Merry New Year

Happy New Year if I haven’t said it already. Yes, that just about sums it up. I want you all to have a year that is both new and happy 🙂 and just like last year, that’s what I hope for myself too.

Christmas has come and gone and was as good as we hoped. The week leading up to Christmas saw both Ben and I (ok mainly Ben) up to our eyes in flat pack instructions and Allen keys. We bought Oscar a KidKraft Kitchen as his main present, which took two full evenings to assemble and my mum gave him a book case that took at least an hour of Christmas Eve. But it was all appreciated by the little guy, who loves his kitchen (he’s taken to microwaving Thomas the Tank Engine poor old chap) and being able to access his books easily.

Flat pack to the max! But how gorgeous is this KidKraft play kitchen? It’s nicer than my actual kitchen!

As we weren’t visiting family over Christmas, they’d all managed to get the boys presents to us before hand. What a very lucky young man!

As, we did the year before, we went out for lunch on Christmas Day. Unfortunately it wasn’t the roaring success it was in 2013, which was a real shame. Our booking was for 2.30pm but we didn’t get our main course until 5pm! Thankfully Oscar was an absolute trooper and sat, in a high chair, for nigh on three hours without any real complaining. I was so proud of him. However it has made me think next Christmas I want more control over said dinner, as I can’t guarantee he’d cope so well every year. Short of moving house or building a giant extension in the next twelve months, the issue of not having anywhere to sit to eat at home will remain, so a bit more lateral thinking may be required. Hmmm, watch this space!

Clever mama keeping some gifts back to entertain the boy at the table. If I do say so myself 😉

Boxing Day was really the triumph of the holiday. We literally did nothing and it was superb. We stayed in our Christmas jammas all day, watched TV, played with our toys (if you follow me on social media you may have heard I got an iPad for Christmas. Oh, you didn’t hear? Well I GOT AN IPAD FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!) and ate enough cheese and chocolate to put us into a lactose induced coma. It was bliss.

Pyjamas and playing. Superb.

All in all it was a lovely festive break. Ben was at home for nigh on two weeks, which the boy took full advantage of. Daddy’s such a softie compared to mama and many a time the boy simply took Ben by the hand and dragged him upstairs to play in the bedrooms. We also took advantage of Ben being home more to transition the boy from a cot to a bed. I know at 2 years 9 months we’re pretty late to this particular party, but I wanted to make sure Oscar was really really ready for it and besides he’d never manage to climb out of the cot so why change it 😉 . We had to slightly rearrange home room to fit in the new bookcase so took the opportunity to remove the cot bars, just from one side to begin with. We left him in his grobag for the first few nights, but he coped so well we decided to buy him a single duvet (turning it sideways and tucking it right under the mattress) and proper pillow. I still can’t get over how easily he’s taken to it. It didn’t upset him in the slightest and he’s slept brilliantly. What a star!

Reading bedtime stories in his big boy bed

New Year was as uneventful as the year before, but I know we weren’t the only ones staying in. That’s what having small children does for you I suppose. I cooked steaks and we drank prosecco at midnight. Gone are the days of me running in to the street at midnight, shouting my drunken head off. At least for now!

So a New Year, what does it hold? I remember being so thoroughly pumped for 2014, more excited than I’ve ever been. 2015 has me feeling more cautious. I can feel this is going to be a year of big changes (I don’t know why I feel this I just do!) I feel a need for things to happen. Does that make sense. Less excited more purposeful. Older? Wiser perhaps. I want to feel I’m doing the best by everyone. I also want to enjoy life, learn and grow. Not much then 😉

I hope you had the Christmas you wanted for yourself and your loved ones and 2015 is everything it can and will be.

Cheers!

 

 

Just in case!

Hello there and a happy 2014 to you!

I wasn’t planning to write today, but just in case the old adage of “what you do on New Years Day, you do for the rest of the year” is true, I wanted to write. My blog is so important to me and I want it to be a big part of my year.

So here it is:

I hope you all had the Christmases you hoped for. Mine was lovely, spent pretty much doing exactly as I planned. I got to see my son opening his presents (all on his own, not like last year where we pretty much did it for him!) and love the things we gave him.

Cars!!!!

I got to spend the big day eating my favourite foods, with my favourite guys. After Christmas I also got to visit family and friends and have a whale of a time, laughing, talking and having a bevvy or two (or three or four!) I felt very lucky.

New Years Eve was a bit of a funny one really. We were back home and I spent most of the day feeling miserable because we hadn’t arranged to do anything. I felt I was missing out, in a way that hadn’t bothered me for the past two years, when I was either too pregnant or too tired to care. I like to think this is a real indicator of just how far I’ve come. I had the energy. I wanted to do something. In the end we agreed to drink the champagne we never got round to at Christmas, I cooked steak and we watched Waking the Dead with the lovely Trevor Eve on Netflix. And do you know? It was a lush evening. I would still like to be a bit more organised and plan to do something for New Year this year, but seeing out 2013, alone with the guy I love was fab – because we made it so 😉

So. A new year then. I’m not one for making New Years Resolutions. I used to be. They were always unrealistic with absolutely no thought put into how to achieve them. I’d get a few days in and quit or fail. And feel a failure. But this year I thought I’d have another crack at it.

This year I resolve to be happy.

Yup, that’s my resolution. To be happy in my life, in what I do and how I do it. I want to be a good mother, I want to keep losing weight, I want to keep writing, I’d like to earn some money. None of these are resolutions in themselves, but they are just some of the things I intend to do to help me achieve my resolution. To be happy.

Cheers!

I’ve never felt so excited at New Year for what might lie ahead. Watch out 2014 – you’re mine!!!!

xxxx