29 February , 201621 December , 2017 - Sarah 6 Comments

A Family Portrait (February 2016)

I know February is the shortest month but it does really seem to have flown by! We’ve actually had some nice days weather wise this month – it feels like spring might finally be on its way. We managed a few days out exploring our local park and our town loch, and had a lovely day out in Dundee meeting up with one of my blogging pals.

Gabe seems to have grown before our eyes this month too; he turned six months old and he is now rolling over, he’s sitting unaided, he got his first teeth and we’ve started weaning! February has really been a big month for him.

There was some excitement for me and Barry this month too as my mum came to stay and we got to go out for a meal on our own for the first time since last Easter!

Even though it has gone really quickly we seemed to have packed a lot in this month, although it hasn’t really felt like we’ve been doing much…if that makes any sense.

Anyway, to this month’s Me & Mine pictures. It was a beautiful sunny, but rather cold day, today so we decided to head into town to the park for an hour. It was all a bit rushed because we had to be back in time to get our Tesco delivery, and we almost didn’t get to go in the park at all because the car park was so busy. We managed to park eventually and even though we didn’t have a lot of time I’m actually really pleased with the pictures we got this month.

I think it’s going to be a while yet before we get one where everyone is looking at the camera but I think these came out pretty well in the end.

22 February , 201621 February , 2016 - Sarah 5 Comments

Living Arrows 8/52 (2016)

Apart from our trip to Dundee on Wednesday we’ve had a fairly quiet week here, recovering from our coughs and colds and trying to keep out of the still miserable weather.

This week’s Living Arrows photos were just taken in the house, and I’m still struggling to get any decent light, even during the day!

Gabe is developing so quickly…but it does mean he needs to be entertained all the time now. His sitting up still isn’t brilliant so he seems to enjoy playing in this Mamas & Papas seat that I got second hand off a local Facebook selling page. Saying that he only manages about 10 or 15 minutes at a push before he gets fed up of it. I did get some pictures of him smiling but I quite like the quizzical expression on his face in this one…

And as for Toby this week. Well he quite likes having his picture taken at the moment, especially if I’ve got the camera out to take photos of Gabe. He also seems to constantly have his tongue out at the moment, although I have no idea why! So anyway, that’s why we ended up with this picture…

15 February , 201614 February , 2016 - Sarah 3 Comments

Living Arrows 7/52 (2016)

It’s been a pretty awful week here with teething, colds, tonsillitis, croup, two visits to the out of hours GP and not an awful lot of sleep. However, we did manage a lovely morning out in the sun on Wednesday and it seems everyone is starting to feel better on the coughs and colds front so here’s hoping next week is a bit more settled!

Toby’s Living Arrows photo this week was taken when we were out on Wednesday. He loves pretending to be a tiger at the moment hence the pouncing hands in this shot…

Gabe’s photo was taken yesterday morning. He is six months old in a few days and so we decided we should probably start thinking about weaning. Unlike with Toby though I’m not in any huge rush so this was the first time Gabe has been in the high chair. Toby very kindly shared some of his cereal with him but he only really seemed interested in throwing it on the floor! He seemed to quite like being in the high chair anyway so my whole weaning plan is just to keep putting him in it when we’re eating, put a bit of whatever we’re eating (or Toby is eating) in front of him and leave him to it. I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it eventually…

8 February , 20167 February , 2016 - Sarah 5 Comments

Living Arrows 6/52 (2016)

It’s been a bit of a mixed week here, we had a lovely morning at the park on Wednesday when I took this week’s picture of Toby but then Gabe has been teething and on Thursday night he wouldn’t settle at all, I even resorted to taking him out in the car at 11 pm which I never done before in my two and a half years of being a mum. I ended up on the sofa with him waking every hour through the night…and we still haven’t got a tooth to show for it!

Sometimes Toby can be quite shy and unsure of new places and new people but then other times he is quite happy just to go off exploring on his own. I took this picture at the park as he marched off up the hill on his own with not a care as to where I was! I hope he keeps his adventurous spirit as he gets older, it would be such a shame for him to lose it.

And as for Gabe, well despite his teething we’ve still had some smiles out of him this week. He’s really close to being able to sit up by himself but until he gets there he seems to enjoy sitting on the sofa surrounded by a mountain of cushions.

I’m hoping this tooth makes an appearance this week (I can feel a sharp corner right under the gum) and things settle down again for a bit. Although if Gabe is anything like his brother he’ll be teething pretty much constantly from now on!

1 February , 2016 - Sarah 2 Comments

Living Arrows 5/52 (2016)

It’s been another quiet week here – this horrible weather doesn’t really encourage us to get out and about much.

I often feel guilty that I don’t do enough with Toby when we’re at home. It’s hard to go out in the mornings because I like Gabe to have at least one nap at home in bed and it tends to be the morning one. Toby is quite good at playing independently but we do seem to watch an awful lot of CBeebies at the moment too. Anyway, I saw this activity on someone’s blog last week (and I’m really sorry but I can’t remember where I saw it – if it was you then please do let me know so I can link to your post) and I thought we would give it a try.

I think the sticks were supposed to be spaghetti but we didn’t have any so I used some wooden kebab sticks instead. Threading the Cheerios on to the sticks helps develop fine motor skills but to be honest Toby’s are really good already. He didn’t actually find this too difficult but it held his attention for a long time (in toddler terms anyway) and I think he only dropped about three Cheerios the whole time.

When the first two sticks were full he asked for another stick and more cereal, although he did finally get bored half way through that one. I think I was most impressed that he didn’t just eat all the cereal!

