So last week I wrote my first blog of the year, all full of optimism… 2 weeks in and 2019 has already bitch slapped us in the face!

Wednesday morning Henry left early to go to the gym and the children and I had a cheeky lie in together before he called with bad news. He’d pranged the car. The description consists of the worlds slowest crash at a roundabout where he wrongly assumed the car in front was moving with the rest of the traffic, sadly he wasn’t. Both cars only suffered minor damage and the only thing Henry damaged was his pride. But sadly it has still meant a couple of hours dealing with insurance companies and we are still waiting for the garage to collect Siegfried and to see what surprise we get to drive for a few days.

Then a few hours after he’d returned home and we voted on a quiet family day watching Peter rabbit (at last!) we got an actual piece of bad news. My Grandma has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Even though it was something we were half expecting from the tests it’s still hard to hear that actual diagnosis. My Grandparents played a huge part in my childhood and teenage years and loosing my Grandad 8 years ago was extremely hard to deal with but undoubtably it hit my Grandma the worst. It breaks my heart now to think that this horrendous disease will likely rob her of not just herself but also of him. Their marriage was one that the overused #lifegoals tags would rightly belong next to and they will forever be a couple that inspire Henry and myself. I know he’s watching down on her as she enters this next stage in her life and I just hope that as a family we can pull together to make it as dignified as possible for her sake.

On a lighter note the year has given us a couple of amazing moments provided by our fabulous children. On Tuesday we popped into Exeter to wave off Auntie Georgia and Uncle Gyan as they head away from Exeter. This included a trip to the park where Seb had his first go on a swing… and he loved it! His little face lit up and Polly thought it was great fun when they got to swing next to each other.

So, the other night I was doing the washing up, Seb was chatting away next to me in the bouncy chair and Polly was playing in the living room with her toy Rocky from Paw Patrol. She came in and out the kitchen a couple of times and then I turned as she was taking the gravy off the shelf. I asked what she had planned for it before noticing she had brown all round her mouth- “did you find some chocolate?”- she promptly ran back into the living room and I followed. She then picked up Rocky and started saying “mmmm nom nom nom” while feeding him something… an oxo cube. A half eaten oxo cube. Oh and there was a second half eaten oxo cube at his feet. My brain took 2 seconds, very long seconds to connect the brown face to Rocky having his tea. Yup my child was eating oxo cubes. And the first thing she asked for was a glass of water to wash it down.

I do feed them real food, honestly!

Well hello 2019. It’s still early days so I’ve not really registered that it is a new year just yet, but I have a good feeling about this year.

We had a fabulous Christmas with the children and the festive season hasn’t quite finished in our house. The tree might be down but Polly is still sporting a Christmas jumper and keeps breaking out into ‘jingle bells’ every few minutes.

Christmas Eve was a day working for me and an evening working for Henry but it didn’t stop the fun, including a new band in the making.

We laid out the bits for Santa and he didn’t disappoint. Polly was made up with the stocking left in her room and had great fun decorating daddy with stickers!

After a bit more present opening under the tree and a fairly uninspiring breakfast of marmite on toast (I might have forgotten to get anything fancy in!) we then coated up for a little adventure. We joined up with Nanny and Pops and headed up onto Dartmoor. It’s always been a wish of Nanny’s so we thought why not make it this year.

The weather was better than we’d left and we actually found more people up there than expected. Polly surprised us all and walked up Haytor by herself. There was lots of puddle jumping with Nanny which kept Seb very amused.

We had an unconventional lunch- a picnic in the boot, which again proved a hit with the little people.

We then all headed back home for a more conventional Christmas meal and Seb went to town on his roast.

Boxing Day had us up and about early too. We headed down to the seafront so that Henry could fulfill a Sidmouth tradition. The swim. It basically consists of a few hundred mad people some donning fancy dress, all running into the sea for a splash about. He thoroughly enjoyed it, just maybe the hot chocolate and donuts afterwards a bit more!

After heading home to get warmed up properly we headed over to the family Boxing Day gathering where we ate plenty more food and enjoyed each other’s company. Seb in particular enjoyed the homemade meatloaf.

Henry took the kids to another family party a couple of days later, sadly I had work. But they definitely had a lot of fun, with Seb trying his luck on getting some bubbles!

New Year’s Eve found me working a busy but fun shift. Although the 3AM finish after a full on day with the kids including a toddler party almost broke me and the shift itself did break my shoes! This did make for a good excuse to head into town yesterday to spend a couple of vouchers though. But as we went out for most of the day I’ve now got no choice but to do the tidying up I’ve been putting off today as I don’t think the pile of presents in the corner is quite as acceptable with no tree above it.

So that’s it really for a recap on our Christmas shenanigans. I’m not really into the whole new year, new me thing and don’t really do resolutions as I never stick to them. But I’ve done a bit of reflecting the last couple of days since the big bell tolled. You see a few friends of ours have been through a few quite shitty things during the festive season and these sort of things just make you appreciate what you have. We have a happy marriage, 2 fabulous children, a roof over our heads, jobs and we are well on the way to achieving the things we want in life. Some people aren’t quite so lucky. Some people aren’t quite so appreciative. Some people thrive off the negativity in their life. Some people don’t realise how much their words and actions negatively affect someone else. Some people get caught up in their own life they don’t realise how much of someone else’s they are missing. Some people get so caught up on their social media life they forget how much they’re missing in their real life. 2019, maybe this might be the year that these people take a step back and realise what’s really important. One can only hope.