The sun!

Have you ever noticed how everything looks so much better when the sun is shining? I'm sure you have. Living in England, it is quite a big deal when the weather is beautiful, so we appreciate every single time.

It's been a shame that both times I have given birth it has been right at the end of summer, ready for the long dreary autumn and winter months. Not that I don't love autumn colours and crisp frosty mornings, but it is just a different feeling. I feel that the gloom of the darker, colder months has contributed to me having post-natal depression both times.

Anyway, with the return of the sun I have been feeling much better and loving being outside. Our living room is very small, especially with toys lining the edges! Leaving the back door open, to me, is like having a big extension. My kids both behave so much better outside too.

We went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park yesterday as a family and here are some of the photos of us out in the sunshine :)

Ben wanted to go on the swing in the playground most of the time (about 2 hours out of the 3.5 we spent there!) but we had a great time. Other than that, it was all about the penguins.

The red panda!!! Dave and I have wanted to see one of these for ages, and we just ran into this one. We didn't even go looking for him, I just suddenly spotted him as we were walking past to the playground. Sooooo cute!

Origami

I've picked up a new hobby: origami!

Dave bought me a set of nice origami paper a while ago and I'd dabbled a little, but the book that came with it was not very inspiring and designed for children I think. Then a while back I pinched one of the origami books that we had as kids (which are certainly not designed for children, but are MUCH better) from Mum's house, and finally I've put the two together.

Dave was out at a friend's one night last week playing board games, so I took the opportunity to get going. These are what I made:

Any guesses?

Okay, this one is a nodding dog! It was really fun actually and I liked the fact that you use two pieces of paper so you can get two colours. His tail was the hardest part and I'm still not 100% sure it's right, but it's the best I can do right now. It's called a 'rabbit ear fold', and the pictures aren't particularly clear. If I have any closet origami experts following, please feel free to tell me if it is wrong, as long as you are willing to help me get it right.

You just balance the head on the body so it kind of rocks.

And this is a vase! Apparently it will hold water. This one was amazing because you do all the folds first and it's quite fiddly, but you still have a flat pieces of paper. Then you fold it all up at once and it becomes 3D: delightful! This one was great fun to make.

You can vary the height and width by changing the position of the folds, it's very clever.

I am trying to take it slowly going through the book in order as the preface recommends. I want to learn the principles and memorise the different types of folds before I try anything too ambitious. I would like to be able to invent my own models one day, so I'm trying to be thorough.

The mental state or quality of being resolved or resolute; firmness of purpose

Now for the obligatory New Year's Resolution post.

Here is my basic list, in reverse order of importance to me. Then I'm going to ramble a little about each one:

1. Use only reused/'bag-for-life' shopping bags

2. Lose the 10lbs I've retained since becoming pregnant with Amelia.

3. Wear make up more often than I don't

4. Ride my bike at least twice a week.

5. Work on my addiction to worrying.

6. Cook healthy, homemade meals for my family and eat dinner together every day.

7. Attend the temple at least once this year.

8. Seek out and nourish uplifting friendships.

Okay...

1. This morning I cleaned up the top of our fridge, which was previously the dumping ground for plastic carrier bags from grocery shops. It took about 10 minutes to gather up all of the bags! This shall not happen again. I will keep 'bag-for-life's in my car boot and I will use them and renew them.

2. I have only 10lbs to lose to become the weight I was when I returned from my mission. I loved those days when I could just pull on anything and look good, and they shall return! I'm not hugely bothered about this one, but I would like to get back to my optimum size of 10/12 trousers before I hit 30. Tops we won't talk about, but when I'm done breastfeeding and can wear proper bras again I will see what the lay of the land is.

3. I like wearing make up, and it makes me feel good. It only takes me about 3 minutes to apply the level of make up that makes me feel gorgeous, and whilst I don't think it is important to wear it every day, I would like to make the effort more often than I don't. I'm talking literally the bare minimum it's worth it to apply here: just a bit of blush, quick dash of eye liner and a lazy lip gloss (thanks Camilla!). Then I won't have to dodge cameras!

4. I LOVE riding my bike: see this post. Enough said.

5. Worrying: this is a big one for me that I won't get into too much now. I just can't help myself turning over and over in my mind things that I can do absolutely nothing about. I worry and fret and give myself a headache and lose sleep, all for nothing. I am not yet sure how to work on this one, but I have some ideas for how to find out.

NOW for the big three!

6. I love to cook and I want to eat more healthily. I actually find cooking very relaxing. I'm not going to beat myself up here because I have just had a baby, but we haven't eaten particularly healthily the past few months. I want to be the kind of wife that can whip up a healthy, delicious meal from nothing, and have it waiting on the stove when my hubbie arrives home. I want to know how to dress up cheaper kinds of meat really well to make them taste as good as expensive cuts. I think that this is a skill and it's one I would like to develop. My mum taught me a lot of this when I was living at home, but when you have young kids it's easy to get into bad, lazy habits.

