Who do they look like?

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Isn’t it funny how people are often so obsessed by which parent a child most takes after? People have always said that Monkey is a mini-me for his daddy. That he is the spitting image and it is very rare anyone says he looks like me if they know both hubs and I.
Then LM came along and everyone has said she looks like me, yay! Then thre are those who see resemblances to grandparents, aunts, uncles and the likes. I guess it is inevitable really and lovely. But in truth we both struggle to see who they look like, as to us they just look like themselves.

It doesn’t remotely matter of course and this really is just a bit of fun as I thought I would share some pics of us as kiddies to see who you think they look like. Try not to laugh too much at the pics of hubs and I haha.

So does Monkey look like Mummy?

Or Daddy?

daddymonkey

And does LM look like Mummy?

Or Daddy?

What do you think? To be honest I think this has proven a couple of things.

1) that I take waaaay too many photographs as it took me a seriously long time to find the pictures of the kiddies for this post (I have been planning this post for months!)

2) They both resemble both of us at different times. I think that’s the best way though isn’t it? Nice to see a bit of both of us in each of them :).

Who do your kids look like?

Me and Mine March 2016

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I really enjoy joining in with me and mine every month primarily because this community really encourages me to get nice shots of us as a family. Getting photos of the four of us can be so tricky as let’s face it kids aren’t always cooperative and having enough arms to take photos while keeping the kids happy isn’t easy.

That said I do feel my photos of our little family aren’t as polished as many other bloggers. We don’t have a tripod to take a photo from a distance and most are done using a selfie stick and taking a frame from a video (which we find generally leads to more likelihood of catching fleeting smiles) or on the front facing camera, neither of which are the highest quality. Add to that that LM is such a wriggly independent thing who does not enjoy being held in position and, well, you don’t get the best photos. Still, at least we have shots of the four of us that will show how much we’ve all grown and changed and that really is the purpose.

This month I have a couple of less than brilliant outdoors shots. My fave family shots are those that are taken outside enjoying the sunshine, and I really hoped for shots like that this month, but those are the hardest for keeping the kids happy and still. So we have this one, which didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped.

This one with loads of my family in it actually turned out surprisingly well and is one of my current fave photos though not just a shot of the four of us!

On the same day out we also got this shot of the 4 of us which is OK but was so sunny and neither kiddy enjoyed the sun in their face.

My fave shots of us as a family this month though are some completely impromptu, appalling quality selfies. The kids had been climbing all over me on the sofa with a bean bag for some reason, and I just got the camera out which resulted in some fab photos of all of us having a lot of fun.

So they aren’t polished, they certainly aren’t very high quality and they aren’t in a particularly special location. I’ve cut hubs’ head off in one and LM is a blur in another. But I love them because we are happy and in that they reflect us as a family the most out of all of these pictures. Larking around and having fun.

Our Easter 2016

Posted by Caroline Elliott

For me the best thing about easter isn’t the chocolate, it’s spending time with family and celebrating the arrival of spring by spending a lot of time outdoors. So that is primarily what our our Easter has been all about… With a few treats thrown in.

After all the illness we’ve had lately with both kids having chicken pox, and Monkey and I suffering with tummy bugs we were a bit worried it was going to be a bit of a washout but thankfully we were all miraculously well and able to enjoy the weekend.

We kicked off with a day out with my family to one of my favourite National Trust places, Belton House near Grantham. The weather was incredible and we had a wonderful day.

It was seriously busy and sadly my older brother and his wife got stuck in traffic getting in, but they did eventually arrive and even though it was so so so busy, because it is such a huge site it didn’t feel too busy. Other than the queues for the restaurants! We were pretty lucky in that I had been to the play and ride cafe as soon as we arrived and got a timed ticket to get in, then a big enough table vacated as soon as we walked in which was really fortunate.

We had plenty of space to explore, climb trees, run around chasing bubbles and playing aeroplanes. We sat and had ice cream in the sun and partially completed the easter hunt, though gave up when we saw that the queue to collect the egg afterwards was absolutely ginormous and in our mind the chocolate wasn’t worth the queue!

Oh and yes the place is seriously stunning so I had to get some pretty shots too.

That night my aunt, who had come up from London for Easter, stayed with us and we had a lovely evening. The next day we took her to the local farm that we are members of. It could not have been a more different day weather wise and was windy and bitterly cold! Still we had a lot of fun completing the easter hunt there and we even met the easter bunny! Not that the kids were too sure about him haha. We had a bit of fun in the soft play then headed home for lunch.

After lunch it was time for a bit of a team effort making some easter nests. It’s a proper easter tradition for us and the first year LM could take part, though she was shattered and needed to go for a nap before we had finished. Monkey really enjoyed it though.

While LM slept that afternoon Monkey had some fun with some of the crafts and activities pound land kindly sent us to try out, and I was very grateful for something to keep him busy as I was shattered! We had already done some of the other crafts earlier in the week and I was impressed at all they have for a pound! *

Easter Sunday itself was a bit more of a normal day for us. We went swimming in the morning and then our neighbour popped in with her kiddies for a bit. After lunch we did a the other of our Easter traditions and we put on a little easter hunt for the kiddies. Because Monkey loves treasure maps I made a simple map of the back garden and made a trail for him to follow before having to dig for his treasure! He loved it!

