Playing Doctors

As I was having a nap this afternoon, Phan captured this cute little series of photos of Elizabeth and Catherine playing doctors... :)

Photo A Day September - Day 5 - Proud Daddy (With Bed Hair)

First Father's Day for Phan as a daddy to two little girls... We all got a sleep-in until 8:15am this morning and then we gave Daddy his presents... we got him 2 books to read to the girls ("Me and My Dad" and "I Love My Daddy") and a new Argentina soccer jersey (the one he currently has is beginning to fall apart, but he's had it for more than 10 years!) and Elizabeth made him something special at kindy:





I should make a mention, that the jumpsuit that Catherine is wearing which says "I Love Daddy" was actually unintentional - at 3:30am this morning after her feed, she did a *massive* vomit (unusual for her!) that got all her clothes (and Phan!) and that was the only clean short sleeved jumpsuit I could find... but it's actually perfect for today... Maybe Catherine knew she wanted to wear it, and that's why she threw up...

Happy Father's Day to our Dad's and to all the daddy's out there... hope you all have a wonderful day!

Photo A Day September - Day 4 - Sooky Sooky La La

The big girl was a bit of a grump this afternoon... She's sick... she's tired... and it was all too hard. You know she's out of sorts when you pull out the camera and she lies there and stares at you with those brooding eyes, instead of pulling silly faces. And she lay there motionless instead of yelling out "Can I have a look?" the minute I'd taken a photo and trying to clamber all over me trying to see the viewfinder on the camera...

Nothing that cuddle and half an hour of alone time didn't fix though... she's fine now... :)

Oh and after our terrible day yesterday, last night was *muuuuuuch* better... Catherine decided to ease up a little in the hungry stakes - woke up for a feed at midnight and 4am and was easy to resettle back to bed... and she slept in 'til 9:10am this morning, only stirring for a couple minutes at 6:30am! So we all had a lovely sleep in (I went and had a cuddle in Elizabeth's bed at 6:30am and we ended up sleeping 'til 8am). Obviously yesterday wore all of us out!

Photo A Day September - Day 3 - Time For A Break

We've been having one of those days... it started with a terrible night with the little girl feeding 3-4 hourly during the night and then having a 1 hour grumpy spell between 2am-3am... compounded with the big girl being sick with a horrible cough ... she kept waking up for no particular reason... I had to go attend to her about 6 times in the night...

So on the back of the sleep deprivation, today has just been a trying day all round... I swear Catherine is acting like she's going through a wonder week again with the frequent feeding and resisting sleeping in the cot... And Elizabeth has just been sick and a bit of a sook herself...

Nothing like some tea and a chocolate-y sugar hit to get you through the day... Roll on bedtime...

Photo A Day September - Day 2 (Part 2) - Baked With Love

A few weeks ago Elizabeth watched an episode of Elmo's World where a little boy and his dad baked a cake for his mum's birthday... Which led Elizabeth to ask Phan if she could bake a cake with him for me... LOL... too cute, and really quite hilarious, because if you know Phan, while he's great at doing a great many things... cooking and baking is not his forte... (Actually, I'll hedge a guess he's never baked a cake in his life actually... his idea of making a cake involves buying a premade one and then whipping cream and filling the cake with it)... so Phan told Elizabeth that it would be my birthday in a few weeks and they would bake a cake for me then... So since then, every week Elizabeth has been asking when she and Daddy would be baking cake for me...

Today is the day... :) And they made this cake based on the recipe from here. It didn't look anything like the photo because the cream cheese topping sank (but I reckon there's an error in the recipe, because other people had the same trouble judging by the review of the recipe, which I only just read now!)... but regardless it tasted delicious!!! Pretty good for Phan's first effort... although, it was rather hilarious watching him and Elizabeth make it, and I did have to help out with the odd piece of advice here and there... but they made it all by themselves... Elizabeth was very proud of the cake ("It's the best cake I've ever had Mum!") And btw - I'm not actually 3 yeard old, but that's how many candles Elizabeth wanted me to have on my cake... :)

And here are some extra photos of my bakers in action -

I've been oh-so spoilt by Phan once again this year... Phan got me a voucher for 10 massages at my favourite place MummaBubba... They have a lovely little creche there, so it means once a month I'll be able to go and have an hour or so of me time there... I actually went there to have a massage last week while Elizabeth was at kindy and put Catherine in the creche there for an hour... Catherine was fine... slept for half of the time she was there... and I just felt so relaxed and balanced afterwards, it was wonderful!

The other part of my present which I am soooo totally excited about is that Phan has been in touch with Sheye Rosemeyer about organising a family photoshoot for us!!! I had mentioned to Phan a couple of times that I'd love to have our family photos done by her before we move back to Adelaide and I was hoping to organise something next year when Catherine was 1. But with Sheye expecting her own little bundle of joy next year, we're probably going to have to bring that date forward a bit, but we'll sort out the details of that later... but I am soooo excited... Sheye is one of my photography idols and I just really can't wait to meet her and have our photos done by her!

And I'll finish here with a birthday photo of me and my 2 girls -

Photo A Day September - Day 2 (Part 1) - Time Is Ticking

Because I have some family members who like to make my life difficult (that's you Phong!), I will be posting 2 photos today as part of the challenge... It's my birthday today, and Phong challenged me to take a non-birthday related photo for today... so I did... well there is an underlying message in this photo I guess related to my birthday... this photo sums up how I'm feeling today as I turn 32...

(For the photography inclined - this photo taken with my 100mm macro at f2.8 on the side of the bath...).

However I will be back later to post a birthday related pic for today... I know exactly what I'm taking a photo of too and I'm sooo looking forward to it! :)

Photo A Day September - Day 1 - Good Morning Spring

In a slight fit of madness, I challenged a friend of mine (hi Thao!) to do a photo-a-day for the month of September and promised her that I would do it with her to keep her company... I thought while I was at it, I might rope some of my other photography-inclined family and friends into doing the challenge with us and get some of our photography mojo going... So now we have 7 people doing the challenge... Nothing like having other people doing the challenge to remind you and keep the motivation up! (And you better believe it people... I will be prodding and reminding you all!)

So here's my submission for today - Miss Catherine first thing this morning in her cot... She was a super happy chappy... very smiley and still doing that tongue-poking out party trick! Must be the change of seasons that put her in a good mood... the beginning of Spring... the best season of the year... :)