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If you recall last week's photo-a-day, I took a photo of a vintage suitcase that I had managed to find. I've been searching for one for ages with a particular photoshoot concept in mind, so I was really quite excited when I found it... Yesterday I put it to good use...
Our baby Catherine is not so much a baby anymore... I can't believe she is one and it's beyond belief how fast these last 12 months have passed by.
Her party last weekend was a low key one... just a few close friends and Bao and Ty made the trip up from Adelaide especially to celebrate with us... Catherine wore a little white ao dai (a Vietnamese traditional dress) at her party... it's the very same one that my mum sewed by hand which I wore at my first birthday party, and which Elizabeth also wore at her first birthday party. I love that my Mum was still able to be a part of our day in this small way... It makes me smile and get all sentimental to think we have all been able to share the same little outfit on our milestone birthday.
One year olds don't do much at parties... We played pass the parcel... and the other kids were content to play in the yard while Catherine pretty much spent 90% of the party sitting in her high chair watching on while eating spring rolls which are her favourite food at the moment. She spotted them when they were freshly cooked and refused to have a morning nap until she'd eaten one... and then she had 4 at the party... and 3 for dinner... 8 in total all day! That's a lot of spring rolls for a little child! She unwrapped some presents (with the help of Elizabeth, who loved helping her!) and enjoyed shaking and playing with her abundance of new clothes that she received and also with her toys (a postbox that Elizabeth picked out, 2 xylophones (one from Chu Phong and one from us), a pelican thing, and a tray of wooden blocks, a cogwheel snail and some books) She also loves the new spotted bowl set that her godmother Vicky got her... (well actually, I'm sure that's more me... but it's so pretty!) and loves that her godfather Tuyen all the way over in Ireland sent her a birthday card with a morsecode baby-talk message in it! So lucky, so loved and so blessed. Catherine must have known it was a special day on her birthday, because she hardly slept all day and was in a remarkably happy mood.
Just a quick condensed summary of party in a few photos -
Okay, so I know I'm totally biased because I'm her mother... but isn't she just beautiful? It just makes my whole heart just sigh in amazement... she's really not my baby anymore... growing up so very, very fast ... with the personality to match... Just in case anyone out there thinks I'm going down some Jon Benet-esque path (which I'm not!)... the whole dressing up thing was Beth's idea... We're going through a phase where Beth likes to wear things around her neck... feather boas, leias, scarves, necklaces... sometimes all at once! And today she was in the mood to wear her tutu and fairy wings ... which it totally out of character for her... She's not a big fan of playing dress-ups (despite my enthusiastic encouragement)... Normally if she puts something on it lasts all of 5 minutes before she wants to take it off... But today, she played in her fairy wings all afternoon... I even had my own real life laundry fairy today as she helped me take in the laundry (in the same manner as yesterday... yes, I'm such a slave driver, Thao... but I like to think of it as being creatively inventive in a productive manner :))... All in good fun!
I took this photo quite a while ago... (actually back in mid-march)... I really wanted to do a shoot in this gorgeous little spot we'd found whilst bike riding around... I knew the light in the afternoon here was to die for... so I dressed up Beth and had Phan come along to help out in guiding Beth into the right spots... Unfortunately, Beth wasn't really in the mood for photos... so I had something like a 10 minute window before she really cracked it... and I found this whole sunflare business really quite hard and I left feeling quite disappointed by the shoot... A quick review showed nothing I really loved... but I revisited this set of photos and found this photo, which has actually come up beautifully with some pp-ing... I'm really pleased with it now. Sheye has even commented and said it's one of her all time favourites images from me... so I'm feeling all motivated again now to go and try out the sunflare again... Was going to go this afternoon, but Beth's still got a snotty nose and I'm getting another sore throat... so maybe once we get better...
Happy Birthday Phan! We love you so very very much. We have been practising saying "Happy Birthday Daddy" all week... Beth's pretty good at it now... although it's taken a fair bit of practise... It started off as "Happy Birthday Skylar Daddy" (because Beth still remembered Skylar's birthday... how cute is that?) And then morphed into a dyslexic "Happy Daddy Birthday"... and finally we have mastered "Happy Birthday Daddy". Hope you have a wonderful, wonderful day Phan...
than a refreshing homemade mango and yoghurt iceblock after some splashing in the wading pool on a hot summer's day?
Much hilarity surrounded this little episode of Beth making Daddy trot around the lounge room like a horse... Beth loved it and giggled so much...
Putting some of the stuff I learnt from Evolve into practise... It's been a while since I consciously set up a shoot with Beth... I've been lacking time, motivation and the right head space... but I think I'm hitting my groove again... I'm really pleased with how this storyboard turned out... It's the most photos I've ever tried to put together at a time and I'm happy with how consistent the pping turned out across the photos... Hope you enjoy this series... I hope to do more in the future...
you don't leave your child unattended for a minute with a cup of water and their lunch! Beth was having rice, egg and cha for lunch (yes, totally refo, and she loves it!) and she decided to dump the last few bits of her rice into her cup of water....
