Leaves and hair

My man and my baby sitting on the edge of the fish pond at Nan & Pop's place (in country South Australia). We had a busy 9 days away, with the kids and I driving over to Grandma and Grandad's (my folks) place in the Adelaide Hills last Monday, Ben flying over on Good Friday (when we crashed at my cousin's place near Semaphore and had a rather epic night of craziness), family time on Sunday, driving to Nan & Pop's on Monday and driving home on Tuesday. Now I have a sore throat and a cold and am trying to rest up, but we all know that isn't really happening, LOL.

Here are a few images I snapped at Reedy Creek, some just might end up on wall art soon enough... I'll be doing a new batch in another week or so, a couple of custom orders and building up stock for future markets...

Today saw three haircuts in these parts - Cedar, Sienna and Me. A sweet young hairdresser, fairly new to a local salon, did a fab job on all of us and understood exactly what I was saying every time! Love it! I've always found it hard to settle on a hairdresser who listens, understands and provides hair-cutting goodness without being patronising or misunderstanding. I might just have settled on a hairdresser for the next little while... yay! Are you a regular kind of person, or a try-out-a-different-and-preferably-cheap-hairdressed-every-time, like I used to be?

Cedar's new clothes

Cedar has had a couple of lovely new things to wear and model this last week... here he is in his new hoodie made by my talented sister Kelly of Polkadot Lane! This very quick photo session took place across the road from my mum and dad's house, on the railway line we grew up near. Right near here is an oak tree I used to sit in and read.

These last two show Cedar in his lovely new eskimo jacket from Little Tree Kids, made by sweet Wendy... she took it in a little at my request, I love seeing things snug on my slim kids - so cute!

Cover girl (or not, LOL)

The article 'Raising Autism - Just Keep Swimming' in the new issue of Maeve, that one's mine. I'm actually really honoured to be in Maeve again, I had written 'Me and My Bestie' and contributed music recommendations to the last issue. Funnily enough, when Louise originally responded to my offer to contribute, she had suggested an article about Autism for their first person feature, but I didn't really know what I wanted to write about that yet...


However, after mulling it over I guess I had a little expressive summary ready to write. Now I'm not so sure, but it's out there anyway :) As I say in the article, I don't like whinging, I just don't like dwelling on negative things, or on the negative aspects of things. I'm quite practical, in that sense. I like planning and researching and doing something about things I don't like. Defeatism frustrates me no end.

On the other hand, depression is different. The feelings then aren't about pessimism, or being a victim or anything, the experience of depression is both despite and apart from the things in your life. Not 1 + 1 = 2, but rather 1 + 1 will equal whatever the hell it likes, regardless of the logic. This is just a kind of disclaimer paragraph I feel like I might seem really judgmental from the last paragraph. The truth is, I apply my approach more to myself than anyone.

Back to Autism, I had forgotten that I'd left in the bit about my husband going through the diagnostic process (when I started writing, I put in everything, and then edited). He didn't have any specific issues that we were concerned about, but after reading about Aspergers (Sienna has Aspergers, Ash has autistic disorder - or, high-functioning autism) there were some parts that were so similar to Ben it made us laugh. Especially the parts about how they commonly react in the workplace, and the great divide between what they're passionate about and... well... everything else! But then, other parts - like hyper sensitivity - didn't match at all.

So, he chose to get assessed, not to get a diagnosis but just to know himself better. The result was pretty much what he expected: he doesn't have autism as a functional disability (according to the DSM-IV), but the clinical psychologist felt that he otherwise fits the diagnosis of Aspergers. It was all positive. She added how well Ben uses his strengths and intelligence to make up for some of the social awkwardness common to folks on the spectrum.

Anyway, anyway, the kids. Cedar is being assessed later in the year, though he has some pervasive developmental delay concerns that his paediatrician has noted, he is a conflicting presentation. In other words, he can seem totally happy, fine and normal, and he can also seem delayed, overwhelmed, emotional, fixated. Which is what all of the kids were like, I think, in hindsight. Quirky but okay. Which is what they still are, essentially!

Cedar's also being treated for aneamia, which resulted from drinking too much milk (his food was fine) and most likely began to be a problem in hospital when milk was all we could get into him for a week or so. Excessive calcium inhibits iron absorption, or something like that. So he's having his iron stuff and should be fine in a couple of months. Not that I've noticed any lack of energy on his part, that's for sure!

