Butterfly at 8 Months Old

I am now 8 months old (back on the 4th March). I love to do my own thing exploring all the stuff I am not supposed to get into. My teeth are so very close but STILL not getting through. I can crawl pretty fast now, and I pull myself up on EVERYTHING. I like to be the centre of attention and if I think you should be looking at me and you aren't then I will let you know!

"Am I doing this right?"

She was tired and didn't feel like sitting up by herself and kept trying to lean back and get comfy. I didn't have my usual assistant (Dragon) and had to use Monkey... which didn't work out very well.

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I was trying to get a photo of the rose hair clip I had made her but she couldn't take those sweet eyes off me.
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"MY BLING!"

When she wasn't going to cooperate I gave her my necklace to try to distract her from climbing/falling off the seat. It worked, but I couldn't get her to keep it out of her mouth for more than a few seconds!

I love her chubby little hands.

Butterfly Beauty

It's been a while and I need to make sure the In-Laws are seeing photos of this precious princess.  She's growing at a great rate now and is at that fantastic stage where everything is JUST-SO-EXCITING! Her hands do what she wants them to (mostly) and she can get around pretty well, the world is her dinner plate. So, here are Butterfly's seven month old milestone photos.

I'm seven months old now (Well, I was 11 days ago but Mummy was sick so we missed it). I'm incredibly cheeky and love to giggle at my silly brother Dragon. I am developing a taste for pretty things, I love to eat them! I can caterpillar crawl, sit up and eat everything in sight. I am on formula and getting more chunkalicious by the day. My teeth are STILL just under the surface but are not causing me many problems. My favourite two tricks are acting shy to get attention and seeing what things look like when I turn my head on the side.

Her outfit today was very special. The dress is a beautiful hand-me-down from "House of Hannah" and the bow is from the fabulous pinkberrykisses and they just happen to match perfectly!

She was actually in the mood for photos today, so we got more than one good one :-) Dragon was my usual baby wrangler extrordinaire, but she goes all serious (confusion maybe?) before she starts to laugh and smile at him, I am glad I got a photo of it.

♥♥♥♥♥ Last one, just because she's so stinkin' cute ♥♥♥♥♥

Burnt

It's our dry season here. There's a fire somewhere around every day and the smoke stays low on the horizon. All the hills are slowly turning black and then softening to a dark charcoal grey.  So many negatives about the fires around.  The kids worry terribly about the animals caught in the path of the slick moving flames.  Asthma sufferers are staying indoors on the worst afternoons.  It's rare for any properties or people to be caught in the bush fires around here, we are so thankful for that, but it has taken a while to convince the kids.  The hills that were still tinged with green from our fantastic wet season are looking depressing now.  But I know that for many plants this season of fire means they will have a chance to flourish.  As grey and dark as it is now, soon we will see shoot of green sprouting on the hills.  Seeds brought alive by the heat of the fire, fed by the ash on the ground, growing and sprouting ready for the next wet season.

For now though, we can enjoy the beautiful colours of the sunsets caused by all the smoke in the air.

These were taken on two afternoons recently.  The first one, I got home with the kids and saw the beautiful colours changing as I drove down the street.  I had just enough time to dash inside, throw my stuff down and grab the camera.  I got off very few shots before all the light was gone.  The second one was taken while we were playing with the kids out on the street, riding bikes and taking sunset photos.  Taking advantage of a slightly warmer afternoon than usual.  Our usual rule is that it's inside time once the streetlight at the bottom of our driveway comes on... I saw it flick on and prayed that the kids wouldn't notice because I wanted "just a few more minutes".  I'm glad they didn't notice it because I got this shot long after it came on.

Both photos taken on my lovely new camera that my wonderful family bought me for my birthday :-)

Monkey's First Haircut

Be prepared for photos... lots of photos.  For each of the bigger boys we had done something with them in the week or two before their first haircut that resulted in lots of photos of their long hair.  We hadn't done much that got the right sort of photos of Monkey so on New Years day I decided to just take him out in the sun, shade, whatever the sky decided to do at the time, and get some photos... I'm feeling a little sad that his hair is all gone, it's making it hard to pick just a couple of photos to post.  I did pick just one for my New Years Day 365 post.

It wasn't very clean, it had a fair bit of sweat in it but I didn't want to wash it because it's easier to cut their baby hair when it's not freshly washed.  Because of that he didn't have quite the same number of fluffy sticking out bits as usual.

He looks like he's got a bit of an undercut here.  Because he so obviously had two distinct layers/types of hair people kept telling me that the longer stuff would fall out... it didn't.  He just looked like he had some weird hair extensions.  But it was really cute, and fun to play with.

A little close up for you of those sweet straggly bits at the back.  Just so soft and wispy.

This is the effect of the two layers at the front, a short fringe and a long fringe.  It kept getting in his eyes which, in the end, was what made me decide it was time to cut it.  He's just so stinkin' cute.  He still has a baby look to him here, he's lost that now.  He's still got those smooshy cheeks though.

