I’m terribly late posting this, because of various things happening in the end of September and first half of October causing blogging to take a backseat for a while.
We took last month’s family photo while we were at Warwick Castle for the Mike the Knight event. I used the timer on my camera for this shot and although it’s not a terribly flattering angle I still really like it as it is a photo of our family, all four of us together, on a fun day out.
I’m finding this photo project is brilliant because it means that I have it in my mind on family outings that I should try to take more family photos.
September was a busy month for us, with Georgie beginning her preschool playgroup, and several fun blogger events. Lydia got into the swing of things as an only child in the mornings, loving the experience of attending stay & play and dance class solo. I hosted my first twitter party and we even got a night out with our friends for a 30th birthday celebration, complete with cocktails and dancing.
August seems to have flown by in a flash, with some great highs and quite difficult lows. I haven’t got as much as I hoped done over the Summer holidays, although that’s partly because we’ve been busier than expected, and also because we’ve had some unexpected financial outlays to make that have helped put furniture/houseware purchases and decorating on hold.
Both of the family portraits for August were taken at LolliBop Festival which we visited a few weeks ago (blog post coming soon). It was a really fun family day out and all four of us enjoyed ourselves. It’s lovely that Lydia is old enough now to participate in & enjoy things more, along with her big sister.
The quality of these photos aren’t amazing, as they were taken for us by someone unfamiliar with my camera – and on a windy day at that. But despite their slight fuzziness, and everyone looking in different directions, I love them, as they are photos of all four of us, on a day out together that we all enjoyed.
Besides, it’s not every day that you get to sit on a giant deckchair (even if the resulting photo isn’t actually all that flattering!)…
August started with a day at Alton Towers, and we spent just over a week in Cornwall staying with my parents, followed by the weekend at my Brother’s, with the day at LolliBop. Coming back from our busybusy holidays we were all tired and promptly got a bug for a few days which was pretty annoying. Things got back to normal a bit and I managed to do a bit of blogging and some work, signing off on a few projects and making clients happy. We also spent a day at Chessington as part of the Samsung Galaxy K Zoon campaign I have been taking part in.
The worst thing about August was coming out of a year+ long remission period for the cluster headache disorder that I suffer from. Basically, a week full of awful periods of debilitating pain, unpleasant medication side effects, broken sleep and having to deal with the difficulties of looking after the kids whilst being so unwell. Happily, I was back in remission again in time for the Goodman photography workshop in Birmingham city centre yesterday, which was great fun. I am still feeling the effects of my horrible week with low energy levels and a nasty cold courtesy of my eldest. Anyway, self-pity part over.
The kids really enjoyed August. We had some great days out and saw every member of my immediate family which is no small feat given that we’re all hours away from each other. Georgie and Lydia definitely enjoyed spending time with their Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles & Cousins, and Georgie cried every time we had to go away from them.
I have plenty I want to blog about in more detail and reviews to catch up on, after such a difficult few months for blogging and working I am determined to crack on in September, and work hard to reduce my to-do list and lower my stress levels – but hopefully without overdoing it!
Me & Mine is a family portrait project hosted by 7 bloggers, encouraging blogging families to capture a photo of the entire family together at least once a month. I love photos of us all as a family and we really don’t have enough, so I want to try and participate in this project monthly so that I end up with a series of photos of my little family that I know I will treasure in the years to come. I am going to use these posts a a chance to write a little update about what we’ve been up to and how the girls are getting on too.
This month I took advantage of our day out in the woods to get some photos of the four of us together.
I took these with my Samsung NX1000 camera using the gorillapod I “rescued” (stole) from the dusty depths of my Dad’s storage cupboard. We got a few strange looks for dangling the camera off random tree branches! I used the shutter on a timer but it was such a faff running back & forth that I think I will just use the remote shutter on the NX iPhone app next month instead.
July has been a bit of a difficult month for us. Apologies in advance for some whining! My birthday weekend was great and we’ve had some nice days, but I have been suffering a lot with bad headaches and more migraines than normal, which is mostly due to the heat I think. I have been ill with some sort of bug or heatstroke since Sunday so I wasn’t sure if I was going to get this posted, but I am glad I managed to sleep last night which has gone a long way to getting me back on my feet after an awful few days.
I love spending time outside in the garden with the kids though, so we have been enjoying the nice weather and playing out there a lot. Our neighbours have got accustomed to two naked little girls squealing happily as they splash in the water and bounce on the trampoline. The weather is brilliant for getting washing dry too so I have been working our way through the piles of laundry – handy since Georgie is generating extra washing right now with her potty training!
We have gone to our last playgroup sessions for the summer holidays and Georgie was quite upset to leave our Thursday afternoon one after their summer party. I’m taking this as a good sign, because she starts there in September for five mornings a week – they run nursery sessions each morning, and then a stay and play group Thursday afternoon which has been useful for us, getting to know the staff and location.
Our internet was playing up for around 3 or 4 weeks this month and the Virgin Media customer service experience was truly terrible. I found it really hard to work or blog when I could barely get the internet to maintain a stable connection so I am behind in both and the stress is a bit much for me, I have been feeling very bad about not being able to work much, when I have jobs to be getting on with. The house is looking tidier though as I was able to spend time sorting a few things out while cursing Virgin Media under my breath! After a couple of engineer visits and some new equipment inside & out I think the problem is now sorted, but time will tell. They did give us a month refund so that’s something at least.
Lydia is talking a lot more these days, although not everyone understands what she is saying! Cheese, share, thank you, and tada! are some of her favourite new words. She is super cheeky and such a monkey, some of her antics this month have been hilarious.
Georgie is potty training which has caused some stress this month; it is taking a while to get sorted and a tummy bug that knocked me and the girls out for a few days set her back a lot. Just one accident yesterday though so hopefully we’ve cracked it! Lydia is joining in a bit with some wees on the potty, so we have to have two potties upstairs and two downstairs, so they can sit on them together.
Georgiana is really imaginative and loves to play any sort of role play game, with frequent “trips to the park” with her teddies, having carpet picnics at the bottom of the stairs with play food from the kitchen. The dog bed is repurposed as a boat on a daily basis and she has started singing songs to her teddies too – lullabies and birthday songs, mostly.
Well that’s July in a rather long winded nutshell! I’m going to be posting what we are looking forward to this summer, and August is looking exciting so hopefully next month will be a better one!
