The last blog post was pretty much about walks and they are gonna feature in this one a bit too as we’ve added a few more to the portfolio. The most hilarious one being our 6 mile round trip to Harcombe (a little village along the valley). It was a route neither of us had tried and we just decided to go for it and worst case change the route as we went if it got too tricky. I’ve learnt Henry is the most stubborn walker on the planet and after watching him haul Seb in his pushchair over gates and rivers, I’m not sure exactly what he would consider ‘impassable.’ For the record we do have a back carrier that Seb has been in before but for those of you unfamiliar with a toddler- if they decide that day they don’t want to get in the back carrier then you need to dig the pushchair out or the 6 mile trek isn’t happening!

Polly was at school for this walk but she did amaze me with an almost 3 mile walk up a pretty big hill and along to the coastal path on Easter Sunday. She’s pretty good fun on a walk as she loves spotting flowers and playing games along the way- apologies to the squirrel who we scared the shit out of though when we played a stomping game along a wooden bridge.

The weather has been absolutely crazy the last week or so which has proven interesting on some walks. Clara and I went for a 2 hour venture last week where one minute it was sunny and the next it was snowing- this cycle repeated for the whole walk! Polly’s paw patrol umbrella was a key accessory that day, although Clara didn’t think her hat was and added half a mile onto the trek when she discreetly threw it in a hedge on the way home.

The weather has also played havoc with the outdoor play dates and catch ups we’ve started having again now lockdown is easing. Although the fairy house in the orchard proved a pretty decent shelter to another random snow shower on last weeks play date!

Although getting wet didn’t stop Polly down at the beach the other day when she got absolutely soaked kicking through the waves, filling her wellies up in the process. It was gorgeous down on the beach that morning (and the next day when we went back down) and both days the kids (and adults!) had a blast exploring the rock pools.

Another highlight this week has definitely been the kids enjoying an outdoor Easter egg hunt with their cousins. It was so amazing to just watch them play together and enjoy a picnic together too as they’ve missed so much the last year. This trip also included taking the picnic scraps to feed the chickens. This sounds like such a simple thing but to the kids (especially the little 2 who have been so sheltered the last year) it was a great experience, the sort of experience that childhood should be full of and hopefully with things looking brighter Clara will get to meet a few more real animals soon.

The kids naturally did get swamped with Easter eggs which we may be ‘helping’ them to get through. Henry though is breaking all the rules, now I know he’s one of these strange individuals who likes cold chocolate but it’s one thing popping it in the fridge but the freezer?! Lockdown has definitely made me see a different side to the man I married! Although it is definitely a good hiding spot I’ll give him that.

Another fashion trend this week has emerged thanks to Polly- she’s going through a phase of picking out odd socks to wear for herself. She thinks it’s hilarious but Seb gets very concerned and follows her round shouting ‘wrong socks!’

And that’s about it really. I’m pretty desperate for a shower after an incredible dance off with Polly- honestly anyone who’s missing going out clubbing just needs to spend an hour flicking through music channels with a 4 year old as she shows you her ‘great moves’ that she insists you copy! Definitely a fun way to burn off the 687 Easter eggs I’ve eaten the last few days anyway!

How on earth is it almost the end of March 2021?! I feel like March 2020 only finished 5 minutes ago! I have no idea where the first 3 months of this year have gone, they’ve definitely been a bit of a blur. With Polly back in school we’ve been going on a few more challenging walks round the valley- me usually with a baby strapped to me and Henry testing our run around pushchair to the absolute extremes while Seb shouts which direction to go in! Some of these walks we do together but more often we each take a child at different times of day, explore an area then swap different findings then we might go on a family walk altogether that all the children enjoy.

Some highlights have included Clara getting to meet a horse last week when a friend of ours came up the same lane we were trekking up- as a lockdown baby she’s led a bit of a sheltered life so far so she was very excited by this.

Henry took us on a trek the other day that included an explore round a hidden pond, much to Seb’s delight. We found a wobbly bridge that he kept impersonating for the rest of the day!

I came across a little field of lambs the other day so this evening after school we ventured out so the kids could see them- the last year has definitely reminded us that these very simple pleasures actually make up a huge part of life, plus the kids were so happy to see them!

