Our Anniversay

Posted by Caroline Elliott

My word of the week this week is Anniversary, because we celebrate our wedding anniversary this week! We have been married for 4 years and in early September we will have been together for 5 years. It has certainly been a busy 5 years as we have got married, bought our lovely house, spent a lot of time doing it up, and of course have had 2 gorgeous children.

You can read more about our little whirlwind here but basically hubs and I got set up on a blind date by our mums, moved in together after 4 weeks and were engaged after 5 weeks. Married less than a year later and 1st baby was here less than a year after that. We certainly don’t like to hang around!

It’s been a wonderful 4 years of marriage and I know there will have been some very sceptical people around after we got engaged so quickly (I know I have always been sceptical of similar fast engagements) but I wouldn’t change any of it for a second. Life with small children is hard and certainly tests a relationship… I have never understood why people think having a baby will ‘fix’ a relationship as quite the opposite – it tests even the strongest in my opinion! But we have never faltered or questioned that this is right.

We have a really good, strong partenrship based on mutual trust and respect and having a lot of fun together. We aren’t perfect by a long shot and have to remember to make time for us as a couple. To have fun together rather than just sharing the parenting and housework and cohabiting!

I’m not the soppiest person at the best of times and romance definitely goes out of the window when small people enter our lives, but now that LM is getting a bit older hopefully we will get to remember that we are a couple, as well as parents. We had a lovely day in London last week and a meal out for our anniversary and look forward to more times together to come, as well as watching our gorgeous kiddies grow together of course.

In honour of our wedding anniversary I thought I would share a few pics of our wedding. It wasn’t the most traditional wedding as we had a very late afternoon ceremony followed by a BBQ and disco, so no sit down dinner or speeches. It was a gorgeous day full of lots of colour and fun, we made our own cakes (and our mums made some too) and had lots of fun bits like fortune teller confetti holders and a wedding photo scrapbook rather then guest book. As our wedding was the same year as the Royal Wedding, we even mocked up our own joke wedding memorabilia titled the Real Wedding memorabila! Lots of daft bits but was so much fun putting it all together.

Can’t believe it was 4 years ago, in some ways it has gone by in a flash, in others it feels like a whole other lifetime!

Anyway, Happy Anniversary hubs, looking forward to many more years 🙂 xx

Photographs taken by Chris Boland of Distant Cloud Photography – he is amazing!

Our Day ‘Off’ in London

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Mummy me-time is so so important, but can be really hard to come by. Last week I had a very much needed day of Mummy me-time and it really was wonderful. Hubs’ business was up for a Learn Direct award for the number of apprentices they hire, and having won the regional award they were invited to the National Awards at the Kensington Roof Gardens in London. Lovely! Hubs and his business partner thought it was a good opportunity for us wives to have a day in London too and as soon as my parents agreed to babysit both kids, I jumped at the opportunity. WP_20150707_09_24_34_Pro

So I put a pretty dress on and did my make up and we very excitedly headed off on the train down to London, though it was a bit weird too as it was the first time we had left LM with anyone other than one of us, for the whole day. Eek!

We headed straight to the Kensington Roof Gardens and I have to admit I was excited as for a long time I have wanted to see what this place was like, and well, as expected, it was gorgeous. So many beautiful flowers and so serene and peaceful considering we were in central London. Loved it!

Unfortunately (Fortunately?) us wives weren’t invited to the awards ceremony so we headed off for a bit of a natter instead. And where better to go for lunch than to the Harvey Nicks roof terrace? If our husbands were having some posh fun, why shouldn’t we? It was lovely to catch up as we never really see each other without kids running around (they have 3 girls), and our husbands are so close that we hear about what each other are up to via them, but not directly if that makes sense!

Anyway we opted for some lovely food and a gorgeous bottle of wine, which the waiter clearly thought was a little OTT… “a bottle???” haha. Put simply, it was blimmin’ lovely. I have to admit I felt very decadent and about as far from my normal day to day life as possible. Sipping a chilled Chenin Blanc and eating mussels on the Harvey Nicks roof terrace, getting a little tiddly, sharing stories about kiddies, motherhood, and of course our husbands 🙂 It was lovely to just really relax for a change and get to know each other a little better.

Then we heard the good news from our husbands, they won the award! So they came to join us for a little celebration with some yummy petit fours and some martinis to taste, which was great fun.

