Loving Whispers {Dannii's Blog}

Eli's 2nd Birthday

Oopsie's! Eli's birthday was over a month ago, and I am only just now getting around to blogging it! Naughty Mummy/Bad Blogger!

Here are a selection of my fav pics that summarise the day. 

{project365} - day 107 - 11th July

 

We wanted to keep it a fairly low key event. We held it on his actual birthday, which was a Monday, but it fell in the school holidays so lots of the kids were still able to make it. I didn't do any invites or lollybags or anything, just invited friends over for a casual play date. Didn't go overboard making food, just made the cake, some jelly cups and some carrot sticks and salsa. Of course, Izzy was the barrista for the day too!

We bought Eli a Collingwood footy jersey, car stickers and I made his some dinosaur PJ pants. He was spoiled by his friends with clothes, cars, books, dino's, and lots more true boy gifts. Actually, I just remembered, Izzy took a pic a pic on IG of all the gifts, I'll go find it and steal it to show you...

Here it is...

 

All in all, our little guy had a great day celebrating! It's really hard to believe that he is 2 now, such a little person now. 

He has so much character. He loves footy, like absolutely LOVES it! Even more than he loves food LOL. He is very snuggly, and gives the best squeezy cuddles.

He sleeps in our bed most nights. He starts off in his bed, but when he wakes in the night I just bring him into bed with me. I love it and so does he, so I have no desire to change it just now (much to hubby's disgust).

He is helpful when he wants to be. He loves to unpack the dishwasher, and put clothes away. But he also likes to tip out a whole box of toys at a time, his current favourite is the pencil tub, grrr!

He was off to a bit of a slow start with talking, due to having 5 other people in the house talking for him, but his speech is now taking off like a rocket. Every week he is saying something new. 

He is such a blessing and we love him so very much!

Thank you God for giving us Eli!

Video Share

I was just looking at my YouTube, going to share with you my latest iPhone video of Eli and Zoe jumping on my bed, then I realised there are a few vids I havn't share yet. So here they all are!

#1 Feeding "Gollum", our central bearded dragon, a skink lizard.

 

#2 Eli on his birthday morning, opening his pressies from us.   

#3 Eli and Zoe jumping on my bed. Jodi was over the other day, and we heard these two giggling down the end of the house. I went to investigate, expecting some kind of mischief going on, my guess was drawing on te walls, but instead I found this. How cute!

 

 

An ordinary kind of day

Just thought I would give you a little peak into my day yesterday. I took a fair few IG pics, so figured it was worth sharing on here too, gives you a bit of an idea of what an ordinary day in this house is like. By the way, are you on Instagram? If you are and I am not following you yet, please share your username in the comments here so I can follow you! I am dannii_b on IG. 

It started off pretty lazily. I took ages to get going. Eventually, at about 10:30ish, I realised that I was being very slothlike, so decided a shower was the best lift me up. It's nice to have lazy mornings, but I often regret it when it gets to lunchtime and I feel like I have done pretty much nothing all morning. 

Anyway, once I was looking respectable, I decided it was defintely time to tackle this. I had Jodi and Clair over the previous night to do some much needed crafting, so had left the dinner dishes, then of course the breakfast dishes were added to the mess and by 11am, the kitchen was craving my attention. 

 

I rewarded myself afterwards though...

By this time I was feeling very refreshed and starting to feel in control again. Luckily because I had two extra little people to look after for a short while. While they were here, we decided to do some baking. It was my first try and cooking with chia. I made some jam cookies, and substituted half the margarine for chia. They turned out quite well. I am looking forward to experimenting with more recipes soon. 

 

After our little friends had gone, I bundled the kids up and went for a walk. I am feeling quite good this week as so far in my WW week (which begins on Tuesday's) I have walked everyday, earning a total of 9 bonus activity points. Eli didn't have a day sleep so of course he crashed pretty quickly into the walk, he loves the Ergo.

 

The walk was absolutely blissfull! I am starting to see little hints of spring being on it's way. I know that officially it's still over a month until Spring starts, but I can definitely see that the worst of winter is fading away. Today is going to be 15, and Sunday and Monday are predicted to be 17!!!! Yippeee! On the walk, I saw cute little flowers starting to grow in the grass, happy yellow blossoms, birds singing and lots of sun to soak up. It was absolutely glorious!

 

Unfortunately though, we got a flat tyre in the pram while on our walk. I had to make the kids get out and walk the rest of the way as there was no way I could push 2 kids weighing about 25-30kg collectively. Luckily Jodi is heading over shortly with her bike pump so we can still go on a walk today. God Bless her sweet soul!

 

Then, Chloe came home from school, and after we had dinner the kids and I all worked together to create Chloe's Armour of God art competition entry. It's Festival of Faith this week at her school, and the theme is Boot Camp - Armour of God. The kids have been all asked to enter an Art piece with this theme in mind. We kind of left it til the last minute, so just made each piece and covered it in foil and the kids made the signs for each piece saying what it represents. I know it's not technically art and not very good, but I am so proud of all my kids pitching in to help Chloe with this. 

