Twenty questions - 2016 edition! This series has been so much fun over the years and now we get to add Casey to the mix!! Enjoy!

**Disclaimer - I know my boys talk about 'chicken nuggets' and 'chocolate milk', but as they're being raised on a plant-based diet (damn they failed to mention that!) they actually mean "fake chicken nuggets" and "chocolate almond / cashew milk". If only they knew they had to clarify that they don't eat animal products... :) **

Thomas:

 

Tyler:

 

 And introducing... Casey!:

 

You can find the old videos here:
http://dosnailsneeddoulas.blogspot.com/2012/08/20-questions-for-three-year-old.html
http://dosnailsneeddoulas.blogspot.com/2013/08/20-questions-for-four-year-old.html
http://dosnailsneeddoulas.blogspot.com/2014/08/twenty-questions-for-five-year-old-and.html
http://dosnailsneeddoulas.blogspot.com/2015/08/20-questions-for-3-and-6-year-old.html

Ahhhhh, babies. They grow so fast!

Twenty questions - 2016 edition! This series has been so much fun over the years and now we get to add Casey to the mix!! Enjoy!


Thomas:

 

Tyler:

 

 And introducing... Casey!:

 

You can find the old videos here:
http://dosnailsneeddoulas.blogspot.com/2012/08/20-questions-for-three-year-old.html
http://dosnailsneeddoulas.blogspot.com/2013/08/20-questions-for-four-year-old.html
http://dosnailsneeddoulas.blogspot.com/2014/08/twenty-questions-for-five-year-old-and.html
http://dosnailsneeddoulas.blogspot.com/2015/08/20-questions-for-3-and-6-year-old.html

Ahhhhh, babies. They grow so fast!

20 questions for a 3 and 6 year old!

It's that time of year again! Here for your viewing pleasure, 20 questions for my beautiful babies. I wonder how many years we can keep it up!

Thomas, age 6:

Tyler, age 3:

Previous years include:
Thomas age 3
Thomas age 4
Thomas and Tyler ages 5 and 2

Twenty questions for a five year old AND two year old!

These follow on from Twenty Questions for a Four Year Old from last year...

Enjoy!!!

Thomas - age 5

Tyler - age 2

Two years on!

Two years ago today, right now, I was en route to our new life in the US. I woke up that morning and could barely breathe.  I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to leave the UK.  I didn't want to leave my family.  How could I not see my Mum every six weeks? How would I survive?

I didn't know how to 'be' in the US. I felt like I had jumped off the edge of a cliff and was free-falling to a sudden and painful death.  I have never been so scared in my whole life.

Now here I am two years later and I wouldn't change it for the world.  I've purposely not gone back and read my "One Year Later" post.  I can't remember what I said and I wanted to think about things without refreshing my feelings from last year.

Photo courtesy of Clare Ahalt Photography

This summer is the first year I've really felt settled. I've made friends, proper friends now, people I can talk to about more than just baby poo and summer activities.  I've found a community of birthy people, people who get my passion for pregnancy and birth and don't think I'm a crazy hippy for eating my placenta and having my baby at home!  I've done some doula work, which always makes me happy!  I'm building my photography business and have had steady work for the last few months. I've started doing birth photography and feel like this is what I was born to do.

Most importantly my family is happy. My babies are growing up and my heart shines every day to see them smile and hear them laugh.  It helps that the sun shines so much here!  It's nice to be home with them and see them grow, and it's nice to fill our days with activities and see new things and go new places.

Of course it's hard sometimes.  Finding a balance between working for myself and looking after my boys and finding time for my husband can be challenging.  I still miss my Mum like crazy.  Yes I can live without seeing her every six weeks, but in a perfect world I would be able to, and it is still the one thing I would change about living here.

I'm glad I grew up in the UK and got to see so much of Europe and other places around the world, but I'm also happy to see my boys grow up here, for now.  This is a good place for my family and I can't ask for more than that!

Ahhhh, so I read back my first year post and remembered I had made a list of all the differences I have found here!  I can't think of any more off the top of my head, but my 'new' thing for this year is realising words that I will never ever be able to say properly. For example:

Graham - Thomas's new teacher is called Mrs Graham. He laughs every time I say Mrs Graham. It's Mrs Graaaam, I can't say it, it's going to be a long year...

Squirrel.
Horse.
Hill.
Blueberry. Make that any kind of berry.
Pasta.
Any name with an Anna in it. It isn't Anna, it's Ah-na.

There are more. I can't remember right now. I'll have to come back and add them later!

20 questions for a four year old...

Last year, the awesome Mummy Mishaps posted a vlog entitled "20 questions (Aged 3)" and I couldn't help but copy her and asked Thomas the same questions!

