Amy - 73/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

Today was the last day of Term 2 and we are officially half-way through the school year! Lynsie's class hosted an afternoon tea/open class time for parents to come up and look over their work/progress. They sang a lovely little song to welcome us and then we spent the rest of the time together reading journals, seeing artwork, etc. It seems like just yesterday when we arrived in Australia and she wasn't even in school at all. Now she can read, write, add, subtract, and so much more. Where has our biggest baby gone? She has crossed an invisible threshold and is more like a teenager every day.

DATE: Friday, July 2, 2010

Amy - 69/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

The iPad Duel on "Monstory" (a memory matching game that has great sound effects) between Daddy & daughter. She's a smart cookie and smoked his local high score, so they decided to have a head-to-head match-up to see who was faster! If I remember correctly, she won more and he doesn't just let the kids win - gooooooo Lynsie!!!

DATE: Monday, June 28, 2010

Amy - 65/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

It's seems that I am frequently talking about my "goals" for this 365 Challenge and today's post is about one of them. While the kids and I are in America (before Daddy joins us), Leila's crib is coming down and Daddy's put up a big girl bed :) So, I wanted to document her room in it's "baby stage" and remember this is the last child to use the furniture.

Items to note above:

+ She got the smallest room in the rental house and the furniture barely fit

+ There are clothes all over the floor (some you cannot see) because when she wakes up, she goes into the drawers and starts pulling things out

+ The humidifier is on top of her dresser, since it's winter and she coughs a lot at night

+ Also to help with the coughing, her mattress has a pillow wedged under it to create an elevated head

+ The crib is filled with blankets - this kid loves lots of them and will go around collecting more to add to the pile before bed

+ At the ripe age of two, she thinks that she is big enough to read by herself and will buck out of my lap to be alone

+ Of course, one of the bigger kids comes in when I am trying to settle her for bed and they begin acting out the silly faces from the story in Dora's book

DATE: Thursday, June 24, 2010

Amy - 62/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

This morning, we had a big boda boom when Leila fell between two dining chairs. It's no surprise, since she climbs all over everything and is like her own little scary circus act. I gave her the obligatory snuggle and then handed her an icepack! It's Monday morning, I have lunches to pack and things to get done - LOL! Nurse Lynsie came to her aid and lovingly stood by her holding the icepack on her boo boo. Have I mentioned that she's a great big sister?!?

DATE: Monday, June 21, 2010

Amy - 59/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

TGIF!!! Today was a great day for photography with some many events to choose from for posting :) This morning, Lynsie received an "Honour Certificate" at the Friday Assembly. She was very excited to get one and extra happy it was on the same day as one of her closest friends (pictured together with their teacher). I am so proud of her and feel lucky to have such a special person as my daughter.

DATE: Friday, June 18, 2010

Amy - 50/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

In my opinion, one area of weakness that my photography has is my lack of attention to lighting. When I upload my pics to the computer, I am usually disappointed. Sooooooooo, today I practiced using natural light (at suggested angles from one of the pointer books I'm reading) with my willing model and first baby! She is so helpful and loves posing for me! Even when I was done, she kept offering to do more ... gotta love that girl :)

Amy - 49/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

Kids of all ages in our house are addicted to the educational games on the CoolMath4Kids website. Last night, Lynsie had a huge meltdown, because she couldn't figure out the Bloxorz Stage 7 puzzle. I tried to calm her and stop her, "I'm an idiot!" self-hate by discussing how the puzzles are supposed to get harder with each level. "If they were easy, you wouldn't be exercising your brain muscles and helping them grow stronger ... which makes you become smarter!" She didn't buy it and the meltdown continued for awhile :(

Above: Lynsie and her best friend, Wil, after school - trying to complete the stage, again!

Say it with me: "What's gonna work?" "TEAMWORK!"

PHOTO DATE: Tuesday, June 8, 2010

ALL CAUGHT UP ... for now ;)~ xox

Amy - 41/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

Ahoy, mates!!! I'm about to play catch-up with a week's worth of photographs...

Alas, Lynsie's pink camera has been found! She has a little Samsung point and click camera from Christmas two years ago that was buried in a pile of kids' school art projects :) I always crack up when I download her pictures off the camera ... she takes a wide variety of pictures, ranging from odd to amazing. Above she is posing for me to take a few pictures of her, to have addition to all of the self-portraits (yes, she is in a laundry basket "ship")!!!

