Summer Bucket List!

In the past we have written a little bucket list of all the things we want to get up to so it was only right we did the same this year too. We like to make things realistic, affordable and fun. I usually keep mine to myself but I thought I would share mine too.

So without further a do

Kids Summer Bucket List

• Have a BBQ at Nanny’s
• Swim at Nanny’s
• Have a fry up
• Go to a new playpark
• Spend the day at the beach
• Have a teddy bears picnic
• Fly a kite
• Go to London
• Camping with our friends
• Play mini golf
• Have a water fight
• Toast marshmallows on a bonfire
• Make home made pizzas

My Summer Bucket List

• Try freelensing
• Photograph a sunrise
• Go on a road trip to nowhere in particular
• Get fish and chips on the beach in the evening
• Make lemonade
• Get a tattoo
• Go for a spa day
• Finish a book
• Go to a Jazz bar
• Practice more street photography
• Practice more on film
• Go on a hike
• Camp with friends
• Stay up and watch the stars
• Go to a veg market and buy ALL THE VEG
• Unplug for a day or two

We cannot bloomin’ wait for Summer this year. After a really busy few months with work I am just so looking forward to some downtime with the children, having a few lay ins and spending afternoons on the beach.

I’d love to see yours if you have one! Our holidays usually look like this…

Me and Mine | June ’17

Oh dear. It seems the last time I blogged was May’s Me and Mine photos. I am a truly lazy and rubbish blogger this month, but that’s okay, isn’t it?!

June has been filled with a lot of work, a lot of sun and a lot of mild stress. It’s been busy, I feel like i’ve hardly seen the children at all and July is set to be even busier. Peek wedding season for me means I haven’t got a single full day with all 3 kids together until they break up from school. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am for them to break up!! Camping trips, pool days and evenings by the sea will be filling our August – Bring it ooonnn.

So not only did I fail on a sunny gorgeous photo this month, I literally took these TODAY. On the day they are meant to go live. WHOOOOPS.

I hope everyone has had a ruddy lovely July!

Do go check out the other wonderful co hosts and have a nosey at their photos too. Lucy, Alex, Katie, Fritha, Jenny and Lucy.

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Birthday treats

What’s a birthday without pizza and a trip to the beach?! Nothing, thats what.

We had the best evening on Saturday, after someone congratulating me on coming out with my 3 children on my own (weird.) I felt incredibly lucky to be able to do these things with them.

After scoffing our faces with so much cheese we indulged in a toffee sundae that quite frankly nearly tipped me over the edge. Note to self, when you’re absolutely stuffed from pizza its probably not wise to then eat an entire ice cream extravaganza.

Camber doesn’t get featured on my blog enough. This year I have vowed to make more of an effort to visit this beautiful space. Its big skies and vast views make for the most perfect backdrop and climbing up into the dunes is obviously just the most fun any child (and adult) could have. We didn’t watch the sunset like we said we would do but instead spent the evening rolling in the sand, jumping from dune to dune and screaming at the top of our lungs.

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Nine.

Harv,

I’ve had nine whole years of staring at those big brown eyes of yours. Nine years of breathing in your smell, kissing your forehead and touching noses. Nine years of watching you, soaking you up and loving the way you move. Nine years of watching you grow, watching you flourish and thrive and be everything I could ever have dreamt of. Nine years of tears, of park trips, of clearing up after you. Nine years of tantrums, hysterical laughter and ear to ear grins.

I’ve had 9 years to watch you transform – from my little pudding that was all rolls and smiles, to an all legs and teeth boy. I’ve had 9 years of nurturing you, worrying about you, crying for and with you.

You’ve had 9 years in this big world and we haven’t even scratched the surface of your life yet. And that makes me so excited.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I have needed these last 9 years, how much they’ve changed my life and how incredibly lucky I feel to have you here to know and love with every ounce of my being. Don’t ever stop being the wonderful boy you are.

Happy 9th Birthday, Darling.

xxxxxx

In light of it all

I wasn’t going to write about the recent tragedies of Manchester, my head still feels fuzzy just like the majority of the country and the world. But I just wanted to share how i’m feeling and whats going on in my head right now. In all the sadness, through all the salted stained faces and all the grieving families – there IS still so much good to be had. Yeah, this world is fucked up. It really is. But there is still so much joy to come, so many memories to be made and as much as my heart is breaking for everyone, I just can’t focus on all the negative news thats taking over every screen and radio right now.

I chose not to talk to my 3 about it. I chose not sit them down and tell them about what an awful society I have brought them into. I chose not to get upset in front of them, I chose not to frighten their little innocent minds. Maybe this is the naive way of parenting, and if so then thats fine, i’m happy to live this way. I couldn’t bear to tell them that children, of whom are the same age, have been taken away from their families. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that at any moment, no matter where we are, this could happen to us too.

