what with my growing bulging belly. 😂 I may just need to be more selective with future photos in that case…
But for now, enjoy the fiery sky on a Friday night.
It’s dark, mysterious, magical and natural… just the way I like it. 😍🌅
Today while wandering about town, we decided to check out the Hepburn Springs blowhole.
There was meant to be a path, or a few to get there, and there was water gushing out of a rock? Also baby girl’s teacher who had lived in the area years ago, recommended it as a good place to sightsee.
That is all I really knew.
We were the only ones as we arrived there this afternoon. Sure enough there was a proper walkway path, that had steps winding and leading down to the gushing water below. We took the shorter path, and as soon as we got closer to the roaring sound of water, reached a landing that showed us what this blowhole really was.
It appeared like the water was coming out of a cave area, between rocks, and gee was it strong. The sound was immense, and although it looked scary, like all of mother nature, it also looked beautiful.
Hubbie and baby girl kept on heading down to get a closer look, while I lagged back doing what I do best, videoing the scene and taking photos. 🤣
As I finally caught up to them, it appeared from afar that baby girl had walked over some shallow watery area, over rocks. I figured it must have been ok, must have been safe… until I got there.
She had walked over it, but there was a fair bit of water too. Part of her shoe had gone into the water, and she was now on the other side saying, my shoe is wet!
Hubbie stood on what was a kinda safe, wet rock (let’s face it, no wet rocks are safe!) and told her to come closer so he could grab a hold of her as she tried to make her way back, again stepping on wet rocks amidst shallow pools of water. There were marshy grassy bits, but you couldn’t tell if they were just wet grass, or parts that would submerge a little if your foot pressed into them.
He was balancing as best he could when she came over, but still, she wobbled a bit and lost her balance, one foot sploshing a whole foot deep into the water as she jumped toward me.
Now she was properly wet.
I was shaking my head at her, like, why did you go and do that? What possessed you to walk over that watery area? She went to the stairs to take that runner off, even though the other foot was also damp, as I tried to take some more shots from ground level, knowing full well that we wouldn’t be there long now that she had damp feet. 🤦♀️
So guess what Hubbie went and did as I was taking these shots, baby girl holding her runner upside down in an effort to dry it on the stairs behind me?
He went and walked over another marshy/shallow area to get to the other side. 🤦♀️
I don’t understand these people. 🤷♀️ Frankly, I ignored them, knowing full well there was no chance I was going to be silly enough to walk along wet rocks, an unknown unofficial path/clearing to the other side, especially with baby inside me now.
In fact, I actually recorded, with amusement, Hubbie trying to come back to our side, narrating for the camera “let’s see if this guy is going to be successful, let’s see if he also falls.”
One step, two step, wobble and wet, splash! I caught it all on camera. Then I laughed and laughed as I shifted the camera view from one person suffering from wet feet (baby girl) to Hubbie shaking his head at himself.
I just don’t know. 🙄😆
Driving home I said “you guys literally wanted to dip your feet into it!”
Too early while their feet were still cold?
At home they washed up, then we watched back the recording, laughing at their silliness, my mocking words, and the whole scenario.
It wasn’t too early after all. 🤣🤣
Check out what was drying by the fireplace tonight…
🤦♀️🤣🔥🔥
Here is baby girl at lunchtime today. She got up and said “I think I’m going to make my eggs now.”
😊😊 I’ve been encouraging her to make her own things, especially when it comes to stuff like scrambled eggs. Of course I’m there supervising with the heat and all that, but she actually did the whole thing herself… except cracking the egg. She wasn’t sure about that, not yet. 😆
Still, super proud of my girl. Cooking skills are so essential in life. START THEM YOUNG!
Later in the afternoon we went for a walk in the Winter sun. It was bliss…
…and it led to the park. It was one of those gorgeous and still sunny days, where it felt like it wasn’t Winter, sitting out in the sun for so long.
And yet it is Winter. And beauty is still around. 💞💞
carcrashgratitude 