Another feature of walks that involve Polly is flower spotting- the girl absolutely loves flowers. The other day on a simple walk back from the shop I had to lift her up at every garden so she could peek over the walls to see what ones she could spot (just for the record these are raised gardens along a main road that an adult can easily see but a 4 year needs a little boost, I’m not encouraging her to be nosey into peoples property!!).

The love of flowers means that she’s got her own little garden growing in pots in the conservatory at the moment and she could be found at the weekend sitting watching some daffodils coming out like it was a TV show.

A weekend walk had us down on the beach at low tide where the rock pools offered us the sight of several star fish which was a treat. Seb was also an absolute poser for some photos, shouting cheese too!

Clara bear has had a fun week with food this week, she couldn’t get enough of the lasagne on Sunday night so pulled the whole plate onto her lap to enjoy and last night she devoured a bacon bap! She’s definitely putting that one tooth to good use.

The weekend also gave us the job of making an Easter bonnet for Polly to take into school. She had a lot of fun decorating it and covered the room in glitter.

That’s about it really, it’ll be exciting to see what the next few weeks hold now that we can start having some outdoor play dates and catch ups so let’s hope the good weather holds!

A year ago today I finished work at 3 and headed home with the kids not thinking too much about what was going on in the world except that it still felt ‘too far’ away to affect us. Not long after getting home Polly started coughing and Boris started talking and within an hour I was officially off work due to being ‘at risk’ (a.k.a pregnant) and we were put into isolation for 2 weeks. Henry appeared quickly having been sent home to join us in isolation and we watched over the next week or so as the world went a bit mad.

So a year on I’ve written a letter to my past self to let her know what was coming over the next 365 days-

This is scary and there will be some dark days. There will be horror stories that you read about this terrible pandemic that will make you cry. Everyone is in this for the long haul and there will be multiple lockdowns with some dark moments where isolation really gets to you. There will also be some precious moments and they will be the ones that get you through this whole thing.

There will be so many bedtimes that you do together as a family with story-time’s full of laughter and bath times full of joy (and plenty of soaked floors!) that you’ll realise how precious family time is.

Don’t keep fretting about giving birth in a pandemic- women are incredible and they will do their thing, so will you. Women give birth in crazy situations every day so really the fact that you get to go to a hospital with trained midwives (who are superheroes!) and you’ll get you’re third and final pool birth means that you’ve got it a lot better than a lot of other women.

The baby will be ok in our little bubble. She might not get the host of baby groups and play dates that the other 2 got but her cheeky little smile will keep everyone going.

Sadly at 9 months old there will still be plenty of family and friends who haven’t yet met this new rascal but those days full of reunions are now in sight.

The garden will actually get some love and plenty of use.

You’ll be one of those who bakes lots of banana bread.

You’ll have the time to put 2 years worth of baby photos into albums and finally write out a bucket list.

Money will be ok, not ideal, but it will be ok. Stop fretting that the pandemic will cost us our jobs and lead us onto the streets- that won’t happen!

Polly will still start school and she will be amazing at this new transition. You have not escaped homeschooling but even that will be something that has positive moments that make your heart burst with pride. Also your respect for teachers will hit all new heights!

Christmas will be different but it will still be Christmas- full of love, laughter and food.

You’ll find some new YouTube channels to follow and there will be some binge watching of Netflix to keep you entertained- the best one coming curtesy of a Duke and a spoon.

It’s ok to say you’re not ok. Don’t wait on it just admit it.

Overall it will be a year that in some ways will be similar to others as life will still throw the same ups and downs, but at the same time everything will be different. You’ll miss people. You’ll miss baby groups. You’ll miss soft play. You’ll miss going for a cheeky McDonald’s after a day driving round Devon exploring. You’ll miss the birthday celebrations. You’ll miss having a wander round primark. But you’ll have figured out a lot of things in your head that will make you the most content you’ve ever been and you’ll be raring to go with the next 365 days so hang in there and maybe go and make a banana bread to start the year of lockdowns.

Tomorrow is the day! After being out of school since before Christmas, tomorrow Polly will put on her uniform again and head down the road to be taught by a real teacher. I’m still slightly wary of Boris and his plans though so I haven’t actually cleared away the pens, paper and whiteboard from the dining room table yet. Today Polly was keen to play lots of ‘going back to school’ games with her barbies and she’s also told me she is as excited as she was for Christmas!

