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A portrait of my kids, once a week, every week, in 2015.

Mahlia: A play date at the beach with friends. She is becoming so much more confident in the ocean now, duck-diving under waves and trying to body-surf back in. She's also mastering stand-up paddle boarding on her own!

Leila: This is the face we get when we ask her to smile for a photo. She tries so hard to give her biggest smile, that her hands are in fists!

Archer: He loved sitting on daddy's paddle board at the beach and was practising climbing on and sliding off again. He had to have the paddle resting on top too. Sandy cheeks, sandy ears, sand everywhere!

Joining in with Jodi at Practising Simplicity.

Leila's 3rd Birthday Mermaid Party

On Sunday we celebrated Leila's third birthday with a mermaid party at the beach. She originally wanted to go camping for her birthday, but we decided to postpone this to later on the year. She tossed up between a flower party, butterfly party or a mermaid party.

Once again, it was meant to be a small, low-key gathering, but I can't help myself and we ended up with 15 kids! The weather in the lead up to the party was questionable and the forecast was for storms at precisely the time of the party! Eeekk! But the sun shone and the day was beautiful. Here's a few shots from the day:

A spread of starfish fairy bread, fruit cups, seaweed sushi, pizza fish, jelly fish jelly, and in the tupperware container there are crab claws (carrot sticks), sea cucumber sticks, seaweed crackers, pretzels and dip. We also served up some fresh prawns. And of course the cake, a sand castle no less!

The cake was actually quite simple to make: 3 cakes stacked and iced, covered with crushed biscuits mixed with a little brown sugar. A few ice cream cones received the same treatment, and then a chocolate shells were scattered and some green and blue pearl decorations for a bit of colour. The flag was a straw with a glittery cutout flag stuck on the top. A mermaid statue was added to tie in with the theme—this was probably the most time consuming, trying to find a nice looking mermaid that wasn't Disney related!

I kept the decorations simple, as the backdrop of the ocean was the star I think. We just had a table cloth with a fishing net draped over and a few shells and sea-glass pebbles scattered around. 

 Mahlia and some Montessori friends enjoying the jellyfish jelly.

 Daddy coordinated a crab race!

Then the ocean beckoned all but Leila. At this point she got very overwhelmed and clutched to daddy until it was cake time!

 Archer was passed around – I didn't see him the whole party. Such a good bub.

 Mermaids catching waves.

 Birthday girl in her mermaid dress.

All the kids (plus me).

 Singing Happy Birthday!

Dishing out the cake.

 Present time. Leila was no longer being clingy!

The party bags were a hit! A found some buckets on clearance and filled them with mermaid stickers, a bubble wand, a curly straw, a shell, an ocean animal figurine, chocolate coins, an ocean animal notepad and a gel pen, and added a few ribbons to pretty them up!

 Who doesn't love bubbles! The beach was awash with them!

 Leila with her best friend Maeve.

Everyone had a great time, and the weather was perfect! We are blessed to have such a lovely group of friends to share the day with too. I can't believe my baby girl is 3! She is such a feisty and determined girl and I love her to the moon and back and beyond.

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A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014.

Mahlia: We took the bus to Terrigal for ice cream and a splash in the rock pool before catching the bus back home. This is a typical Mahlia pose when we're out and about—watching others intently and playing with her hair, almost in a trance.

Leila: She followed her sister up onto the rocks and found a little seat for herself. But she doesn't sit still for long, as usual, and was back screaming in the water in no time. I love her pout and look of determination.

Archer: Showing off his rotund tummy and sporting a fetching quiff. He was very happy lying on the grass watching the world go by. Not so happy when I put him back in the sling to go home. 10 weeks old now.

Joining in with Jodi at Practising Simplicity.

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A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014.

It's been a hot week here, so there's been lots of cooling off down at the beach, at Nanna and Pa's pool or in the paddling pool. Our house is surrounded by trees and we are lucky enough to live close enough to the beach to get a cool breeze through the house, so we don't tend to suffer too badly in this heat. But come winter, we are freezing! 

Mahlia: She made a complete road network on the beach, complete with houses, a rubbish truck and tip! I love the imagination of a child.

Leila: Those blue eyes! Some backyard fun in the paddling pool, when I just didn't have the energy to go to the beach again—there is a ridiculous amount of stuff to take with three kids!

Archer: Enjoying watching the trees in the wind in the backyard while the girls were splashing nearby. I adore his little tongue poking out. He loves to be outside. He's almost laughing this week. He is such an adorable baby, and a good sleeper so far (the girls were great too until about 12 weeks, then it all went downhill from there!). His favourite spot is on his change table, we have many a good conversation there!

Joining in with Jodi over at Practising Simplicity.

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A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014.

Mahlia: Five now, and concentrating on her new vet Lego that she received for Christmas. She wants to be a vet when she's big.

