Summer Bucket List!

In the past we have written a little bucket list of all the things we want to get up to so it was only right we did the same this year too. We like to make things realistic, affordable and fun. I usually keep mine to myself but I thought I would share mine too.

So without further a do

Kids Summer Bucket List

• Have a BBQ at Nanny’s
• Swim at Nanny’s
• Have a fry up
• Go to a new playpark
• Spend the day at the beach
• Have a teddy bears picnic
• Fly a kite
• Go to London
• Camping with our friends
• Play mini golf
• Have a water fight
• Toast marshmallows on a bonfire
• Make home made pizzas

My Summer Bucket List

• Try freelensing
• Photograph a sunrise
• Go on a road trip to nowhere in particular
• Get fish and chips on the beach in the evening
• Make lemonade
• Get a tattoo
• Go for a spa day
• Finish a book
• Go to a Jazz bar
• Practice more street photography
• Practice more on film
• Go on a hike
• Camp with friends
• Stay up and watch the stars
• Go to a veg market and buy ALL THE VEG
• Unplug for a day or two

We cannot bloomin’ wait for Summer this year. After a really busy few months with work I am just so looking forward to some downtime with the children, having a few lay ins and spending afternoons on the beach.

I’d love to see yours if you have one! Our holidays usually look like this…

Me and Mine | June ’17

Oh dear. It seems the last time I blogged was May’s Me and Mine photos. I am a truly lazy and rubbish blogger this month, but that’s okay, isn’t it?!

June has been filled with a lot of work, a lot of sun and a lot of mild stress. It’s been busy, I feel like i’ve hardly seen the children at all and July is set to be even busier. Peek wedding season for me means I haven’t got a single full day with all 3 kids together until they break up from school. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am for them to break up!! Camping trips, pool days and evenings by the sea will be filling our August – Bring it ooonnn.

So not only did I fail on a sunny gorgeous photo this month, I literally took these TODAY. On the day they are meant to go live. WHOOOOPS.

I hope everyone has had a ruddy lovely July!

Do go check out the other wonderful co hosts and have a nosey at their photos too. Lucy, Alex, Katie, Fritha, Jenny and Lucy.

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Me and Mine | May ’17

May has been a bit of a whirlwind month, with birthday celebrations and travelling to Budapest with my Mum. (You can see all our snaps over on my business blog here) But it has been full of fun and sun! I feel like I say every month has been busy, this year has flew by in a flash but it has, so far, been one of my favourite starts to a year in so so long!

I had all the visions of romantic close up pictures in the dunes at Camber Sands after Harvey’s birthday meal but alas, we ended up rolling around in the sand and had WAY too much fun!! We did manage to get a couple of pictures before though just before the sun went down so they will have to do!

We made a little vow to each other when we were there that we would visit much more often this year as we tend to steer away from Camber during the Summer months. It gets super busy during the day but late afternoon/evening strolls are so ideal for us. So bring on picnic dinners, sunset watching and a million more photos over the next few months!

A few things we have been enjoying this month

– Dinner outside
– The smell of suncream!
– Lego batman on the Wii
– Harry Potter!
– Seeing friends

We are super excited for another fun packed month. Trips to London, I have loads of work on with lots of weddings i’m shooting at and we are praying for lots more SUN!

I hope you all have a marvellous June.

Do go check out the other wonderful co hosts and have a nosey at their photos too. Lucy, Alex, Katie, Fritha, Jenny and Lucy.

Birthday treats

What’s a birthday without pizza and a trip to the beach?! Nothing, thats what.

We had the best evening on Saturday, after someone congratulating me on coming out with my 3 children on my own (weird.) I felt incredibly lucky to be able to do these things with them.

After scoffing our faces with so much cheese we indulged in a toffee sundae that quite frankly nearly tipped me over the edge. Note to self, when you’re absolutely stuffed from pizza its probably not wise to then eat an entire ice cream extravaganza.

