Tag: photographs

Photo Puzzle Activity For Toddlers

Home / 2 - 3 years / Photo Puzzle Activity For Toddlers
by Luschka

We always have pictures all over the place. Since we’ve been in this house, where we’re not allowed to put anything on the walls apart from on hooks that were already there, we have loads of pictures just ‘about’. Ameli also really loves puzzles, and since the puzzles in the birth activity kit she’s had a thing for puzzles, so I decided to make a few simple puzzles for her.

I bought ice cream sticks at the craft shop, and glue – we only had fabric glue. I initially planned to use scissors to cut the photos, but decided on a craft knife in the end as it was easier to get the thin blade in between the sticks.

To start, I plopped glue on the back of each photo and spread it. Ameli laid the sticks down and moved them (more or less) into place.

We left them to dry, before cutting between the sticks. I mixed them up and Ameli put them together over and again.

I realised pretty soon, however, that this was way too easy for my super smart toddler, so made up ten different puzzles and put them all in a box together. Now at least when she plays with her puzzles, there’s a bit of a challenge!

These photos are of family, which is great, because it keeps her involved with them. She talks about the subjects of the picture/puzzles which is important to me. We’ve also done photos of things we’ve seen on our travels, like lions and elephants.

 

Mamatography Week 12: The One That’s (Almost) All About Squidgy

Home / Mamatography / Mamatography Week 12: The One That’s (Almost) All About Squidgy
by Luschka

There’s a lot of newborn newness in this post, so you know… hold on to your uterus and all that!

75/366 – Beauty and the Baby 

I may not be very artistic, but tell me I don’t make beautiful babies?


76/366 – Pretty Princess

What to say. I think she’s gorgeous. Pixie-like, fine and beautiful.

77/366 – Volunteering

Image one is Squidgy’s first day of volunteering for the NCT – not bad at four days old! Meanwhile Ameli inspects the sale items… before dragging it out to us and saying ‘Daddy, I want this one!’ Not that we were looking to buy toys, but she spent so much time inspecting and choosing we couldn’t refuse!

78/366 – Mothering Sunday

It’s Mother’s Day in the UK. It’s my 3rd Mother’s day and it’s the first I’ve actually spent with my own mother in many, many years. We had the inlaws come over too, so we had a lovely day with three mothers and our four children and two of our spouses to share it with. What a lovely memory.

79/366 – My Girls

At the park, I’m sitting with Squidgy, breathing in her newness. Ameli floors me with her beautiful eyes. I just love them. The last picture is not exactly tandem feeding. It’s Ameli nursing, and the baby a bit miserable, so I lay her down on Ameli, who put her arm around her sister and cuddled with her. I adore my eldest daughter. I adore her even more for being such an awesome big sister.

80/366 – Fun Times

I’m not sure who had more fun at Fizzy Kids – Ameli or Nana… She loves having someone around to just focus on her. It makes me a little sad, but there you have it… I hope I can go back to doing this with her in a few weeks time.

81/366 – Footprints and Fingers

I did this with Ameli, when she was just a few weeks old, and we’ve done the same now with the Squidgelicious One. She, unlike her sister, didn’t flinch or make a sound. Ameli will say she wants to play in mud, then cry because she has mud on her. She hates being dirty. She did even as a newborn. Squidgy has no such qualms. She just sleeps.

Thanks for joining us for our week in pictures! Do stop by the other participants for a flavour of what the week looks like for mamas around the world!

 Please consider nominating us for best pregnancy blog, best baby blog, or best ‘family life’ blog in the MADS awards. You have to nominate someone as blogger of the year first – feel free to nominate us there too!

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Mamatography Week 2 : Life At Home, Mainly

Home / Mamatography / Mamatography Week 2 : Life At Home, Mainly
by Luschka

It’s week two of Mamatography, and it’s been half a very quiet week and then as everything ‘started back’ after the holidays, it’s become insanely busy!

Here are our pictures for week 2 of 2012.

05/366 – Baking

A quiet day, at home and there’s nothing like whipping up a treat in the kitchen with my very helpful little bowl licker…

06/366 – The Garage

I’m not all that keen on bulky plastic filling up my house, but Ameli has such a thing for cars at the moment, and I have no money for the gorgeous wooden toy garage I’d have loved to buy her. When this was being thrown out by a neighbour, I swooped it up for my little girl, who has had absolutely hours of self-entertainment and fun. How can I deny her that, just because I don’t like the plastic?

