Me & Mine - A Family Portrait Project 2015 - July

If I sneak these ones in, very quietly, maybe no one will notice and just think that they have been here all along....? Well, it's worth a try!

July's family portrait was taken on Studland beach, Dorset. And despite Wiss's face, we all were enjoying a glorious week of camping, yes even my husband enjoyed himself under canvas! It was so good to spend time together as a family, and be able to just relax and let the kids play. Wiss found a new level of confidence and made friends with so many children on the campsite and beaches, while little Miss practiced her downhill crawling every morning and she can get some real speed going now! So much so, that she's had blisters on her hands from so much crawling.

Us grown-ups also hit a new milestone this holiday - we finally became members of The National Trust! I don't know why we took so long - there are so many amazing places run by the National Trust to visit, and they put on some fantastic special events throughout the year too. Studland Beach is stunning but it also offered den building for kids, and open air cinema screenings. We can't wait to explore some more!

The seaside is my happy place, and I'm glad to report that it seems to have been passed down in the genes to Wiss and little Miss too. Such fond memories in this photo already!

See you in a couple of weeks for August's Me & Mine, and I'll do my best to get it up on time :) You can check out all the other family shots taken by other bloggers by clicking here:

Me & Mine - A Family Portrait Project 2015 - February

Has it really been a month already? February is a short month but it really has felt like it has flown by! I am still struggling to find some time for me, and blogging but hopefully that will happen soon.....I hope!

What have we been up to this month? We enjoyed Valentine's Day, Pancake Day, our 13 year anniversary of meeting, as well as half term and all the activities that involved. Wiss went to Pirate School at the South Bank 'Imagine' Festival, and got up on stage with Cowboy Max, learnt some circus skills at Clown School in Suffolk, and got brave at the waterpark going down the flumes by himself! I had a nasty bout of mastitis which knocked me for six and wiped me out for a week. The husband went to the NME awards show and tried not to feel too old! And February was a big month for little Ferne: she started on solid foods, learnt to roll from back to front, celebrated her 6 month 'birthday' and started babbling and saying 'mama'!

This month's photo was taken by a photographer at the water park - we were not expecting to have our picture taken but it's a great memento of a very fun, and noisy day on the last day of half term.

I am loving being part of this family portrait project - not only are there such great pictures being shared each month by all the other participants, but it is making me find the photo opportunities that I wouldn't have done before. It's wonderful to see all 4 of us together!

Do pop over and have a look at the rest of this month's Me & Mine portraits...

Toddle in the City

Last weekend Wiss and I took part in a city 'treasure hunt', but it wasn't a hunt in the usual sense. Armed with a (kid-proof) digital camera Lewis and 5 other little people set off under the guidance of Yat (an urban designer) to find treasures amongst the streets of Shoreditch! They each had a favourite adult with them too, to help supervise.

I heard about Toddle in the City through Twitter and I thought it was a brilliant and original idea. Yat aims her walks at 3-6 year olds which was the first thing to catch my attention. There is so much on offer in London for 5 or 6 years plus and this younger age range is often over-looked but these treasure hunts are a really fun and empowering activity for them.

Taken from a tweet this sums up the aims behind Toddle in the City: "Urban designer Yat wanted to find a fun way to engage kids so they will grow up to love the city. And Toddle in the City was born!"
We all met up on a gloriously sunny Sunday near Boxpark and Yat handed out name stickers and the digital cameras. Lewis has seen cameras, iphones, video cameras etc all his life but he's never actually had one for him to use all by himself. He was really excited and actually very proud to be trusted with such a cool thing!

Self portrait taken by Lewis in a mirror

All the kids were able to start using them confidently straight away so off we set. Yat led the way and pointed out things of interest but the kids were encouraged to take pictures of anything and everything that caught their attention. And this was the really interesting bit for me... It was amazing to see what Lewis noticed. I look at buildings, shop windows, watch out for traffic, other people etc but he took a photo of a spider web by a bin and he even managed to spot a ladybird on a bollard! (Unfortunately, these photos were out-of-focus but he made a good attempt.) I guess the streets of London look pretty different when you're only a metre tall.

Lewis took 133 photos in total, and of course some are better than others, but there are some really great images too. Here's a selection of my favourites:

We were lucky enough to find a local street party run by the Friends of Arnold Circus so after our walk we enjoyed an afternoon of music, chasing bubbles and lounging in deckchairs. Days like that remind me just how wonderful London can be. I sometimes worry about bringing up a child in a city but we are so lucky to have all of this on our door step!

Toddle in the City is running Treasure Hunts throughout the summer in Shoreditch and along Regent Street on the car-free days in July. There's a different theme to each walk so there's always something new to discover.

As you can tell, we loved it! I'm now planning on building on Wiss's new-found photography skills by giving him a camera to document a wedding we're going to. I can't wait to see what the ceremony and reception look like to a 3 year old!


NB: This is not a sponsored post. These are purely my own thoughts and recommendations and I did not get paid for writing this post. Thank you