Following on from that, it's now one year (and a few days) later, and I sat Thomas down this morning and asked him the same questions now that he is four!

Enjoy!

Summer bucket list 2013!

It's that time of year again!  Thomas is now in a pre-school which operates on the same schedule as the public schools. That means he finishes school on June 12th and doesn't go back until the end of August! That gives us a LOT of days to fill... Good job we live in an area with a LOT of things to do!

We plan to have fun, take day trips, take road trips, visit friends, stay home, blow bubbles, make some things, draw some things, paint some things, grow some things, pick some things, listen to some music, watch some movies, and generally enjoy the summer :)

Diana F+ challenge month 1

My lovely husband suggested I dust off the Diana F+ lomography camera he bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago for my 2013 photo challenge this year, so of course I agreed!

First time round I couldn't get to grips with the camera and my photos were so frustratingly awful that I put the camera away, waiting for a better day...

At the start of the month I got it out again! I dusted it off, bought some film and read up on the (very few) controls. At least this time round I understand the aperture settings and the way the film goes in! Piece of cake.

Ummmm. Well, here we go, month 1. How annoying to not see the images as I take them! Especially when after the first couple I would have figured out I wasn't releasing the shutter quick enough! And there were a couple of double exposures from forgetting to wind the film on, oops!

On the plus side, the lighting is alright, so at least I've learnt something in the last three years :D

My challenge for month 2 - release the shutter! No blurriness please! [with the exception of moving children where this may prove impossible] Wind the film forward!

Month 1 challenge - FAIL!!

Should have taken one step back to focus

Double exposure!

Inanimate object blur fail!

More double exposing!

To be fair, he was jumping...

Blur fail!

Moving + slow shutter = FAIL!

Blurry baby

Shaky hand!

A-ha! Focused! Hoorah!

Lost without my 366 project!

So, how does a girl without an excuse to take photos every day cope? It would seem I *still* take photos every day! But now I have no excuse to bore everyone with them... just a few of them instead :)

This month we've been figuring out another new normal. Thomas has changed schools and now goes three afternoons instead of two full days. It's made so many differences to our lives already! Tyler now naps while Thomas is away, I've been catching up with CBE coursework, Thomas is loving school and we've had so much more time to do other things!

Like:
Walking the dog; naked finger counting; jumping off steps; hanging out outside; naked karate practice; impromptu photo sessions; and many more!

January may be a time to hibernate and steer clear of all the horrible illnesses in the air, but we're having a lovely time!

Oh life! How quickly it flies!

I finished my 366 photo project! I decided not to carry it on for another year, for a few reasons.

1. I probably do take a photo every day. Some days I take hundreds! I found by half way through the year I was starting to forget to post a photo, or couldn't find the time to sit down and do it, then by the time I did sit down I had a few photos to post and it would take me so much longer to post them!

2. Because I was posting to my 366 blog so much, I neglected this one. A picture can tell a thousand words but sometimes people want to know what is really going on in my head! Well, maybe...

And 3. I've done it, so now I want to do something else.

Cousins :)

This year is going to be exciting with my photography business going from strength to strength - I hope to add birth photography and newborn studio photography to my portfolio this year; I have my CBE workshop in March with an aim to finish the course by the end of the summer; and I am bowing out of the world of forensic DNA analysis with a PhD examination at the end of this month, followed by my final ENFSI DNA working group in Bratislava in April!

I'm excited to be involved with setting up a new Birthing Circle in Frederick! This group of women hope to educate, support and empower women and their families through the journey of pregnancy, birth and the post-partum period.  We are going to hold monthly meetings and talk about all things pregnancy, birth and babies! Brilliant!

Me best friend's baby, Orson

Thomas has started a new school and is loving it now he only goes for 2.5 hours instead of all day. It's so nice to see him so excited to go! It's also nice to have him with me for longer. As he rapidly approaches school age I become more aware of how quickly time is flying. I get to keep him close for an extra year compared to my UK friends and for that I am very grateful and intend to make the most of it!

Thomas :)

Tyler is keeping me on my toes and wakes up at 5am each morning since we got back from the UK. Yawn.  He's currently refusing to walk, so my previous idea that he would walk by the age of 1 is proving wrong and he will probably follow in his brothers' footsteps and start walking perfectly at 15 months...

Tyler :)

And David is David :) He works hard and he lets me do all of these crazy things I want to do. He is marathon training again and enjoying life in the US.  He has unrelenting patience for my latest photography 'need' and he supports me in all I do. I am very lucky and very happy.  Plus he bought me an IPad for Christmas which means he can do no wrong for at least three months, maybe more...

My lovely family!

