Domesticated bliss?

Life goes on as usual and now I have handed in my resignation I am now attempting my best super mum/ super wife impression. 

Our need to be careful with our single income means that we need to stick more stringently to our budget that we have needed to in the past. so  I am making use of everything in the fridge and definately following my Mother footsteps in regards to left overs. Growing up my mum was good at freezing left overs and often did this in old ice cream tubs. This often meant disappointment however as you would excitedly discover a box of nice icecream only to realise it's some left over spag bol!

Anyway so of course crafting is still my way of spending some selfish time in the evenings. Here is what I have been up to. 

I the run up to Christmas I was making this wreath for my parents.

I really enjoyed the bees and lady birds. I am considering making one for our home. 

My little lady is turning 1 in a couple of weeks and her baby blankets are starting to get a little small so I decided to make another for her. 

With both these projects I have been able to use left over wool (plus some £2 white wool for the blanket). 

One of my Christmas presents was a bundle of wool (yes I know another!) so I am making another blanket! This time just a simple blanket that I can do absent mindedly. I think I drive my husband crazy with these projects as I tend to take over the sofa and make myself an island surrounded in wool! 

As you can see I've only just started. 

I'm looking to make Pebble something for her birthday and trying to decide what cake to do for her. I'm also thinking about what cake to make for Pebble's dedication which is also coming up soon. 

I feel that I have to keep up standards. After all this was Nemo's two birthday cakes and dedication cakes 

 

And this is his dedication cake 

I'm thinking about doing something simular to the baby shower cake for Pebble's dedication

But still undecided about her birthday cake! 

And that was that....

It is done, after months and months of agonising and boring numourous people, numourous times by discussing it over and over I have handed in my notice at work. 

I feel a little sad and a little relieved. I love Social work and it has become a big part of my identify. However the reality of working long hours, with two little ones, earning no money (as child care would wipe out my after tax earnings) meant it really made very little sense to return. My line of work is also especially difficult to balance with family life. 

About 6 weeks ago I made the decision to return even just for a trial period to see how it went; however I then came to find that there were no child minders local to my work with spaces for 2 under 3's. So that was that, decision made really. 

I will start to do some sort of work, paid or voluntary going forward to ensure I continue my registration as a social worker however my career as it currently stands is being put on hold. 

Now the decision is made I am looking forward to being able to continue staying home with my monkeys whilst they are little. And I feel very fortunate that I am able to do this (as long as we keep a very careful eye on our budgeting!) I also feel a bit concerned that I will lose a part of myself however when I sent my resignation I was nursing Pebble and just had a sense that this was where I needed to be. 

So there you go, it's time to see what happens next! 

And couldn't sign off without showing you my gorgeous little ones :) 

Pebble in her Christmas outfit (I know it had to be done!) 

Nemo feeding his doll 

Oh and I couldn't miss out my furry baby :) 

Showering baby

So this blog is super late as I organised a baby shower for my friend back at the end of October but oh well better late then never!

My friends were very kind to us when we had Nemo so when C got pregnant I started the pinteresting almost immediately! I love all the ideas you can get on Pinterest, however it's a bit addictive and I find myself getting big to do lists when I go on! 

So here is a flavour of the baby shower :) 

We had the shower at our friends' house so we did lots of decoration! 

We got the paper decoration ball things (!) from ikea 

Butterflies :) 

I also made two buntings for the occasion. 

of course there was lots of food :) 

Rainbow fruit skewers 

Of course lots of the food was pink themed as it's a little girl on her way. I think the mushrooms made of strawberries and marshmallows with decorated with white chocolate were a favourite. 

We had mocktails (with umbrellas and curly straws of course!)

And here's the cake, it took me ages to separate the colours of hundreds of smarties! 

As for entertainment we had spa couple of silly games

We had a blind folded nappy change. It was good to know that the last 2 years of changing to small people's nappies has come in handy as I won the blind folded nappy challenge! 