Leila: We're spending lots of time at the beach now. She's 'swimming' through the rock pools.

Archer: My little chilled-out man. He's dipped his five-week-old toes in the water three times now. Daddy can't wait to take him surfing. I, on the other hand, want him to stop growing and stay my bubba forever.

Joining in with Jodi over at Practising Simplicity.

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A portrait of my girls, once a month, every month, in 2013.

Mahlia: A ferry trip to Palm Beach—a windy and exhilarating journey in the sun.

Leila: We trekked through bush to the secluded and private Lobster Beach. We had it to ourselves and spent the afternoon soaking up the warm sun and having a picnic.

Bump: HUGE! Only 15 weeks! We went to Sydney to show Laura the sights and to view the lights of Vivid Sydney.

Joining in with Jodi from Che & Fidel.

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A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2013.

Mahlia: Looking so grown up in her new dress, catching the water dripping down the cliff at Terrigal Haven. Enjoying the afternoon sun.

Leila: A trip to the Hunter Valley, sitting in a knobbly old tree, holding on tight to her best friend's, Laura's, hand.

Little frog #3: My third little frog is cooking away nicely! 14 weeks, and it is going too fast! And yes, I am ridiculously large for 14 weeks—eekkkk!

I couldn't resist including the final photo. Exploring on the rocks at Terrigal, Mahlia holding Leila's hand and helping her climb up the rocks. I love the reflection.

Joining in with Jodi over at Che & Fidel.

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A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2013.

Mahlia: Little Miss Grumpy at the beach. She came good after a while though and enjoyed the sun and sand.

Leila: Collecting autumn leaves on a walk past the bats.

Joining in with Jodi over at Che & Fidel.

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A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2013.

Mahlia: Hubby dropped us off at the beach one evening with the dogs before heading off to teach yoga. I told her not to get wet as we had to walk home. That made it even more exciting chasing the waves. The lure was too much, and she was dripping but didn't complain on the walk back.

Leila: Watching her sister, contemplating joining her in the shallows, but decided to continue hunting for shells. I unintentionally left the dog's leads in the car and faced the walk home with the girls and the dogs loose. Luckily they were so tired after playing on the beach the dogs heeled all the way home.

Joining in with Jodi at Che & Fidel. A stand-out for me from last week was the frolicking in the autumn leaves over at oscarlucinda.

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A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2013.

Mahlia: She picked up a selection of balloons that we had left over, all of different sizes, and named them mummy, daddy, big sister and the baby in order of size. So we got creative and added faces and hair! Unfortunately the daddy's head shrivelled up slightly the next day!

Leila: We headed to Toowoon Bay for a family day at the beach before daddy headed off to uni for a week. Leila is standing in a hole, which Mahlia then started burying her in. She stood in her hole how ages!

A favourite from last week is Chloe's delicate touch over at Forever Lovely.

Joining in with the lovely Jodi at Che & Fidel!

The week that was ...

Well, this week has been undeniably better than last week, thank goodness. We've all been of better health. By Monday Mahlia was back to her happy self and went to Montessori without a mention of a sore tummy. She did miss her swimming on Sunday but I took Leila—they both love their swimming lessons. We then walked over to the local beachside market to browse the stalls, have lunch and listen to some live music.

After we returned home, I unsuccessfully tried to get Leila to have an afternoon sleep (again... grrrr). The weather was beautifully warming so we decided to go to the beach for a late afternoon swim/paddle board/snorkel. I went snorkelling and it was absolutely stunning—the visibility was good, the sun's rays were cutting through the water to highlight the rainbow of the underwater world. And the fish were aplenty, of all shapes and colours. A truly magical moment.

Hubby then took the girls out on the stand-up paddle board around the boats. This is relatively new experience for Leila, but she loves it as much as her big sister does. Our time on shore was spent recreating a sand giant from one of our books:

Mahlia found one of her Montessori friends just as we were about to leave. Hubby took him out on the paddle board and we enjoyed the last hour of sun.

Tuesday we celebrated my baby's 2nd birthday—read all about it here. She seems to have really grown this past week too.

And Friday we finally made it to the zoo. The girls slept soundly the night before, so awoke full of energy and excitement. Traffic was minimal, as were the crowds at the zoo. The girls had a ball. Desperate to always see more, we managed to cover nearly everything. My personal favourites were the meerkats, big cats, chimps and the young gorillas playing (although the daddy gorilla really did look sad and very bored, which in turn made me very sad too). The girls loved everything, but were particularly excited to see the zebras.

A perfect day for my perfect girls.

And today was Easter Sunday. We had an egg hunt in the garden, and Leila struggled to understand why she couldn't eat all her eggs today. We practiced bike riding and spent some time at Nana and Pa's, before getting take away for dinner.

I hope you've had a lovely Easter! x