2013…Looking Back

 

2013 has been a rollercoaster year for us! We’ve had soaring highs and difficult lows.

2013, the year that was…

 

The Pits of 2013

• Marking one year of our house being on the market with no success.
• Having trouble with the sellers of the house we wanted and eventually having to pull out of the sale.
• Spending over two months apart during our house move.
• James losing his job.
• Illness and hospital stays for my sister and mother and father in law.

 

The Peaks of 2013

• Selling our flat.
• Having our beautiful baby girl, Sophia.
• The birth of our sweet little niece, Florence.
• Getting to spend lots of time with my family during the time I was staying in Ludlow.
• Sophia’s christening.
• Celebrating 2 years of marriage and 6 years together.
• My mum getting her teaching qualification.
• Becoming closer to my Dad, Grandparents and step family.
• Moving to our new house.
• Adding Smudge to our family.
• James being offered a new job.
• Celebrating Christmastime with all the people we love.

Even in the times when we seem to have had a string of bad luck, I’m so grateful for the life I have. Having Sophia has made me look at life differently and realise that we are here for such a short time that we should enjoy every moment of the life we have and to show love to the people we care about. I feel so incredibly blessed to have every single family member and friend in my life and I hope that 2014 is a year which brings everyone happiness!

Happy new year from The Smith Family.xxx

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

We celebrate our first Christmas as a family of three tomorrow. We're so excited for Sophia's first Christmas!

The festivities began this evening...

Sophia opened her Christmas Eve present from Granny.

She got into her Christmas pajamas.

She scattered reindeer food outside and left out a drink and mince pie for Father Christmas as well as a crunchy carrot for Rudolph.

We went upstairs and read 'The Night Before Christmas'.

Sophia put her stocking out ready for the big guy.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Toy Storage

As Sophia is growing, so is her collection of toys. I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that she’s losing interest in them despite them being age appropriate. We obviously can’t afford to supply a constant stream of new and different toys (which I don’t think would teach her good values anyway). I think it’s a case of having too much choice.

So this morning I decided to sort her toys into four piles. I made sure there was a good range in each pile and that each contained at least one ‘favourite’ toy.

I’m going to have a four-week rotating system where each bag will come out on a Sunday and she’ll have a week to play with the toys before they're put away and the next bag comes out. Hopefully only seeing certain toys every four weeks will help her to play a bit more purposefully with them! She’ll have access to her books and toddle truck all the time as I think they’re important.

We store Sophia’s toys on the bottom two shelves of our bookshelf as she can see all the toys and choose which she wants to play with.

The toddle truck holds her books and she enjoys taking them in and out.

I usually use the big bowl to contain her smaller toys, just to keep them neat but from now on I’m going to fill it with small manipulatives. At the moment it contains these small Christmas and animal knitted figures which I was given last Christmas. The kind of things I’ll put in here are things like blocks, small bean bags, giant beads, natural objects such as large pebbles, pine cones, large sticks etc.

To the right of the shelves lives her treasure basket and a bag of library books which she can only look at when supervised (otherwise she’d chew on them!).

I’m hoping that this system will work a bit better for us!

Every little thing is gonna be alright…

I like to keep this blog for happy things and showing all the good things we get up to. A light-hearted little place to document our life as a young family. Unfortunately, life isn’t always carefree and sometimes it gets too hard to ignore. I think it’s important to share both the good and the bad on this blog.

The last two years have been a struggle.

It seems we’ve had to face so many challenges and so much bad luck. With jobs, houses and even starting a family we’ve had to fight hard to keep positive and patiently wait. This year everything finally started coming together; Sophia was born, we had an offer on our flat, we found a house we liked and, despite having to spend weeks apart, we eagerly waited until we had the keys, James found a new, better paid job which meant I could be at home with Sophia and start childminding. It all finally felt like all that time hoping and praying things would work out had been worth it – we had the life we wanted and could relax a bit.

But that was not to be.

Monday evening we had the news that James had lost his job with immediate affect.

This week has been hard. Really hard. I go from being upbeat and positive to feeling like I just haven’t got the strength to keep on fighting. Of course, I always will because Sophia relies on us and we will never let her down.

James has been applying for jobs and I’ve put my childminding on hold to do the same. Hopefully something will come up.

I don’t know what the future holds for us. This time next week we could both have new jobs and it’d be as though this week didn’t matter. Or this time in a few months we could be heading into debt or have lost everything.  But as long as we have Sophia and each other we will be okay.

I don’t want a lot in life. I want my family, a place to call home and just enough money to cover our outgoings. Though I’m scared I am still hopeful that eventually we’ll have a calm life. I believe that everything happens for a reason. God has a plan for us. I don’t know what that is yet but I’ll keep holding on and seeing the beauty in the stormy times.

