How has December been going for you? Pants…thats how mine has been! I started off the first week of December confined to my spare room dying of the flu; not just a bad cold I mean full-blown FLU! I had to take the week off work and just to paint the picture for you….I was even too ill to watch This Morning or Jeremy Kyle…I mean thing.were.bad 🙁
Home
The Finale…
So it’s finally here..good old December. Where have the last 11 months gone?! Like a whirlwind here we are preparing for all the festivities that December brings.
If your December is anything like ours its a month of us waiting in a chaotic queue at Tescos every weekend; why do people panic buy bread and milk? The shop closes for 24 hours it’s hardly a drama! Anyhoo its mad queues everywhere, lots of gift wrapping, decorating then moving the decorations then moving them back (and repeat), festive drinks, roaring fires, bad jokes, christmas movies and lots and lots of chocolate. It’s common practice to have a selection box for breakfast on Christmas morning, infact its frowned upon if you don’t 🙂
A Long Cold Winter ahead
The last words my childminder said to me at 6pm on Thursday were “Olivia has eaten like horse today, she couldn’t get the food into her quick enough she’s been a delight all day”. I skipped out of her house and down the path so happy that Olivia had enjoyed all the food I packed for her and smothered her in kisses…”what a great girl” I kept saying on repeat… “hip hip hooray!”
Fast forward 12 hours to 6.30am, friday morning and Olivia is coughing like she has just smoked a 40 pack of cigarettes and thrashing around in her cot like a lunatic. I sit straight upright in bed and begin to sweat as I know now what the weekend has in store of us as parents and her as the cold infested child, it’s going to be one long weekend that’s for sure.
Weekly Round Up
I’ve been lacking on the blog front the last few weeks so I can only apologise, I need to get back into the swing of it I know but in the meantime here is a little round-up of what we have been up to around the house 🙂
- Baking Buns
Sometimes it can be a long old Sunday especially if the weather is rubbish outside and nowhere really opens until 1pm so we decided to do some baking with Olivia. I could write how involved she got and how much she loved it but that would be a lie haha! She had much more fun just doing sprints up and down the kitchen and dragging everything out of the cupboards while Mummy and Daddy finished off the oat biscuits and tidied up. she was interested in the start so at least we got one photo 🙂
Skipped To Do List
Come the end of the month I always see a round-up on different blogs I follow of what people recommend and what they have been reading/baking/watching etc. I find these very interesting as not only do I think to myself ‘ohh that eyeshadow looks great’ but I also just can’t quite understand where these people actually get the time to do all these things in one whole month – talk about multitasking mummies; very impressive indeed im in awe!
This all got me thinking about the summer being over and what I had achieved from the list that I set myself after coming from holidays in May. In short the answer is…NOTHING.. I cant even find the written list. We got a new kitchen in while we were away and I think the list may have gone in the skip along with all my other dreams of an organised home, true fact!
My plan with this blog is to keep it real. There is no point just showing all the rainbows and butterflies. Every other person out there knows life isn’t always that way especially in a house with 2 full-time working parents and a toddler who decided she wants to play with everything at once. I think burgled houses may be more tidy at times, awful to say but true to a certain extent. I will even admit sometimes, just sometimes when Olivia goes to bed we don’t even tidy up her mess as she will only drag it all out again in the morning; does this make us bad parents?!
In light of all these wonderful blogs that have achieved so much in a month im going to own up to all that we havent achieved in three. Oh gosh here goes…
Daddy Cool
I recently read a post from Brummymummy on how dads rock especially when on holidays. Chris and I had such a laugh reading the blog as we could totally relate to everything that was said from our holiday adventures back in May. Infact ive read it several times, just click the name to check it out its such a good read; as is the whole blog.
This post got me thinking about a conversation I had with Chris a few weeks ago when he started reading all the posts I have done thus far on here and then claims he is hardly mentioned. This makes me really annoyed because he is literally THEE best dad ever to Olivia and does so much with her so im going to dedicate a whole post solely to him…you are welcome Christopher 🙂
Moving into Matalans Cottage
I was clearing out my purse recently and came across so many store cards that havent seen the light of day in years even a Makro card circa 2003 which ive never used. I found a Matalan store card in my maiden name and registered to my parents address when I had a thought; when was the last time I entered that store? where even is my local store? so i kept the card in order to investigate.
I fired up Google and search for Matalan online. My goodness was this the best idea ever…I haven’t seen homewear so gorgeous in such a long time! Sometimes though when you look online it can be hit or miss when you visit a store as to whether or not they actually have the merchandise but I was fortunate enough that my luck was in and everything I had seen online was available in my local store. Great for me not so great for the bank balance oops!
Weather Permitting
This weekend was quite non eventful for us due to the rubbish weather. Its suppose to be summer so come on sunshine! I keep seeing on my Facebook timeline ‘heatwave coming in August’ then the next post is ‘worst weather in 20 years coming in August’ it just can’t make up its mind which really doesn’t suit me stuck indoors with a 17 month old toddler.
One of the worst* things about the weather (*sounds dramatic) is that I have all these summer clothes for Olivia that fit her now and if the sunshine doesn’t come back they will be useless!! I have had to step up the washing so I can get vests and long sleeve tops washed in time for the week ahead which is a downer as she has beautiful dresses im dying to get on her booooo rain…and as mentioned I have to do double the washing to keep up 🙁
Green Fingers
After researching every living tree possible I finally found one that I wanted for my front door step that I didn’t have to re- mortgage our house for. A topiary tree in B&Q was £70..WHAT?! for me to kill probably?? no no that’s ridiculous!
The front of my house is like a borefest (is that a word?!) anyhoo.. we live opposite a landscape gardener so as you can imagine we have to up our game. A bit like the Griswolds in ‘National lampoons christmas vacation’ but with trees/plants not christmas lights..you get the drift. The minute our neighbour cuts the grass im throwing hints left right and centre for the Hubby to get the lawnmower out pronto.
Well we circled around the outdoor area of B&Q for ages finally picking out the nicest but cheapest plants to pot. My track record with the survival of these aren’t great so I decided to not spend big bucks until I see how this goes. We then went to a local garden centre to get some advice on the tree situation. I wish we had gone there first instead of B&Q as we got way more advice and everything was better value. Once the owner caught a glimpse of Olivia and her love of smelling the flowers on demand we got a create deal; just typical. I will definitely be going back there if this proves to be a success.
Coastal Views
Last week we spent a few days up the North Coast as we were celebrating my birthday.. it was my 10th anniversary of being 23..at least that’s what im telling people if they ask 🙂 We are so fortunate to have a family home in Bushmills which is being put to good use between ourselves and my parents – I never see them anymore and they refer to themselves as ‘local’ now, they have the life of it in retirement but I say good on them!The home was only purchased in April but as is expected in this wee country of ours I think ive seen the sunshine once or twice while staying up there but sunday was amazing! So good infact I had to take a million pics which i wont bore you with…just this one 🙂
