Teach me.. how to make an everyday film

Beautifully vibrant and effervescent Bron of Maxabella Loves is on a quest to learn new things. As if she's not a smarty pants enough ALREADY?! She asked me to share some tips with her on how to make everyday films. How to turn everyday, routine, kinda boring stuff into great little time capsules!

Of course I was happy to oblige. I received such an overwhelmingly warm response following the piece I put together for the recent Voices of 2014 Online Masterclass (the actual link to the video seems to be on the blink - perhaps email Kidspot if you would like to view it) - so many of you contacted me to say how inspired you felt to make films - and within a week or two you sent me links to the wonderful beginnings of your journeys into film making! I love making films and I love seeing others being bitten by the bug and trying something new too.

So head over to Bron's and have a little look. You can see a little film I made about a trip to the playground on Easter Sunday morning, back in April. While you're there, be sure to check out Bron's beautiful photos from her family's recent holiday to Fiji - so beautiful Bron! And so not jealous. AT ALL.

things. people. family. animals.

His drawings have finally become THINGS. And not just any kind of things. People. Family. Animals. He's been writing his own name, sometimes the right way, sometimes perfectly backwards, which I just love at this age. He's showing all the enthusiasm and initiative which used to come from his big sister. He would only draw if she asked him to join her. Now he doesn't need to be prompted.

As soon as he gets up in the morning - Mum, I want to draw!

I just LOVE it.

fish

Apparently she won. I am positive my stack was bigger than hers.

snap it {new}

We have a three legged horse. Three and a half if we're talking specifics. No need to call the RSPCA. He doesn't live in the backyard. Just the farm animal basket. I admit, conditions aren't great but hey, he's got a roof over his head. His amputation happened quite a long time ago. Poor guy. I performed impressive surgery - he was four legged again for a while - but then another accident meant we had to accept the realisation that he would be forever different from the others.  Poor horsey has copped it from Middle lately about not being a very good horse. A horse should be able to stand up, people!

So today, we remedied our lame horse situation. Old Three Legs got to have a rest in the farm basket while we went out to buy two newbies. A stallion and a mare. And an elephant. He can live in the safari animal basket.

After our purchases we had another date with our doctor. When asked about his new horse, Middle proudly flipped Cole (yes, that's what he's named the horse.. original, no?) upside down and told doc that it was a boy horse because it had a wiwwy and a bottom!

The {new} GG's haven't left their owners' sides. Turning in for the night in the cramped farm animal basket with old Three Legs? No, no. It's all king singles and egyptian cotton flannie sheets, baby. I suspect it will be a while before they are relegated to basket conditions.

Check out what else is {new} this week, over at Sarah's.



*The detail on those Schleich animals is ridiculous.
** Look at those tiny horse shoes!
***Necessary to take so many pics of plastic animals? Meh

my girl

These photos were sitting in my drafts as the beginning of a post. I don't think I need to add any words now.

ruby tuesday

Tuesdays are all about Ruby. Just the way she likes it. She has swimming lessons in the morning and dance in the afternoon.

{Ruby's first swimming lesson}

We started the year with swimming early on Saturday mornings. I wanted Saturday mornings so that we could go to the pool as a family, and have some swim time together following Ruby's lesson. I am proud to say the kids are water babies. They have all been in the water since three months of age, the perks of having family living in the sunshine state with two pools in the apartment complex and the beach just down the road. None of them have had an aversion to water, whether it be a pool, bath or shower. There is no eye shielding going on with hair washing at our place.

Like most kids, they would be happy to spend hours and hours in the pool. Diving, splashing, jumping off the edge. Over and over and over again. It is so wonderful to watch and see the vibrant joy on their faces. They are always bursting with excitement, whether they've been in the water for five minutes or fifty five minutes.

Since Ruby started swimming lessons at the beginning of February, we are onto her third instructor. I am that annoying mother who knows her kid is too confident for the other kids in the group. For the first few weeks I just wanted her to find her feet within a structured class. This is her first taste of lessons. We never did any of the water confidence classes as babies, when we spent too much time at Mum and Dad's and could do it for free. Sing songs, dunk them under the water. I don't need to pay someone to do that. She was happily confident in the water with floaties around the age of two and then onto a bubble to make her work harder. But she is really ready to learn strokes. Her first instructor was young, and not very experienced. She could only handle one child at a time, which meant in a half hour class, Ruby went up and down the pool about four times. That's a lot of sitting on that step. Just watching. And the instructor showed no signs that she was actually enjoying teaching the kids. Very little genuine encouragement going on.

We moved to Tuesdays. I didn't want to, I thought it would be too much for her (and me and the boys) having another commitment during the week and the same day as dance, but surprisingly, it has worked well. Her second instructor was brilliant. An older and more experienced instructor, she was terrific with Ruby and the other kids in the group. But the variance in confidence and ability between the kids was too extreme. The instructor told the supervisor that Ruby and two of the other kids were too advanced for that class. So onto another instructor..