In under two weeks time we’ll be celebrating our first Christmas with our little girl, something we’ve been looking forward to so much. No matter what happens I’m determined it’ll be a lovely day for her. She’ll wake up to smiling, happy parents on Christmas Day because that’s what she needs and deserves.

A Lovely Day

On Sunday we decided to get out and about with Sophia and take her somewhere new.

This picture was taken just before we went out...

We decided to take her to a soft play warehouse with ball pits, slides and toys. It's only a few minutes drive from our house and was inexpensive so it was perfect for us.

We thought Sophia would get stuck straight in like she usually does but she was a bit apprehensive at first and was clinging onto me. After a little while she started enjoying herself.

There was a big wall with flaps to open and pictures inside which she loved and she enjoyed picking up the balls and throwing them. Not to mention that James and I enjoyed larking about in the ball pit too!

Later we went to look around Sainsburys as there was a few things we needed to get before coming home for food.

I made a chicken curry. Sophia had never had it before but she loved it and ate almost all of it. I mixed hers with some Greek yogurt to make sure it wasn't too spicy.

Overall we had a lovely carefree day and we hope to return to the soft play one day soon!

Dear Sophia: 9 Months Old

Dear Sophia,

You’re 9 months old! It feels like such a milestone as you have now been in the world longer than you were inside my tummy. I can’t believe that this time last year you hadn’t even been born and now you’re a smiling, chattering, crawling, active little girl!

You’ve started to sleep less in the day and longer at nights now. It’s lovely to get a bit extra sleep in the mornings and to spend more time with you in the day. You typically go to bed around 6:30pm now and can sleep up until about 8:30am.

As always you’ve been growing and changing lots this month!

Eating

You are still a very good eater! There is no food you dislike and you’re not fussy one bit. You’re gradually drinking less milk and eating more at meal times which is great.

You are able to pick up and put the food to your mouth very well and you can use a spoon and a fork. You wear a plastic bib to catch all the bits of dropped food but your latest trick is to pull the bib off and spill the food! The carpet under your chair doesn’t look so good!

Development

This month you can:

• Wave. When people say hello or goodbye you now wave at them. I think you learnt it from me because I always stand in front of  the mirrors and wave to you. You’ve began to wave to anyone and everyone when we’re out and about!
• Climb. You can climb up onto the sofa by yourself. I was so shocked when you first did it and a little nervous that you’d do it and then fall off but luckily you turned around and sat down.
• Stand. You’re not fully standing quite yet but you can stand and balance on your own for about 30 seconds. You’re getting stronger and stronger.
• Teeth. You have another little tooth in your mouth making the grand total of 2!
• Recognise your name. You know your name and look around when it is called.
• Pincer grip. You can pick things up with your finger and thumb now instead of a whole hand grab. I think baby led weaning has really helped this as you practise picking up bits of food every meal time.

Five Favourites at 8 Months:

Favourite toy: You love your stacker of family fish this month. It’s always the first toy you take off your shelf and you like taking all the fish off and looking at them.

Favourite book: Still big on lift the flap books! A favourite this month has been Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell. We keep it in the bedroom and usually read it on weekend mornings and on my days off. You’re so independent and you love to pull the flaps open and turn the pages yourself.

Favourite food: You love eggs in every form! Your favourite way is as an omelette. I add a handful of frozen mixed veg and some cheese and put it all in the pan. You think it’s delicious!

Favourite activity: Probably reading. If I sit on the floor with a book you come straight over and climb onto me to listen.

Favourite thing to do or say: Favourite thing to do at the moment is to stand up. You spend hardly any time on your bottom anymore – you just want to be up and cruising around all the time.

 

And that’s what you’ve been doing at 9 months old! You’re personality is coming out more and more now and it just makes me love you even more. You’re such a happy, beautiful little soul and I don’t know what we’ve done to deserve you as our daughter but we’ll be forever grateful.

Happy 9 month birthday beautiful girl!

Lots of love from Mummy and Daddy.xxx

Traditions

At the age of 25 I still love Christmas just as much as I did when I was younger, if not more! And now I have my own child it has got so much more exciting!

Aside from the obvious of it being Jesus’s Birthday, to me Christmas is all about traditions that are anticipated with joy each year. As a child I knew it was Christmas when I started to see the Coca-cola advert on TV, the music and the bells bringing me so much excitement. Or the tradition of carefully finding then ripping open the doors on the advent calendar each day and  tasting that little bite of sweet chocolate that seemed to be much tastier than chocolate at any other time of the year. And, of course, the lead up to our Christmas nativity plays at school. Weeks of practising our lines, singing the same few carols over and over and then hurriedly getting into our costumes on the big night! There is just something so magical about it all!

