Today I am………….

MISSING the new beginings of Spring, I love the autumn colours but hate watching the garden die away and realise we need to say goodbye to summer.

LOVING my baby girl more and more each day and moment that passes. (how is this possible every day?!)

AMAZED at how much my little girl has acomplished and how far we have come in the 17 months we have known each other as a family.

EXCITED about Christmas in the not too far distant future – a few stocking fillers done and thoughts turning to things to make for presents at Christmas and the feeling of getting warm and cosy inside.

NERVOUS about the future and our plans to move to Australia, it all seems like a dream at the moment, though actually doing it will be SO scary and SO saddening to say goodbyes to my Mum, family, and friends (especially you, J x)

ENJOYING watching the rain pour down and curling up on the rug with ‘T’ whilst reading books together. I know I’ll treasure these quiet moments for as long as I live.

CELEBRATING nearly 3 years of marriage (well, next week!) and nearly 8 years of being together with my husband, happy anniversary gorgeous, I love you!! xxx

STOPPING more often to appreciate the evening light, a nice glass of red wine, the daily visit from a squirrel in the garden, my wonderful Mum, a smile on  my husbands face and every last inch of my perfect daughter. I must be getting old or something as I think I’m getting soppy in my age!

THINKING that I need to get better at running in order to get around the course for the Great South Run in October. I’m back into training now after not running for 2 weeks after hurting my ankle. I’m begining to get nervous!

CONTENT with who I am, what I want and how I am as a mother, wife and daughter, the 3 roles I want to to best in over anything else.

Preparing for Autumn outside……….

After a wander around town and a coffee with a very good friend we set to work in the garden this afternoon. Little ‘T’ was dressed in her dungarees to get messy in the garden whilst I removed the runner beans (that have now just about finished apart from the remaining 4 that were left and fed to the rabbit!).

We could feel that the season was changing, I could hear the geese flying away this morning whilst I lay awake in bed before I got up. The air was breezy and cool and there were some showers of rain again. She looked for tomatoes and strawberries to see if any were ripe – she loves finding a new red strawberry and being able to eat it straight off of the plant…….

Whilst I pulled down the beans and dug them from the ground, little ‘T’ played happily with her conkers, fir cones, sand, sawdust, acorns, sticks and sand. My husband was busy sawing and sanding at the bottom of the garden – in the process of making a little barn for her Ostheimer toys – we can’t wait until it’s finished!.

Every now and then, T would run to the bottom of the garden to show her Daddy a snail or an intresting stone that she had found. Once I had removed the beans she stomped, dug and played with the fresh soil for ages. This area is going to become her outside play area for the autumn and winter, until new beans are planted in the Spring next year. She had great delight in playing with the dirt until a wasp came along and stung her face twice. Luckily she didn’t have much of a reaction so she was okay!

A perfect Saturday afternoon!

Play on a rainy day…….

The ‘tent’ seems to come out when it’s rainy outside (and whilst we wait for little T’s waterproof all-in-one to be delivered so that we can go outside when it rains!) A clothes horse, a blanket my Mum knitted and a lovely sheepskin that the lovely writer of Mama UK kindly gave to me is a perfect hideaway and play area on days here and there. T loves to hide inside and I have to pretend to find her – she sits in there giggling away without realising that I know where she is as well as the fact that I can here her giggles!

I’ve been enjoying feeling snug indoors, it’s been colder outside and I’ve enjoyed curling up with ‘T’ on the sheepskin for books or cuddles or playing with her toys. Is it too early to feel Christmassy?!!

Apples, blackberries & pears…….

We have had one of our nieces to stay with us this week and we have been busy making cakes, dinner and crumbles together, the fruit was given to me by my neighbour in return for lending her some bedding whilst she had her family to stay, I was able to pop next door and pick so many pears, apples and blackberries!

I made my neighbour an apple and blackberry crumble to say thank-you, an apple pie for ‘T’ (with reduced sugar!), an apple and blackberry pie for us, my niece helped to make a pear and raspberry crumble which we ate this week (great comfort food when snuggled indoors listening to the rain outside!) and we have plenty of apple and pear in the freezer for pies, crumbles and cakes after the summer has gone………….

