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.

Day 5 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 Dusty and Beau had a run around in the freezing cold this afternoon.

The Story – What a horrible day it was today. Why don’t my kids care about the cold? They seriously don’t mind whether it’s + 35 degrees or – 5 degrees. Is that normal? Here they are enjoying a run around outside, while I photographed a few moments. I was really trying to get a shot of Dusty, or the two of them together, but this shot of Beau was just so perfectly BEAU. I had to use it. You cute little thing. You’ve such a sweet little heart.

Day 4 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 Mitch slept soundly in his cot tonight

The Story – There’s not much to say, nor is there anything quite as beautiful… as breathtaking…. as a baby sleeping. Especially when that baby is your own. I hope you are dreaming the best baby dreams, my boy.

Day 3 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 Mitch and Marli had a kick on the playmat together.

The Story – I have this new niece. She is amazing. She is truly cute and beautiful. Plus, she is a girl and I needed a little pink in my life. (Well, let’s be honest – I really just wanted to be able to buy some pink clothes, you know?) Marli is 3 months and 3 weeks younger than Mitch. He looks like a giant compared to her, but they are both pretty big babies. My sister Bianca and I hang out a lot, which means our babies hang out a lot too. Marli is obsessed with Mitch. Mitch is obsessed with Marli. She stares at him. Smiles at him. He stares at her. Smiles at her. They hang out on the playmat together, and already enjoy each others company. They touch hands and stare at toys together. Then they smile at each other and wiggle their legs around a bit. I swear Marli is watching Mitch do everything, and taking it all in – getting hot tips for how to do baby stuff. I’m so glad they have each other to hang out with. I can’t wait to see what life has in store for these two little people who seem to already know each other so well.

Day 2 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 – I hate to admit it, but this one wasn’t actually taken today. It was taken about a week ago, but today was a day of sick kiddos and zero natural light. It just didn’t work today. Luckily I love this image of Beau, and I am happy to be able to include it.

The Story – So, right now I have my sick boy on my lap – Dusty that is. We are going to write about Beau together. So, I will be the scribe while my beautiful big boy tells us all about his little brother Beau. This is what he has to say:

“Beau is my little boy brother. He sometimes mucks around but he is a really good boy. Sometimes he scares the cat. Sometimes he tries to do the big boy stuff that I can do. He is three years old and I know he gets up to tricks. I try to stop his tricks and mucking around. And also I really love him. And he’s the greatest brother, but sometimes he mucks around that crazy kid. Sometimes he wants to be on the funniest home videos. He’s a very cheeky kid. I would really love to make him go on a train ride, but really he would like to go on a tractor ride. He’s really great. He comes up with really great ideas. He likes to watch Little Einsteins and Mister Maker. He likes Bo on the Go and Brum. Also sometimes he likes to watch stuff with great characters and sometimes stuff with naughty characters. Beau likes to eat apples, rice bubbles and sometimes he likes to eat bananas. He likes to enjoy when we have pizza. He likes going to the chippy shop and the Beekeepers place and the racing car park. He likes to play with tractors, and he plays with Mitchell and sometimes he tries to put funny hats on him. He chooses books for us to read, and sometimes they are very funny books and we laugh about dogs together. He likes to play with the Geotrax, and his remote control train – Seaside Flyer. And I only have a geotrax train to push – it’s Stumpy. I like playing with Beau because he is a great friend to me. He helps me when I need to do something, like when I slip off the lounge he tries to pull me up again. We watch shows together and sometimes when Beau isn’t here it makes me very sad. He really likes to do some dances, like the funky muffin man dance on Shrek.”

Cute! That is 99% verbatim. I did jam it all together when typing, as the new sentences and paragraphing would have made this blog post a thesis. I did ask some questions from time to time if he was running out of things to say, but overall it’s a  true representation. It’s beautiful to me. It has to be. I’m his mummy. And this little guy pictured underneath is beautiful too. Beau, darling. You are a little ray of sunshine in our lives. You are such a good-natured little guy, with a zest for life, a wicked sense of humour and a cheeky smile. You could get away with almost anything, just by flashing that grin and those dimples of yours. Your charisma just oozes out. You are a wonderful helper with your little brother. You are so kind and are always thinking of other people. You always shout to your big brother when you see or hear ANY kind of reference to trains, “DUST – there’s a train on TV”, or “DUST – look at the train over there”, because you know how much he loves them. You are so good at packing away your toys. You are fiercely independent, and believe you can do anything. I know you can.

Your favourite thing to say to me is, “You’re so boootiful mummy”, and you know it works a charm – every time. I love you little guy. I always will. Every single day.