Camber doesn’t get featured on my blog enough. This year I have vowed to make more of an effort to visit this beautiful space. Its big skies and vast views make for the most perfect backdrop and climbing up into the dunes is obviously just the most fun any child (and adult) could have. We didn’t watch the sunset like we said we would do but instead spent the evening rolling in the sand, jumping from dune to dune and screaming at the top of our lungs.

www.charlotterawlesphotography.co.uk

In light of it all

I wasn’t going to write about the recent tragedies of Manchester, my head still feels fuzzy just like the majority of the country and the world. But I just wanted to share how i’m feeling and whats going on in my head right now. In all the sadness, through all the salted stained faces and all the grieving families – there IS still so much good to be had. Yeah, this world is fucked up. It really is. But there is still so much joy to come, so many memories to be made and as much as my heart is breaking for everyone, I just can’t focus on all the negative news thats taking over every screen and radio right now.

I chose not to talk to my 3 about it. I chose not sit them down and tell them about what an awful society I have brought them into. I chose not to get upset in front of them, I chose not to frighten their little innocent minds. Maybe this is the naive way of parenting, and if so then thats fine, i’m happy to live this way. I couldn’t bear to tell them that children, of whom are the same age, have been taken away from their families. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that at any moment, no matter where we are, this could happen to us too.

So we will carry on our daily routines, we will still smile and laugh with each other. We will still crack jokes at the dinner table and talk about our day. We will laugh a bit harder than normal, we’ll tell just one more joke, we’ll read one more book. I’ll take them to the park when all I want to do is collapse on the sofa and we’ll get the paints out after I have cleaned the entire house. We’ll be so very grateful for the fact we are still here, living and breathing, and we are healthy. I’ll just be holding them tighter and for so much longer, i’ll be telling them I love them one more time and I’ll have a heavy heart when I kiss them goodnight.

I am so incredibly grateful for these three in such a desperate and mournful catastrophe.

Me and Mine | April ’17

April has been busy, exhausting, fun and exciting. I have laughed more than I thought imaginable, cried more than I thought possible. I have been on 2 weekends away, both equally awesome in their own ways. I have celebrated turning 27 with a whole heap of new friends, I have missed the kids so much, I have wanted to shout at them a lot.

I went to see my wonderful friend Charlie from Farlie Photography at the beginning of the month and so of course, I had to rope in a favour and she took our pictures for the month. I love them so much, some of my favourites to date – so THANK YOU Charlie!

I can’t bloody wait to head into May. More travels, birthday celebrations and COME ON SUN!! WE NEED YOU SO BAD NOW!!

Do go check out the other wonderful co hosts and have a nosey at their photos too. Lucy, Alex, Katie, Fritha, Jenny and Lucy.

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Me and Mine | March 2017

March has been full of birthday celebrations, planning the next few months exciting adventures and also some SUN!!

April is going to be our busiest month yet, I am away 3 out of the 4 weekends and also spending 5 days in Wales on a photography workshop retreat (which I am SO excited about I can’t even tell you.) It is also the Easter holidays so I have a feeling come May i’m going to need a spa day… 😉 I will be making short videos of some our days during the holidays so please do go and check out our little YouTube channel and subscribe if you’d like to keep up to date with what our weeks are looking like!

We’ve been loving having the sun grace our skin a bit more in March. The freckles are making an appearance and the windows have been swung open on more than one occasion. It feels like we have turned a corner and I know when I say this i’m speaking on behalf of 95% of the British population –  Bring oooonn the Summer!!

Our Me and Mine photos this month were a struggle. Mainly because my newly 5 year old daughter was a complete misery. My sister in law and I decided we would take each others photos when we could as we all know having a tripod set up is a complete ballache so we took prime opportunity on Mother’s Day to take these. Alas, when a child doesn’t play ball there aint enough love nore money thats going to change her mind. Just check out that face on the 2nd picture. But thank you, Harri, for grabbing these 3 for us. I actually really love the first one of us all!

Can’t wait to flick through everyone elses this month, promise I will be commenting on much more from now as I have massively slacked so far!  Do go check out the other wonderful co hosts and have a nosey at their photos too. Lucy, Alex, Katie, Fritha, Jenny and Lucy.