I’m hoping to have seen the back of phonics for a while too as my brain is even more scrambled than a few weeks ago. On Thursday I actually escaped the house for an eye test and gave my optician a good giggle when I read the sounds on the light up board not just the letters.

I hope that the day goes smoothly for all concerned and am hoping to not get an email about any new language my child is throwing out as she’s going through a phase of calling everyone in the house a ‘bum-flake’ before laughing about it! Not quite sure who started that one but it was probably the very mature man I married.

Said mature man has also enjoyed the wonder of a lockdown birthday finally. The balloons are still creating lots of entertainment- we just had a 20 minute balloon fight to make up for not going on a daily walk today as Polly had requested a pj and my little pony day before school. We did have a lot of fun making a pink chocolate-chip cake for him, with Polly eating as much icing as she was using to decorate!

I’m looking forward to being able to spend some more time with the little 2, I might not get a say in where the daily walks are though as Prince Seb has got to the stage where he has opinions on which path we go on and how long we go out for now. He’s still a bit unsteady on his feet (he’s always been a bit clumsy!) so it’ll be a good chance to get him out the pushchair and walking more independently. He’s also at the stage where he likes to bring a toy along for the walk which had a disastrous (and also slightly hilarious!) outcome yesterday on a family walk in the muddy woods when he threw what was in one hand thinking it was the stone he was holding but it actually turned out to be the train he had in the other hand!

Talking about moving, Clara-bear is so so so nearly there with crawling. She can roll and wriggle her way around the room but hasn’t quite mastered bringing her knees up under herself yet and instead just ends up screaming at the object she’s trying to reach. She did however finally cut her first tooth last week! Polly has found this fascinating and to Clara’s amusement she keeps sticking her pinky finger in her baby sister’s mouth to have a feel!

Well that’s it for now. I’ve written this up before the bedtime carnage instead of at 9 O’clock when I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. Good luck to everyone getting back into school/nursery/work routines with the first signs that we might actually be on the homestretch of this crazy pandemic. 🤞

I was going to write a post this time last week at the start of half term but kept getting distracted by life so here it is during the last few hours of half term instead! It’s not that we’ve really done much but instead I keep getting lost in the moment and before I know it it’s been 3 hours. These moments also tend to be my little pony related or furniture rearranging- wouldn’t be lockdown without a little living room revamp.

We’ve been pretty bad at getting out the house for little walks as the weather seems to be rubbish any time we’re actually able to leave the house (everyone dressed, not eating their 15th snack of the day, willing to put wellies on and actually leave the house). We managed to avoid the snow the other week and instead just got a savage cold wind that lingered for days. The kids weren’t too fussed about the lack of snow anyway and instead did have a blast playing with the ice they found in a water filled box in the garden. It’s so often the simple things that give the most wonder.

We did have a good giggle the other evening. Just before we kicked off the bedtime routine we heard some pretty loud noises coming from out the front of the house so I stuck my head out the door and was greeted by some smiley workmen fixing the massive pothole outside the front door. They were very apologetic about the noise and I told them not to worry at all as I just wondered how long it would take them so we knew how long to delay bedtime as it’s just below the kids bedroom. They assured me it would be less than an hour so I waved them bye with a smile to match theirs and came back in the house. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realised why they had been so full of humour…

It seems Seb has come through some sort of developmental leap over the last week or so after a couple of weeks of disturbed sleep and grumpy behaviour he’s emerged with a few new skills under his belt. The best one is a new understanding of humour which means he’s doing cheeky little things like throwing a cushion onto daddy’s face as he lay on the floor daydreaming and cracking up at funny things he sees. He’s also finally (thank god!) figured out how the brio train track fits together so instead of shouting at pieces of track and throwing unsuspecting trains across the room when they uncouple, he is instead secretly building tacks that quickly span across the whole room and has worked out how the trains fix together only if the magnets are in the right order. It’s bought a new sense of calm to the house and a new trip hazard!

Clara bear has now officially reached the “I can’t crawl but I want to so I’m gonna scream at things I want to reach but can’t” stage- it’s a highlight they don’t mention in the parenting books. She has no trouble reaching her food though and will shove anything in!

Another week finished and I still can’t believe how quick the year seems to be going already. I know I sound like a broken record but I swear it was only Monday 2 days ago!