So we will carry on our daily routines, we will still smile and laugh with each other. We will still crack jokes at the dinner table and talk about our day. We will laugh a bit harder than normal, we’ll tell just one more joke, we’ll read one more book. I’ll take them to the park when all I want to do is collapse on the sofa and we’ll get the paints out after I have cleaned the entire house. We’ll be so very grateful for the fact we are still here, living and breathing, and we are healthy. I’ll just be holding them tighter and for so much longer, i’ll be telling them I love them one more time and I’ll have a heavy heart when I kiss them goodnight.

I am so incredibly grateful for these three in such a desperate and mournful catastrophe.

Coastal love

So here I am again, writing about how much we love living by the sea and how we so adore the feeling of climbing into the car with salt on our lips and knots in our hair. Our happy place, our big space of joy, the calm and serenity of the sea is just utterly intoxicating and I adore that my children love it as much as I do.

We took full advantage of a warm afternoon and my Mum being off work and headed down to the sea straight after school. This trip wasn’t so calm though, with my Mum joining us we played ‘it’ for most of our walk. Chased seagulls, hid behind beach huts and giggled our socks off.

More trips after school like this please. Can. Not. Wait. For. Summer. GAAH.

 

Dosed up with the coast.

If you’ve read my blog before then you’ll know that a day well spent for us is a day ending with salty lips and sandy toes. We are just so in love with the coast that any opportunity to get down there then we’ll go with bells on. So this afternoon we had plans to meet my sister in law and two nieces so we headed down early to make the most of a beautifully sunny April Friday.

This post is photo heavy, you have been warned.

I feel like this Summer is going to be just joyous now the terrible trio are that bit older. Life just seems so much more simple now they can amuse themselves, they all play relatively well together and are forever making up games and things to keep them occupied. Queue me soaking up a lot of rays not really doing a lot. Bloody bliss I tell you. I am so excited to spend the 6 weeks of Summer with them and spend most of it by the sea.

Here come the snaps… We also did a video which you can watch at the bottom too 🙂

Char x

Saturday Highlights #2

So after saying I was going to share our Saturday afternoon highlights every week it turns out I either totally forget to take my camera out with us or I’m working. But alas, this Saturday we had an afternoon just Oliver, Elsie and me at home.

Crafting, downtime on the sofa, bouncing for hours on end and mud kitchens underneath the trampoline.

Obviously shiny hideous leotards are a must wear item for any Saturday afternoon.

*Disclaimer – i hate it.

I missed another assembly.

I kind of forget how much I have going on in my brain until I get slapped in the face with something I have forgotten to do, missed or just half heartedly done.

Today was/is one of those days and quite frankly I feel like shit about it. I forgot, again, to go to a show assembly at school. Just after Christmas I forgot Harvey’s and I turned up to his classroom and he was in floods of tears sobbing hysterically that I missed it. And there I was this morning, eating her birthday cake and just finished up a phone call with the Mother and my good friend asks if i’m okay – as I wasn’t at Elsie’s class assembly. I just imagined her little face looking around for me whilst she was sitting their proudly about to perform and yet she can’t see me. And my heart just sinks.

And then it hits me in the face, like a fucking tonne of bricks, that actually I do have way too much going on in my head and quite frankly I can’t keep up with all of this. I can’t remember everything, I can’t DO everything and I certainly can’t keep up with being the parent I always imagined I would be.

Over dramatic? Probably. But let me have my day of feeling like shit and feeling sorry for myself, ok?

Being a solo Mum really does have so many perks, like it REALLY does. I have become so much more relaxed and content in my surroundings. There is no pressure (not that I was ever made to feel like I should be doing anything specifically) and we can just.. be. But with it also comes the upheaval of morning routines on your own, and remembering all the trips, all the assemblies, all the packed lunches and all the bloody everything. And to be honest, my memory is shit, i’m not organised enough to do things the night before and I just don’t caaare about homework.

But also with being a solo Mum you have all the guilt and all the heartbreak, and it is a lot for one emotional Mother to take on let me tell you now. Of course, we have all this emotion when we are not going solo too – maybe not being able to offload at the end of the day is what is exhausting.

With all that out the way, we’ll end on a happy note. Birthday pancakes are totally a thing in our house, and no birthday would ever be the same without them. So dairy free batter was whipped up before school yesterday and here are a few ‘day in the life of’ snaps of the birthday girl.

Char x

 

 

Saturday highlights #1

Whether at home or out and about – our Saturday highlights are going to become a ‘thing’. In a vague attempt to pick up my camera more and also because I want to blog more too.

So consider this Part 1 of our Saturday afternoon roundup.

Colouring, lounging, moaning about wiping bums, cuddles and coffee.

Day 1 of no puke.

Half term – Let’s do this. Let’s love it, enjoy it, bask in it. Let’s ignore the sickness, the cold and the snuffles. Can we kick ass, can we do a little jig and sing a little song, please?

Day 1 of no sickness.

We went to Hastings pier and then the beach. It was chilled, lovely, breezy. We loved it.

Some snaps.

Char x