Our Anniversay

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.

our wedding

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!

A Mystery Illness & A Winter Wedding

This weekend was the wedding of one of my closest friends. I had been looking forward to it for so long and been pretty involved in the planning (and stress) of it as one of the bridesmaids. Suffice to say what we did not need the week before the wedding was the illness and sleepless nights we had last week! I was shattered, spotty with huge bags under my eyes (not an ideal look for wedding photos) and had to pull out of a couple of sessions where I was supposed to help make wedding favours etc 🙁 . Luckily the bride was very understanding and I think she just wanted me to try and rest when I could to eliminate the bags under my eyes!

Monkey slowly started to get better as the week progressed but then LM got a bit more grumpy than usual. Then she developed a weird spot on one hand, followed by one on the opposite hand the following day. Around this time I found out that a friend’s little girl, who we had seen the previous week, had come down with chicken pox. I googled what this looked like and immediately thought this may be it. Not exactly good timing with a wedding to attend at the weekend and Monkey just starting to feel better!

But then nothing happened. She didn’t get any poorlier and no more spots appeared. She had a funny spot on one ear but other than that it was just one on each knuckle. Which is an odd place to get chicken pox as they usually start on your face and torso. With the wedding looming I took her to the Dr on Friday afternoon, mainly so we could know one way or another really. But that didn’t happen as the Dr wasn’t sure what it was either! It could be chicken pox, or it could  be hand foot & mouth, or it could be nothing, We would have to wait a few days and see but it was probably a viral infection of some sort.

She had been so grumpy lately and with the bride being 6 mths pregnant we decided not to risk taking a potentially contagious baby with us to the wedding. Meaning I had to go solo :(. Friday night I made it to the venue with the other bridesmaid and we spent the evening decorating tables and cupcakes and generally getting things ready.

Saturday morning I had my hair done at 8am and then once Monkey had been collected by Nanny & Aunty Maggie (as had always been the plan for the day) I left a grumpy hubs with LM and headed to the venue to meet the bride and other bridesmaid, to get the last few bits ready in the reception room, then get ourselves ready for a beautiful wedding.

It was a hectic morning but was such a beautiful wedding and I love a good wedding, always so nice to see people marry the one they love and even more special when they are good friends of yours. I really missed hubs and would’ve been lovely to spend the day together but it was the right decision not to take the baby. If she had been there it would have been stressful constantly wondering if she was ok and what hubs was doing with her, when what I really needed to do was concentrate on the bride. Luckily I had a lot of friends there too so I never felt alone or anything. The biggest downside was with photos though, I only managed a few snaps throughout the day (mainly just of me and my friends mucking about) and they aren’t exactly brilliant but here they are.

Sarah's wedding

I am looking forward to seeing the professional shots of the day as I am sure they will be better than these! I had a good time with my friends though and it was lovely after such a rough week to really forget about the kiddies for a while (knowing they were being looked after) and just be me for the day. LM seemed to perk up during the day too so Hubs didn’t have a terrible day with her and she has been a bit perkier since. Another couple of spots have appeared on one of her fingers but we still aren’t really sure what is up with her. We may never know 100% whether it is chicken pox…. unless she gets it again I suppose!

Mama and More

A Winter Wedding

The last couple of weeks have been pretty rough and this weekend on the whole wasn’t much better. Hubs had seemed like he was getting better, then got hit with a hideous sinus infection which took him out for most of the weekend. We were abandoning various plans, but knew that on Sunday we were due at the wedding of some really good friends. So Sunday morning Hubs was at the walk-in centre getting antibiotics for both sinus and chest infections, and some strong painkillers to get him through the day.

We questioned the wisdom of going to the wedding but really, its a wedding! It’s a one off event for the bride and groom and we would have hated to have missed it. Monkey was already planned to spend the day with Grandparents, so off he went leaving hubs and I a bit more time than normal to get ourselves ready.

So for the first time since LM was born I sat and straightened my hair and put some slap on. I got into a pretty dress and control tights (squeezing into them was a bit of a challenge as I very much still have baby weight on!) and it felt really nice to make a bit of an effort for a change. Lately has felt like survival and even having a shower, let alone washing my hair, has been like a luxury some days so this felt very special!

LM had a new dress for the occasion and I have never put a baby in a dress and tights before so the tights were interesting (they were a bit big too so she looks slightly nora batty ish) but she looked adorable. 🙂

So off we went and had a wonderful time. It was a beautiful day and we were so glad we went. LM was good as gold and slept throughout, meaning that actually hubs and I could sit and relax and just chat, with each other and with friends. At home life seems so busy with the baby and the toddler and there is always so much that needs doing that sitting and relaxing doesn’t happen much at the moment. Being there actually forced us to do just that and it did us both the world of good to just be us for a while.

