Saturday

Saturday is an exciting day in the Smallwood household. Daddy is home and we all get to hang out. Here we are having a celebratory musical moment. Move over Hanson!

Playtime

When Baxter has his afternoon nap, I try to spend some special one on one time playing with Winter. It sounds strange that it would take some effort to do this, surely playing with your children should be a normal part of daily life? Somehow however I constantly feel compelled to try and get ontop of the million and one things that need to be done everyday. Even bare minimum housework requirements are overwhelming, scrape wheetbix off floor, scrub food off high chair, refill wipes, refill nappy bag, clean bottles, steam & puree baby food, find bear, find firetruck, rinse poo out of singlet, handwash woolen jumpers, dark wash, light wash, make breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, change nappy, change wet jeans, find shoe, remove sand from shoe, wipe spilt milo off floor, wipe glue off Winter's face, remove dead cockroach from baxter's path, empty stinking leftovers from fridge, find dummy, clear path through toys on floor, i could go on & on & on ...

Today we had a good playdough session, the highlight was making beds for the animals

Winter also made a bed for his new car (here he is carefully putting the car on its pillow) (note above the zebra is is the post van in bed)

Polar Bear got a bed too

The house is a mess but we had fun

Training

Baxi's first bike ride

help

around 5pm children tend to turn feral. arsenic hour. tonight Winter and Baxter cracked it the same time (this is not unusual) they both want to be held and its very hard to get their dinner made. rich was running late. this kind of fun & games happens all the time and tonight i decided to try to get some pics. it bothers me that we only tend to share the glossy shinny smiley isn't family life great moments. being a mum is tuff.

note half empty glass of wine in background

luckily all the flash seemed to chill them out for a moment (where they get their love of the spotlight i don't know!)

double emergency over time to get on with 1 handed cooking - if only Winter would stop undoing my shoelaces...!

late night

Dad came home at 6pm with a v exciting new toy last night (note dinner is at 6)

6.15 i'm holding the baby taking photos of the children playing rather than eating

mmm time for a glass of wine and some deep breaths mum

Beach

Winter pelting down a sand dune

sandy

Baxter

Hanging out with mum

and Dad

sussing out the 70's beach house decor

pulling off some cute moves

On your marks

get set GO! Baxi is up on all fours and getting ready to get going. We took these photos last weekend down at Mum & Dad's place in Sorrento (Mornington Penninsula).

Winter was crawling early at 7.5 mths. At this rate Baxter will be on the move well before then (6 mths in a week)

Cars

Lucky Winter was given a box of cars last week. They belonged to Claire's brother and going by the warning on the box they were once highly treasured.

Winter is delighted with his windfall. These cars arn't just any old cars, they are quality favorites; a police car, an ambulances, a dump truck, a concrete truck, diggers, a big car transporter, vans, a double decker bus, hotted up race cars etc etc. (note mum's expanding vocab).

Cars come everywhere - the playground the bath, bed etc etc. He gets very attached to one for a couple of days then moves on to another. They get put in his pockets and turn up in strange spots. Lots of crashing and brrrrrrummming.

More

chubby action!

daddy's boy

Chub Chub

Made by Mum! Thought I should take a record of what I produced prior to putting him on solid food.

Toot Toot

It has been wonderful to observe Winter increasingly engage in imaginative play. Today I came across him making this big long train.

It was great to see him so focused.

Most car/train games have the same ending...

CRASH!!

Star

I had to take a picture of Claire simultaneuosly doing the housework & looking after grizzly Baxi. She comes on Friday for three hours to help me get sorted.

Its a welcome relief to get some help.