Here's my favorite self-portrait she took:

We talk a lot of what love is and means in our house. She looks so serious here and I wonder what she is thinking about?!? One of the biggest and most important lessons that we stress is to love yourself :)

PHOTO DATE: Monday, May 31, 2010

Amy - 39/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

Daddy and his girls! I love this picture because it captures Lynsie's personality as Leila tries to hold on ;) Plus, Chad looks so happy to be playing with them! We've been enjoying a relaxing and lazy weekend ... sooooo good!

Amy - 32/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

There have been several times over the last few days (well, honestly, seven plus years) when I've thought, "Parenting is hard!" However, a little break away on a Saturday night and a peek into their bedrooms upon return reminds me that they will not be this young for long. Aaaaawwwww ... the beautiful silence of sleep :)

Since Leila sleeps without light, she missed out on a picture tonight! I keep trying to convince the other two to turn their nightlights off before bed, but they think they "need" them and freak out if they wake up to it dark. Hopefully, I can phase them out soon, so they can have complete darkness for a fully recuperative sleep each night!!!

Amy - 28/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

One of my photography friends here lent me her old 50mm 1:1.8D lense to try out, knowing that I am interested in getting some new lenses for my collection. I've been so busy that I haven't taken a few moments to play around with it, so yesterday I took a few pictures of my Mother's Day flowers before they wilted. It took me a bit to get into the groove, but I really liked it and loved the results. I must admit that I rarely take my camera off of the Auto setting, since it does such a great job for me and I'm usually at a loss with manual settings. Using this lenses forced me to play around and use different settings, I am still not comfortable, but trying.

Amy - 23/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

Here the kids are doing a science experiment (camera obscura) that they learned watching a VHS tape of "Beakman's World" that Daddy bought years before we had kids. Chad reminded me the other day how long ago he bought the tape in hopes that his kids would love it as much as him. Of course, they do!!! They show it to all of their friends and want to recreate every experiment on the show :)

Here is the DVD version of it at Amazon - The Coning family highly recommends it!

Amy - 20/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

This is posted out of order (posted on 12 May and backdated for flow), but I didn't want to miss the day, even though I was away from my computer...

Here is Lynsie completing her homework on Monday (shocker, since it's not due until Friday) about months and seasons of the year. I was aiming to get a picture of her grip and handwriting, when I realized how weird it was to help her with the worksheet ... all the months are opposite to the USA!!! So, "Winter" is June, July, August, etc. We had a little talk about funny it is for me to see this, since America is opposite. I love opening her eyes to the differences and educating her.

Amy - 17/365 - Perth, WA, AUS

It was a busy day Friday (that's why I'm finally posting on Sunday night) with a birthday lunch for a friend and then the afternoon up at school for Mother's Day Tea. There will rarely be pics of me on here, so I thought that would share one from lunch today taken by Simon. Here I am with Sam, Kristy, Annette, Brooke (BD girl), Sarah (Host) right before we splurged on yummy cakes :)

At school, both Lynsie and Logan's class hosted a Mother's Day Afternoon Tea for us. There were handcrafted presents, singing, eating, drinking, and socializing. Tons of fun! One of the moms from Lynsie's class took our picture and I snapped a self-portrait with Logan :)
Leila was with me during all of this and was miserable to share the attention - LOL! She is coming down with a cold and wanted to be carried all afternoon. Hopefully, she will feel better soon!

Amy - 3/365 - Perth, Western Australia AUS

Mmmmmmmmmmm ... Fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies. The kids have been begging to make them and as soon as Lynsie walked in the door today after school, she made a point to remind me, again - LOL! This picture makes me smile because she is all business and cannot wait to eat that cookie! I love the peak of her school uniform dress and all that crazy hair from a full day of school. Friday afternoons are happy times and today was extra happy with cookies :)

Posted: 10:30 p.m.

Friday, 23 April 2010

Amy - 1/365 - Perth, Western Australia AUS

Lynsie - 7 1/2, Logan - 4 1/2, Leila - 23 months

I thought that I would start with a picture of my babies, since I want to see how at day 365 they have grown and changed. Lately, I feel as life is passing by too quick and I don't spend enough time appreciating their blossoming personalities :) Hopefully, documenting daily life for the next year, will help me embrace these moments and laugh-off life's little nuisances more!

Posted: 1:48 p.m.

Wednesday, 21 April 2010