This is a big one because it doesn't just happen, it will take a lot of effort and preparation. Along with it goes routines, planning meals, careful budgeting and savvy shopping, sacrificing time with Dave and time playing with the kids, learning the art of the slow cooker (lol), experimentation and lots of washing up! But I am excited.

I'll have to keep a record of how it goes on here, and will probably write about my reasons for doing it at some point too. It relates a lot to Benjamin's eating habits and routine.

7. I have been to the temple once since I gave birth to Benjamin, and I wasn't able to do a session. A couple of things have happened lately to make me doubt my judgement as to whether I should have been attending during that time, and I've had a really hard time over it. Maybe that's for another post, maybe it is private- I'm not sure yet, but either way I won't go into it now. I would like to attend the temple and do a session some time this year though, depending on Amelia. If I'm not able to do a session, I will go to the grounds with the children at least once.

8. I've been thinking a lot about friendships past and present these last few months. I have realised and come to terms with the fact that many friendships don't last forever, and that is okay. Sometimes people cross our lives for a season and are amazingly helpful to us, or we are helpful to them, for a while, but then the way life takes us means that maintaining that relationship is impossible, or so hard that you'd be better off using your energy elsewhere. I don't mean this to sound harsh, just realistic.

At the moment, I don't think I have anyone that I would call a close friend, outside my family and Lee. And that's been okay for a while. I am lucky to have married the best friend I've ever had, and to be blessed with 3 amazing sisters and a wonderful mother that I am very close to. Lee was my best friend before my mission and lives in Birmingham. We've managed to stay well in touch, and he's someone I can talk to about anything that bothers me.

I haven't had a best female friend since way before my mission. I have major issues with opening up my heart to women, other than my family, as a result of being majorly hurt in the past. I want to try to get over that this year. Because as a married woman there's only so much you can do with a guy friend. I can't ring up Lee and see if he wants to go out for lunch or go out shopping together like we used to. Well, I could, but that would be a bit weird without D, if you get what I mean. And I miss having that kind of relationship with someone. I am lonely. There, I've said it!

D and I don't even have any close couple friends that we can spend time with. Since we moved to Cheltenham, at church it just seems like everybody has somebody, except us. Woe is us!

Sooooo...

I am going to invest time and energy in seeking out and building friendships with women, where those relationships will uplift and improve me. I will find a friend this year!

That's a lot to be getting on with I know, but it's all important to me. I feel quite positive about this year and being able to improve myself and become happier.

A big girl bed

I wrote this in January and never got around to finishing it, but here it is: to be continued soon....

We had a pretty rough Christmas sleep-wise. About a week before Dave finished work for the holidays, our lovely baby girl stopped sleeping for longer than two hours, EVER. I'm talking day, night, day, night... it just won't end! Some nights she wakes up every hour, feeds for twenty minutes and falls asleep, then wakes up the next hour. So I've been getting maybe five or six 40 minutes blocks a night. AND this has coincided with the fourth-ish week of Benjamin's refusal to nap during the day- joy!

This is how it's gone the past few weeks: I would start to put her up to bed around 7 as usual, leave her asleep at about 7.45, then spend the rest of the evening going up and settling her over and over again, while Dave sat on the computer entertaining himself, unsure whether he would get to see his wife for longer than 10 minutes that day. It's been HORRENDOUS! Apologies for the potentially irritating use of capitals, but they don't even bring it close to how I've been feeling.
I feel lonely, up there all 'alone' scrabbling for the chance at a life. I feel that she is being completely unreasonable. All I want is a couple of hours to call my own. I look after these children all day, and I just want to spend a little time with my husband, is that too much to ask?? Clearly yes!

I have a rule with my kids that once it is bedtime, they stay upstairs. I have never once brought Benjamin downstairs after bedtime; I want him to respect that boundary so I have to too. I need time to be me. This does, of course, lead to the self-imposed torture I describe above. It has also meant several miserable nights spent in the rocking chair! But I believe it has been a huge factor in my Ben's miraculous habit of going to bed at 6.30 every single night and never being seen or heard until morning (I know that seems a little early, but we are early risers and he is up around 5.30/6am anyway, whatever time he goes to bed).

So I'm trying to think outside the box, and one thing we're trying at the moment is... the big girl bed!

It's a toddler bed I bought on eBay for Ben a while ago, although he's not interested in it at all. I raised it high enough to be level with our bed and hey presto! Her own bed that is actually still part of our bed. Incase anyone was wondering why there's a little green sheet on there, I have to double up sheets as she sleeps on her tummy and slobbers all over the bed! Parenthood makes you think laterally lol.

Christmas!

This was our first Christmas at home just us as a family. It was so nice not to have to travel and to be able to eat whenever dinner was ready. We had an hour long Sacrament meeting at church, and it was wonderful to see everyone there! I was impressed with the turn out- pretty much the same as a usual Sunday. It was great to start the day focusing on the Saviour.