I know lots of people think that Christmas has become a time of over-consumerism and a complete waste of money but most of the traditions that I most enjoyed and still enjoy involve little or no money at all.

Since last Christmas, when I was pregnant with Sophia, we’ve been thinking, “what will be our family Christmas traditions?” We’ve come up with a few which are important to us and we hope they’re things that our children look back on and cherish.

The Four Gift Rule

We both think it’s important that we limit the amount of presents we give Sophia. We don’t want her to associate Christmas with getting mounds of presents and for that to be her main focus. This year we are entering the new year with uncertainty about my job and money. We have already tightened our belts in preparation but this is something we would’ve done anyway no matter how well off we were.

Here are the four rules we’ll be using for our children…

I think, when it comes to children, they’d much rather do things with their parents and create memories rather than have lots of toys they’ll soon grow bored of. I’m not in any way bashing what other parents do as every family is different; this is just what we believe will work best for our family. With the money we’ll save from giving only four gifts we’ll be able to spend on going to different places together.

This year we have got Sophia:

Something she wants: A soft dolly. We used to see this looking around Sainsbury’s and every time I showed Sophia it she’d get so excited and try to grab it!

Something she needs: A hammer bench. She needs something educational to extend her development. This toy will teach her lots of practical skills such as hand-eye co-ordination, colour distinction and motor skills.

Something to wear: A wintery top. James chose this pretty little top for Sophia. It’s so sweet with different textures and little snowflakes and I love the peter pan collar.

Something to read: A lift the flap book. Sophia still loves flap books and this one has some beautiful illustrations in with lots of things to point to and talk about – I can’t wait to read it to her! It has three stories inside, all of which rhyme so will help her language development.

24 Books of Christmas

Sophia will be too little for a traditional advent calendar for a while so I was in search of an idea that she would enjoy instead. I saw this idea floating about on the internet and thought it’d be perfect for us! I am obsessed with children’s books! I think I could open my own library with all the ones I have. I’ve read to Sophia since day one and it’s something I’m really passionate about.

The idea is that you collect 24 Christmas books and wrap them up. Each night we’ll unwrap a book together and read it. The last book on Christmas Eve will always be ‘The Night Before Christmas’ as I think it’s such a special story.

We don’t actually have 24 Christmas books at the moment, we have about 11. I’m going to borrow some more from the library to bulk out the selection.

 

A Decoration Collection

Something that we’re doing for Sophia (and will do for future children) is making a collection of decorations for her. Every year we’re going to buy her a new tree decoration. It doesn’t have to mean anything special or fit in with any particular theme, just a lovely decoration that Mummy and Daddy have picked for her. Then when she is grown up, has left home and has her own Christmas tree we’ll give them to her.

She won’t get the full benefit of this tradition until she’s much older but we think it’ll be so special for her to receive.

This is the decoration we chose for Sophia this year. We both liked it and thought it was sweet and smiley; just like her!

Christmas Eve

Not really that special, as I’m sure it’s what most people do, but Christmas Eve evening will be a time for new PJ’s, yummy treats and watching a Christmas film together under blankets.

 

Some of our traditions might sound a little cheesy but they are all about love and family, which is the most important part of Christmas (and life for that matter!). I’m looking forward to our first family Christmas together and making happy, magical memories.

Recently

Some recent pictures of little Sophia.

Enjoying her food as usual!

Standing up (and trying to grab Smudge!)

Off to sleep. She still has her dummy at the moment but after Christmas we’re going to take it away as her teeth are starting to really grow now.

Fast asleep in the supermarket!

Looking at her favourite book.

Christmas is Coming!

We took this little snap this morning while doing our grocery shopping and I just had to share it! 

Pinch Me

It’s a rainy, dark Monday morning. We’ve had a testing weekend; I was at training all day Saturday and Sophia has been ill for the rest of the weekend with a cold. She has been grumbly and upset and none of us have got much sleep or many of the things we had planned done.

Our house is covered in clutter, needs a good hoover and don’t even mention how badly the bathroom needs cleaning! But does it matter? Does it really matter? No, it doesn’t at all.

I try to be as positive as I can and I try to never lose sight of what I have.

Being a parent is hard work. Running a house is hard work. Even marriage is hard work! Sometimes I feel like I have no free time to do anything. Sometimes I take my husband for granted. Sometimes I despair about the endless housework. Sometimes I can’t bear to look in the mirror as all I see is a body which doesn’t seem my own anymore, ravaged by pregnancy. If I allowed myself I could get into the head space where everything was ‘bad’ and I could get really down.

When I was trying to conceive Sophia I learned a lot about being patient and being grateful for all I had. Though it was really very tough sometimes, I did my best to see things positively and to enjoy all of the little things.

