More photos by Phillippa

I had some more photos taken of my girls last week. The disk arrived today and the phots are gorgeous. Phillippa is a mum that I have met through an online parenting forum. She is not a 'professional' photographer as such, but she aims to be. I have offered my children as guinea pigs along with a small fee to cover her expenses and time. The girls were wonderfully behaved. Lucy was in her happy awake period and it all came together really well. It was still really difficult to get the three of them together, as Charlotte just loves to lean over Lucy continually, so a lot of the photos have her covering (or is that smothering!?) Lucy.
These are a few of my favourites.

Okay, okay...

Lucy isn't fat, she is just ....

3 months - 14 weeks !

Time flies, hey?
Lucy rolled over for the first time this week, and as all good third borns should, she was watching TV, laying on her tummy. Obviously lifted her head up a little high and rolled right over on to her back!
She also has little giggles and is a nice fat roly poly thing. Do you think it is politically correct for me to call her 'fat baby' all day?
She loves her night sleep and happily sleeps 12ish hours each night. Her thick head of hair now has a bald spot! It freaks me out, as it is all prickly like 2 day old stubble.
She has really started grabbing at things and it is hours of fun for the older girls to watch her trying to grab at things that are just beyond her reach.

Our fat baby.







Watching the Cats thrash Port!!

Just had to add the photo of Raff's hot car :) They had a photo shoot done to get some pictures on their website.

The Nits

Yep, after 5 years of close contact with all manner of children we hae had The Nits brought in to our household. It's funny because I knew Ella had them - she was scratching her head non-stop - but buggered if I could find anything. Turns out her head was crawling with them. I truly don't know how I missed them for so long! Anyway, Ella has been a trooper about them. She has always hated having her hair brushed or washed at the best of times, so having to sit still for hours while conditioner and other strange substances are combed through her hair must be pure torture for her.
Every now and then she would suddenly run out of the bathroom mid-combing screeching 'Ahhh, this is freaking me out!!!' and then calmly come and sit down to continue the combing. Occasionally she would say "I am so stressed about The Nits" Yep, that's what she calls them and I can hear the capitalisation in her voice.

Anyway a week or so after the first sighting it was 'Crazy Hair Day' at school. We were in a mad rush that morning, as instead of our usual 6:45am wake up call from Ella, we slept until 10 to 8 (we need to all be out the door at 8:30) Ella hadn't woken us up, as she had ot straight out of bed to create her 'crazy hair' Look at the photo. Can you guess?









Yep - a giant head lice.
And yes, I had them in my hair too. Revolting little things...

Gawler Show

A whole year has passed without Adam and Eva around. You do realise that the kids outnumber us now at occasions such as the Show?! The weather was perfect and we all had a great day. Nothing has changed over the years, which is lovely, as Ella was remembering everything all over again.



The obligatory painted faces

Charlotte had a ball. She is a funny one. She will give anything a go, as bold as brass. She loves animals. Dad took both girls in to a farm animal enclosure. Ella managed to not touch a single animal, while Charlotte had to touch every single one, including having to chase down the ones that saw her coming! The fire brigade sprayed a whole heap of foam down that the kids went wild in, there was no holding Charlotte back!


And Lucy? Well, she slept a good chunk of the day. She seemed to have grown a few inches overnight. Lots of smiles from her nowadays.

Oh and I have to include the Ella-wants-to-go-home-cos-my-legs-are-tired photo(I hope you said that in your best 5 year old whiny voice!)

Monkey see, monkey do

I had been having problems with the pram, so had sent it away to be fixed and also 're-upholstered' The problem with this was that The Pram Doctor is in Lonsdale, so a fair way out of the way! As luck would have it, Raff has a client very near there, so the computer Gods shined on us and he had to head down that way. He dropped our pram off, but the wait was too long so he left it there, and we hoped it would be a quick return. In the mean time, Lucy lived in the sling. We love our Jazsling. Two weeks of walking her everywhere in the sling, and it has become a way of life for us, so I guess it was no surprise to see Charlotte come out of her room one day with our spare sling around herself with her baby wrapped in it. A few adjustments and this was the result


And this is the real deal. Lucy as sung as a bug in her sling.