Much as we would have liked the afternoon to continue it was then time to head back across London to get the train home to see our lovely kiddies. We had a fab day in London, both spending a bit of time together and apart, and, much to our relief the kiddies had a wonderful day with their grandparents… and the grandparents loved it too and have said they would do it again! Hooray! Time to book in some more days off 😉

Running & Hiding

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Most evenings at the moment, in between tea and bathtime we have been making the most of the warm light evenings and having a short family walk. It’s usually a little cooler out at that time of day so it is nice to get out of the house and get some fresh air – plus it is nice to have a bit of exercise.

We don’t generally go very far, but there is a lot of exercise going on because it is not exactly a gentle stroll. Not with Monkey around. Because his favourite thing at the moment is running and hiding. And, of course, we have to join in.

It’s great fun actually, running around trees and bushes, changing direction to try and catch each other out and shouting “Boo!” really very loudly. Then we run to the next tree and the same begins again and this lasts for a lot of our walk.

Although confined to her buggy, LM really enjoys it too, and giggles away when we jump out from behind the trees!

I also just have to share this daft little video with you. When I was a kid these bushes had passages cut throughout them and hours would be spent playing in there and building dens. It has long since overgrown since then and I thought all of the passages were gone but found an opening so couldn’t resist taking Monkey in to hide!

An exciting week..

Posted by Caroline Elliott

My word of the week this week is excitement, as it has been a bit of an exciting week, in more ways than one.

If you follow me on facebook or instagram you may have seen that I had a day off from being Mummy this week, which was very exciting for me indeed. I will go into more detail in another post but it was AMAZING to have a day off from being Mummy. Hubs and I got a bit of time together and then I got to relax with a friend over a glass of wine on the Harvery Nichols roof terrace. Just lovely! I also got to see the Kensington Roof Gardens, which I have always been intrigued by, so that was quite exciting too!

In other exciting news, we are making some plans at the moment for a conversion/extension. We currently have a garage and car port, and the plan is to turn the car port into a garage and the garage into an office/playroom/toy storage room and we will gain a utility room too.

We have been talking about it a lot this year and it has been a slow process getting the drawings done and quotes, seeing how we can afford it etc. etc…. But it finally seems to be coming together now. Eek! So last weekend was spent clearing out the garage (a heck of a job believe me!) ripping down shelves and breaking up old furniture, sweeping away hideous cobwebs and horribleness. After 2 days of hard graft and 3 trips to the tip the garage looked like this. So weird to think of this being an actual room one day soon!

We have also been talking a lot about layout, colours, styles and all fun parts of interior designing which I love and is very exciting. We keep changing our mind at the moment though over what we want so thankfully we have a bit of time before any building work starts to decide. We are still waiting for the building regs at the moment though thankfully don’t need planning permission. So, well, watch this space as I am sure there will be more updates to come over the next few months!

Another bit of exciting news is that we may have stumbled upon a solution to LM’s sleep regression, or rather my lovely Mum has! I only blogged about it this week but it has been troubling us for some time. When my parents babysat for our day in London Mum mentioned she had got LM to sleep with no fuss at all, because she rubbed her tummy for a few minutes to get her to sleep.

I couldn’t believe my ears! After weeks of fussing a bit of tummy rubbing soothed her to sleep? Apparently my Mum did it with us as babies so it was just a natural instinct for her to rub her tummy. That night I rubbed her tummy but she didn’t seem to want to sleep so I left her to it… and she did then fall asleep by herself, with no tears. No tears! For the first time in weeks!

The next day at naptimes she wanted to sleep on her tummy so I rubbed her back and each time she feel asleep in minutes and slept really well, despite having a cold. I couldn’t believe it!

So far so good but I am excited to think we will have less stressful naptimes and bedtimes… fingers crossed anyway!!

The final bit of excitement, yes there’s more, is getting ready for holidays in a couple of weeks. We are housesitting for a friend in Dorset so yay, free holiday on the south coast! Amazing!! It has come round really quickly all of a sudden so I am excitedly planning where we are going to stop on the way there and what we are going to do while we are down there!

So yes, lots of excitement at the moment, which is really lovely 🙂 How has your week been?

