it's been a while.

Wow I've been crazy busy and have barely had time to stop and think about a post let alone write any. In between work, spending time with Harry and preparing for Christmas these past two months have flown by.



This Christmas was excellent. We spent plenty of time with the family and enjoyed lots of food and games. Harry was slightly overwhelmed by all the people but not really interested in the gifts at all. I mean seriously not even the paper or boxes really.

He did receive a lovely Christmas jumper which made my day though.

But now we're thinking about the new year. I've have started thinking about a resolution. I mean who doesn't right? I wonder if this will be the year I keep it?

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Dear Harry.

Dear Harry,

7 months ago ( give or take a few days ) I entered into motherhood. Becoming your mumma. It has been a wonderful, challenging, life changing journey which I have truly loved.

Tomorrow I return to work. To be honest I thought this day would never come but it has. You are so precious to me and I can't even begin to put into words how wonderful these last 7 months with you have been.

We've laughed. We've cried. We've grown so much. And every part of me loves you intensely.

I will always be here for you.

Yours,

Mumma

pumpkin?

Today I bought a pumpkin. I had no idea what to look for in a pumpkin and there were three different sizes on offer along with this 'culinary' pumpkin. I hope I chose a good one!

You may remember I blogged about my autumn bucket list back in September (you can read that post here) and as part of the list I wanted to roast pumpkin seeds and make pumpkin pancakes well I really want to get maximum use out of this vegetable fruit so have been looking up some other ideas.

How yummy do these four things look? Find the pumpkin spiced latte recipe here, the pumpkin spice donuts here, the pumpkin and goats cheese pies here and the sausage and pumpkin roast here.

 

I have no idea if I'll end up making any of these recipes but don't they look great? Do you have any recipes you could share? I'll let you know what I do with my pumpkin and how the the roasted seeds and pancakes turn out.

 

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Oh! And also... how awesome do these decorated pumpkins look? We're not into Hallowe'en but these pumpkins look so pretty I may just have to have a go.

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our boy is six months.

how cute are those pudgy arms?!

Harry is now six months. Here's a round up of his royal loveliness...

He loves:

♥ swimming. We have had swimming lessons since he was 8 weeks and he can now swim a short way underwater between mumma and daddy. it is so cool.

♥ pulling hair. Grabbing mumma's hair is probably one of his most favourite things to do. Mine not so much.

♥ singing. We sing to him a lot. Daddy often plays guitar and sings which he is fascinated by but I tend to stick to good old fashioned nursery rhymes. Twinkle twinkle little star is always bound to raise a smile.

♥ watching Honey dog. He follows her around the room with his eyes and loves stroking her.

♥ playing peekaboo. Around the highchair. With the muslin. Behind your hands. He loves it.

He can:

★ eat food. His favourite thing seems to change every day but give him wholewheat toast and fromage frais and he is happy.

★ sit up. He is a bit wobbly even more so if you're not sitting with him but finally he can hold his back straight and play with a toy while sitting.
★ go through the night without food. Occasionally he does need feeding a 2am but most nights he goes through. Although we do still have to get up to him a couple of times a night.

★ wiggle and wriggle forwards and backwards. During the day when he's on the floor he seems to only go backwards but at night even when we start him with his feet at the bottom of the cot he works his way up towards the top.

★ stand up. If you hold him he wobbles a bit but loves to use his feet.

Being a mumma and getting to spend time with this boy is such a privilege. He is lovely and is changing at such a rapid rate it's hard to keep up with him. I just can't wait to see what he can do in this next month.

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baptism bunting.

Today we bought supplies for Harry's baptism bunting. He is being baptised November 4th and we are so excited. The chance to welcome him into our church family and into his life with Jesus with all our friends and family watching just makes me happy.

I want to make the occasion super special. Yeah he won't remember it. But to us this is such a special day and when we look back at photos, I want to be able to see feel how much joy there was. We definitely don't need bunting for this. It would be joyful if there was only 3 people and in a field. But I am excited for the chance to celebrate this event in our baby's life and a celebration for me must have bunting (&cake!).

I'll let you know how it turns out.

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the list.

 

source

I love this new Muse song. Have you heard it? You probably have as it's played a lot on the radio. Not being a big fan of muse, yeah I like some of the classics and saw them play a great show at Leeds years ago, I was surprised but I think it's because this feels like a different style of song to me and I love it.