 
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Saturday Highlights #2

So after saying I was going to share our Saturday afternoon highlights every week it turns out I either totally forget to take my camera out with us or I’m working. But alas, this Saturday we had an afternoon just Oliver, Elsie and me at home.

Crafting, downtime on the sofa, bouncing for hours on end and mud kitchens underneath the trampoline.

Obviously shiny hideous leotards are a must wear item for any Saturday afternoon.

*Disclaimer – i hate it.

Day 1 of no puke.

Half term – Let’s do this. Let’s love it, enjoy it, bask in it. Let’s ignore the sickness, the cold and the snuffles. Can we kick ass, can we do a little jig and sing a little song, please?

Day 1 of no sickness.

We went to Hastings pier and then the beach. It was chilled, lovely, breezy. We loved it.

Some snaps.

Char x

I miss them.

When sorting childcare between me and Joe I didn’t think I would miss them as much as I do. I know that sounds ridiculous, of course I miss them when they aren’t here but I hadn’t accounted for the impact it would actually have on me. We have it all set out, the kids get the best of both worlds and it really is a good routine for them. But it means I don’t get a single full day with them without a club going on. It is breaking my heart and quite frankly i’m not sure how much longer I can do it for!

Half term could not have come soon enough for us this week, I am so craving some full days with the kids without a club to go to or an errand to run. This week is all about making time for just us, and I can’t tell you how excited I am. We have 3 full days out of the week just for fun things, we have nothing planned and we will just go with the flow. Stay in our PJs all day or spend the day in the rain – whatever takes our fancy. The world is our oyster and we’re ready for it!

Sunday nights are usually a bit of a rush after I get them all home. Dinner, bath and bed and it all goes in a flash and before I know it it’s Monday again and they are all back to school. So this Sunday we didn’t need to rush, we had dinner and we watched a film and spoke about our weekends. We talked about what we wanted to do this week and decided we would film a couple of our days too. It was as if an entire boulder had been lifted, it was such an elated feeling to just spend time with them and not worry about all the boring things we usually have to do. More of that feeling, please!

Me and Mine | January 2017

Like so many others, when I started this blog it was purely for recording the journey of being a parent. I wanted my children to see what it was like from my point of view, I wanted to share photo after photo and I wanted to have it as a creative outburst. I also never wanted to sugar coat our lives and back when I first started I did pour my heart out on more than 500 occasions, which is a lot more than I do now. I started a little blog over 6 years ago and so much has changed since then and I guess the way I view things has changed too. I feel more vulnerable now, maybe that comes with age, although I am still so young I feel so much older than I did 5 years ago which in turn has meant I hold back a lot more. But going through a separation has made me wonder if I was perhaps sugar coating our lives for the last few years. So many people have said to me that we portrayed ‘The perfect family’ and as much as we did have a wonderful family unit, it made me sad that I didn’t stay as true and as honest as I did at the beginning.

So 2017 is not only going to be an incredible year, it is going to be an honest one. It is going to be vulnerable and challenging and raw. And I hope that you can see that as time goes on, and I hope that my blog posts no longer portray an idyllic life. Because we are far from that!

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When Lucy over at Dear Beautiful contacted me to ask if I wanted to co-host the Me and Mine Project alongside herself and 5 other wonderfully creative bloggers for the year I shrieked with joy because this is most definitely a photography project that speaks to me on every level, just like it is for many other bloggers too! I feel extremely honoured to be alongside this bunch of ladies. So here we are, month 1 of 2017 and this is our first collection of photos of our new unit. And here we are, being honest and true to ourselves. We took them last night, Harvey actually has a sickness bug right now too. We were in our pyjamas, hadn’t had a bath and Oliver had spilt tomato sauce from his meatballs down his vest which then got all over my white sheets. Oh and i’ve just noticed my minging dry feet too. 😉 You’re welcome. We weren’t organised and we probably won’t be in the future either, but this is me, and these are mine. And I couldn’t ask for a more incredible bunch of small humans to spend my days and nights with.

Do go check out the other co hosts and have a nosey at their photos too. Lucy, Alex, Katie, Fritha, Jenny and Lucy.

“Can we pretend to be asleep” – Oliver 😉

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