Rules for Me & Choosing to be Happy

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Regular readers will know that I have recently accepted that I have postnatal depression. I am taking antidepressants and things are definitely improving. The medication isn’t a miracle cure though and I have to play my part too. I need to change the way I think about some things to help get through this and I have come up with some “rules” for me to live by.

I actually came up with a number of these before accepting I have PND and was trying to manage it by myself. I didn’t manage and I did and do need the help but that doesn’t mean that these rules are any less valid.

My rules are:

Stop being mean to yourself. You are not fat and disgusting, stupid or incompetent. (Honestly I am meaner to myself than I ever would be to anyone else!)

Be kind to yourself and make more time for you.

Take deep breaths when things go wrong (rather than f-ing & blinding under my breath, slamming doors and stomping around like a teenager – this one may be tricky)

Don’t let the fact that one thing has gone wrong ruin the rest of the day or make you forget what a lovely time you were having until that point. It hasn’t ruined anything and won’t last forever.

Have realistic expectations. Both of yourself, your plans and of the children. I need to accept that perfection doesn’t exist and unfortunately things won’t always go smoothly. If LM is off routine then I must take a deep breath and go with it rather than stressing about it.

Be more organised. One of my biggest stresses about 4 times a day is working out what to feed LM, so I have created a meal plan a week in advance to remove the stress of that multiple times a day. (We already meal plan for the rest of the family.)

Set times to do things and make lists so you can feel you have achieved something (rather than just getting weighed down by a seemingly endless mental list)

Don’t try and squeeze things in when looking after the kids – I get so frustrated when I am trying to blog but have a child jumping on my head or kicking me in the ribs, when really they just want my attention

Have two blogging evenings a week. No TV on those days.

Remember that blogging doesn’t have to be a competition. You didn’t start blogging to win awards etc.

Write and do what makes you happy.

Do more exercise. I have been saying I need to do this for ages but have so far been lazy and not done so! My diet did me well for a while but I have had enough of it for the time being. I am doing lots of walking and that and looking after the kids is helping me maintain my loss but I need to tone up and strengthen my muscles as I am very weak and I have no core strength at all. So I have started some yoga and pilates at home and my brother’s girlfriend and I are starting to play badminton every week next week so that should be fun!

Enjoy the kiddies. Too often I get annoyed when the kids won’t play on their own so I can get on with jobs – when I should be making the most of my time with them and having fun, that is why I am a SAHM after all!

Definitely enough rules to be going on with and I have to keep reminding myself at the moment but I do feel like they are helping me …. that and the sheer quantity of chocolate I have consumed in the lately. I am being kinder to myself…. though I really need to keep up with the exercise so that I don’t put back on all the weight I have lost this year!!

Do you have “rules” that you live by?

Me & Mine June 2015

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I can’t believe it is the end of June! Seriously where is this year going??? Anyway it is Me & Mine time, time to share some family snaps to show how much we have grown.

I haven’t got the best photos, just a few family selfies I took while we were testing out the Samsung galaxy S6 for a few days.

First up was a very early morning photo call – I am not a huge fan of 5am starts thanks to a crying toddler waking everyone up, but the cuddles together on the bed as a family were lovely so I had to take a couple of snaps. I inadvertantly had “beauty” mode on so hubs and I look very smooth skinned compared to normal!!

Then there are a couple of selfies from our day out in London. It appears I need more practice with the selfie stick as for some reason mine and hubs’ heads are stretched in one shot!

Monkey doesn’t have a clue what is going on and LM is completely uninterested so not the best shots but definitely a change from our usual sofa shots 🙂

Accepting that I have Postnatal Depression

Posted by Caroline Elliott

In general I am quite an upbeat positive person but for some time I have been feeling very very low and not myself. I have felt very negative about pretty much everything and feared I was sounding like such a misery on my blog. I considered the possibility of Postnatal Depression but the label seemed too big, if that makes sense. I think of PND and I think of Mum’s suffering with it and I just feel like “no, not little old me, I’m just a daft woman struggling to cope. I just need to get on with it and sort myself out.” So for some time that is what I have been trying to do.

I’m a big believer in faking it till you make it. I felt if I told myself I was happy then eventually I would get there. So I kept trying and making myself take deep breaths and stay positive and fixed on my goals. But the problem is that anytime anything went the slightest bit wrong I would crash and be right back to rock bottom. My attempts weren’t working. My motivation for my diet has gone too and I have been comfort eating like crazy but not feeling any better.

