Sunday games at home

As with last Sunday we had a quiet day at home after a busy week and a busy Saturday so while I watched Landline, Gardening Australia and Annabel Langbein I ironed the school uniforms and the kids played various games together around the house.  I grabbed the camera in between ironing so I could capture the games they were playing.  First up was a game of Chess followed by Bocci, then it was Snap and then back to the backyard for more rides on the trolley like last week.  They had a lot of laughs and played well together which makes me happy.  I love ironing (let me rephrase that)... whilst I was ironing I love seeing the kids play together and laugh and be kids.  After all of that we headed off to Coles to get a few groceries and a DVD "The Life of Pi" and watched that together with a short recess for dinner and then bed.  If you get the Life of Pi out (by the way it is at the Hoyts Kiosk) make sure after the movie you watch the "special effects section which is amazing how the movie was made".  Here's how our Sunday activities went today.

365 Grateful

Project 365, Photo a Day, 365 Grateful whatever you want to call it these days people are "stopping to smell the roses" and trying to appreciate the everyday things.  Some time back I read an article about Hailey Bartholomew from Brisbane who was suffering from depression and she went to get some spiritual advice off a nun.  This nun told her to write in a journal each day something that she was grateful for that day so began writing in her journal.  She did this for a little while and because she is a photographer she decided to take a photo using an old Polaroid camera and wrote what she was grateful for each day.

The thing that Hailey noticed was that the previously "unnoticed" things she was now noticing; like her husband giving her the big piece of pie for dessert and serving the smaller yet not so nicely presented pie to himself.  Over the course of the year she became happier with life and started to appreciate and see all the things she already had to be grateful for.  She started posted her photos on tumbler and then a whole on-line 365 Grateful community was formed.  It is good to be reminded that the morning light or clean dry washing on the line is in fact something to be grateful for and we all know this when it's a dull dreary rainy day.

There was an ad or apple iphone on tv yesterday saying more people take photos all around the world now on their iphones because they are simple and usually on us and people are capturing more everyday things with things like Instagram and the other photo sharing sites.  Photography which may have always been a hobby for some is very universal and even my 9 and 7 year old snap photos on my iphone and put filters on them for Instagram.  Photos capture time, photos capture a moment and photos capture a memory......for this I am very grateful for.

Here is a link to the video however I was having trouble loading the video and image directly to my blog so you should be able to click on this 365 video link.  (let me know if this doesn't work as I haven't loaded a video yet and not sure I've done it correctly).

Do you take photos of things that you are grateful for in your life these days?

Anyone suffering depression needs to seek medical and clinical help firstly however, a project like 365Grateful helped Hailey to feel good about the life she had and was living.

By changing the way she looked at things she was able to change her thoughts to enjoy her life and be thankful.  We all know that no one can be happy every minute of their lives and at times you have really huge problems going on in your life, and other times you have small problems and this is the way life rolls.  It's also good to be reminded to notice the small things in life that are right in front of our eyes.

Around Here

Here's a look at what's been going on around our place this week.

Backyard Antics

Yesterday was a long and exhausting day as I've got a cold and Hay Fever and the kids started off at 7.00 am with disagreements which seems to go on forever.  The day seem to go from playing happily together then back to disagreements and then playing again and then disagreements which left me totally exhausted firstly from being unwell and secondly to the constant need to sort out the disagreements.    Regardless of our day I did manage to capture these wonderful memories when they were playing nicely together in the backyard and this activity of pushing each other around on the trolley was one of happiness while I pegged the washing.

Spilled Milk

I have been following Elise Cripe's blog for a long time now and she is one of the contributors to the new blog called "Spilled Milk".  Elise is expecting her first baby in 4 weeks time and is hoping her husband will make it home from deployment for the birth and meeting their baby girl for the first time.

Spilled Milk is a collaborative photography blog, featuring a collection of photographs from 14 talented mothers from around the world.  There is a weekly theme reflecting some aspect of parenthood and the complexity and beauty that comes with raising kids.

So far the themes have been "warmth", "meal", "mess", "experience, "sleep", "grow" and the photography is wonderful because each individual has their own meaning of the theme.

I thought it would be nice to follow along in my own time and take a photo of these themes for my own family and this morning I took a photo that represented "warmth".  This was the first time that we have had Oats for breakfast with warm milk and brown sugar.  As a child myself I remembered on those cold mornings we would have warm porridge.  I bought the Uncle Toby's Instant Oats which are basically rolled oats but more refined so about half the size of normal oats and once we put some milk on top it went into the microwave oven for 90 seconds and after resting for a minute it was done.  It has been 9 degrees in Brisbane these last few mornings which is very cold for sunny Queensland so the oats certainly warmed James up and he really liked them.  Sienna didn't warm to them (ha ha) so she won't be warming up with breakfast any time soon.

There was one other picture I took today that presented warmth as well but I love the first photo of James but you can never have too many photo of "warmth" I say when it's cold.  Here is my other "warmth" photo even though my shutter speed was a bit low the photo isn't that sharp.  It was pretty hot when I opened the oven so I didn't want to hang around a long time with my camera changing settings.

A picture of my Kids May 2013

My eldest son James is 9 years old and loves AFL, reading, doing magic tricks, lego and the unmentionable (x-box - his Mummy aka me, limits it to one hour on the weekends after homework has been done).  His latest activity is his Meccano set which he built a motorbike and finished it on Friday so I said I would take a photo of it for him.  He loves our home baking and knows the difference between healthy food and non healthy food (and we do eat both).  Actually it's sometimes food which means it's okay sometimes to eat those things but he does think our home baking is way better and healthier for you anyway.  He is very clever and has a very sharp mind and an amazing memory and I am so very proud of the person he is and I find it hard to believe that at the end of the year he will be in double digits.  Does that mean I'm getting old?  Maybe just older but my life is so much better for these two little people whom I treasure every day for being their Mum.

Sienna is my youngest child and is 7 years old and loves laughing, smiling, painting artwork, craft, the outdoors, writing notes, being silly, helping Mum cook in the kitchen.  She is going to a disco party tomorrow afternoon so I bought these little heart shaped purple sunglasses for her to wear.  Oh yeh, she LOVES HEARTS too so the sunglasses are very appropriate.  She is giggling and has the most wicked laugh and sometimes can put it on to make us laugh when we are at the dinner table and because it is so fake it makes James and I laugh and then it all turns into real laughing.  She is such a happy, silly beautiful loveable girl and I'm so glad that I'm her Mummy.

I love that you can tell kids live here

I love that you can tell kids live here and my week's menu plan has been interrupted with an impromptu picture from Sienna.  Just as well I knew what we were having for dinner every night before she rubbed it out.  Actually she was pretty good and asked me if she could rub it out and I said "sure".  I love that she has done a speech bubble that says "I am Mum" and then she also has put another speech bubble that says "comments here" only her spelling is very interesting and I love that she has a go at it anyway.  I love that she has drawn a big smile on my face and that's a pretty fancy outfit I'm wearing.  She has rubbed the "u" of Menu so it reads "Men Plan for Dinner"  looks like I'm all dressed up and no where to go.  Very cute Sienna your personality is everywhere in our home and these little moments make me very happy.