It was also my first time making Christmas dinner alone! Although Dave did help a little when I was feeding Amelia. I was super organised and had everything ready to just be shoved in the oven or have water poured onto it at the appropriate moment, and had written a list of what needed putting in when and how many minutes to put on the timer next. I am extremely proud of myself, and especially my gammon.

D suggested it would be nice to have gammon for a change this year, as we would normally have turkey. I thought that was a great idea, but it was Christmas Eve Eve before I realised I had never done one before and had no idea how to dress it! Thanks to Google I found a delicious recipe sans mustard (D doesn't like mustard) and it turned out perfectly.

Ben decided he'd prefer fish fingers for his Christmas dinner, although he had a nibble on a yorkshire pudding too. Strange child. But we were just grateful that he was happy and low maintenance while we ate.

Amelia had a present while we ate, and she sat happily playing with it for most of the meal. She LOVES her Oball!

We decided to take it easy with the presents and just let Ben open them as and when he wanted to. This worked quite well and we actually opened the last few yesterday (27th). He is very obsessive and needs to be able to look at and take in what he's got before he tackles something else. It's kind of nice really because it means he enjoys each thing, rather than just tossing presents aside and going for the next one.

We tried a few times to get a nice family photo by the tree, or even just pictures of the children, but it didn't really work! This photo pretty much summarises the experience: Ben constantly moving outside the frame and making everyone else laugh! He's brilliant.

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas. Happy New Year!

Gok Wan and the perfect boots

As some of you may know, I have a bit of a thing for Gok Wan.

There he is. Lovely man. I don't fancy him or anything... or maybe I do... I don't know... but anyway, I like him a lot and I want him to be my best friend. I used to love watching Gok's Fashion Fix when we had a TV licence, much to D's disgust!

So imagine my delight when Gok popped up in my dream the other night.

In the dream, D had got tickets to see a Gok fashion show for my birthday. I had a cunning plan that I would dress shockingly badly, then Gok would see that I needed his help, kit me out like a model in free clothes, and we'd be friends forever. And being a dream, it all went according to my plan! I wore these hideous boots that I would never be seen dead in except in an attempt to lure Gok into eternal friendship, and when he saw me in the car park he came and took me by the hand to help me. We went into the studio and I got all my beautiful new clothes and was feeling like Cinderella, then... THE PERFECT BOOTS!

Haha, I have been saving up for beautiful boots for months, so my subconscious obviously knew how much I needed them! In the dream they were these gorgeous jazzberry suede stilettos, about knee high, oh my.

Something like this, but without the platform and, obviously, a boot. I would never buy something this impractical in real life, as it'd be a good 3 years before I could safely wear them without falling over a small child and possibly taking someone's eye out, but what are dreams for, hey?

Gok decided I looked so good he'd put me in the show, so I got to walk down the catwalk in my amazing, free, designer outfit, then the real models brought me flowers and a 3D jigsaw puzzle of London attractions! It was one of the best nights of my life!

I did buy my boots about a week ago, but they ended up being flats and chocolate brown. I do love them though :) And they were half outlet price (about a quarter normal price), so bonus!

Being the favourite

There is a quotation I've heard before that I just love. I don't even know who it's by, but it goes:

To the world, you may be just one person.

To to one person, you may be the world.

I just love that! I've always loved the quotation, but since having children it's meant so much more to me.

Because these little people, they come into our lives so helpless and dependent. And we love them so much and so instantly. We give to them until we feel we cannot possibly give another second or another thing, and then we somehow give a lot more!

And the most wonderful thing about that is that they love us absolutely!

When Benjamin was tiny and I was battling with post-natal depression, my Mum said to me, "You are the most important person in his life." and at the time it wasn't what I wanted to hear. I felt like I wanted to escape my responsibilities and be free. But gradually I realised that I wanted to be that person, I wanted to be his mummy, I wanted to be the most important person in his world. That's one of the reasons I decided not to go back to work, but to be a stay at home mum.

Wanting to take care of them; with Ben, it happened the first time he put his arms up to ask me to pick him up. With Amelia it was the first time I laid eyes on her.

I don't want someone else to be the most important person in their lives, I want them to come to me when they fall over and hurt themselves, and I want to be the one they look over to when they do something very clever. How could I possibly give that to someone else? Obviously some people have to, and some people choose to, but not me!

I have come to realise, even more now that I have two children and my attention is always split, that I don't have to be perfect. Neither of my kids are sitting there with a scorecard, rating my performance and loving me in proportion to that. They love me completely whatever I do: no matter what. As long as I am enough, that's enough.

D said once that I was 3 people's favourite- it was just an incidental comment but it meant a lot to me. Because I am! And because I know it won't always be that way, and that's okay, but for now it is glorious. Even in the middle of the night when it has to be me, and even when both kids are sad at the same time and for both of them it has to be me! It's exhausting, but it's wonderful.