A good friend of mine used a great analogy for depression recently. “It’s like you’re constantly cycling uphill and you’re giving all you’ve got. You can’t stop peddling as you know you’ll go downhill, but you can’t keep going the way you are either.” I felt this summed it up perfectly and I have been trying so so hard to just keep going but it wasn’t working. I know how lucky I am and I have a wonderful husband and 2 amazing kiddies but I really haven’t been enjoying, well, anything, for some time.

It has also started to affect Monkey too. The last couple of weeks in particular were really low for me and I have been in tears quite a lot and very snappy. Monkey is a sensitive little soul and he really takes it to heart when I shout at him or am upset. He obviously copes with the odd time but the frequency lately has had a cumulative effect on him. He has been going through a bit of separation anxiety at playgroup and crying a lot about going and when he is there. He is waking up some mornings crying. When we ask him why he just says “Mummy.” Which makes me feel awful I have to tell you.

So last week I finally accepted that this isn’t normal. That it was time to get some help. I went to the Dr and after a chat with a very lovely lady Dr she confirmed my suspicions. I am suffering from postnatal depression and it does need to be treated for my sake and the sake of the children.

As well as the low-dose antidepressants my lovely GP said I also need to let go of my need to be in control. I need to stop trying so hard to be a perfect Mummy all the time as I am dooming myself to failure. She said I need to remember that I am a person too and not just Mum and have to put myself first sometimes. I need to make time to do some exercise as that will help my mood too. She really was helpful and understood exactly how I felt.

I am a few days into the tablets and have felt a bit odd at times, which I think is normal. But in general I am already feeling better. I think even just the act of accepting that I need some help, and taking the pressure off myself instead of constantly trying to pretend all is fine has made a big difference.

Hubs has been great and supportive. He has said he feels guilty like it is his fault and he should have done more and of course that isn’t true. In true man style he wants a solution and he wants to ‘fix’ it but he is coming round to the fact that medication is the right thing for now. I never wanted to be on antidepressants and never thought I would be, not that there is anything wrong with them, I just didn’t think I would need them. But right now, I do. They are low dose, non-addictive so I can stop anytime, although my GP has recommended I use them for at least 4 months.

So we shall see how things go, hopefully the tablets will just help me stay a bit more level and stop the crashing lows I have been feeling, meaning I can enjoy my little ones, and everything, a bit more. The label of “postnatal depression” still feels a little uncomfortable, like I don’t deserve it, but I guess like anything it is a spectrum and there are varying depths of it. I still feel uncomfortable writing this post but I have accepted that I need some help and I will come through the other side of it, I know I will.

Have you suffered with postnatal depression? How did you feel about the label?

My word for the week is “acceptance.”

Burning Questions

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I really enjoyed reading Helen’s post, over at All the Beautiful Things with her burning questions, and ever since I have been coming up with a few of my own. So instead of leaving her the longest comment ever I thought I would ~~steal her idea~~ share them with you here. Hope that’s ok Helen? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that :).

So here they are. My burning questions, things that I will probably never find an answer to, but that are fun to rant about nonetheless!

Where do the laundry capsules go? I hate these things and with every bottle of washing liquid we get one of these… but after one wash they seem to get eaten or go to a mystery world only inhabited by these capsules and miscellaneous socks….. We actually moved onto tablets for a while but the bottles were on offer so we are back with these again for now, driving me potty!

Sticking with the laundry, why does the fancy digital timer on the washing machine say it takes 1hr 3 but an hr 3 later still says there is around 15 mins to go…. is it a set time or not? I would say maybe it depends on the load but I don’t think it’s that clever as it does it on every wash… Just be honest with me, if it is going to take 1hr 20, just say so!

WP_20150613_10_00_32_Pro What is the point of crumbs? What purpose do they serve other than to annoy us and make us clean more? I swear I can hoover steam and re-hoover the entire floor only to turn round and crumbs have spontaneously appeared on my immaculate floor. And is it possible to get a slice of bread out without covering the worktop in crumbs? Not in our house apparently!

Dust is another one, what is the point of it? In general I don’t like pointless things. There are many things in this world that I don’t like, but generally I can respect the fact that as part of the grand scheme of things they have a purpose. As an example, spiders. I can’t stand them, but I know that without them we would be overrun with flies etc so can understand that they do serve a purpose, so, no rant about spiders. Flies, on the other hand, what is their purpose? Without them we wouldn’t need spiders… you can see where I am going with this.