So what challenge do I set myself for this year? I'm already missing taking a photo a day! Maybe I'll set myself a photo a week? That's not really a challenge though... Maybe life is throwing me enough challenges this year and I should just decide to 'be'.  Maybe I should just update *this* blog more often... Yes, that's what I'll do, I'll give this blog more love. I can hear you all cheering already :D

Old photos...

This weekend I took down my most favourite photo of Thomas. This one:

... and replaced it with this one:

It made me start thinking about where I was then and where I am now. This photo was taken by my wonderful PhD student Ice just before I went back to work after maternity leave. He sent me a message one day asking if he could come and take some photos of Thomas as he had a new camera lens. Sure! When he sent me the photos I was so excited!

"Ice - can you take photos like this because you're a good photographer, or because you've got a good camera?"

"It's just the camera" he replied.


Now, three years later, I know he was kind of half telling the truth. Yes the lens matters but there is more to it than that!



These photos are the ones which made me go out and spend a small fortune on a dSLR. I figured in the long run, if I could take photos as good as these, then I would never have to get professional photos done!

My beautiful new (refurbished) camera arrived. And I took some photos. Fully automatic. Maybe just a bit clearer than a point and shoot.

"Oh no", I thought... "have I wasted my money?!" [don't tell my husband!]

I messed around with the camera a bit for the next year, taking 'OK' photos some of the time and pretty rubbish ones the rest of the time.  The one day I read a blog post on beginner basics [it doesn't exist any more or I would link it] and decided to try and go manual.

It didn't work so well to start with. I even wrote a blog post about it!

Then I started to get a bit better...

Practice practice practice...

And then of course, along comes the perfect subject to practice on:

And now I get it. I can know what settings I need before I take a photo. I can almost always focus on a moving object (as long as it isn't too fast). I don't over-edit and I try desperately to capture Thomas without him saying 'cheese'.

I'm moving forward and upward with my photography, both with the images I capture, and the photography business I've set up...

All because of that one set of photos taken three years ago!

Thanks Ice!

Summer fun

We played, we laughed, we loved, we had a lot of fun.

We visited the lakes and went swimming and climbed on bridges and got tanned.

We had a potluck lunch and playdates in the park.

We rode bikes and ran for miles and ate mountains of fresh fruit and vegetables.

We made lemonade and played on the slip n slide and visited the zoo and watched the baseball.

Thank you Maryland. What a great summer we had!

This photo was submitted to the I Heart Faces photo challenge – www.iheartfaces.com

20 questions for a three year old...

I saw this post over at Mummy Mishaps and it made me laugh so much so I decided I would ask Thomas the 20 questions and see how he answered.

This is long and probably not so interesting but I'm posting so I can bribe him in 13 years time... :)


 

One year on. Really?!

In five days I will have been here in the US for one whole year. I can’t really believe that so much time has passed. I vividly remember that last morning in the UK, not being able to move from the bed, not wanting to have to say goodbye to my Mum. Even now as I sit here writing this, my eyes glisten with tears as the feelings of despair and sadness wash over me.

I do miss my Mum. I really do. I miss all of my family. I can’t dwell on it because if I did, I would be unhappy and really, I don’t have a right to be unhappy when I am living such a nice life!

Life here is good. I am doing things I love, bringing up my boys, training to be a Childbirth Educator, setting up my photography business. I have met some fabulous people, and some not so fabulous people. I have been to some amazing places, visited six states, found beautiful parks, and my home feels like a home (albeit messier than I would like…). I have struggled with cultural differences, and laughed at cultural differences. I’ve experienced Fall and Thanksgiving and American Hallowe’en. I’ve discovered that there are hundreds of reasons to celebrate with candy during the school year. I’m figuring out the supermarkets and CSAs and farmers markets. I’m running - a lot! I passed my driving test. I had an American baby! I discovered groups like Frederick Mommies, Mombook, API of Frederick, La Leche League of Frederick, and I joined them all! You could never accuse me of being cliquey :)

The first three months were the loneliest I have ever had. I didn’t know how it ‘worked’ out here. I thought I would never make any friends or be able to have a normal conversation with anyone. I was sad. Then it all started coming together…

So, one year on. I feel lucky. Lucky to have a husband who supports me in all the crazy things I’ve decided to take on; who doesn’t complain when I spend all day looking after children and all night working on photos or coursework. I am lucky to have made some good friends who have seen me laugh and seen me cry. I wish I could move my home nearer to my family. Better still, I wish I could move my family nearer to me!

Spurred on by a Facebook conversation, I decided to start making a list of all the language differences I’ve come across this year. Bear with me, I’m sure I’m missing hundreds of others, but these are the ones that stick in my head!