A winters day

We spent a glorious day on Brighton beach a few weeks ago. It is just a short walk from Raff's nanna's house. It is such a beautiful beach and seems largely undiscovered by anyone other than the locals. It is a bit of a shame to see all the old character filled houses being knocked down and big ugly fortresses going up in their place. Charlotte had been unwell with a cold, but perked up for just long enough to enjoy the sand and sunshine.

Ella

Charlotte
They are both getting ridiculously grown up, hey?

Lucy spent the time sound asleep in her sling as per usual.

It's official

Yep, she's a school girl.

Video of Lucy

Not much happening over here. Same old, same old. Feed baby, drive eldest to school, feed baby, pick eldest up from school, feed baby, sleep, repeat.
Lucy has started smiling and I managed to catch a glimpse of it on video, so thought I would upload them.





I also finally got a half decent photo of the three girls!

Photos by Phillippa

I received the disk of photos yesterday. Unfortunately on the day the photos were taken, Ella and Charlotte were unable to be in the same room as each other without kicking, biting, pinching, pushing and yelling at each other, let alone actually being photographed lovingly together. So only managed one photo of all 3 girls...

A perfect day

It started with waking at 6:10 this morning and realising that Lucy had slept right through from 10pm, then when I got her up to feed she grinned at me for the first time - one of those beautiful whole face smiles with shiny eyes that only a newborn can do. She fed and went back to sleep and so did I, until 8:30 when Charlotte woke. Raff and Ella were already on their way to school.
My beautifully well-behaved helpful Charlotte was back after a fairly turbulent month, so we went for a walk down the street. It was one of those beautiful winter days with blue skies and just a touch of spring on the breeze. I was feeling very grateful for my bodies ability to heal and loved getting out and stretching the old muscles again.
Lucy slept most of our excursion except for a brief awakening to jump on the scales for a weigh in. She now weighs a beautifully chubby 5.3kg.
Charlotte and I sat on a step on Adelaide Road and watched the cars go by. Charlotte with her dried mango, me with my apple and Lucy with her breastmilk.
I achieved everything on my list today which always feels good.
I had a cup of tea with my mum.
I had my first night putting the girls all to bed by myself, as Raff had a meeting to go to, and it went swimmingly. Charlotte asleep at 6:30, Ella asleep at 7 and Lucy has slept most of the evening, which sure beats last nights screaming match...
My husband came home with a $900 phone that he won.
Life is good.

A rather spotty, yet still beautiful Lucy - she will be 4 weeks old in two days!

A step away

Ella started school today. She loved it! She was super impressed that she learnt something new on her very first day, too (the Indonesian word for spider!)
She had a nervous start and the first photo that I have put up doesn't quite show the extent of the death grip that she had on Charlotte's hand.
She was so brave though, and didn't look back once she gave us all a super big squeezy hug (I didn't think she was going to let go of Charlotte, she held on for that tight for that long)
I got to her classroom early to pick her up this afternoon and her class was still over in the Indonseian room. I watched her walking back across the yard surrounded by her classmates and in that moment had a flash of me as an outsider peeking in on her world, rather than being the centre of it *waah* She still needs me, right?

Straight after school drop off I met a few of the mums from my Mother's Group so that we could all have a coffee, a chat and a cry about our babies starting school. Those women have been wonderful companions over the last five years. I think my journey into motherhood would have been just that little bit harder and a touch more lonely if I didn't have them all there to share the highs and lows. We have all learnt a little bit off each other here and there, but probably moreso we have all cemented our own way of parenting and been able to confidently do so without being judged.
We are an interesting mix, and I am unsure that we would have all gotten along so well in any other setting. It seems odd that the only link is that we all had our first children in mid 2002. Ella was 10 weeks old when we all met and it has been a privilege to share her and her nuances with these great women. (Miss you, Jacki!!!)
Our monthly child free dinners have always left me feeling reassured that most behavioural things with children are generally age appropriate and pass by so quickly in the grand scheme of things. I mean, really, now that she is five, can I even remember that crazy frustrating fight to get her to lay still to put a nappy on? Or the constant, constant breastfeeding? The thought that she would never sleep anywhere other than tucked up in my (rather sore!) arms? The horror that she was in the car - oh, the screaming! -? The pain of labour? The euphoria of birth? The hopelessness of non-stop crying?(mine, not hers) The emptied out Tupperware cupboards and bookshelves - again? The weaning? The mess of solids? The vomiting?