I have a daughter who is an absolute joy. She’s so bright and sweet and makes me laugh and smile in so many ways. I’m SO proud of her and love to show her off or talk about her at every chance I get.

I have a husband who I love so much and who loves me. I love being partners with him as we grow older and discover what life is all about. I never feel as though I’m on my own and he’s always so supportive of me. I feel very lucky.

Yes I have lots of things to do in my house. But it is my house. I’m lucky that not only do I have a roof over my head but it’s a beautiful house that we worked hard to afford and pay for. We still have lots of plans for the place and lots of things to do but it’s a home we will be in for a long time. It’s a place of security that, as long as we pay our mortgage, it’ll never be taken away from us. I hope to have so many happy times here; Christmases, Birthdays and even bringing our future children home to.

My body is unrecognisable from what it was pre-pregnancy. It wasn’t fantastic before I had Sophia but now my tummy will never be the same! But that’s ok. There are changes I’d like to make to my body but there is no rush and I don’t need to beat myself up over it. I was lucky enough that my body was able to grow my baby! It provided everything she needed and it held her until we could hold her in our arms. And, I have to say, my body did a pretty damn good job at producing the most perfect little girl!

When I look at everything I have, I have a ‘pinch-me’ moment. I know there are so many people in the world who would love what I have; a loving family, warm clothes, plentiful food and much more. I hope I never stop counting my many blessings and knowing how precious they are. My life isn’t perfect and some would find it downright boring. But to me it is perfect.

I’ve decided to do a weekly post about all the things that have made me smile or feel grateful each week. I’ll list at least one thing each day which I’m thankful for. I think it’ll be nice to look back upon in years to come and also for Sophia to see what our family life was like.

Dear Sophia: 8 Months Old

Dear Sophia,

Yet again I’m sat here wondering how time has sped past so quickly. You are 8 months old! 8 months! How did that happen?

This month feels as though it’s been such a turning point in your development, you have changed so much. You’re eating more and being very active, soon you’ll be  a ‘toddler’ and I’m not sure I’m ready for that! As always, I just savour every moment I have with you.

Eating

You are still loving your food! You are eating more at each meal and are taking in less milk. You really enjoy the social aspect of eating. Every meal we sit at the table with you and show you that we are eating the same thing and you love being a part of everything. You are now using a glass to drink out of and are enjoying being the same as mummy and daddy. I thought you’ spill all your water at first or drop the glass but you are so clever at using it.

You’ve tried pumpkin for the first time this month and seemed to really enjoy it! You’ve tried it as soup, dipping your toast soldiers in and as a pasta sauce. You liked both ways.

Development:

Oh my goodness, this month has been a game changer! You’ve hit lots of different milestones…

• Clap. Granny taught you how to clap and you love to do it all of the time! When you hear music you start clapping or when you do something you are pleased with you do it too.
• Pull yourself up. You pull yourself up anything you can and shuffle along the furniture. Daddy and I got you a push-along truck which you have a go at walking with. You’re not quite there yet but I’m sure it won’t be long.
• Tooth. You have one tooth coming through on your bottom left gum! Finally! Your gums have been bothering you for what feels like months and finally your teeth are starting to make an appearance. It’s about half way through so we’ve started brushing your teeth which you LOVE! I’m not sure if it’s the sensation of the brush you like or the taste of the applemint toothpaste.
• Dance. As well as clap to music you’ve started to move your whole body to it!

Five Favourites at 8 Months:

Favourite toy: This month you have been enjoying playing with your wooden instruments. You have a maraca and a castanet and you love shaking them.

Favourite book: You’re really interested in lift-the-flap books this month. I need to keep a close eye on you otherwise you rip the flaps right out! You love the fairy tale books by Nick Sharrat, in particular the Three Little Pigs Story.

Favourite food: This month you love oranges. I cut a big orange into wedges and you have 1 or 2 wedges at your meal and make ‘mmm’ noises as you eat it. You also love chicken. We had fajitas the other day and you loved the chicken!

Favourite activity: You’re favourite thing to do this month is to knock things over! I use your stacking cups to build a tower and you promptly knock it over and clap in delight. You’d happily do this all day long!

Favourite thing to do or say: You love to make ‘echo’ noises with your mouth. You babble and use your hand to make a funny noise, it’s such a sweet thing to watch you do!

And that’s it for this month! You are so interactive now, we laugh and smile together and when you are tired in the afternoon we cuddle up together. I’m so proud of all that you are and everything you do. I cannot believe my luck that you are mine. My daughter.

Keep shining bright sweet Sophia.

Happy 8 month birthday beautiful girl!

Lots of love from Mummy and Daddy.xxx