I normally start these monthly Me & Mine posts by saying how quickly the month has gone but actually this month it seems an absolute age since I published July’s post. Since then we have actually moved into our new house and spent a month unpacking boxes and trying to find a place for everything to go. We’re still not quite finished but we’re getting there and there’s only really one room of chaos left!

In other firsts this month, it was Gabe’s first birthday a couple of weeks ago – so we’ve made it through our first full year as a family of four. And look how different we were a year ago!

Although we didn’t really do anything to celebrate Gabe’s birthday (not even a cake – bad mummy!) he seemed to enjoy opening his presents and we are hoping to have some sort of house warming/ birthday party sometime in September.

Toby and Gabe have both started going to their new nursery this month too. They go two days a week, which is supposedly to give me time to do house stuff and perhaps even a bit of blogging. I have managed to do quite a lot of organising in the house, the blogging not so much! And today I even signed up with a supply agency so hopefully I might be heading back to the classroom fairly soon. I wanted to get the boys settled in nursery before the start of the school year so that if some work does come up they are already settled in and it isn’t all a last minute rush. They are both doing really well, and the staff seem great so I’m very pleased with how it’s all gone.

Barry started his new (old) job this month too so is currently commuting to Manchester every day. It means some long days for him – he leaves the house at 6 am but is usually back not longer after 5 pm so most days we are managing to eat together and put the boys to bed. I know it’s really hard for him though, because he only really sees the boys for that couple of hours before bed when they’re tired and grumpy. He will eventually be working from home two days a week though so hopefully things will get a bit easier then.

I think that’s probably about it for this month. We’ve just been busy getting to know the local area, realising walking to the park and back is just that bit too far for Toby and I will end up having to carry him, and generally just trying to get ourselves into a new routine.

I mentioned last month that I wanted to take this month’s Me & Mine posts on the bench in our garden and my plan is that every August we will take a family picture in the same place so we can compare how things change from year to year.

We took 194 pictures while we were sat here (Toby did have control of the remote for some of the time which might explain it) and luckily, amongst them all we did get one nice one where everyone is almost smiling and looking vaguely in the direction of the camera!

We also got these lovely ones of Toby pulling faces…

And this one of me tickling the boys, which I actually love…

Until next month then…