Today was such dreary, overcast weather... (but rather warm and muggy). I was going to try and take photos for our latest photography assignment today, but the weather and the lighting was less than desirable... and I have a totally non-willing model! So hopefully tomorrow will bring us more light and more joy...
Beth is making me laugh a lot these these days... she will randomly try and feed me whatever she's eating... she's obsessed with going "cheers" everytime I'm having a drink... sometimes she insists on hugging four of her soft toys (pink bear, yellow duck, blue hippo and pink pig) all at once in the mornings and making me carry her our her room while she is cuddling them all... when you ask her how old she's going to be, she says "TWO!" really proudly, whilst holding out only one finger... I'm just loving this interactiveness I'm getting from her and it makes me wonder what is going on in that little mind of hers!
I made these curtains for Beth's room ('scuse the dodgy photo and the creases... I think I need to iron the curtains a bit!)... There are vertical blinds in her room, but they aren't blockout, so I've been wanting to make her some cute, bright and fun curtains from blockout fabric ever since we moved in... How hard can curtains be to make...? Well, if you know what you're doing, it's really easy... but for me, the ever challenged sew-er... it took a lot of research on the net to figure out what the hell I needed to do. I had an "Ah Ha!" moment of enlightenment a week ago when I discovered that there is this stuff called "Pencil Pleat Tape" which you can buy and and that was what I needed to make the pleats at the top of the curtain and you can use it to attach curtain rings to the curtain and hang them up. Once I figured that out, the rest was easy. These curtains took about 1.5-2 hours to make and cost me a grand total of $40 to make... if I was to buy them ready-made, it was going to cost me $120! I am so proud of my achievement (even if the workmanship is a little dodgy, but seriously, who looks at the details of curtains?!!!... and I love that there is now something handmade by me in her room now... :)
My funny hippy girl got up and did a bit of a dance while asking for some more afternoon tea (nutri-grain!)... she is so funny and random at times... btw - those green beads you see her wearing... she chose to wear them.. the perfect accessory to her outfit apparently...
On Sunday, Beth and I went to church (Phan was working)... we've found a church nearby that's really family friendly... it is very modern/progressive church (for a Catholic church)... so it's taking some getting used to... but it's a very active, lively parish which is great to see...
On the way home from church (and it's literally a 5 minute drive home!), Beth fell asleep... I tried to wake her up once we got home, but I was met with a cranky, unhappy bear, so I put her down on the couch, thinking she might slowly gather her wits and wake up... but no - 
1. Don't leave the fridge open to air dry while your child is around.... It is more than likely that they will remove all the shelves from the fridge and do this:
2. Don't feed your child 10 tiny teddy biscuits in a one sitting in an attempt to amuse them and stop them from annoying you whilst you are wrapping glassware in newspaper... it will result in a *very* energetic child running around the house like a lunatic!
3. Don't let your child eat weetbix crumbs out of the cereal container... it will result in weetbix crumbs *everywhere* and you will waste time and energy having to vacuum up the mess.
4. Do let them wear clothes they can lift up so they can examine their belly button, like so: 
It provides cheap entertainment for half an hour so you can do more packing...
5. Do have lots of patience on hand when your child decides to be helpful and unpacks the box you have just packed... you also need patience for when they start hanging off your leg and arm at inopportune times... 
6. Be prepared for your child to come and do adorable things to distract you and make you laugh so that packing doesn't feel like quite a chore... She tried to feed me crumbs of dried cereal (mmm... messy!) and dried prune off a spoon (cute, but I really didn't feel like prunes!)
7. Keep your camera handy to capture the above mentioned moments!
Packing with a small child can be slow work (and at times annoying!), but it can be quite amusing and fun too...
Beth is a sticker addict! She loves them... they are my guaranteed way of entertaining her when I need her to sit still for 10 minutes (like when we are at a restaurant waiting for our food, or going to the doctors). We find them scattered around the house in the most unusual places... At the moment, I can see 3 stuck on the door leading to the garage and I often find them in the washing machine. This is what Beth did to me last Friday, when I went and did a quick grocery shop and then needed to withdraw money from an ATM... I was using the ATM and while she was sitting in the shopping trolley she decided to decorate my arm... pretty huh?
This is a photo from about a month ago... I just love the expression on her face!Beth discovered how to take the lid off the top of my strawberry chapstick and spent a long time pretending to put it on... I'm not sure how she knows you're supposed to put it on your lips, because I haven't used it in ages and I never wear lipstick (if I wear anything, I only wear lip pencil with some lancome juicy tube over the top), but she some how knew what to do with it. It was all very cute... until she mangled the chapstick 5 minutes later in the car by gouging at it with her fingers... I should have known better than to let her have it, but we were just ducking out to the shops and she had been so good with it when we were playing at home. However, once we arrived at the shops, I went to get her out of the car and was greeted by a big, red chapstick-y mess all over her hands and her face! That'll teach me... I realy have to think of the consequences of these things a bit more!
The other night, Beth was drawing with her textas and Phan decided to let her draw on his face! I told him off and told him not to encourage her to do that because she might end up wanting to always draw on his face... and no sooner had I said that, then she started trying to reach over and draw some more on him... I had to roll my eyes and give him my best "I told you so!" face!
