Jennifer Stocks Photography – The Blog

Day 6 of documenting the life of my family over the month of August. Stay tuned for a picture a day of my family just being themselves.

Captured –As we rugged up and went for a drive/walk this afternoon.

The Story – The weather is still gross. Fortunately there are other glorious things about life. Like kids. They’re not always glorious though – mine are usual fantastic together, but today, HOLY COW! The bickering, toy-stealing and general annoying whiny noises coming from the older two made today tougher than normal. There is only a certain amount of noise one set of ear-drums can handle in a day, and mine reached the limit by lunch time. Fortunately, we had a lovely family dinner tonight. The boys and I made a chocolate pudding together, and it was delicious. Notably, the mix tasted better than the finished product!

These images of my boys make me smile. They are always together. They are so inclusive of each other in their games and life. Even though Mitch is only a baby, they include him too.

I love this shot of Dusty. He is such an interesting child, and he keeps us on our toes. Handsome, witty, with a glorious sense of humour. The wise-cracks that come out of his mouth are well beyond his years. He is always asking questions – not annoying ones like, “Are we there yet?”. Questions about the world and how things work. He is a curious and intelligent little soul. He invents things, builds things. He is constantly raiding the recycling bins and building vehicles from recycled material. He uses so much sticky tape, I sometimes think it’s going to send us broke ( Beau is just as bad). He draws pictures all the time. But never lovely little pictures of our family, or cards for his lovely mummy. Nope, it’s always vehicles. Trains mostly. All different kinds of them, and they are pretty cool looking trains.

Did I mention he is obsessed with trains. He does that – goes from obsession to obsession. This time last year he was crazy about cranes and pulleys. Now it’s trains. Freight trains in particular. But he has always loved dogs. That love has never wavered. He loves dogs. LOVES them. He has about a dozen pet dogs and they all have names. He borrows books from the library, and they are ALWAYS about dogs (or trains!). Very rarely are they about anything else. Nothing makes him laugh more than a dog doing funny things (same with Beau actually). I remember when we took him to the Bathurst show when he was about 18 months old, and there was a little dog doing tricks at a mini-circus type thing. I still clearly remember hearing his laughter when he saw a dog pushing a wheelbarrow around. It just didn’t stop. He laughed for so long, so cutely and continuously at the dogs doing tricks. Of course, he loves our dog Chase. He is a kelpie/coolie puppy and he and Beau spend hours upon hours playing with him.

A few months ago Dusty wanted to be a vet. Now he has decided his occupation of choice is to be a train driver. He can’t wait to grow up and become an adult so he can have a job. I keep telling him that being a kid is the best time ever, but he is determined that having a job is way cooler. He loves watching Dirty Jobs – seeing all the different kinds of jobs. At one stage he thought he might like to be a chewing gum remover guy (getting chewy off the sidewalks ewww) or a pigeon poo remover (only because they got to climb up tall buildings and wore cool space-like suits). I tell him that he can do whatever he wants in life as long as he works hard. And he will. I’ve no doubt in my mind. Dusty, my boy. What a pleasure it is to have your personality, your wit and your spirit in our lives.