A newly employed one. Which means the class isn't full yet. I mean Ruby is the lonely little learner! So for $11.50 a week, she's getting private lessons. I'm enjoying it (and so is she) before the class fills up. Apparently there will be another little boy starting next week. Which will be good for Ruby, for learning and making new friends. It's hard work swimming non stop for half an hour and concentrating on all the new things she has to remember for her strokes. But she is like a sponge and anything that is asked of her, she does, and her lovely instructor Susanne, looks up to give me a gentle smile and lifts her eyebrows as if to say okay, so she's got that already too.

I just love watching her do her lessons. Quite sad to say that my eyes well up every bloody week at some point, when I am flooded with that feeling of watching my child growing and learning and blossoming, right before my eyes. Usually when she turns to look at me for reassurance or gives me a beaming goggle smile to show how proud of herself she is at learning something new. I'm such a sap. Eliot is happy in the pram munching on his sultanas and watching the water, and surprisingly Cole actually manages to sit still next to me for half an hour. Could be the amount of food I pack and shovel in to him so he has no chance to move. It works. When Ruby has finished, the boys and I strip off too and we head over to the kiddie pool with all the fountains and waterworks and giant frog head slide. The slide is the frog's tongue. As much as it's hard work to pack everything and keep watch on all three of them for an hour or more while they splash and play, then shower everyone, strategically feeding again to keep them still and quiet in the change room so I can dry and dress Eliot first, put him back in the pram so I can help the other two, and finally myself.. I really enjoy our mornings at the pool. And of course, it goes without saying, so do they.

52 weeks of grateful :: watching

Who knew kids grew so freakin fast? You really have no idea until you have your own. Like plenty of kid stuff, huh.

I wish I had the time/remembered/could be bothered writing down some of the things these two say. The crazy conversations they have. The little imaginative play scenarios they act out. Gold. Pure gold. They are both chatters. Miss Four non stop. Mum commented about it last time she was here. She could talk from the time she gets up to the time she goes to sleep, no problem. She must know everything. Why it works, how it came about, what's happening next. Sometimes she doesn't even need to stop talking to eat. While she can direct Mr Two don't speak with your mouth full, it's bad manners, sometimes she can't quite manage it herself. Just too many important things to say. Thankfully Mr Two does have his quiet spells throughout the day. Hard to steal the spotlight really. But the chats we have when she is at kindy, oh what a delight. Sometimes it will be hours before he realises she isn't there. He asks 'mu-um, where's Wuby?'. Even though he kissed her goodbye and waved out the window. I love that.

People often comment on how well he speaks for a two year old. We should really call him Mr Nearly Three because his birthday is coming up in May. We had the little guy's one year old check up at the maternal health nurse last week and she asked me three times how old he was. Like I was lying the first two times when I said TWO AND A HALF. She was a fill in, not our usual nurse. I didn't quite warm to her. I struggle with the ones that treat you like a first timer when you've been around the block three times. Anyway.. he has very good speech and vocabulary for a two and a half year old. Of course, he has such a great teacher. Who never stops teaching. And being the second child, and a parrot, and copying everything his big sister does, he is good at talking.

Since he turned two his personality practically exploded. He realised he had a voice and he was ready to use it. On the whole, these two play really well together. Of course they have their days when all they seem to want to do is wind the other up, or scream till they're blue in the face to play with the same toy. Because there aren't baskets and baskets of other toys all over the house. No. I have been trying to take a step back lately, and let them sort things out for themselves when they start arguing. Sometimes I have to step in, especially if they are tired. More often than not lately though, they have been playing really well together. And often without my attention. Sometimes they want me to watch them, like they need my approval they are playing nicely together. The Small joins in when he feels like it and it's beautiful to watch them all together. But he can join the party and leave, all very quietly, while the other two carry on.

I spent a lot of time last week, just watching. Watching them together, pretending to be busy in the kitchen. Sneaking a glimpse in their bedrooms while they danced around to Juicy Juicy Green Grass, or played shops, parked the cars in the garage, played doctors, had babies (yes, they stick the babies up their shirts and then squeeze the baby out) or roared dinosaurs at one another. My heart explodes watching them. Sometimes a sneaky tear will make it's way out. Sometimes I feel like I watch them too often through the eyepiece, and not enough through my own eyes. But I can't help myself. I want to remember these moments when I am old and wrinkly, with no memory. The clicking is a way of watching. And remembering. Remembering the joy, the exuberance, the innocence, that is them, right now, right this moment.

Linking up with the courageous Bron, for Kidspot.

tiny dancer

Who knew we would have to go to half a dozen shops, in two different shopping centres, to cover her in pink? Seems size 4 leotards and floaty skirts are quite the popular purchase for January. I will remember that for next year..

Oh the cuteness. And the confidence. She loved it, of course. Turns out even Tiny Tots need a uniform. Surprisingly, she was okay with it being pink, and not blue.