Where did September go? Like seriously where did it go? I’ve honestly blinked, and we’ve flown through a month of school runs, plays in the park, genral life and there was a carnival for good measure.

The carnival itself was a whirl of noise, dancing and flashing lights which slightly blew Clara’s brain as it was her first. It’s usually an annual occurrence in the town and its route takes it right past our front door. We get cosy in our pjs and dressing gowns with hot chocolate and watch it from our porch. This year the girls ventured onto the pavement and joined in with dancing and high fives whilst Seb wasn’t quite so on board with the whole thing- he sat on a camp chair glaring at most of it! Two out of three happy is a winner though.

The season of coughs and colds is definitely upon us and so we’ve had a quieter weekend this week- Seb is currently asleep on the sofa whilst the girls play with pay-doh wearing a mixture of pjs and onesies (classic Polly is still managing to be half naked though!). There is also a hint of Christmas in the air- I’m not apologising for my early mention of the c word this year as anyone who knows me, knows that this is just who I am. I’ve officially started properly buying presents (I may have actually bought the first official present back in June), I’m checking in regularly to see if our favourite garden centre is back on board with the whole Santa thing and Polly has drafted her first Christmas wish list. The list is fairly impressive, and I do love the fact she includes her siblings wishes too but I’m not quite sure how we’ll get on tracking down an alicorn for her.

This time of year also means that some of our favourite programmes are back and this year the kids have actually got into ‘Bake off’ properly which I’m pretty pleased about, this is as well as the usual ‘Strictly’ hype (which is currently on right now). We catch up with them at the weekend in between ‘My little Pony’ and ‘Thomas the tank engine’ which makes for a varied mix!

Everyone seems to be settling into their new routines which is good, we are still getting a few tears at the nursery drop off but only ever hear good things at pick up. I didn’t realise until this week that we’ve got her in on a morning where they do forest school which was a happy surprise- she was all smiles after toasting marshmallows round a fire.

Talking of marshmallows, this change of season meant that this week we had our first hot chocolate and marshmallow session after school when the weather did its usual of wait till the school run to unleash its downpour of rain. I’ve also officially switched the wardrobes over into winter mode and done a glove stock take.

There was also a big switch round upstairs in the house when I decided to move Clara’s bed into the same room as her siblings. Apart from the actual moving of the furniture which included a spectacular ‘pivot’ moment when I got an armchair stuck in the doorway and removed a layer of paint from the woodwork in a sweary rage, it’s (touch wood!!) been an ok transition. On the first night Clara went to get a bit upset as I left the room, I sat down on the landing to see whether she would be ok when I heard Polly’s gentle voice say “It’s ok Clara, you’ll see Mummy in the morning, I’m here. You need to lie down now and go to sleep”- and amazingly she did. I mean the big two then had a whispered chat that had to be broken up several times and she woke up in the middle of the night and wound up in with us, but (again touch wood!!) it’s going ok. The next morning provided another cute moment when I found Polly searching for Clara using the lullaby light confused as to where she had gone.

Well time to sign off now as the play doh playing has turned into ‘let’s put it up our nose whilst also eating pieces of it too’ plus I can only put off cleaning the bathroom so many times.