07/366 – 33 weeks pregnant

Pretty self-explanatory!

 08/366 – Budding Photographer

This was my first ever digital camera. It cost a fortune (around £200 as I recall?) nine years ago and was an amazing 2MP. I’m not even sure if it works anymore, but Ameli’s been playing with it. I’ll try it out with batteries soon, as she’s really interested in photos and taking pictures.

09/366 – Working Mama

I started teaching a new Baby Massage class this week, at a new venue. Isn’t it lovely?

 10/366 – The Life of a Child

Going through the box of Ameli’s old baby clothes I was really pleased to discover how much of it is unisex. That means at least Squidgy will be sorted for clothes for the first 3-6 months and all I have left to get is some size 1 nappies.  Here’s Ameli sitting in the box handing me items to pop in the ‘girls’ or ‘unisex’ pile.

Also, if you have two bicycles, and you don’t know which one to ride, why not ride both?

11/366 – Forest Nursery

I think you’ll see pictures from Forest Nursery here quite frequently. It’s a drop in nursery session at a local-ish school where the kids get to play in the forest, play with mud, explore bugs, foliage and so on.  We love it and wanted to go last year already, but Ameli had regular nursery on a Wednesday morning, so this was our first session.

Thanks for joining us for this week’s Mamatography!

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Pic Of The Week 52-08

Home / Pic Of The Week / Pic Of The Week 52-08
by Luschka

With my husband in Spain for work, and me laid up in bed with a cocktail of possible illnesses, having support around was incredibly helpful.

Here we have my dad taking Ameli out for a ‘jog’. She got a medal for it and evertyhing. I got to sleep in till 8, yes, that’s eight, o’clock.   Next is our cleaner, Linah, she only comes in once a week for a couple of hours, but  she adores Ameli.  When I was sick, she looked after Ameli half day all week. I was so grateful.

The final picture is a bit of a milestone. My little girl’s hair is long enough for ponytails. Melt my heart.

Thanks for joining us for our pics of the week!

365-271 to 365-277 A Week In Pictures

Home / Mamatography / 365-271 to 365-277 A Week In Pictures
by Luschka

I finally have a full week of pictures. It’s been a while! But then, it’s been a full week. As I write this a week behind, I am sitting in a shady spot, avoiding the African sun, listening to birds chirp and drinking in the peace of the small farm I am visiting with my mother. It feels almost unreal, right now, writing about the mania that was our final week in England.  Here it is for you.

Day 271  – Moving Again

I honestly don’t know why – perhaps to do with having a child now – but this was by far the hardest move we’ve ever had to make. No matter how we packed, we still had more to pack, more boxes to fill and more stuff to move. It was relentless and felt endless. Looking at this mess, you wouldn’t think we were having our furniture collected the next morning!

Moving Madness

Day 272 – For Safe-Keeping

In my house, pictures are always the first thing to go up and the last thing to come down. It just isn’t home without our memories there to smile down on us. I couldn’t bring this very heavy framed collage with me, so I took a picture of it. We took these when Ameli was just a month old.  I love them.

Photos and Memories


Day 273 – Surrey Docks City Farm

My friend Lorraine’s daughter Bombi has a birthday on the 1st of October, I’m on the 2nd and Ameli is on the 4th. On my birthday I had so much packing and moving still to do I was freaking out a little. Nontheless, we went to Bombi’s party at one of our local city farms, and apart from Ameli mistaking goat droppings for chocolate (you couldn’t make it up! I wish i had a picture of her face when she realised it wasn’t!) we had a great time. We decided to delay my birthday till we’re in South Africa, as I was too stressed to do much on the actual day.

City Farm

Day 274 – Happy Birthday Ameli!

Amidst the madness of moving, we had Ameli’s birthday party in the empty lounge. It was great, I think. I’m really pleased with and proud of my cake effort! Anyway, I won’t rehash everything I said to Ameli in my birthday letter to her here.