We finished January on a definite high as our charity walking challenge made the local paper as we smashed our mileage target as a team. Polly was proudly showing the paper off in her zoom class last Friday! As a team we’ve decided to carry on walking ‘together but not together’ as it’s been a great motivator to get us out into some fresh air and it’s also been quite nice having regular contact via WhatsApp with each other.

One of my walks last week has also had a very lasting impact on me. Firstly the walk was amazing, it was an area I hadn’t explored at all and it gave some of the most amazing views of our local area that means I will definitely be going back up there. I made it up the road part of the walk with Clara on my back and was just gathering my bearings at the edge of the wood, wondering which path to take, when a lady getting out of her car with her 2 dogs noticed me looking a bit lost. “First time up here?”

After I confessed it was, she gave me the low down on which walks I could try but then she offered to show me her favourite walk. We started chatting and boy did we chat (we obviously stayed socially distanced!). After a short while she confided something that had recently happened in her life, now her story is not mine to tell so I won’t go into details but I will just say if Covid restrictions weren’t in place I probably would have hugged this complete stranger. We shared a really lovely walk round the top of the hill and we shared all sorts of stories, but we didn’t even exchange names! All I know is that she taught me in those 20 minutes that kindness is really the most important thing we can give each other during these dark times and I’m so pleased we shared that walk together.

Another walk just this afternoon will be memorable for a whole different reason. I took the girls on a trek up a different hill nearby and Polly was proving a great conversationalist much to the amusement of a gentleman who passed us on the way up… Me- “Watch out for that poo.” Polly- “Eeeeew it’s huge, what is it?” Me- “It’s from a horse.” Polly- “Horses don’t poo.” Me- “Of course they do, every animal including us poos.” Polly- “Oh yeah, I do.”

Anyway when we reached the end of the road we stopped to admire the view and the same man was on his way back down with a smile on his face- “Does your youngster like actual animals as much as she likes admiring their poo?”. After a bit of confused giggling all round he let us know that if we ventured a bit further up the track there were 3 deer in the field. I’m still amazed that Polly kept quiet for the next 5 minutes (anyone who knows Polly will understand this as she is usually the loudest child on the planet!) but she did and we were rewarded with a beautiful view and the deer still in the field. Too far away to see if they’d done any poo for us to chat about though!

She has been an absolute superstar this week with her home schooling and this showed too, when she was awarded star of the week after putting in lots of effort with her letter and number writing. We’ve been keeping the learning varied and fun to keep her attention and it seems to be working on me too as I now can’t read letters properly without sounding them out- something I discovered while doing a word puzzle the other day which Henry found hilarious.

Another hilarious thing that keeps happening is curtesy of Seb. He keeps getting the giggles. And I mean really getting the giggles. There’s something so refreshing about watching a 2 year old loose himself completely as he sister is making the voice recording dinosaur repeatedly blow raspberries.

Talking about blowing raspberries, this seems to be Clara’s party trick at the moment. She’s started imitating people and this is her favourite noise to copy. She’s started to get to the stroppy ‘I want to move’ stage but hasn’t quite figured it out yet, I mean she can roll all around but crawling isn’t quite on the agenda just yet, although I don’t think it’ll be too long.

And that’s it from me for now. I’ve got the blog’s social media accounts all active now so I thought I’d try and post regular little snippets on there to just encourage me to keep writing.

I cannot believe it’s almost the end of January already, I’m still at the stage where I have to think before writing 2021 but at the same time it feels like January is turning out to be as long as March felt last year- precisely 468 days long. I think lockdown messes with time anyway as some days I look at the clock and feel like I’ve lost 3 hours! I did have a giggle at the calendar earlier, the sad empty one, except for 2 things which have both been crossed out- an eye test and ‘back to school’.

Obviously I can’t write a post without a little homeschooling update (especially after my slight meltdown in the last post!). To be honest it’s going pretty well all things considered. We definitely have blips where we have to step away from the work and do some playing or Netflix binging but in general we are finding our flow. I’ve definitely found Polly to be a more visual/physical learner, no idea if she’s the same in an actual classroom but at home I’ve had to find some alternative ways to help- especially with phonics! Yesterday for example she wasn’t on board with the ‘sound swap’ in the live lesson (swapping one letter out of a 3 letter word to make another- pig into peg). So, after we logged off I pulled out a little train track, stuck 3 of our phonics pegs to a carriage and had the train go round to the station where it needed to change a letter instead by swapping a peg. It worked a treat and we’ll definitely be using that technique again.