He ♥'s the swing.  I ♥ watching his hair fly all over the place.

There's some more of those sticky-up bits.  There's always a few of them, they remind me of his great-grandad, he always had a few of them... though, he had a lot less hair.

Daredevil.  He looks like he's on a super-fast roller-coaster... he'd be quite happy on a super-fast roller-coaster.  He loves the swing to go REALLY high.  He also likes sudden stops.  Wow, his hair was long, wasn't it?

Cute as a button.  That is all swamp under him.  We can't mow because it's rained so much and we have clay right under the topsoil so the top is waterlogged and mushy.  But thankfully we aren't flooded like large chunks of the state!  Monkey didn't mind, as long as he got a go on the swing.

The event.  The haircut.  He wasn't really a fan of getting his hair cut.  It's pretty weird if you've never had a haircut before.  He watched his brothers get a haircut just before Christmas but it didn't help for his haircut.

Tidying up the back.  Ignore my upside down concentration face.  I was trying to not cut him... and to not cut myself... again.  We ended up giving him a packet of tiny teddies to try and distract him... it didn't work real well but it worked enough.  Doesn't he look all grown up?  This is about half an hour after that baby-faced photo up the top.

So, there you go.  New year, new haircut.

The Road to Nowhere

We've been there...

and back...

and eventually...

I'll blog about it...

Spendin' my time...

I'm not sure if Sunday Snapshot will happen this week (yet again) because I've been doing other things with my time...

like gazing at little bundles of cuteness as I edit the photos I took of these two...

And their sweet big brother, of course!

It's a wonderful way to spend my time, a gift for special people.

I love that I am able to call them both family and friend!

look into my eyes...

I love this kid.  I think this is my new favourite photo of my sweet Monkey.  His eyes really are that dark, his skin really is that beautiful, his cheeks that rosy, his lips that sweet.  I love that he was looking right through the camera at me.  Looking at this photo almost makes me want to go and get him back out of bed for one more snuggle... almost.

I love the other two as well, they just don't hold still for photos like this!

Merry Christmas

I'd love to pop around to all your houses (or at least your blogs) and wish you all a very merry Christmas personally but time does not permit me.

So from the McTavish clan to you and your family...

MERRY CHRISTMAS

As you tear open all the gifts under your tree be sure to remember the greatest gift of all, Jesus. If you don't know why He is called the greatest gift or you want to know more please email me (you can find my email on my profile page) I'd love you to know about a gift more precious than anything under any Christmas tree today!

Mummy McTavish.

Christmas Photos

We don't usually do a family Christmas photo but since I made matching shirts for the kids this year I figured why not.



This is the one I would love to give people...



Let it be known that I am not the most gracious model for these sort of things. I have in my head what I want from the photo and then I have to ask someone else to take it without them being able to see what I am seeing in my head... bound for problems. Let it also be known that my mum is VERY patient with me and we did actually get some photos that were pretty much what was going on in my head but it was getting 3 boys and 2 parents looking, smiling and not hitting mosquitoes all at the same time that brought us down. We bribed with McDonalds for dinner and truth be told they did better than I expected in order to earn their McDonalds.



I plan on posting our Christmas photo on Christmas day to give me a chance to get it printed and out to people before they see it here.

I'm not sure, but I think if you click on that photo it will come up bigger for you... if you're brave.

a little peek

It's easy to take great photos when they are of great people!

I had fun being a real photographer again and doing some engagement photos for Em and Pete.


They're a kinda good looking pair aren't they?

-Hope you like them Em, I can't wait to show you the rest!

Just Can't Get Enough...

of this sweet little Monkey...

and all his tiny little Monkey pieces...

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two posts in one day... check out below this for a great recipe!

That sinking feeling.

One positive from the dust and smoke filling our skies and lungs has been beautiful sunsets.  As the sun sinks below the horizon it is reflected off the dirt and ash that we hate and give us a stunning sunset to enjoy for a few fleeting minutes.  I guess I can handle a few more days of this yuckiness.

I did get some where you can see the full circle of the sun but this one showed to colours of the sky much better and I like the way the trees silhouette in this.  I tried to take some yesterday but I had fiddled with the camera's settings and hadn't put them back and didn't check what I was doing and by the time I noticed it was too late, the sun was just a little glow.  Thankfully mum sent me a text this afternoon letting me know that another beautiful sunset was on it's way so I left my crepe burning in the pan as I ran outside to shoot that sinking sun!

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I got a worried little call from my sweet little Dragon yesterday

"Uh, Mum, the fridge has closed on me"

Actually it was "Uh, Mum, the ridge has blosed on me" but I figured out what he meant and went and rescued him... after I took a photo!

It's okay...

It's not all screaming and sleeplessness around here.

We do have some moments of unbelievable cuteness.

Some sweet times of quietness.

When even this end is cute!