the me and mine project {march}

Daddy is loving

* reunion with the uni boys in Edinburgh.

* seeing the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin

* Easter Monday's family day in London

* a good work night out in Kensington Roof Gardens.

* Easter eggs!

Mummy is loving

* a lovely spring day at the country park.

* a fun afternoon tea day out and a day of filming with Channel Mum.

* excited children on their Easter egg hunt.

* our Easter Monday adventures in London.

* avocados!

The beautiful boy is loving

* visiting the Science Museum. 

* making models of the solar system with playdoh.

* dressing as the dinosaur from The Dinosaur The Pooped A Planet for World Book Day. 

* hunting for Easter eggs. 

* meeting some gnomes and then making his own. 

The beautiful girl is loving

* her new ballerina jewellery box.

* pepperoni pizza. 

* mini My Little Ponies out of Kinder eggs.

* a day in London; riding the underground and making her own gnome.

* watching Blaze and the Monster Machines. 

The beautiful little lady is loving

* her Baby Bjorn bouncy chair.

* laughing at her big brother and sister in the bath.

* having her feet and armpits tickled.

* chewing on Sophie le Giraffe.

* smiling at everyone she meets.

46

our easter bunny day

I wasn't sure that our Easter was going to be very exciting this year. Rich got called away to work in Germany for the Saturday and also the Sunday morning (so yes, the two days slap bang in the middle of the long weekend). I decided that keeping it quiet was probably our best bet, so we stayed home and hunkered down between the rainstorms. But it was our littlest lady's first ever Easter, so it did need to be at least a little bit special. And actually it ended up being a really lovely Easter Sunday (or Easter Bunny Day as my children renamed it), and Rich got home far earlier than we expected which is a bonus; it was simple and lazy and full of family and chocolate... which is what matters most.

So I made a little video of our day. It's more of a day in the life type video, documenting one day from start to finish... I used to do those all the time back when I first started filming things, and I realised it had been far too long since I've done one. It was nice to get back in the habit of capturing all the little details of our day.

1

a third birth story {part four}

Make sure you check our part one, part two and part three of my birth story, so that you know what has happened up to this point. It probably won't make very much sense otherwise. 

In that lovely quiet, dark space I was beginning to breathe my way through contractions; controlling the ebb and flow of the pain by slowing my breathing and really focusing in on slowly filling my lungs and then emptying them again. I continued to monitor the pains, waiting for more consistency and for a clear pattern to emerge, and waiting for that moment when I would just "know" it was time to wake Rich and to go to the hospital.

3

you are five months old {dear beautiful little lady}

dear beautiful little lady,

So what has your fifth month brought? Not any massive changes, but a lot of settling more and more into life as a five. Seeing you with your brother and sister is my favourite thing ever! You light up when you see them, and they'll do anything to make you laugh and smile. I sometimes think it can be a raw deal being the third one; because you spend your life getting dragged around to all the things that the older two do, so often you have to wait for a feed or a nappy change or a nap because they need to be somewhere urgently. But the trade off is that you have two little entertainers living in your house and they will bounce your bouncer, sing you songs, and pass you toys with unwavering enthusiasm all day long in exchange for a grin from you. 

5

the siblings project {march}

It feels like I probably say this with each passing month, but it feels like this trio have really started finding their groove. I guess that over the coming months and years it will be a constant process of them settling into their roles with one another, constantly changing and adapting, pushing the boundaries and altering the rules. But I think that's possibly the best thing about getting to see these three grow up together, and about watching siblings together in general. It isn't a concrete thing, its fluid and changing all the time.

31

our spring and summer manifesto

It is now officially Spring, even if it doesn't quite feel like it yet. We are now entering into my favourite six months of the year, and I can practically smell the possibilities... and the sunshine. I'm such a sunshine girl, and nothing makes me happier than when the calendar turns over to March and Spring is finally here (except when the calendar flips over into June and SUMMER is here - because summer really, truly holds my heart!)

4

a third birth story {part three}

You will need to read part one and part two of my beautiful little lady's birth story in order for this to make sense. So I'd recommend you give those a read first, if you haven't already. But anyway, on with the story...

We arrived to a deserted maternity unit, and two midwives falling over themselves to help us. It was clearly a quiet night baby-wise. The midwife confirmed that my waters had broken and strapped me onto the monitors to check that baby and I were both doing okay. She decided against checking how dilated I was, because I wasn't contracting yet, so there seemed little point and as my waters had broken I was already at increased risk of infection. They left us on the monitors to sort out booking my induction for the following evening, and we spent a calm half an hour watching our baby's heartbeat on the monitor. It turned out that I was actually contracting, but nothing that I could yet feel; so after a phone call to the main hospital it was agreed that I could go home to wait for things to progress. I was sent home with a mountain of pamphlets to read on induction, and also all about how to monitor myself for signs of infection. I was also instructed to ring and head straight to the hospital as soon as anything got started, as third babies can often come quite quickly, and we had a reasonable drive to get there.

5

more like them

It sometimes feels like as parents we are so obsessed with teaching our children things. Teaching them to eat, to sleep, to sit, to walk, and then how to jump and dance and sing... then read, write, count! It's a seemingly never-ending list of skills that we have the responsibility to impart. As the grown ups we are expected to lead by example, to show them how and to pass on the things we've learned over the years to a new generation. To teach our children how to grow up to be bright and polite and kind.

But lately I've been thinking about all the things that I have and could learn from my children. And the more I think about it, the more I think that actually I would rather live in a world full of people like them. I honestly wish that more people looked at the world, and really saw things in the way that my children do... myself included.

Because I'm not sure when it happens that you stop noticing all the tiniest details of the world, but it seems to happen somewhere on the journey between childhood and adulthood. And that makes me so sad. I think as adults go, that I am pretty good at looking for the beauty in the ordinary and appreciating the simplest pleasures of life. I definitely look for the good and gorgeous as I go through my life. But my children completely put me to shame. Because as an adult it's something that I have to "switch on", but they just do it without even thinking.

17

a third birth story {part two}

In order to "get" this post you probably need to read part one of my birth story first. I'm sharing the story over a few posts. This is how it continued to unfold...

I gasped really loudly. It was the shock. Genuine really shock. Rich looked at me and asked "What?" like something on the television show had surprised me and he'd missed something. 

And I mumbled; "I think my water just broke" as I headed for the bathroom at high speed. Standing up seemingly confirmed my suspicions because I could feel that telltale warm trickle, but I knew for sure when I got the bathroom and the water just continued to trickle. 

2