LM sort of went along for the ride but didn’t really get what was going on I don’t think!

After LM’s nap that afternoon we headed over to hubs’ brother Andy’s house for a roast to celebrate his birthday and easter. It was lovely to get together all of hubs’ family too and we had a lovely time. Hubs bought his brother some star wars lego which the boys all had great fun building that. LM had fun with all of her relatives too and very much enjoyed a ride in Aunty Julie’s wheelchair while she rested having cooked us all a yummy roast.

Monday was the most relaxed day of all and we pottered in the morning and made a roast for lunch. My little brother aka Uncle Marky joined us (sadly Aunty Fran was poorly and missed out) and played with kiddies and had a good catch up. More like a normal Sunday I guess, with laundry and little jobs that needed doing etc. Just what we needed after a busy few days.

I’m painting a picture here that is filled with sunshine and smiles and to a certain extent it is true and we have had a happy weekend. But it has also been difficult with toddler tantrums from LM and major threenager meltdowns from Monkey. They have been overexcited over tired and over chocolated (not a word I know but seems to fit :)). We barely buy any treats (only for the nest making and treasure hunt) but our lucky kiddies have lots of adoring family who have given them lots of treats. I have drafted a post about the over commercialisation of Easter (as I was having a rant moment) but I am not sure about sharing it. I am instead choosing to remember the happy moments of a lovely easter spent with our lovely my.

I hope you had a wonderful easter too.

*Poundland provided the craft materials free of charge for our use over Easter.

Me and Mine February 2016

Posted by Caroline Elliott

My family shot this month is from our day out on the Stick Man trail at Fineshade Woods. We had such a lovely day so it seemed the perfect place to grab a shot of us all.

As we so often do we used the selfie stick and took a very short video of us all and then captured a few frames. We tend to find this the best way to get most of us smiling. It worked well for 3 of us at least! Maybe one day I will get a shot of all 4 of us smiling!

It has been a bit of a month February… in many ways it has absolutely flown by but it hasn’t always been easy. The pesky illnesses that so many people have been hit by have struck us down at times too and it certainly made some difficult days. Half term was hard work which was a real shame and I was glad to get back to routine. I know that it was mainly hard work because of illness…. but I am apprehensive about the Easter holidays and hope they aren’t quite so hard! We have managed lots of lovely happy times too this month though and have a very busy month ahead so hopefully spring will be kinder to us.

Me and Mine January 2016

Posted by Caroline Elliott

It’s me and mine time and time to share a family photo of us all. At one point I wasn’t sure I would get one of us all but on our family day out a couple of weeks ago I managed to grab a quick family selfie.

LM is a bit bundled up in her scarf and bewildered by the goings on so it isn’t the best photo ever… But I still love it. We are all wrapped up against the cold and Monkey has such a big smile on his face which can’t help but make me smile.

A lovely winters day

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I don’t like winter when it is grey, wet and gloomy, but give me clear blue skies and fresh frosty air and I absolutely love it. I love to get bundled up warm and go for a walk in the crisp air before heading somewhere cosy to warm up afterwards. After a wet week last week the forecast for the Saturday was for a perfect winter’s day, so we made plans to walk over to our local country park. It started out just as us then we thought we would see if the in laws fancied a stroll with us, then hubs’ younger brother decided he would like to come for a bit too.

We strolled over then after meeting up with Granny and Granddaddy had a play on one of the playparks.

Uncle Simon arrived shortly after and we headed in to one of the cafes to warm up with a cuppa and cake.

My teacup is empty at thhis point by the way!

Then it was out for another explore. It was interesting making sure LM stayed away from the lakes as she does love water! She enjoyed strolling along with her family though.

There was a really funny moment where another little one of a similar age saw LM and began ecstatically waving and shouting to her. They had a little meeting of minds here I think and then LM wanted to follow him and his mummy instead of coming with us haha!

We continued our walk via the site of roman villa that hubs and I remember playing on when we were kids.

Randomly there was loads of pretty shellfish shells about (assuming they were dropped by birds but did they get them from the lakes?) some had ice in and Monkey very cutely
decided that they were “baby ice” that were missing their mummy. Daft little cutie!

We got the selfie stick out at this point to get a shot of us all and didn’t too badly with hehe.

By now it was getting toward lunchtime so Uncle Simon headed home and we popped into the other cafe for a bite of lunch and to warm up with another cuppa.

Food obviously tastes much nicer from Mummy’s plate

Last stop of the day was feeding the ducks with LM repeatedly shouting “dah” “dah” at every duck she saw haha. She says dah to other things too but will always shout it at any duck picture or duck she sees so I am pretty sure she means duck some of the time.

Then it was time to head home, with a quick stop for a family selfie along the way.

A lovely winters day.