1st Birthday Cake

Day 275 – Leaving, On a Jet Plane

If I thought our last days were manic, our final day was torture. It took SO LONG to get everything done that Ameli and I ended up getting a taxi to the airport with all our luggage. Martin was going to drop our car off with a friend, and meet us at the airport. But there were tube strikes, and traffic was immense as a result of it. The 50 minute journey to the airport took us, in a taxi that can use special lanes, almost two hours.

Long story short  – Martin missed the flight, and I had to fly with Ameli, three checked in bags, hand luggage, nappy bag, lap top bag and a pram I’m taking for my sister’s use, having not slept for more than two hours the night before. It was… intense. But, in fairness, Ameli was exemplary. She was such a good girl, I was very proud.

Although we were flying from London to Madrid with BA then to South Africa with Iberia, BA were exceptionally helpful. They helped me with luggage, let me take a third piece of luggage (Martin’s) free of charge, kept Martin’s passports and our credit card for him to pick up (15 minutes after our flight took off!) and were just amazing to, on and during the flight.

The co-pilot came to me in the air just before we landed to let me know that Martin had been put on another (direct) flight for the next night, free of charge. We were really blessed.

Anyway, here’s Ameli sleeping in Madrid at midnight.  She survived a most unusual first birthday.

Sleeping at the Airport

Day 276 – Settling In

Day one in South Africa, and my one year old is settling in perfectly!

Smiley girl

Day 277 – Meeting the Cousins

Ameli and cousin Michael got on like a house on fire from the start. It’s a great relationship. She follows him, and he runs away. All the more funny since he’s been dying for months to meet her!

Cousins
Thank you for joining us for our week in pictures! See you again next week!

365-230 to 365-236 A Week in Pictures

Home / Mamatography / 365-230 to 365-236 A Week in Pictures
by Luschka

I have either lost or deleted an entire memory card full of pictures.

If I ever locate my missing week, I shall edit this rather sad and forlorn page and update it.

In the meantime,while you wait with bated breath for next week (!) here are some poor quality phone photos from around the same time to keep you company!

Mama Cuddles Are The Best

As A Newborn, These Were The Stars To Reach For

Melt My Heart

Going Somewhere

See you again next week for our Week in Pictures

365-217 to 365-223 A Week in Pictures

Home / Mamatography / 365-217 to 365-223 A Week in Pictures
by Luschka

I have been a terrible photographer this week, and I have a list of excuses for it, but I won’t bore you with those. Instead, I’ll just skip over the days that have faded from memory (there was a lot of going through cupboards, going through boxes and listing things on freecycle!) and show you the highlights that I did photograph.

Day 219 – A BBQ with Bloggy Friends & a major milestone!

A lovely day spent with Vic, Yuri, Emma, Jon, Hayley and a handul of other new faces. I never thought I’d enjoy a gathering with so many kids present, but I did – shows you how motherhood has softened me!

This was also the day Ameli decided that she no longer needed a finger, a hand or a sofa as support but that she could get up and walk on her own! A good five steps and I was so busy chatting, I didn’t register till after the fact what I had just seen!  The following day she took off at full speed and hasn’t stopped since!

Day 220 – Little Girl Walking

So, here she is. 10 Months and 4 days and she’s off like a rocket and loving it! That’s my princess.

Day 221 – Visiting

We spent the day with my friend Gloria who was having a staycation for the week. It was lovely catching up – I don’t get to see my working friends much anymore…

Day 222 – Messy Play

Ameli gets bored really easily, so I have to keep coming up with things for her to do. So we made some shakers for her, and here are the initial stages. I loved how much she loved the coloured water. It was almost as much fun as the end result. Thank heavens food colouring washes out!

And that’s the end of our week, but since we’re three days short, I’ll leave you with these beautiful pictures taken by a young lady I am proud to call my friend, Hayley Glenister. She just started out as a photographer a little while ago – I think she has an amazing talent!

Thank you for joining us for (most of) our week in pictures!

365-196 to 365-202 A Week in Pictures

Home / Mamatography / 365-196 to 365-202 A Week in Pictures
by Luschka

Week seven of our travels, and it’s all coming to a rapid end. We can feel the road weariness slowly inveloping us – strange having just spent a week relaxing like we’ve not done on any other holiday.  We’ve seen great things this week and learned a lot about Western preconceptions about things we really know nothing or little about.

Read more: 365-196 to 365-202 A Week in Pictures