Will I ever forget the milky smell? The softness of her baby hair? The first successful breastfeed? The snuggles in bed? Her first steps? Her first giggles? The bliss of watching a sleeping baby?

Aah, thank goodness for little sisters! I get to do it all over again.

Our Lucy

Yep, totally slack over here, but 3 weeks and one day ago our Lucy was born.
My mum has blogged brilliantly about it @ spendingyourinheritance.blogspot.com . One day I will get my head around it all and write it all down, for now it is enough that Lucy is with us safe and sound. She really is a glorious baby. I am totally unbiased in saying that she is gorgeously perfect in every way. From the Stomaci head of hair to the Stomaci love of sleep!
Our older girls are infatuated. The honeymoon is nowhere near over.
I had an online friend take some photos of my girls on Wednesday. She is mailing the disk out to me, so I hope to have some great photos to put up very soon.

This is just one of Charlotte and Lucy. It totally captures how enamoured Charlotte is with 'Little sister Lucy' as she calls her all day long.

We haven't been doing much other than existing. I can't wait until our loungeroom is finished so that I can put up photos. I love that room so much.

Ella had her 5th birthday and mum took her to see Cirque du Soleil. She really enjoyed the outing.

Our Lucy

Ella on her birthday

Ella at Cirque du soleil

First school visit

Does she look happy?
I overheard her talking to our cat just before we had to leave. She was in her school clothes and was saying 'Harry, you probably don't recognise me now. Probably it is the school clothes, but it is also that I am different all over now. I am a school girl now. Even though it is only a very quick visit today, soon I will be going every day. I will miss you. You have been a good cat'

She was extremely nervous (so was I!) but she did great and is really happy with her classroom, her friends, her teachers and knowing where the toilets are and where to put her bag. I sat in the car and cried - damn hormones!

New room

Inside the cupboards - look at all that space!!





Charlotte's bed


Ella's bed




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THE room is done !!

The girls room is finished !! It has been a long time coming, trying to steal bits and pieces of time here and there to finalise it, but it is so so worth it. All I want to do now is get a rug of some sort for the floor and the man from Hills robes has to give us our door back (he had to take one of the mirrored doors in lieu of payment :p - we had a bit of trouble getting the money through to them, over daily card limit etc)

When it was just Ella's bedroom.










I will make another entry with photos of the new look room in just a tick.

Now our next room to tackle is the dining room/office. It is going to become our lounge room. We had grand plans to paint over last weekend (Rachel had our girls all day Sunday - thanks again!) but the 'little' cracks that we needed to patch, kind of turned in to this


and this

The joys of an old house....

so now we wait for Raff to get the stuff to fill the gap and of course it is 10pm and he is still not home from work, so tonight is out of the question.
All the office/dining furniture is crammed in to what is to be the baby room, though the drawers have some baby clothes in, we have nappies and the bassinette is assembled - what more could a baby need?! (only 22 more sleeps until D day...)

Baby is growing wonderfully well and I am feeling great. My haemoglobin levels have actually increased, (105 to 107) which is a first for me. Body is holding out pretty well, considering the size of my bump - midwife says I am heading towards a 9 pound baby :) Anyone got any ideas for a name?!

She did it !!

Ella that is. Passed up to the next swimming class. It has been a loooong time coming, but she looks great in the water and is very very happy. We now have to change to *sniff* after school lessons. She is now a Seahorse :D.

Speaking of school....we went and got her school uniform today and she has her first transition visit tomorrow. Her new teacher came to visit at the kindy yesterday and it turns out that her kindy teacher (Sandra) has managed to get Ella into an R-1 class. Very, very happy with that, as I wasn't really looking forward to six full terms of Reception alone. She will be in with only 3 other kindy kids and her closest friend Taylah won't be by her side, but I think it will be wonderful for her to be extended a little bit, both academically and socially.