The Christening Gown

The following are a series of photos of my boys on their Christening days...

 

Thomas

Daniel

Samuel

As you may have noticed, the christening gown is the same in each of the photos. I'm nothing if not an old romantic and I think there's nothing more special than something that is steeped in history. I did have a christening gown of my own somewhere but I decided I wanted to start our own family tradition with a Camera christening gown.

My Mum lovingly sewed the whole outfit, including the hat. She also hand sewed all the small beads onto the lace. That's a lot of beads! Her eyes probably wouldn't be able to handle that today but back then she managed to do it. I loved the gown and all three of my boys got to wear it - although we had to make some hurried last minute alterations to the legs just hours before Samuel's christening because he was a little larger than the other two :)

This is my Mum pictured with my Dad and Samuel on his Christening day. 

 

Now, I'll put it on record that should I have grandchildren one day, I don't expect my sons or daughter in-laws to use the same gown for their children...but I would be very chuffed if they did!! Hey, even if it skipped a generation and a great grandchild got to wear it, how cool would that be?! But even if that doesn't happen, I think it's very special that all three boys got to wear a gown handmade by their grandmother.

Do you have a special family heirloom that has been passed down

through generations?

 

 

If you have a Flashback Friday post, add your link below. Remember, you can use the post above as inspiration or write about anything from the past that you like. All the details about the link up can be found here.

Please link back to The Camera Chronicles in some way in your post (my button code can be grabbed from my sidebar) and spread the love by visiting and commenting on other posts. Remember, you can also have all of the below links appear under your own post by grabbing the blog hop code. Simply click on "Get the code here", copy the code and paste it at the bottom of your post. Make sure you are in HTML mode/view before pasting.

 



Hair: Before and After

I hate photos of myself but really wanted to post something for Wordless Wednesday (linking up with My Little Drummer Boys), and since the house is still being decorated, this has to be it. Ventured out with a friend yesterday to a new hairdresser who turned my dead, yellow, straw-like ombre hair into a soft, luscious, chocolate do. Nothing like a new cut and colour to chase away the winter blues (and yes, I know we haven't officially hit Winter yet, but it feels like it)! Love being a fully fledged brunette again - haven't had dark hair like this for years! Thank you to Nicole at Argyle Hair Design for doing such a wonderful job!

 

Fire Safety Audit*

As you all know, I love designing new homes and we've recently moved into a new one. Every single time I've drawn up plans, I've thought about the possibility of a fire in the house and wondered whether we could escape. In particular, I think about the bedrooms and where they are positioned. I think there would be nothing more terrifying than being trapped in a burning house. I've wondered whether the boys would know what to do if separated from us and if we would be able to get to them. Scary stuff and probably a very real possibility for many that live near bushfire prone areas.

But what about in ordinary suburbia? I don't usually have burning candles in the house, Sam doesn't smoke inside the house, we don't have things like electric blankets and of course we have smoke alarms installed, so in many respects, apart from the initial design of the house, I guess I've been pretty complacent about the risk of fire.

However, this morning I completed Fire and Rescue NSW's Home Fire Safety Audit and it was a bit of a wake up call. I actually completed it twice answering a couple of questions slightly differently. The first time when I chose leaving the stove unattended (I don't really leave it unattended for more than 5 minutes, although I have left the gas on after taking dinner off the stove!) and leaving the dryer on whilst out of the house, I scored 62/100 and was considered a High Fire Risk. The second time when saying I didn't leave stove unattended or dryer on whilst out, I still only scored 67/100 and our house was considered a Moderate Fire Risk. That's pretty scary.

The great thing about the Fire Safety Audit is that it gives you great tips on how to minimise fire risk in your individual home. For me personally, the things that stood out were the need for a home escape plan that the whole family understands, the regular servicing of things like our gas heater and gas dryer, the regular testing of the smoke alarms (not just the changing of batteries) and the removal of lint from the dryer before every single use because lint is a combustible material! Did you know that? Science was never my forte at school!

So this Winter, you can choose to do nothing and be in the running to "win" yourself a house fire (see video below) or you can safe guard your home and family against a preventable disaster.

 

 

* This is a sponsored post but opinions are my own.