In the same vein, Wasps. What is the point in them? Bees make honey, but more importantly, as any “The Bee Movie” fan will know, they make all the plants and trees grow. I do know it is not that clear cut but my point is, Bees, have a purpose. Wasps? Other than to ruin perfectly happy summers days and sting us? I can’t think of one.

If anyone can tell me the point of any of these things by the way, please feel free to do so. I fully acknowledge that I am not the master of all knowledge and am happy to accept that these things have a purpose. It may in fact make me less annoyed to find that they do have a purpose (as with spiders). Anyone? Please?

Another question, why do I lie in the middle of the night torturing myself with horrible scenarios like intruders and dog attacks, trying to think about ways I would protect my kids. is it just a Mum thing, or am I weird? Do you do that?

Like butter wouldn’t melt… but is it really an act??

Why is it that whenever I have a fun activity planned with Monkey for during LM’s nap, that that will be the morning when LM refuses to nap and won’t settle. Does she know? It also happens the other way round, when we are going out so don’t mind if she has a shorter nap, she sleeps for hours. I don’t generally prescribe to the idea that babies have got it in for us but sometimes….

Going back a bit, to the subject of crumbs, is there any such thing in the world as a useful bread bin? One that can fit two loaves of bread in (brown and white) not 1 1/2. One that doesn’t spew crumbs everywhere when you open it, or have such a heavy lid that you never actually bother to put the bread into it, meaning that there is bread all over the worktop rather than, you know. In. The. Breadbin?

Why, on the Kids setting of Netflix, is there no option to Play from the beginning? It just resumes, even when you are on the credits. There is a play from the beginning option on the other profiles but not the kids one…. why?

Why does inspiration for blog posts come when I am with the kids, then I can’t remember it later when I have time to blog? You can be sure I will remember it again either in the early hours of the morning or when driving or at some other completely useless time and then I will forget it again!

Why does our baby girl seem to think this is the best position to drink her milk. Love her, but, seriously? Weirdo child.

I am sure I could go on and on but will leave it there for now. What are your burning questions?

My WOTW this week is questions.

Herby the Hedgehog

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Meet Herby the Hedgehog.

Herby is a real family friend of ours. He was hubs’ toy when he was little (he can’t remember not having him) and he is now firm friends with both Monkey and LM.

When Monkey was little I invented the following little ditty:

My name is Herby and I like to dance,
I like to dance and tickle my friend Monkey,
Dance, dance, dance
and tickle my friend Monkey

I make Herby dance for the dancing bits then of course he goes in for a tickle at the tickle bits. Monkey always loved this and we had so much fun with Herby when he was a baby. Sadly I don’t have many photos of Monkey with Herby, I wasn’t a blogger back then and clearly didn’t document every second of our lives the way I do now 😉 but here is a little snap.

Now it is LM’s turn and the ditty has returned, and has all the fun. I love this little video of some of the fun I have been having with Herby and LM recently. She adores him! (Oh and yes that is Monkey singing the bob the Builder theme tune in the background bless him!)

Obviously any hand puppet would work in the same way but in our house it is all about Herby. I love watching the anticipation,the confusion when he goes away and the glee when he comes back.

I have mentioned (more than once, I know) that I find baby days so hard and that I prefer it when they are older. Sometimes it is hard to put my finger on why but here it is. Watching them learn is so much fun, as everything is a learning experience. You get to see the world through their eyes and enjoy it with them.

We really are entering the fun times with LM now and these little moments amongst the hard work really make me smile, and make it all worthwhile.

Time to get back on track..

Posted by Caroline Elliott

This is my first weight loss update for a while, mainly because my efforts have stalled somewhat. For a while I was doing really well and a few weeks ago I finally hit the 12stone mark! Hooray! Meaning I have lost a stone and a half overall since Christmas, which I am dead chuffed with even though I still have a way to go.

Continue reading →

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Life

Our Anniversay

Our Day ‘Off’ in London

Running & Hiding

An exciting week..

Rules for Me & Choosing to be Happy

Me & Mine June 2015

Accepting that I have Postnatal Depression

Burning Questions

Herby the Hedgehog

Time to get back on track..