The week days do feel a bit of a blur with zooms, a little daily walk, numberblocks and just general life so I’m trying to be productive at the weekends. This morning I wrote out my to-do list to get done by Monday morning and realised I’d written something at the top which might sit strange with some people.

Some people might find it strange to add ‘call best friend’ to a to-do list as they might think I’m implying it’s a chore- this absolutely isn’t the case. I’ve put it there so I can make time for it, as it was the most important thing I wanted to do this weekend, it was also the first thing I ticked off the list. I know this is a really hard time for a lot of people and things are a bit overwhelming sometimes, and I definitely don’t want to come across like I’m giving anyone a telling off as that’s not why I’m rambling about this- I just wanted to say that we need to make time for each other now more than ever so for me personally this is the best way to ensure I can do that. Incidentally it was a great chat, with a bit of Polly input at times, where we discussed getting matching tattoos, virtual book clubs and dinosaur pjs- best way to start a Saturday!

So Clara-bear seems to have mastered the sitting thing. She’s still at that stage where she occasionally throws herself to the floor though so she can usually be found in the centre of a circle of cushions. She is loving all the foods that we are throwing her way and we’ve finally found a child who loves broccoli!

Seb is doing so well with his speech and the sentences are starting to come- with hilarious moments, such as him tripping over his feet this evening and declaring “oh no I broken”. He was absolutely fine, he seems to be following in the wake of his fairly dramatic big sister. I’m trying to get him involved in bits of the homeschooling where possible especially as he seems to love learning things, although he’s definitely happiest when he’s just playing trains.

That’s probably it from me tonight. I’ve been writing this upstairs while trying to encourage Clara to sleep more than half an hour in her cot without my boob in her mouth and if I’ve only got a 10 minute left I’d like to use that time wisely by stuffing a crunchie in my mouth and blagging a cup of tea out of Henry!

This is the second attempt at writing this post tonight and honestly I’m not expecting much from it- or for it to even be complete but I’ll give it a bash!

It’s not exactly been the start to 2021 that people hoped for and we’ve been thrown into the world of homeschooling with no warning and no end in sight but, we’re trying to get into the swing of it fairly quickly to avoid any more chaos in Polly’s life. I just would love to ask the government why they thought 8pm (after the kids had gone to bed) was a good time to declare an imminent lockdown as her tearful face the next morning really could have been avoided with a bit of warning. But here we are- a couple of days in and already I think all teachers across the land should be knighted.

This is a very different lockdown for us personally as this time there are 5 of us in the house and we are 5 people with very different needs right now. Henry is trying to get his head back in the pt mindset ready for when he can hit the exams that covid has delayed. Polly is trying to get used to her new teacher. Seb has learnt a new phrase- “I need you” and is deploying it at every possible moment (when I’m trying to have a wee, when I’m trying to get my head round phonics, when I’m trying to drink a cold cup of tea). Clara is going through the ‘10 minutes is definitely a long enough nap, oh nope I’ve changed my mind I actually just want to nap on your boobs’ phase while also looking like she wants to start trying to move around. And me- well I don’t really know at the moment.

Truthfully I had quite the wobble last night. I think we’ve all had a covid breakdown at some point and I had my second or third (I’ve lost count!) last night after collapsing into bed. It’s just hit me that my maternity leave really isn’t going to have a glimmer of light on the final horizon. It’s the realisation that Clara will get even less time with me as Polly is now in the house learning instead of in the trusted hands of an actual teacher. It’s the thought of Seb potentially (and hopefully) starting nursery in September after so long away from other kids. It’s the thought that this is my last maternity leave and it’s start and now it’s finish dates have been taken out of my hands. It’s the realisation that so much is out of my control. I know it’s all for a reason- I really do know how serious the pandemic is, I’m just saying that it’s a bit sucky at the moment. I’m pleased that phrase- ‘we’re all in the same boat’ got thrown in the bin as a more accurate phrase would be- ‘we’re all in the same storm, but some people are watching from a safe distance on pleasure cruises sipping martini and others are clinging onto a bit of wood fairly similar to the one Rose & Jack couldn’t share.’