Before the first time I heard it, Matt and I were talking and he was telling me he thought it sounded a lot like another band. Anyone else thinking this? Well after listening to it, I was struck with how like Queen it sounds (Brian May stylee solo anyone?). 

I am a big fan of Queen. I grew listening to pretty much nothing but Queen as my parents were [big] fans. Although that being said they once had the opportunity to go and see them live but turned it down. Can you believe that? As in, said nah, I don't think so. 

I am particularly affronted by this as Queen are on my list of bands I must would love to see before I meet my maker and I definitely don't have the opportunity to ever see them. GUTTED. Especially gutted as they are one of only a few bands left I haven't seen.

Who's on your list?

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tutorial: ribbon toy

 

I don't know about you other mummas but I'm always trying to find new things for Harry to do or play with. Whilst at mumma and baby group a couple of weeks back Harry was rather taken with a simple ribbon toy and instead of searching and buying one I thought to myself, I could probably make one of those and so that's what I did.

It's a pretty simple plaything which I have imaginatively called a 'ribbon toy' but Harry loves it. He chews it, sucks it, chews it, twists it around his fingers, chews it, puts it on his arm, chews it, and loves being tickled with it and being inspired by many other mummy bloggers I thought I'd include a tutorial even though it is a really simple to make toy.

For this toy:

1. different lengths of colourful ribbon. Be aware of the lengths of ribbon! (Too long could wrap around the neck!) 

2. a plastic hoop. When I bought this I was in a craft shop and looking for an embroidery hoop (not for this job) but came across this in a bargain bin. Ask in your local craft shop.

3. matches.

 

Begin by taking each ribbon and threading it through the hoop. Tie a double knot to secure it to the hoop.

I made sure I had equal length of ribbon each side but you don't have to.

 

Once you have threaded all the ribbon through you need to stop each end from fraying. You can use a match for this.

Hold the match close to but not on the end of the ribbon. You will see it begin to melt. Do this until the end is sealed. You should feel a ridge when you pull on the end and there will be no loose threads.

WARNING: the end of the ribbon will be sticky like wax for a few seconds so be careful where you place it.

 And there you have it. I told you it was very simple!

I'll leave you with a few photos of my baby enjoying it!

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back to work.

Well here we are in October. Seriously where did this year go? I feel like I blinked and 8 months just flashed by. It seems like just yesterday I started my maternity leave (and this blog) and whenever people asked me about work I would nonchalantly say "Yeah, I go back in November" as if it was forever away but now it's next month. NEXT MONTH.

I love being at home with my baby. I think I could quite happily be a stay at home mumma (SAHM). But I can't. I need to work for two reasons.

For my family&For me.

To continue living in our beautiful home and enjoying our life I need to work. So we can eat good food, have family swimming time, buy Harry things, I have to continue earning. Money doesn't grow on trees now does it?!

But also, I need to still be me. Harriet will always be a teacher and will always love teaching. To stop would be difficult. It's my calling and I tried to run away from it once before and it didn't work. God well and truly swung every door wide open for me to enter this career and I firmly believe it's part of his plan for me to return.

Yeah it will be hard. The thought of leaving my baby as he's just getting up and coming home an hour before he goes to bed 3 days a week breaks my heart. But I know I'm always going to be his mumma and he will always need me whether I'm home or at work.

So for now. Back to work I go.

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photo a day.

I made an autumn bucket list and blogged about it here. Part of that is taking part in the photo a day challenge which is always circulating on instagram and this is the one I am going to take part in. 

source

 Of course, taking a photo a day is about showing your creativity and sharing your life (if you choose to share the photos online) with others so choosing your own photo each day is a great option however I am not so creative and finding a photo to take everyday would probably not go well, you'd probably end up seeing 31 pictures of my dinner which would [probably] turn out less interesting!

I haven't blogged much recently. I have started a few posts but never finished them or felt that they were right to post and for this I have felt guilty at times. But then yesterday I was talking to a friend and was reminded that I started this for fun and to serve as a memory of our lives and so shouldn't allow it to become a burden. So, that being said, if I don't blog for a few weeks days, I'm going to forgive myself. I hope you will too.

pinning this week.

We've been very busy these last few day so this post is a day late. Not great for a regular post right?

Anyway, because I've been so busy I haven't even spent that much time on pinterest (shocking right?) so this one is another post with some previously pinned items.

We are hoping to decorate our bedroom at some point so I have started collecting items. Love the colours and really want to do something bold with the decoration. I love little ornaments too so I plan on making a few different things.