Our Family in 2015

Posted by Caroline Elliott

So the end of the year is approaching and I am not going to do a full look back at the past year… but I thought it was a good opportunity instead to have a look at all the me and mine shots of our little foursome taken over the past year, to see how much we have all grown and changed.

Some shots are better than others (ahem June!) and the only shot I have of the four of us for December is a pretty rubbish selfie on the bed on Christmas morning… but it is a shot of all of us and you can see how different the kiddies look compared to January, with LM obviously changing the most throughout the course of the year.

There is much to come in 2016, birthdays, a wonderful holiday with my parents, hopefully house sitting for friends in Dorset again, Monkey starting school in September (eek) and generally enjoying our children grow and change every day. I know people say life with children doesn’t get easier it just changes. .. but I have to disagree. Yes there are always challenges, that’s life, but the challenges are different as the children grow and I personally find that things do get easier as the little onesgrow out of the baby stage.

This time next year LM will probably be talking… she may not be napping anymore and at 2 may even be on her way to being toilet trained. Monkey will be at school and hopefully doing well. It will be a very different Christmas and our lives will be different. I can’t help but be excited to see what else 2016 has in store for us and I plan (or hope) to enjoy every minute as much as I can.

Happy New Year to you and all the best for 2016. Thanks for reading!

Me and Mine August 2015

Posted by Caroline Elliott

For this months me and mine I am using some more of the gorgeous shots from our family photoshoot, taken by the wonderful Chris at Distant Cloud Photography.

September marks Hubs and I being together for 5 years (we had our first date on 08.09.10) and wow how things have changed in those 5 years! Things are really chaotic here at the moment with all the building work so I nearly didn’t write a me and mine post at all but as it is nearly our 5 year anniversary I thought I should make the effort.

So here is our little family as we are right now. I think these shots capture the chaos that life with 2 kids is generally!

A Family Photoshoot

Posted by Caroline Elliott

For Christmas my brother and sister in law bought us a really lovely present – a voucher for a portrait shoot with our wedding Photographer, Chris Boland of Distant Cloud Photography. Hubs used to work with Chris many years ago and knew he was starting out as a photographer so it made sense to contact him for our wedding and we absolutely adored the photographs he took of our big day. We had a shoot with him when Monkey was tiny and so were very excited to have another photo shoot with him now we are a family of four.

We always thought we would aim for the shoot to be in the summer but we didn’t plan on it being this late in the summer. We had to cancel the first date we planned due to all of the illness we have had this year, and we finally rebooked it recently. We nearly had to cancel again the day before when I bashed my face on the car – hitting myself right on the bridge of my nose and giving myself a minor black eye!! Blimmin typical on the day before a photoshoot but thankfully make-up managed to cover it and we kept the booking.

We went to our local country park and thankfully it was a lovely day, nice and sunny but not too too hot. I will be honest though, it really was hard work, Monkey was running riot or not wanting to smile or take off his sunglasses. Times when LM jus wanted to walk or was just fed up of being held in place so got really wriggly. I took a few outtake shots of the “behind the scenes” at the photoshoot.. oh the chaos.

But, thankfully Chris is brilliant and managed to get so many amazing shots of us all so it was very very very much worth it. I have popped a few below (Seriously I don’t know how he does it, I do not look this nice normally!)

We are planning a photo wall with some of the shots and I can’t wait to put them up as they are just lovely. Really nice to get such great shots of the kids and some nice ones of us with them.

Have you had family photo shoots? Have you found them hard work too?

Silly Selfie Videos – Me & Mine July 2015

Posted by Caroline Elliott

You may have seen that we have been on a lovely holiday recently so it seems apt to share some of our lovely family shots while we were away. It can always be tricky getting photos of the whole family. We use our phones as cameras these days and don’t have a tripod so selfies are the best way to do it. BUT the front cameras on our phones aren’t that amazing (how I miss the Galaxy S6!) and my arms certainly aren’t long enough to get a good shot of four of us.

Enter the selfie stick! And a fab feature on hubs’ phone whereby you take a video with the main camera, and then can go back through, select the perfect frame and save a high resolution image. The downside is that you can’t see the screen so there is a bit of guesswork involved.

We did this a lot on our lovely holiday at some really gorgeous places so I have loads of family shots for this month’s Me & Mine. Some of the shots worked surprisingly well… but others less so. As after all we can’t see the screen and the stick moves around and we have a 3 year old and a 9 month old who aren’t always cooperative and who don’t always smile or look where we want them to. So sometimes there are 3 of us similing, sometimes we cut off heads, cut off whatever is in the background of the shot… and trying to make kiddies smile, oh the videos are amusing to watch!

So here are some of the best shots… and some amusing out-takes… and, purely for fun, one of the videos we took to get these shots!

So if you fancy a chuckle have a look at one of the examples of the videos… one where Monkey is being particularly uncooperative and driving us potty! 🙂

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

family photos

Who do they look like?

Me and Mine March 2016

Our Easter 2016

Me and Mine February 2016

Me and Mine January 2016

A lovely winters day

Our Family in 2015

Me and Mine August 2015

A Family Photoshoot

Silly Selfie Videos – Me & Mine July 2015