me & mine

- Sarah 10 Comments

Me & Mine // A Family Portrait (January 2017)

I’m not going to write a very long post this month as I don’t really have much to say! Christmas and the New Year seems ages ago now, and yet January has absolutely flown by. We haven’t been doing anything very exciting – we’ve managed a few family trips to the park and a day up in Cumbria visiting the in-laws but that’s about it. Remarkably though, apart from Gabe having a snotty nose for the whole month, none of us has been ill either!

We did go out a couple of weekends ago with the intention of a walk in the woods and a chance to take this month’s Me & Mine photos… But we were thwarted by a grumpy Toby, the sun going in and it getting freezing cold, and a path that turned far too muddy for the buggy to cope with.

So instead we took these pictures in our kitchen. Read more

- Sarah 6 Comments

Me & Mine // A Family Portrait (December 2016)

So this is it…December 31st and 2016 is done. If I’m being entirely honest I’ll be quite glad to see the back of this year. There have been some good times – we moved house in July and being near to our parents for the second half of the year has been great, even if the move itself was pretty stressful. We’ve now got an amazing new kitchen too (which I will share soon I promise, but it’s still not quite finished). We had a lovely holiday at Center Parcs in May, even if Toby did have chicken pox for the first part of it.

On the whole though I will remember 2016 as the year of illness and sleepless nights. Gabe has spent most of the year either poorly or teething or both, we’ve seen coughs and colds, conjunctivitis, chicken pox, stomach bugs, hand, foot and mouth…there really haven’t been many bugs that we’ve avoided!

We did manage to get through Christmas without anyone being ill, apart from a few sniffles, and for that I’m grateful. My brother and sister-in-law came to visit just before Christmas and we had a fab evening playing a new game (Codenames if you’re interested – I’d thoroughly recommend it) and Toby loved having his auntie and uncle to stay. It also meant we had someone to take our Me & Mine picture this month, even if it is only taken outside our house.

Me & Mine December 2016

We set up the camera at the end of the table on Christmas day too and so I thought I’d include an extended Me & Mine picture this month too…

Me & Mine Christmas Day 2016

2016 has been a year of survival for me, of getting through the days and hoping we all make it to bedtime without too many tears. I’ll be the first to admit that I have struggled to remain positive a lot of the time and I have to thank my wonderful husband for bearing the brunt of my emotional outbursts over the year. Sleep deprivation has a lot to answer for I think!

When I look at the year’s Me & Mine pictures all together though I see how far we have come. Gabe was just a baby at the start of the year and now he’s a fully fledged toddler. And Toby has gone from a cheeky toddler to an even cheekier pre-schooler who is too clever for his own good sometimes!

Me & Mine January to December 2016

2017 is going to a big year for us. The first full year in our new house, Toby starting school, Gabe learning to talk (and hopefully sleep!), I might even go back to teaching at some point. Whatever 2017 brings I’m sure we’ll cope with it just like we always do, and here’s hoping it’s a bit easier than 2016 was.

Whatever you are doing tonight to celebrate the new year I hope you enjoy yourselves – I’ll probably have a glass of wine in front of the TV and be in bed by 11 pm! Thank you all so much for reading Toby Goes Bananas this year and I’ll see you again ready to start afresh in 2017.

- Sarah 1 Comment

Me & Mine // A Family Portrait (June 2016)

I’m late again with our latest Me & Mine post. June has been a busy month for us; it started with Gabe recovering from chicken pox and both I and Barry have had weekends away. Oh, and we bought a house!

We sold our house in May, just nine days after putting it on the market and we’d seen a house we wanted to buy. Unfortunately we were too late putting in an offer and someone else beat us to it. So facing the prospect of having nowhere to live quite soon Barry did a one day trip down to Lancashire, looked at six houses and we decided to buy one of them….which I haven’t seen yet. It’ll be fine though I’m sure!

With the busy-ness of organising a house move, weekends away, and Gabe’s sleep being even more rubbish than usual we haven’t really had the time, or the energy to do anything exciting as a family this month. It has mostly been about getting through the days! We did have a lovely day at the Novotel Super Heroes day at the start of the month and there’s been plenty of trips to local cafe’s for coffee and cake but not much else of note. Gabe turned 10 months old in June and has started pulling himself up and cruising round the furniture so we now need to be watching him constantly. I have a feeling he’ll be walking before we know it!

So with all that we didn’t manage to take a family photo anywhere interesting in June – this one was grabbed after we’d finished dinner last night. I do like how we can all sit round the table together for our meals now so I guess it’s a good a moment as any to capture and record.

Me & Mine June 2016

July is going to be massively busy and stressful for us. We move out of our house next week and will be moving in with my parents for a week (and hopefully no more) before we can move into our new house. It’s also Toby’s birthday next week – I can’t believe he’s going to be three!! So the next month is going to be pretty crazy but hopefully by the time I write July’s Me & Mine update we will be all moved and starting to get settled in our new home.

- Sarah 1 Comment

Me & Mine // A Family Portrait (April 2016)

I’m a couple of days late with this month’s Me & Mine post. I was away at Blog On (a blogging conference in Manchester) this weekend and we hadn’t managed to get a family picture through the month so we had to wait until I got home today.

Unfortunately it’s been another month of illness for us. Gabe has still had a cold and been teething again. He also managed to add an ear infection into the mix this time too. Barry and I both had some flu-type virus at the same time, and Gabe was really suffering, which led to me being told I should be enjoying my baby by a random stranger in the street. Toby managed to avoid the cold / flu thing but he ended the month with a sickness bug! It really hasn’t been a healthy month for us.

We have managed to squeeze in a few nice things though – I took Toby swimming for the first time in about 18 months and after a bit of initial reluctance he loved it. We also had a lovely walk in the woods, a picnic in the garden and a trip to the farm.

I took this quick selfie on my phone when I got home from Blog On today and actually I think it’s one of my favourite Me & Mine photos…Me & Mine April 2016I said it last month but I’m really hoping the illness is behind us now. We’ve got a busy month ahead with a trip to Center Parcs in a couple of weeks, my birthday at the end of the month and some very exciting developments for us as a family which I should be able to share with you very soon too – I promise I’m not pregnant again though!

Please send your healthy vibes our way and hopefully will have a better month in May!