Find links to original pins here.

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christmas is coming.

 

101 days until Christmas day. 

 But remember Christmas is a season and so we can begin to enjoy it before that surely?

For years now I have spent the Christmas period listening to AccuRadio's Christmas station. It actually plays all year round and occasionally when I am feeling excited about Christmas I have listened to it [even in July once]. I have started thinking about Christmas and so am even tempted to start listening now. But I'm not sure that will go down well with Matthew...

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autumn bucket list.

No post yesterday because our precious baby boy is sick. He has the sniffles and a little cough. It would be cute if he didn't wake up crying after every [short] nap because he can't breath through his nose. Poor little boy. Needless to say, I went and bought every lots of drugs for him. Here's praying he gets better soon.

Anyway, as autumn is upon us and it is my favourite season I thought I'd do a bucket list of things I really want to do during this time. This is about memory making and even though Harry won't remember these early years, I want to do as much as I can with him. Forever and always.

Care to join me in any of them?

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Oh and anyone know why my text always comes up blurry in photos I add?

pinning this week.

Okay, so some of these weren't pinned this week buuuuut I'm gonna start a series on Tuesday called Pinning this week and seeing as I have loads of pins already I thought I'd share some I already had.

The theme this week, food. 

1. peaches 'n cream pie

2. apple snack time

3. roasted butternut squash and black bean enchiladas

4. chicken stew with butternut squash and quinoa

5. strawberries and chocolate

6. baked zucchini sticks and sweet onion dip

What have you been pinning this week? 

I'm hoping to break my habit and actually make some of these this week. I'm particularly looking forward to the peaches 'n cream pie! I'll let you know how it turns out.

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the tour of britain.

Yesterday we had the privelege of witnessing an inspiring sporting event. 

100 riders. 

203km.

25C+ temperatures.

The first stage of the Tour of Britain started in Ipswich and saw the riders ride through beautiful towns and villages in Suffolk and Norfolk before finishing at the Norfolk Showground.

We went to the finish with the family and had a great time cheering the amazing sportsmen on!

It was a great day finished off with a delicious summer roast and plum crumble. Yum!

5 months.

Today it is five months since we met our sweet baby boy.

He has changed our lives. For the better.

♥

We spent the day at work with daddy and cleaning. How rock and roll! Perhaps we'll do something more exciting for his half birthday.

Any suggestions?

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3648 hours.

It's been 3648 hours, 152 days, 13,132,800 seconds, 21 weeks and 5 days, 218,880 minutes since the birth of our son. Where has the time gone?

Tomorrow he will be 5 months so I thought I'd do a little round up of Harry at this point:

♥ Harry loves watching mumma and daddy singing and dancing. He giggles like a crazy baby when we dance around singing at the tops of our voices in the kitchen. It is such fun to see.

♥ Harry dislikes sleeping on his back. Try and try as much as I may he will not sleep on his back. 

♥ Mumma is getting totally excited for baby led weaning! Harry will be eating big boy food so soon!

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a boy and his sippy cup.

Yesterday was Harry's first go with a sippy cup. 

For about 2 weeks now we have been sitting down to dinner whilst Harry is still up. He sits in his highchair at the table with us. Even though he is still young, I wanted to start good eating habits early. We spend the time praying, singing, chatting and playing oh and of course eating! It's a great family time which really warms my heart.

The only thing missing is Harry actually eating. Being just five months we can't aren't supposed to wean him yet. Buuuuut I am desperate to. I want him to really join in the family dinner time! As a step towards this next part of the baby adventure, I read that a baby can be given a cup with milk in to play with before weaning actually happens. 

So, that's what I did. I bought a free flow cup (better for their teeth apparently) and filled it with some milk. He really didn't know what to do. 

He bashed it. 

He chewed it.

He tipped it.

He sucked it.

But he didn't drink from it.

We held it for him and he did get some milk but then proceeded to spit it out. Nevertheless is was fun watching our baby discover something else new.

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holidays.

For a holiday this year we spent a week in the beautiful Lake District. There is some truly spectacular scenery which can literally take your breath away (especially if you're half way up a mountain!) and some delightful little places to visit.

We decided to do a joint holiday and spent the week with our lovely friends and it really made the holiday. We had a really great time sharing a beautiful home in the quaint village of Cartmel and decided that we would definitely like to do joint holidays again in the future!

 

 

 

 

 

It was a great first family holiday and I'm already looking forward to the next one!

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