The bride was beautiful and they were both so happy it was a really lovely, I love a good wedding. It was a really intimate ceremony and we felt so privileged to have been included and would have hated to have not been able to go.

So here is a few snaps of us in our glad rags, enjoying a lovely winter wedding :).

winter wedding

Mama and More

Super Busy Mum

An emotional week

This week the word I am going for is emotional. It has been full of emotions, both happy and … less happy this week.

P1040196Starting with the happiest, we were at a wedding last Friday which was just beautiful. You can read more here but it really was wonderful and they had so many personal little touches to their day that it was a bit emotional. During the ceremony I teared up right at the start as  instead of walking down the aisle to meet him at the alter, the groom left the alter and came and got her. He took her hand and they kissed before walking up the aisle together. I just thought it was a beautiful moment and makes me tear up even thinking about it. I hated walking up the aisle at our wedding, with everyone staring at me so I wish we had thought to do this at ours!

Hubby and I were also full of pride when we came home as Monkey handled our absence amazingly well. Our little man really is growing up right in front of our eyes.

Unfortunately then the week turned a little gloomy. I was really tired and in quite a lot of pain with my pelvis after standing a lot at the wedding and spending about 6 hours in the car there and back. Tiredness and soreness sadly makes me a tad on the mardy side so there was a grumpy couple of days at the beginning of the week! Poor hubs!

By Wednesday I was feeling a lot better and a day catching up with friends while the kids all played made me feel back to my normal happy self. Then that night, disaster struck. I have no idea how it happened, I was in the kitchen getting the last bits for dinner, hubby and Monkey were sat at the table. then I heard some very odd scuffly noises and saw hubby leaping in a panic and then scooping Monkey off the floor. Somehow, Monkey had managed to fall off his chair.

This is the boy that loves climbing and scampers up climbing frames and is running about all day without coming to any harm. He sits on his chair in the dining room, the chair he sits on at least twice a day, and manages to fall off. It may not sound that bad yet, but he must have landed right on his face as he is a mess the poor lamb. Hubby scooped him up for a cuddle and then we realised there was blood everywhere, it was pouring out of his little mouth and even after we managed to slow the bleeding we really struggled to console him.

Twitter2893c65Honestly we haven’t seen him so unhappy for so long since the days of colic as a baby. Of course he cries sometimes, and has cried a lot during illnesses but we always manage to soothe him with a combination of cuddles, singing, stories, tv but on Wednesday none of these worked and we were really worried. It was clear he was in a lot of pain and was really stressed out by the fall.

I then had a bit of inspiration and we gave him an ice lolly, in the hope that the ice would help his wounds, make him a bit numb, take the taste of blood out of his mouth and hopefully take his mind off of it.Thankfully that and a bit of Postman Pat on the TV worked and soon enough he was back to his usual happy self again. Phew!

His poor little face though is so swollen and sore looking. He seems to have bounced back from his ordeal but hubby and I are taking a lot longer to recover from the stress of it all. I’ve honestly been an emotional wreck and couldn’t stop crying the next morning. I’m partially blaming my preggo hormones but seeing his swollen little face just broke my heart and I have just been worrying non stop. Rationally I know it is fine and he will heal but it just looks so awful and painful. It really is horrendous seeing him hurt and that’s only a bash on the face. I can’t imagine what a wreck I would be if anything serious happened to him, heaven forbid!!

I’ve also been well and truly on over-protective mama mode, not like me at all, but I am terrified that he will bash his lip and re-open the wounds so have been insisting on a lot of calm indoor play at home to avoid any more dramas while it heals. Not easy with a hyper toddler who loves to run around like a little loony!!

I also know it’s daft. He’s a toddler. He’s clumsy and sometimes he is going to hurt himself. I am not one for wrapping kids on cotton wool as I know it is part of the rough and tumble of childhood. I also know that you can’t protect them every second of every day, it’s just not realistic. Who would have ever thought he would do so much damage falling off a chair that he climbs up on and gets down from by himself multiple times every day? I just don’t want him to have another knock that reopens it or makes it worse!

It has definitely been an emotional week in our house, how has your week been?

The Reading Residence

Baby Brain at 30 wks & Bump goes to a wedding!

30 weeks pregnant. Wowzers, when you put it like that it is a little scary! I swear I was only just 20 weeks?? Blimey! So what is going on? I’m not sure I can even remember because Baby Brain is well and truly here. I am forgetting all sorts of things that I really shouldn’t be forgetting. I am getting names and dates muddled. I am committing to things, forgetting we already have things planned. I ordered shopping to come on Thursday night so my Parents and Leo would have food over the weekend while Hubby and I were away but somehow ordered it for the wrong week. Meaning hubby had to go out Thursday night and buy everything instead (on top of doing a load of other things to prepare for leaving at 8am the next morning to get to a wedding). Continue reading