Longleat Safari Park

We went on a little family trip out to Longleat Safari Park this week which is nearby to us. My husband took the day off work and we set off with a picnic and a sunny day. Unfortunately I have had a problem with our memory card and lost the majority of the photos I took, hence the delay in this post (why do these things happen on a day out?!)

We started off by driving through the safari areas, it was lovely to see how much space the animals had to roam around in and the monkeys actually climbed on top of the car (much to little T’s surprise!) We managed to get quite close to the rhinos and the zebra walked right past our car! Little ‘T’ was busy practising saying each of the animal names along with the noises they make!

Longleat House was really grand and impressive, along with the beautiful gardens. There were lots of other attractions including lots of small animals, the chipmunks sleeping in socks hanging up were very sweet! We didn’t have time to visit the huge adventure playground or go on the train but a picnic under a tree was a nice rest whilst T snoozed in her pushchair.

A good day all round!

 

 

August garden update

The garden is doing well now that we have had plenty of sunshine and rain recently. The runner beans have suffered a bit because of the strong winds so they look a bit messy now but they’re doing well and we’ve eaten them many times already as well as given them away to friends.

Little ‘T’ just LOVES playing in her sandpit – it’s about the only thing she will sit down to do for longer than a few minutes at a time(she was in there happily digging away for an hour the other day!)

The chilli peppers are doing well and there are several growing healthily, the different tomatoes species are all growing well though the peppers seem to have grown into miniature peppers and they’ve now stopped? (I’ve had to pcik a couple of tme off as they started to go red and off whilst still tiny?) The purple sprouting broccoli and brussels are being eaten by caterpillars, I have decided to let them do this as I would like ‘T’ to see the caterpillars as they grow and she loves to follow the butterflies around the garden.

‘T’ also loves to ‘help’ me to water the garden – she has her own watering can – similar to mine and she spends a long time going to each of the flowers and plants making a ‘shhhh’ noise (I think it’s supposed to be the sound of running water?!) and pointing her watering can in the right direction, I can watch her do this for hours and admire how cute she is and how fast the time has gone.

Pinterest update

An update of some of my recent pinterest pinnings…………it’s surprising how much influence this website has taken on my life – I saw some amazing running shoes on pinterest – after weeks of reading online reviews and pondering I bought some and have since signed up to do the Great South Run in October (praying the ankle helas beforehand so that I can get back to training quickly – missing my running this past 10 days!!) I’ve bought some doileys from a charity shop to make a fantastic lampshade (hopefully!) The clothes on pinterest have inspired me to but what I really like rather than what is current/available/practical/cheap………… it feels good to remember what style I actually like (even though I don’t own much of it ………….. I have the fundamentals, the wellies, boots, jeans, a decent mac, a good belt……………..just a bit more to go!) I love the random quotes I come accross – some of them so true and good reminders; SO much inspiration for a beautiful home…………….one day!…………. and I have found numerous blogs about fantastic ideas for crafting/sewing projects as well as great ideas for play things for children, plus some FANTASTIC recipe ideas…………….. how did I ever live without pinterest?!

Hipstamastic App

I have been playing around in the kitchen with my recently downloaded ‘hipstamatic’ app. I have absolutely no idea how to use it and have no idea how much I’ll use it but it’s fun working it out!………..

Another tunic made

I dressed ‘T’ in her Birthday dress/tunic today – well it’s more of a top now as she has grown so much! She looked so sweet in it that I thought I’d finish another one whilst she slept at lunchtime today, I started it ages ago and put it aside so it felt good to finally complete it. Don’t forget to check out the other blogs at ‘Handmade Monday!’

To the beach………..

An afternoon at the beach was just the thing (despite the cloudy, grey day!) Little ‘T’ got very excited to be on the beach – all that sand!!! She found the pebbles tricky to balance on and loved exploring the area and watching the dogs. We stopped off on the way home for some dinner and that sea air must have given her an appetite as she ate a huge dinner!