Anyway enough doom and gloom from me- we’re ok really! We did have a fab Christmas, quiet but not quiet. Henry broke all the parenting rules and set an alarm for 6:40 and woke Clara and I up as the big 2 kids hadn’t jumped on our bed at 6AM like he’d hoped! 5 minutes later we had all 5 of us on our bed opening the stocking presents while on FaceTime to Grandpops. We then headed downstairs for the main presents and lots more excitement. I swear it gets better every year as their awareness and excitement grows every year too.

The other thing we’ve agreed to this month is a charity walk with our work family. Combined we are walking 630 miles (the south west coast path) over the course of January, there’s a group of us doing it- not together of course!!- so we need to do 31 miles each. It’s definitely a good excuse to get out the house for some fresh air and the last 2 walks with the girls in toe (the girls team as Polly calls us!) have been really nice with lots of squirrel spotting and counting trees.

I think I’ll finish up there as I’m watching Clara stir on the baby monitor so I think my evening sitting time is over, I mean I got 20 minutes and a warm cup of tea so I shouldn’t be too disappointed! Not sure how regular the blog posts will be due to my slightly frazzled brain at the moment but I do want to get back to being more consistent!

2020. What a year hey?! I know for a lot of people this has been an incredibly challenging year and sadly for too many this has been their final year. I’m not going to downplay how crazy this year has been as unless you’ve been living under a rock since February you don’t need me to tell you about it. I’m simply going to say that the year doesn’t have to be blacklisted because of all the bad bits. This year has also had some amazing moments and I thought I’d end the year with a fun task that anyone can do if they need that little reminder that it’s not all been bad.

This week we had the absolute joy of watching Polly in her reception nativity- she played Mary and has taken her role very seriously! This experience should have been very different. Henry and I would have taken the 2 smaller ones down and sat amongst other eager parents in the school hall and waited for a classic primary school memory to unfold- obviously this didn’t happen. Instead we sat with a cup of tea and watched the show on the big screen at home. And Polly loved it. She shouted out all her friends names and sang along to all the songs and guess what- it’s definitely going in the memory bank even though it wasn’t what we expected it to be. It also meant that other family members have been able to join in the fun too. Anyway this got me thinking about the other positive things that have happened this year, so I challenged myself to pick out 20 for 2020. So here goes…

1. 9:14PM on Sunday the 7th June. Clara bear arrived. Obviously this is the most prominent positive memory of the year and it’s one that will forever bring joy. Our family became complete.

2. Our last ‘normal’ family day. It was in March. It was a bit windy and rainy but we had a blast. We took a kite down to the beach and we also popped into work to get hot chocolate with all the trimmings.

3. The first time we saw our Nanny & Pops after the first lockdown. Just to see them in person after so long inside for everyone.

4. Clara’s christening. Such a special day it got its own blog post! It’s still making my heart swell!

5. We spent most of the summer avoiding any large crowds and instead spent a lot of time by the river behind our house. One particular morning sticks clear in my mind. The big 2 were fully in the water with buckets and mischief and Clara was chilled on a blanket watching the trees above her. Pure bliss.

6. September- Polly started school. This was a big deal and I’ve never been more proud than I have of how well she has adapted to school life in amongst a pandemic- these little people are made of such strong stuff!

7. Pizza night at Uncle Oli & Auntie Faye’s. The kids had an absolute blast and I’m amazed they weren’t sick from laughing so much.

8. Seb said ‘I love you’ to Henry and I for the first time.

9. The trip to Suffolk in March just before lockdown. I look back now and realise how lucky we were to get those hugs in before ‘social distancing’ became the new normal.

10. Seb spending hours upon hours in the paddling pool in the summer until he froze and had to be dragged out- he’d still be in there now given the chance.

11. When we went for a picnic with Pati & George at Dart’s farm. Such a simple thing but one that bought so much joy. Oh I long for these simple things again.

12. Strawberry picking in the summer. Seb was in his element. We also had one of our only family lunches out of the year- good job it was a good meal!

13. Polly riding her bike for the first time.

14. One of the only plays on the beach the kids had in the summer where they saw their cousins, acted out the lion king and feasted on ice cream. Just to watch the kids just being kids.