We're in Adelaide this week, the kids and I, and Ben is flying over on Friday. Family time and catching up with friends, the kids enjoying playing with their cousin here in Mount Barker. Did I mention I love my car? I really notice on long drives. I fill up with fuel at home (Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne) and drive to Adelaide with petrol to spare. LOVE IT!

An Uninterrupted View... and other design

I really loved this recent job I had of creating a new, arty blog design for the fantastic, fascinating and arty Louise Nelson... Well, the other day I implemented the design, check it out here.

Green Dandelion was another recent project that I had a great time working on, and a bit of a learning curve working with BigCartel css and html customisation! Check that one out at www.greendandelion.com.au

Along with blog and website design, I created widgets for each site that you can add to your own blog sidebars to link to these guys, and hopefully add a bit of funkiness to your blog lists at the same time :)

Here are the images, if you'd like to use one simply go to the relevant website and grab the code from the sidebar...

Another blog to add to your reader, especially if fashion and style appeal, is that of my lovely cousin Rebecca. She'll be blogging outfits, shoes and other tidbits of style-oriented thought processes, I'm loving these first outfit posts (isn't she cute?), quite inspiring! Have a look at Raspberry in Heels.

The sniffles and a winner

Ben and I both have colds at the moment, and I think Cedar does a bit too... the older two are fine :) Enjoying the holidays by playing all morning, and - so far - watching The Goonies every afternoon! Of course we knew Ash would love the whole treasure hunt, pirate ship thing, but actually Sienna is really loving the movie too. She kind of only half-believes Ben and I that we both were kids when we first saw it, LOL.

I let the kids each pick a name out of a bowl (writing the name once for each comment and once extra for a "similar" scrapbooker) for the magnet giveaway as promised last week. The winners are Louise and Natalie Elphinstone - Can you ladies please email me at danielle@curiouser.com.au with your postal address, and also Natalie May, who won the big giveaway a few weeks ago, I need your address too! Thank you everyone for helping me out and playing along...

Lovinia's sneak peeks

Sneak peeks from a session today at the Alfred Nicholas Gardens - I love Autumn :) This family is so gorgeous!

Dinosaurs and Snow

Yesterday I had the kids home, starting school holidays a day early (as the school was all about Easter on their last day, with a parade etc, and we don't celebrate Easter). Cedar had a paediatrician appointment, which is just the other side of the city (50 minutes). Then we headed into Melbourne and stopped at Bourke Street to meet Ben for lunch...



I had promised the kids that we'd visit the Museum, so that was our next destination. The favourite this visit was 'Wild' with all the animals of the world on display...

Here are Sienna and Ash collecting Autumn leaves as we walked through Carlton Gardens on the way back to the car....

When we got home, a package from Wendy was waiting on the doorstop, and with Cedar and Ash both asleep from the big day we'd had so far, Sienna and I decided to make a photo backdrop in the garden for an impromptu session, all Winter Wonderland-ish! This is Sienna's new Little Tree Kids 'Heidi' jacket, worn over one of the Little Tree Kids dresses she already had been wearing all day. Cedar's eskimo jacket was also in the package, will have to try it on him when the weather cools down tomorrow :)

It's still love (and a giveaway)

Ha, with a title like that I should be telling you about Ben and my 12th wedding anniversary which was on Sunday (and it was great), but that's not what this is about :)

Scrapbooking, I still love it... I think I'm the only one in my immediate circle who still does it! I have Scrapbook Creations mag to thank for that, needing to create at least one page a month kept me going through about a year where I wouldn't have otherwise found time for scrapping. Then Scrapboxx reignited my sense of fun and playfulness with their competition back at the end of 2009 - which I didn't win but shortly after was invited to join their DT and have been happily designing kits and creating challenges over there for a year now...

Anyway, I realised I forget to share what I've been up to scrapbooking-wise here on my blog, so here is an update of recent pages. Three of them I made on the recent retreat where I was official photographer - man, was that a fun weekend. So good. The other is from the current Scrapbook Creations mag but was actually created back in August last year, using the Yellow, Black and White colour scheme to focus on Cedar's sunny personality... which, quite frankly, comes and goes now that he's a toddler, LOL.

Here's a question and a giveaway for you - how would you describe my scrapbooking style? Does it remind you of anyone? Comment here with two or three words describing my style, with an extra entry if you include another scrapbooker who my style reminds you of, and in 1 week I will do a random draw and send out a Curiouser magnet to the winner :) (note: this seems really self-oriented, but I have a reason for asking which I will share soon enough!)