Anastasia Photography – Wedding and Family Photographer Sydney Australia Worldwide

Back at the end of October, after a brutal winter and a six week trip to Europe (and the time it took us to get over that jet lag) I took Daniel to the beach for the first time in months. And as I sat on the sand and marvelled at the sight of him running away from the waves, so free and so happy to finally be home in his element, it hit me – he was now so much bigger against this familiar setting.  Those funky board shorts from last summer still fit him perfectly but  his legs were so much longer and so much stronger. Were did my baby go ???

And then he pointed at something and his pose was exactly the same as when he was pointing at something when he was eight months old. A relief.

Summer arrived  and brought the usual smells of salt water and frangipani, the humid air, and that feeling that everything is as it should be. As the long, hot days came and went, Daniel caught his first wave on our old body board, ventured fearlessly into the water (“Mama! Let’s go further! Let’s go where it’s deeper!”), examined the world around him through the magnifying glass we bought in Canberra back in August, watered our lawn while pretending he was a steam train, worked on his bubble blowing technique, ate watermelon with abandon, and generally had lots and lots of fun. All while his legs kept getting longer and stronger.

And then I accidentally gave him a buzz cut.

There, right in front of me, stood a little person who was certainly not a toddler anymore. He looked more like a teenager than my sweet baby with messy hair, and my heart was beating out of my chest – the time does not stand still, the time marches on. And the proof of it was facing me straight on, with his cheeky smile and his huge eyes.

These photos are precious. When I look through my past summer blog posts (you can see them all HERE) my breath is taken away by how much Daniel is changing, by the beauty of our Central Coast home, and by how much I am grateful for it all.

Back in early spring, mid-September to be precise, Daniel decided he no longer needed his daily nap. Right around that time I stopped blogging. Because adjusting to the new routine of non-stop action from morning till bedtime left me with hardly any time to come up for air, and so many things that I used to be able to accomplish during his naps became a luxury, something I could only find time for during my weekends, and slowly, steadily, everything just faded away – plans, dreams, ambitions. But I was there, right in the moment, looking after my inquisitive, active, happy toddler. There will be a season in my life when I can sit down and dream big again, but for now my time with this boy of ours is too precious to miss. Plus I never stopped taking photos. I have been taking more photos than I used to (my bursting hard drives are nodding in agreement) to document our little memories.

And today, on the first day of autumn, I am back here, re-reading my old posts, feeling overwhelmed with gratitude as I scroll through the old photos. I don’t want to break the yearly tradition (just like HERE and HERE), so it’s time to fill this space with photos from our summer. Of brutally hot, sunny, long days filled with so much happiness. Salty breezes carrying around smells of frangipani flowers. Sandy little feet. Sunrises and sunsets. Discovering new exciting places. Chasing each other around our backyard with a water hose in hand.

Fire, Air, Water, Earth.

Life.