30/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: some mamma mia in the mirror.
Otto: leaning on the sliding door, a little worried about the approaching chook.

Our houdini chooks are getting through the side fence somehow and often visit in the morning to have a peck around on the verandah (no doubt encouraged by the fact that there are usually crumbs from Otto's breakfast out there). We keep thinking we find the gap and fixing it, but they are still getting through. Ian is keen to keep them contained so we will make a more concerted effort this weekend to barricade them in. I will miss their visits, but not the mess they leave behind.

A favourite from last week was Nona's perfect profile.

Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel. 

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

29/52

 

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: bubble peekaboo.
Otto: up, up, up. How his our world has changed now he is upright.

Bonus sibling shot - we took the kids to a local playground on Saturday morning and Sofia took great pleasure in pushing Otto in the swing. This is a bit of progress as up until recently she would declare that he was "too little" for the swing.

A favourite for 28/52 was Stella and her TMNT.

Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel. 

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

28/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: raaaar!
Otto: my bright-eyed boy.

Ian took this shot of Sofia. She had been eating salad with balsamic vinegar and was pulling a variety of faces in response to the vinegar so Ian grabbed the camera. The low light meant that most of the images he took are variations on blur, but this one at the end of the sequence caught her mid-roar.

Otto has had a big couple of weeks - his first tooth popped through and he is now pulling up to stand on furniture (or your leg if you stand still for a moment). It seems he is always on the move at the moment, so I really cherish the quiet time we have when he feeds.

My favourite for 27/52 was from mammasaurus.

Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel. 

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

27/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: a quiet moment on the step.
Otto: on the move.

I am spending a fair amount of time on the floor these days rolling around with Otto as he becomes more mobile. Sofia likes to join us and here she is lying on the step up to Otto's room (complete with sock "hand puppet" on her right hand).

Otto's commando crawl is very swim like and apparently very like my brother Andrew's when he was a similar age. My brother can now be found swimming to Rottnest, across the English channel or around Manhattan - I wonder if Otto will be similarly driven.

I haven't posted a sibling shot recently, but Ian took some photos this morning of the kids reading together (still in their sleeping suits as the heating hadn't kicked in yet). I mentioned Sofia's love of books last week, Otto looks to be following suit.  

No post of my favourite three for the year yet because I was having such trouble choosing that I gave up. I might revisit and see if I can be more decisive this week.

And in keeping with my indecisiveness (coupled with a wealth of great photos), I am linking to a number of favourites for this week: tranquil lake portraits, winter light, SuperM and a sink bath (who doesn't love a sink bath?).

Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel. 

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

26/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: nose in a book.
Otto: enjoying his new ball.

Sofia loves books and can often be found in the book corner of the sunroom with piles of her favourites around her. She has been very chatty this week, entertaining us with prolonged story-driven monologues.

I bought Otto a ball this week and he has spent a fair amount of time attached to it. As Ian pointed out - there are a lot of nipples to enjoy!

I didn't look at a lot of portraits this week, but one that caught my eye was Lamb and her chocolate milk.

Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel. 

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

25/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Sofia: captivated by Spectra.
Otto: still has his knuckle dimples.

Sofia and I visited Ryoji Ikeda's Spectra at sunset on Saturday. The lights and sounds were mesmerizing.

Otto has been (commando) crawling around like a crazy thing - to the point where I have had to employ the safety gate we have on the step up from the playroom. He wasn't very impressed at the curtailment and his pudgy little hand kept reaching under the gate as he tried to figure out what it was all about.

A favourite from 24/52 was Mel's beautiful reflection.

Linking with the 52 Project at Che & Fidel. 

You can click on the button (here or in the side bar) to see all my 52 posts.

Apples for the birds

It's been a pretty full on year with two little people running/crawling around the place and not sleeping nearly as much as we'd like them to. So we've ended up leaving quite a lot of fruit on the tree a few times due to a general lack of time and energy. The last of the apples is just getting over ripe now and the birds have been loving it - unfortunately there are no apples left now that aren't half munched. Obviously lorikeets love fruit...

Musk lorikeet

Rainbow lorikeet

We have also seen yellow wattlebirds, silvereyes and green rosellas getting into the apples but haven't managed a photo yet.

Sofia loves birds. One of her favourite bed time "stories" is Field Guide to the Birds of Australia by Simpson and Day and she knows the names of quite a few birds. Each night she remembers being marauded by emus at Zoodoo and the day the ibis tried to steal her lunch at Hyde Park in Sydney. So when we heard there was a Tawny Frogmouth seen only a few hundred metres away in one of its regular haunts yesterday, we had to wander round to the university and look for it. We'd looked a few times before on our afternoon walks without success. But today, there were two frogmouths sitting in the birch outside the Commerce Building as promised.

Tawny Frogmouths

I always love seeing these birds - even more so because they eat mice and these two birds probably hunt in our yard.