me and mine {june}


Daddy is loving
* the beautiful girl shouting "GOAL!" whenever she sees a ball.
* driving a golf buggy at Bluestone.
* playing football with the beautiful boy.
* watching the World Cup.
* having a go at laser clay shooting.

Mummy is loving
* her new camera!
* our amazing holiday at Bluestone.
* the new cosmetics birthday goodies.
* a weekend in London with the hubby.
* a perfect day spent on the beach in Pembrokeshire.

The beautiful boy is loving
* going on adventures on a golf buggy.
* singing Coldplay's 'Magic'.
* feeding the ducks.
* paddling his feet in the sea as soon as he gets to the beach.
* bug hunting.

The beautiful girl is loving
* going to her first ballet class.
* playing with a bucket and spade at the seaside.
* shouting "minkey" whenever she sees a monkey.
* watching Baby Jake and singing along.
* her new ballerina bunny, Bibi.


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him and her {week twenty-six}

 he is collected grazed knees and bruised shins like trophies of his adventures,
is learning to spell different words at a tremendous rate,
and has caught world cup fever (a little too late for England.)


she was the most adorable tiny dancer at her first ballet class,
loves eating watermelon and doesn't care how sticky she gets,
and will laugh hysterically if you do 'jazz hands' at her.

5

switched off


One of the little downsides of summer with small children
is that the lighter mornings often mean earlier wake ups.
Our children are, on the whole, fantastic sleepers,
but some mornings they get disturbed by the over enthusiastic dawn chorus
and the fact that it looks like midday by 6am.
Anytime after 6am I can just about deal with,
after 7am is the norm,
and any time with a 5 at the beginning is still night time if you ask me.

12

me and you {june}


Relationships change over time
from the initial butterflies and romance,
to a more comfortable and safe thing
where you can happily exist alongside one another.
But I think the foundation of our relationship,
the thing that has remained throughout,
is that we are best friends.

We spent a large proportion of the earlier times in our relationship
sustaining our bond with phone calls alone,
with weekend visits for a couple of days as and when we could afford it.
During that time we had to get really good at talking to one another,
and as a result we really cherished the time we got to be together.

Now that those days seem like a long time ago,
its really easy to forget how much those long distance days made us grow as people
and realise that we'd found the right person in each other.
We are often guilty of not properly talking for days on end now,
not asking each other the tough questions,
the simple questions,
or worse not listening to the other's answer
and not fully enjoying the little moments in our shared lives.

But a few weeks back I had a big birthday,
and my husband went all out;
planning a surprise weekend for the two of us in London.
And it was just the kind of reconnection we needed.

I was actually a little worried
that we wouldn't know how to spend such a long time
with only each other for company
and no children to talk to and entertain.
It's been such a long time since it was just us.
What did we used to talk about?

And I honestly couldn't tell you what we talked about for those two days in London...

...But we talked a lot.

The entire time practically
(except when we went to see a west end show
- I kind of think they frown on that kind of thing)
we just talked about everything and nothing.
About the children of course,
but also about what we love,
what we feel passionately about,
we watched the world go by,
people watching
and laughing at the big characters that London is always full of.

And while I had been sure I would be desperate to get back and see the children
I actually didn't want that time with just the two of us to end.
It was good for us to remember all those things we love to do together,
to just be husband and wife for a bit,
and not Daddy and Mummy.
And to remember that investing time in us matters,
because while the children are the centre of our world,
we are the centre of our family,
and we are what will be left
when the babies fly the nest.
And we want to have set a good example for our children to follow.


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him and her {week twenty-five}

 he is always on the hunt for adventures,
loves talking about planets, dinosaurs and mixing colours,
and would eat Daddy's 'purple beans' for dinner every night if he could.


she is so happy to just entertain herself,
will learn in and say "ahhhhh" when you ask for a cuddle,
and has the most scrumptious chubby thighs on earth.

0

our gang


Ever since he was born
my beautiful boy and I have had a little gang.
It felt like him and me against the world for a long time.
We let Daddy join our gang sometimes 
when we was home in the evenings and at weekends,
but we spent most of our time together as a pair,
I did everything for him
and he was my entire world.


23

him and her {week twenty-four}

 he is a fearless little daredevil
who cannot get enough of playing in the water
and who will do just about anything when bribed with ice-cream.


she is the cutest thing on earth when the wind gets in her hair,
has decided that the sea is lovely after all,
and loves ducks, ducks and more ducks.
7

siblings {june}


These two can be the sweetest of play mates,
they can share smiles and laughs and delight in each other,
they can be partners in crime,
and they can also already wind each other up like no one else.

It amazes me how they already have that dynamic of pushing each other's buttons.
She will play with toys that she know he doesn't want her too,
and smile gleefully when he gets cross or upset about it.
He will grab her for a cuddle and then refuse to let her go even though he knows she's had enough,
and he will insist that she likes it even while she shouts at him.

But that is the beauty of a sibling I guess,
you can learn so much about how to negotiate and share,
how to problem-solve and imagine,
how to learn and how to play,
how to irritate and how to love.



39

him and her {week twenty-three}


he asks if we're going on an adventure every single day,
is obsessed with learning about the planets and space,
hates it when his sister cries out in the night,
and loves the seaside.


she has a super stubborn streak,
especially when you say it's time to go home from the park,
takes great joy in emptying boxes and bags,
and has a smile that lights up our world.
4

better together


I feel so lucky that my children adore each other as much as they do.
I know that, with siblings, these things are never a given
and that their relationship could and will change in phases and over time.
But when you have a second child
it's very much a voyage into the unknown,
and I know I spent a good proportion of my second pregnancy
looking forward to seeing my two children together,
but also worrying that we could be about to seriously rock the boat.

8

blue sky and sandy toes


music credit: Next To Me by Sleeping At Last

I've said it before,
but I just love the seaside.
My husband and I met and fell in love at the seaside,
and something about being near the sea just feels so right somehow.

So a sunny day
and our first quiet weekend in a month,
and the coast was calling us,
with it's promise of feeling warm sand between our toes,
getting to paddle in the sea,
and maybe a sneaky ice cream too.

We had a lovely time,
it was just beautiful.
The beautiful boy told us repeatedly that he had had a lovely time,
and asked at bedtime if he could go again tomorrow.
And the hubby and I spent the drive home 
talking and dreaming about a home looking out at the sea.

The beautiful girl isn't keen on paddling in the sea as it turns out,
so we've found a water that this water baby isn't a fan of.
She loved playing in the sand,
although not quite as much as she loved the ice creams.
But her brother more than made up for her water hesitance,
by diving head first, fully clothed into a wave.
(And at a moment when Mummy didn't have the camera rolling
which we think was rather inconsiderate of him!)

Who needs fancy foreign holidays,
when you have these beautiful spots in your very own county?
We've got a list of lovely summer days out the list of our arms
and we're starting early with ticking them off.
But after such a beautiful blue sky beachy day,
I think we'll be adding a few more seaside trips to that list.

…Well we need to convince this little girly of ours that the sea is fun!


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