15. When we ventured up to north Devon and got blown away at the valley of the rocks.

16. When we took the kids to the garden centre to see the Christmas lights and Polly danced along with the singing penguins while Seb laughed his head off.

17. During the first lockdown when Henry came home from Tesco with armfuls of reduced Easter eggs. I was very pregnant and will never feel bad for the amount of eggs I got through this year.

18. Realising my signature dish is chicken & vegetable pie, and making a few of them!

19. The playtimes the kids had in the orchard with their friends when they hadn’t seen each other in months. They just jumped straight back into playing like no time had passed at all.

20. When Grandpops & Becky came to stay, one of the highlights was going for breakfast together and a little trip up onto Dartmoor.

Truthfully I came up with several more as when you really look for a bit of positivity you can definitely find it in those simple things that make life what it is. So, that’s it from me until the new year. Just to say Merry Christmas to everyone and thank you for reading!

I’m gonna go out there and say it- today has been my favourite day of 2020 (apart from the 3 hours of the 7th June that included a brand new Clara of course!). After a lot of messaging, phone calls, checking restrictions, getting time off for godparents etc, we were able to hold a small christening as part of the Sunday church service at a special little church with a handful of family members and some amazing new godparents.

Clara started the day all smiles, but then refused to have a nap before we left so by the time we were 5 minutes into the service she was getting a bit stroppy- cue me standing up to start the ‘baby sway’ and she miraculously fell asleep… and stayed asleep till we were half way through the photo session! Polly was in her element, wearing the gorgeous dress she donned with wellies to Seb’s christening 2 years ago(!). she got involved with advent candle lighting and water pouring. Watching her face light up as the vicar blessed the water and poured it on Clara was such a precious moment with my girls that I’ll treasure forever. Seb was of course having none of it! He spent most of the service playing with his cars and then stropped through all the photos! It’s definitely given us some funny pictures to pull out when he’s older!

It was a wonderful morning and a huge thank you to those involved. As we couldn’t hold a celebration party afterwards we’re aiming to have a big party for her first birthday, assuming we’re all vaccinated by then- fingers crossed!

We had a quiet afternoon, watching a bit of strictly and playing cars before sacking off the roast dinner plans and instead bundling the kids into the car with blankets to go on a Christmas light hunt. Dancing in the back to Elton John with Seb while he shouted all the colours out was another precious moment to add to the bank. We then snuck in a cheeky McDonald’s before heading home via some more lights. It was such a wonderful day I think it’s given me a smile that’ll last till Christmas.

Ah Christmas- it’s almost here and we can’t wait! We are Christmas fanatics in this house anyway but this year we’ve gone even more so. The tree went up ages ago, there are lights all over the room and we’ve watched all the Christmas films multiple times.

I realise I didn’t blog at all during the last lockdown, instead I tried a thing where I posted something little on social media every day. I actually really enjoyed spreading a little bit of joy each day and it really made me appreciate all those little things even more.

Polly is doing well at school, it’s amazing how quick they pick things up, but more importantly she’s having fun- lots of it! She had a blast this week taking on the role of Mary in the nativity. We’ve not seen it yet (bloody COVID!) but we are going to be able to watch the recording, this does mean that the family can watch it too which is actually really lovely. She’s loving learning different words, her favourite being ‘pop’, she actually spelt it out with cows the other day! It’s also pretty funny when you catch her sitting on the toilet sounding out the words on the shampoo bottle (of course the ‘poo’ bit of that particular word prompted a fit of giggles!).

Seb makes me smile every day as he learns different things about the world and is starting to string sentences together- I could do with a few less tantrums though! I know it’s all part of him learning but it does get a bit annoying when the red cup wasn’t the right cup but when you offer him the blue cup he actually realised he did want the red cup. I do love watching him with Clara though as he absolutely dotes on her and her face lights up when he talks to her- “my Clara bear” he calls her.

And the little koala bear herself- well she’s 6 months old tomorrow which I can’t quite get my head round! We are very excited to get the weaning journey going and just to see her growing in general- she’s definitely the cheeky one out of the 3 and smiles so much it meets my heart.

Well I think I’ll leave it there for now, Henry has just made a cup of tea, Clara has fallen asleep on my boob and the cat has found his way into the cuddle too.