We also had guess the date, name suggestions, advice for the parents and guess the weight! 

And now for my favourite game:

Oh yes! Pin the sperm on the egg! It was quite funny although a bit awkward encouraging the grandparent generation present to play! 

To end there was present opening - yay! Like all good baby showers there were lots of lovely gifts, me and hubby put together a hamper thing together which I was quite proud of. I stupidly forgot to take a picture but yo can kind of see it here!

Our Christmas home :)

I am so excited about Christmas, I think more then I have been for years and years (probably since I was a young child). 

This is our first year as a family with 2 children and Pebble's first Christmas so it just feels really special. Nemo was only 4 months for his first Christmas so he didn't really appreciate it and last year I was very very pregnant and I was working up to Christmas so I didn't have much energy and time to put into Christmas. I thinks when you get married you both come with different experiences of Christmas but being our 6th married Christmas it feels like we're getting our own little customs and way of doing things. My husband's family's would have gammon for breakfast which was amazing but I don't think I could manage cooking and eating that on top of cooking and eating Christmas dinner! We do however have several beautiful Christmas decorations from Hubby's childhood, here are these little children's Christmas books that hang on a tree. 

His family loved in several different countries during his childhood including Germany and Norway so they had lots of beautiful Christmas decorations. 

Nemo certainly enjoyed decorating our Christmas tree. He took an unusual approach to the process

Very modern of him... :) Nemo also added his own preferred decorations...

But after a little help from Daddy here is the final result 

However weirdly the tree seems to have become a bit disheveled since then, I have no idea why? 

 We moved the books from the fake fireplace with an air heater in to make room for Santa to arrive! 

We had home made stockings with our name on as a child and I wanted to make some for the children however my list of crafts was too long so I will have to do this next year! 

Albeit a few days late I did manage to finish making Hubby's advent calandar 

It has chocolate or a sweet in every stocking and 24 reasons I love him, he is pretty amazing! (Top romantic marks?) 

Nemo has his own calandar

It's a cute felt hanging which his Nanny got him as a Christmas present last year so this is it's first use. It's really sweet. In Nemo's it has a chocolate or sweet and a part of the story of Jesus' birth in every section. 

The children both have little Christmas trees in their rooms

So here are some the Christmas happenings in the rest of the house

My crochet stars on their twig home! 

Nemo's Christmas pictures, some from last year some from this year. 

My crochet wreath. 

I love this moose!!! We got it from bath Christmas market the first year we were married! 

I made this bunting several years ago

I love this handmade bunting we got from a craft center a month ago or so

Part of this years crocheted Christmas bunting 

We bought this bunting very cheaply last year from Home Bargains I think....

I have to admit I'm not a massive fan of those red, blue green multicolour Christmas lights however my husband is more keen. We take it in turns having them on the tree for compromise and this year put them on the stairs for for festive cheer that's not too intrusive!! I have to admit I quite like them like this, it makes going upstairs in the dark feel a bit epic to be honest :-p

Hubby's away at the moment but I was very nicely invited for dinner with the children from a family at church. I decided to spend yesterday afternoon making biscuits with Nemo whilst Pebble was asleep and Nemo decorated them (can you tell?) we had Christmas trees, stars and snowflakes. The problem was that kitchen was a distasteful by the time we finished and when I put the children to bed it took me till almost 10pm to clean up the kitchen and do the usual chores. This meant I didn't get to bed until past 11. Now typically the children wake around 7am- very respectful but of course today of all days Pebble decided to wake at 5.45am :-/ 

In their defence they have been very well behaved this morning and have been playing very nicely together whilst I've written this!

Nemo took himself into the kitchen at one point I went to see what he was up to to find him in the washing basket doing his flash cards! 

They are both getting so big now and are both so gorgeous 

Here's Pebble doing some reading :) 

And here is my hansome little man! It's hard to get a picture of him at the moment as he's always on the move!