(In no particular order)

Garden = Yard

Vegetable patch = garden

Boot = trunk

Bonnet = hood
Rubber = eraser
Condom = rubber

Pram = carriage

Buggy = stroller

Pushchair = stroller

Travel cot = pack n play

Activity centre = Excersaucer

Nappies = diapers

Aubergine = eggplant

Coriander = cilantro

Courgette = green squash / zucchini

BBQ = grill

Clothes pegs = clothes pins

Post = mail (people think I’m talking about the Washington Post newspaper if I mention post)

Football = soccer

American football = football (who’d have known!)

Cordial = doesn’t exist!

Zed = zee

Bottom = tush

Bum = butt

Biscuit = Cookie

Dumpling-type thing = biscuit, as in “chicken and biscuit”. I haven’t had it…

Pronunciation:

The completely different pronunciation of certain herbs, with herb itself being ‘erb:

oregano = o-ray-ganno

basil = bay-zle

quinoa = key-noir (had a very puzzled look from a shop assistant when I asked for ki-noah…)

Zebra = zee-bra

Nauseous = Naw-shus

Awesome ONLY sounds cool with an American accent. Fact.

Random musings:

When we first arrived I mentioned to David that there were a LOT of deaf people here. There really are! It took me ten months to realise that the Maryland School for the Deaf is in Frederick… so not just some kind of Martha’s Vineyard then…

Go to the shops / dentist / haircut etc = ‘running errands’

The addition of ‘of’ to a sentence: “take that off of there” “you get off of route 70”

The Lube Center. No matter how many times I drive past it, I still snigger to myself like an adolescent schoolboy. It just sounds so rude. It’s a car shop!

What is the thing with milk? In the UK you have whole milk, semi-skimmed milk and skimmed milk.  Here you have whole milk, 2% milk, 1% milk, some places have skimmed milk, raw milk (illegal in MD). Which one is the same as UK skimmed milk? Probably none of them, I’ve not worked it out yet…

Welcome to the Summer

I don't find much time to post right now. Two babies, coursework, reviewing papers, checking PhD chapters, visits from family, breaking air conditioning, growing vegetables (attempting)...

Anyway, here are my photo selections from May!  We came back from the UK and then went away on a mini-break for a week.  We went to Deep Creek Lake in West Maryland and had the best time!  We came back and then I seemed to be rushing round preparing for my brother Nick arriving with his family at the start of June.  They have just left, David has gone to Japan, and I can finally breathe... albeit very hotly as the A/C unit is bust.

The weather here is AMAZING.  I would love it a little bit more if I wasn't so hot today.  It's a proper summer, with the swimming pool at Spring Ridge open and washing drying outside in about half an hour.  The best thing?  It won't only last a week!  It'll be like this for the next couple of months!  Wow.  If only the mosquitos would leave me alone...

Tyler turned six months this weekend.  Six months!  I remember that time flew with Thomas. By this time I knew I was going back to work in another couple of months and every moment was precious.  This time I don't have to leave and go to work!  Every moment is still precious to me.  The boys get on so great together.  Tyler loves Thomas so much.  Sometimes you can hear Tyler laughing, just so happy if Thomas is paying him some attention.  I hope they are always friends.

Love love love being a mum of two.  Life is pretty good right now...

A brief update!

Happy April!  I don't know where the year is going to! Next week we leave for a visit to the UK. Three whole weeks!!  Well, with three days in Sweden for the ENFSI DNA working group meeting.

Life is good, filled with playdates and gardening and studying for my Childbirth Educator course, helping out with the Maryland Families for Safe Birth campaign, breastfeeding (four months and counting!), taking photos and making new friends.

Anyway, here are my favourite photos from March. Most from my 366 project. Some which didn't make the cut :)

Slowing down

Life is slower. It's been an adjustment to appreciate that there isn't always a need to rush from one thing to another.  Today I spent time talking. I talked to my Mum via Skype. Tyler was at his cutest and smiled and showed her how he could wave his arms around and generally look cute.  I talked to my neighbour over a cup of tea. I learnt more about her in two hours than I had learnt over the last six months. Then I had some mummy friend time. We chilled out and sat around and talked about jobs and babies and weaning and nannying. We sat outside amidst the washing - washing drying outside which fills my heart with happiness and emits a smell which throws me back into another simpler life when I lived at home with my Mum and Dad. I picked up Thomas from preschool and went back outside, playing on the deck, breathing in the fresh air, generally enjoying my day. That's when I realise that life is slower.  I didn't 'do' much, but I kept my baby close to me, I fed him and changed him, held him when he dozed, kissed his perfect face and made him feel safe. If my life needs to be slower right now to make my children whole and happy, then so be it. There will be plenty of years when the pace picks up again, and I'll be ready for it.