And so to Gabe. He has learnt a new trick this week – his blowing raspberries had me in hysterics yesterday. He’s so serious about it!

31 January , 201621 December , 2017 - Sarah 3 Comments

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

Wow! I can’t believe we’re heading into our third year of Me & Mine. In the first picture we took Toby was six and a half months old, and now we’ve got another baby almost the same age!

We haven’t done much this month, and when we have been outdoors like when Toby had his first experience of playing in the snow, or when we went exploring our local park, we didn’t have chance to get a picture of all four of us.

So once again we ended up trying to grab a photo in our living room on the last day of the month! I thought it would be cool to recreate the first Me & Mine photo that we did, but this time with extra added Gabe…

And here’s the original from January 2014…

I’m really hoping the weather is going to improve in February so we can out on a few adventures and hopefully get a family picture that isn’t taken in our living room!

Before I go though, here’s an out take from today – Gabe is a bit obsessed with pulling my glasses off at the moment!

See you next month…

18 January , 201617 January , 2016 - Sarah 8 Comments

Living Arrows 3/52 (2016)

I’m actually going to manage to get my Living Arrows post out on time this week!

Yesterday we had had a bit of snow overnight so Toby was super excited to go out and play in it. I think we might have had a tiny bit of snow last year but not enough to play in, and he probably wouldn’t have remembered anyway! There wasn’t much in the garden but Toby had fun running around and throwing snowballs.

And as for Gabe, he got a chance to try out his super snuggly pram suit this weekend. It’s supposed to be 6-12 months but as I seem to have produced another baby with a ridiculously long body he’ll be lucky if it fits for the whole winter!

13 January , 201629 January , 2016 - Sarah Leave a comment

Living Arrows 2/52 (2016)

I’m sure a lot of people are having the same trouble, but this dismal weather we’ve been having has meant we haven’t got out much, and so haven’t taken any outdoor photos, and the light inside is awful too making any kind of photography difficult.

So having said that I’m quite pleased with how this week’s Living Arrows pictures have turned out.

This one of Toby is actually just an iPhone picture. I am genuinely scared of balloons, not when they are just harmlessly hanging around but when people are touching them, particularly when little kids are squeezing and biting them. I hate it! I don’t want Toby to feel my fear, or be deprived though so he occasionally gets a balloon to play with. I had been blowing this one up and then letting it go so it blew itself around the room. I’d been doing it for ages though and needed a break so Toby was trying to blow the balloon up himself. It’s certainly a skill he hadn’t mastered yet though – he mostly just ended up covered in drool!

This one of Gabe I managed to grab one morning when he was having a bit of tummy time and there was actually a half decent amount of light. He’s so inquisitive now, I just love his little face!
And lastly how could I not include this one of both my boys? When Toby saw me taking pictures of Gabe he went and laid down next to him – I didn’t even have to ask! I love how they’re looking at each other. Gabe is so interested in everything his big brother does now, and Toby seems to be realising that maybe Gabe isn’t that boring after all.

4 January , 201610 March , 2016 - Sarah 6 Comments

Living Arrows 1/52 (2016)

So here we are, entering into the third year of Living Arrows. I mentioned in my last Living Arrows post of 2015 that I didn’t know if I was going to carry on this year. As you can probably tell from the very existence of this post I am going to continue but I’m going to try and return to the spirit of this project as it was first begun. The name Living Arrows comes from the poem ‘On Children’ by Kahil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

As Hayley over at Shutterflies who hosts Living Arrows mentioned this week, it is a project about ‘celebrating motherhood and childhood and capturing those moments you want to preserve forever.’ And so for 2016 I am going to aim to use these posts to showcase my favourite pictures of Toby and Gabe from the week but not, as I have been doing, to also use it as a generally diary post. I’ll probably still do that but as a separate post under a different name.

So here we are…week 1 of 52 in 2016

(I should include here in the interests of full disclosure that I didn’t take this picture of Toby, it was my sister-in-law – thanks Becca!)

And this happened today so how could I not include it?

31 December , 201521 December , 2017 - Sarah 1 Comment

Me & Mine: A Family Portrait (December 2015)

We made it to the end of the year and I’m actually publishing my Me & Mine post on time! December has passed by in a blur of illness, sleepless nights and vague preparations for Christmas. Thankfully we were all more or less well for Christmas and spent the week staying with my parents and visiting with Barry’s parents too. Unfortunately the sleepless nights continued whilst we were away but I have a feeling that may just be the way of things for the next few months at least.

This month has seen Gabe turn four months old and he’s really starting to show his character now. He’s such a chatterbox and generally quite a laid back kind of baby these days (apart from at 4 am when he likes to keep his daddy awake for a few hours).

Toby is still developing at lightening speed. His speech has come on even more in the last month and he’s so clever. He’s playing with toys meant for kids a year older than him and he impresses me every day with the things he knows and can do. He’s starting to develop great relationships with our families too, which is really lovely to see. He still doesn’t get to see them that often so it’s taken a while to get to this point but he loves spending time with his grandparents and his uncle and auntie too.

This month’s Me & Mine photograph was taken on Tuesday just before we were about to leave Blackpool and head for home. For once we didn’t have to use the timer or remote as my photographer sister-in-law took the picture for us – thanks Becca!

And seeing as it’s the last Me & Mine post of the year I couldn’t let it pass without putting all the year’s photos in one place (although there are only 11 as I didn’t manage to take a picture in January). This is the year that saw us become a family of four and I love that we have these monthly family photos as a record of our lives together. I’m definitely going to carry on taking our family photos each month, for as long as the kids will let me at least!