2/52

Lazy friday picnic on the back lawn dinner with fresh corn and sausages.

yum.

(Can ya spot the other family member skulking about in the background!?)

Joining in over here

xx

1/52

Last year one of my dearest friends and favourite bloggers took the idea of taking a picture of your children once a week, every week for the whole year... and made it a family thing.

 I loved this concept and have totally stolen copied her idea! 

So here is 

 1/52

ignore the weird expressions, sideway glances and slight fuzziness - this is about
accomplishment NOT perfection!!

I really don't want this to be a stressful, hideous experience given we have to take 52 of them ~ so they will no doubt be random, messy at times and totally candid.

I can do messy - hopefully!

xx

AND SO THE YEAR BEGINS....

1. Oh yanno.... just standing here chillin' with my bro's while we fill up on plums...
2. Party time! We celebrated our baby's first birthday with loads of family, friends and amazing food.
3. Nothing like filling your plates with bounty from the sea and bounty from your garden to make life feel grand.
4. Birthday boy
5. I cannot get enough of these blooms... they fill every available vessel in my home right now

I hope your new year has started beautifully and you are feeling refreshed, 

 restored and energised after the holidays.

Joining in with Em for the weekly stills collection

xx

One Year Ago....

.... this happened

 ... and our lives were turned upside down in the most wonderful way.

Theodore (Teddy) Beau Philip Robinson entered our lives on January 5th 2013 (a whopping 9lbs 8oz) and brought with him the most wonderful sunshine.

Our lives have been enriched, filled to the brim with love and completely and utterly transformed with the arrival of this gorgeous wee man.

He has helped heal broken hearts, fixed teenage angst and added a richness to our lives 

that we would never have thought possible.

My son...

while I cannot even begin to understand where a whole year has gone... I also can hardly remember life without you here! 

Your brothers still race in to be the first to hold you in the morning... your beautiful chuckle when your siblings play with you never fails to make everyone else laugh in turn, those facial expressions you have mastered are priceless and we are all taking huge delight in watching you learn to walk.

This has been the most wonderful, wonderful year and I am saddened that it has come to an end. Sad to not have a wee babe in my arms but excited too as you begin to develop more and more of your personality. You are incredibly cheeky... that grin when you know you are being disobedient makes it so hard to punish you! You are so very stubborn too -  but also oh! so eager to please! You still don't sleep through the night and I am exhausted with the waking but I treasure that time with you in the dead of the night when no one else is awake and its just you and me. You are very welcome to sleep through though son... I would treasure sleep just the same! 

Your dad and I are so grateful that the Lord gave you to us and we pray that we will be worthy of such a precious gift and always seek to be the parents He has called us to be. 

I pray my Teddy boy...as one year rolls into two and two to three, your toddler years to childhood and your adolescence to adulthood that you would know the love of your Saviour, that you would grow to be a man of faith, a lover of wisdom and a follower of Christ.

May you heed the counsel of your father and honour your mother.

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY THEO!!!

We love you with all our hearts

xx

ADVENT

For our advent calendar this year we gave the kids more opportunity to serve each other and their community. We desperately want their hearts to embrace the true meaning of this beautiful season.

They all take a turn opening an envelope which contain a small treat, a joke and an activity we can enjoy as a famiy.

Here are some of the activities included this year...  we brainstormed ideas and Google helped us out with the rest!! 

Read the Christmas story

Bake for the local firestation as a way of saying thank you for their amazing service

Make cookies and take them to our neighbours

Have a slumber party beside the Christmas tree as a family

Watch a Christmas movie

Have a dinner with each of the grandparents with the (kids making it and serving them)

Take a gift and put it under the tree at Kmart

Make and decorate gingerbread men to give away

Pick up a takeaway hot chocolate and drive around the Christmas lights

Go op-shopping for kids to buy Christmas presents for their siblings (thanks Dee!)

Do something lovely for a family member

Do something lovely for a non family member

Dress up for dinner

Have a fish and chip dinner at the beach

Make and give Christmas cards for teachers and Sunday School teachers

Write a love note for all your siblings to go in their stockings

Visit Birdwoods (our favourite old fashioned lolly shop)

Make popcorn and watch Home Alone

Make paper snowflakes

Take a walk through the Redwoods together

Have a midnight feast

Make a gift and send it to Tims employer

A mix of serving others and connecting as a family  as we head into the crazy season!

(I have written down what we are doing each day in my diary as well so I am not taken by surprise or forget what's coming up. I also have only filled half the envelopes with activities so I can shuffle those last two weeks as necessary!)

Do you doing anything for Advent?

would love to hear your ideas

xx

A {BRIEF} WEEKLY STILLS COLLECTION

1. Backyard fun... who would have thought that the humble badminton game would provide hours and hours of entertainment.

2. Baby's first swim. A bit of a natural it turns out.

3. Last weekend was party central as our girl turned 15. Wowzers. Teenagers for Africa... family for miles and a party that lasted all weekend. Crazy wonderful chaos.

4. The husband and I celebrated 16 years of wedded bliss by spending nearly a whole week in the gorgeous Queenstown. A rejuvenating.. wonderful.. blissful week. (more on this to follow as soon as I find a spare moment)

5. The bliss of that week was rewarded with an awfully sick baby on our return home. Nothing, and I mean nothing got done while he snuggled and recovered.

Hope your week has been beautiful

I promise to be back asap to bore you with loads of photos from our trip away!

xx 

Joining in with the Beetleshack for the stills collection

SIXTEEN YEARS

November first marked our sixteenth wedding anniversary. Sixteen years of lots of ups and many downs... huge amounts of laughter and loads of tears.

Marriage is hard work. I dont think its just us. 
Two selfish sinners trying to live together, raise kids together and do life together with all it's hardships and surprises - both good and bad -  can be rough going.

I read a perfectly timed article recently titled 'marriage is not for me' and you know what... It really isnt.
Its not about me at all.
Its about my husband. 
Its not a place where we can get away with asking "what's in it for me?" but more... "what can I give?"
Its about making his happiness more important than my own - and that is something I don't do so well. 
I like things to be just the way I like them... I am happy when all my little ducks are lined up in a row -  the house is tidy and clean, my love tank is filled to the brim, money is in the bank, stress is at minimum and everyone around me is happy. 
The thing is, funnily enough, none of those things happen very often. As soon as the house is tidy.. someone messes it UP! As soon as there is finally some money in the bank... someone outgrows their shoes or clothes or eats all the food or dares to hurt themselves and we have a doctors visit to pay for. Stress is pretty much part of life everyday when there are seven other souls to take care of and our happiness is something each of us are individually responsible for. 
I can't force those I love to be happy and the thing is there is always someone who will be annoying, words spoken that shouldn't be and grumpiness that rears its ugly head. 
These are all daily occurrences and their presence should not dictate how I treat my husband.

But oh boy they do.

I had to swallow a bitter pill this week when I asked Tim to be honest with me about how he was really feeling. And to his credit (and my shame) he was. We have drifted apart this year... a combination of long work hours, a new baby and the demands of a big family have meant my focus was on everything but him. 
A precious friend who tragically lost her husband when she was a young mama has always reminded me that our children are here because of our marriage not the other way round. Our spouse NEEDS to be our priority regardless of the busyness of life and family and I confess I had forgotten that wise advice. Tim was struggling to stay connected and that reality broke my heart. 
I sure was glad for the opportunity to get away for five whole days this past week and have much needed time to talk, reconnect and most importantly listen.

I resolve, with Gods help, to make my husband my priority, my speech kinder and my heart softer and I pray that the next sixteen years will be even sweeter.

xx