Gabriel and camping

The pictures on this post are all from our recent camping trip to Suffolk. Ok, not that recent, but recent enough!

Life with 3 small boys is so chaotic and hectic that we seem to have lost those days of just photographing them, being able to sit and go through the pictures undisturbed, choosing ones that had a story behind them, thinking of what to write.

Whenever I sit down these days I am bombarded, quite literally, with small boys. They need something, they want something, they want what I have, someone else has what they want, they need to climb on me, they need to jump off me.... it's neverending.

But somewhere in the midst of all that we manage to grab a few moments of relative calm. Calm? no, that's the wrong word, it isn't calm, but it's somehow more manageable when you get away from real life and all you have to think about is 3 little boys and what will make them happy.

Camping makes Gabriel happy. He loves meeting new children on the campsite, and being allowed to run off and play with them. The freedom afforded him on our last trip was amazing for him and for us. It's pretty cool when you think that that tiny little being that needed to be attached to you all the time, that didn't want to be away from you, can grow into such a sociable, independent young boy. I guess Gabriel is what you would call a people person, and it's great because for a while back there we were concerned that his hearing problems and lack of speech would hold him back and it so totally has not and it's amazing.

Other things he loves about camping are (in no particular order)

• Sticks (these are his monsters, they eat and sleep in our tent)
• Fires
• Marshmallows, but not the outside bit. Fear not though, your new friend's mum will eat the outside bit for you.
• Sleeping in the tent
• Eating out on the picnic rug
• Going to lots of places where you can throw stones in the water (if this list was in any kind of order, that would be top!)

And now for the gratuitous shots of gorgeous boys (mostly Gabriel, with a little bit of brother snuck in here and there)