 

 

Then once I got the kids all tucked up for the night, a bit later than usual as we were working on the project but it was good as they went to sleep very quickly, I got stuck into some work. Loving editing this wedding, it was soooo gorgeous!

 

Okay, my saviour jodi is here now, catch you later!

 

Expectations and blogging

I want to start out and say thanks to Vanessa and Miranda for commenting on my last blog post, and to Jodi and Clair for talking to me about it in person. I really appreciate the feedback and to know that there are people out there that appreciate my blog. 

Last night, after talking to Clair and Jodi about my blog and my reasons for doing it, I have realised that the main reason I felt overwhelmed by the whole blogging thing the other day is because of my expectations of it. My expectations of what I thought my blog could be, but I know I dont have the time for turning it into that, and probably not the real desire for it anyway. Also I realised that I have been writing and posting for other people more. When having the mindset of writing for other people (for example interstate family and friends, or for other crafters, or as a ministry outreach), I find that I feel like my blog is a chore. I write completely differently, and I feel like if I miss something I am letting down my readers, and then the guilt comes in and I find it hard to start blogging again. I also feel like with owning my own photography business, that I shouldn't post half quality pics on here, so when I have pics to share I either don't show them if they are not quality pics, or I stress about editing them, or I add a little stupid dislaimer underneath them, which is really sad. It's my kids, and the cute things they do, and I have the right to show unedited low quality pics of my kids if I don't have time to edit them properly.

I don't want to do that with my blog anymore. I don't want the pressure. 

I want to go back to having a casual blog, that shares snippets of my life, and if I forget to post something or don't get time, then so be it. I am not going to stress about it and write it in my "to-blog" list to come back to. If the blogging happens, the blogging happens. If it doesn't happen, and people feel they are "missing out" on what's happening in my life, then they should call me and arrange a catch up or skype call. 

So there you go, a blog with lower expectations is coming this way!

So, with that in mind, my zoning the home posts are going to cease now. I have enough trouble keeping up with it anyway, I don't want to have the added stress of having to take pics, and upload them and post about how I clean too. If anyone wants to see my plan of attack and how I *try* and keep on top of maintaining a 5 bedroom house with 6 crazy messy people, then shoot me an email and I will fill you in that way. 

My photo a day pics, I would like to get in here soon and catch up with what I have done so far, and then from then on I will most likely go to posting only iPhone pics unless the urge to take nice pics of my kids strikes. 

I am going to also do more blogging from my phone, it's soooooo much easier!

Okay, so there you go, there is my plan of attack for keeping my blog, but reducing the stress and expectations, and overwhelming feeling that I was feeling before. 

Oh and before I go, here is a cute snap of my gorgeous boy. The other day I was going through some pics from over the last few months and printing them out for my corkboard aka my happy board. It's in my kitchen and filled with happy pictures of my family and friends that make me smaile. Anyway, I found this pic of Eli, and I am just so in love with it, so I had to share it. 

Back later!

{project365} - days 84-92

{project365} - day 84 - 18/6/11

Jodi's birthday! Me and the kids, and Melby and her kids had a lovely lunch with Jodi and her family to celebrate her birthday. It was such yummy food, and good times together!

 

{project365} - day 85 - 19/6/11

My sweet girls Ashca and Gemma had their dancing concert on this day, but unfortunately the video and pics I took have been corrupted and I can't show them. I am pretty sure Jodi took a video of the concert so I will try and show that later. 

So, instead of a gorgeous video of my girls doing their thing on stage, I have this crappy iphone pic I took that day also. Just me on a walk with my buddy Kade. 

 

{project365} - day 86 - 20/6/11

Ooops, no pic today!

 

{project365} - day 87 - 21/6/11

Craft night and we celebrated 3 birthdays! Jodi's, Clair's and Felicity's. It was a great night as usual, but extra special and extra yummy cake to enjoy!

 

{project365} - day 88 - 22/6/11

Lazy dinner night :) Steamed veg with cheese sauce. Eating on the floor because dining table is covered in folded washing.

 

{project365} - day 89 - 23/6/11

Lazy day again, no pic again!

 

{project365} - day 90 - 24/6/11

Chloe getting her 3rd silver mathletics award in Chapel!

 

{project365} - day 91 - 25/6/11

Eli had his first ever sleep over. He was a little confused packing his bag, and tried to take his socks off and put them in the bag too. He really enjoyed himself though. It was hard for me, a big "letting" go milestone. The girls all had their first sleepovers at family members houses well before this age, but I just found it hard to do it with Eli. I thought about him all night, and was very glad to have him home with me again. 

 

{project365} - day 92 - 26/6/11

Went to visit a new church and watch our mate Bryce play.