356-364!!!!

Amelie's enjoying with my hair lately. Playing hairdressers…

She's not too rough (if I get all the knots out!!)

I absolutely love it. I find it so relaxing people playing with my hair. It's always me doing everyone else's hair, so it's a much welcomed change :)

356/365

Wrapped, packed and stacked! 

It's all exciting preparing for Christmas. It's made even more wonderful by knowing those happy sleeping children will be delighted to see how much they get. 

357/365

I think I enjoy Christmas Eve more than Christmas day!! The excitement!! We've left out our carrots, port and mince pie. We sprinkled our reindeer dust with lots of sparkles, Rudolph will definitely know which way to come in :)

358/365

In past years we have held Amelie back a little opening presents. I would let her open them every so often and take her time. She can't really deal with too much all at once. She gets over excited and too hyped up. 

This year we tried to make an exception…we won't again.

After a bit of anger, shouting and general craziness. She settled down and enjoyed her presents.

It was great seeing them get exactly what they wanted. Amelie getting a tablet and Arthur getting his little tykes car. We even hid it in the porch for a bit…too build the tension and a wrapped up car isn't an  easy thing to hide!!

 Christmas Day!!!!

Little guy had no idea it was Christmas so nap time was still had! Bless him, it was timed over us eating our dinner. At the very least we had a peaceful dinner :)

His new Mickey joined him!

This was my sad attempt at a 'Gingerbread house' made out of shortbread! We like gingerbread, but not a whole house amount of it! I couldn't get it to stick together! Bit of a nightmare and a little stressful so I decided to give up on this one. But I would like to try again, get some more practise in before Christmas! Be warned if you visit I may make you eat my next crazy house!

 360/365

Christmas time is all about family time! Even our cheeky four legged family get lots of extra loving. 

That and Martin gets a nice mouth full of dog hair! Ha!

 361/365

Festive night out with the girlies!! We had such a great night, after I fell over before even leaving the house and sent everyone into hysterics! I even robbed a little bit of lipstick (something I never wear). Think I shall be purchasing some of my own. 

362/365

Here is a pair of gorgeous girls we've seen before! Beth and Millie. They let me do their hair all fabulous! A pair of heart breakers, no wonder with 2 gorgeous parents ;)

363/365

It's nearly over a whole year has flown by. In that time I have put up all these lovely frames I've acquired up and not filled them! So a New years resolution, to fill my frames and take lots more family pictures :)

364/365

Also must look back to this years resolutions and see if I stuck to any of them!! 

xxxx

350-355/365

The book where Arthur learnt how to say 'Happy Birthday!'

It's his most favourite book. He loves opening all the little doors up to see who's behind, specially the last where we shout Happy Birthday Bear!

He even says book now. My little man growing up quickly, but enjoying all the new words coming from him!

350/365

A mouth full of plum, nibbling on biscuits. They do say the way to a mans heart is through his stomach and Arthur is no exception!

 351,352/365

Amelie has made us all proud singing all her Christmas songs. She has such a sweet singing voice. She's always making up her own songs about everything and anything. She enjoyed dressing up as Mary and having her baby Jesus to carry.

353/365

There's not long now until the big day! So the school got festive for their last day. Then we continued the celebrations at Beth's house for her 5th Birthday!! How are these girls growing up so fast?!

354/365

Arthur's Nursery had a Christmas party with Santa and his reindeer!!! (This one was called pancake though) Not sure why the girl couldn't tell us it was called one of the actual names from Santa but never mind. Amelie and Arthur weren't keen on him to start with but she was soon piling lots of food into his mouth and was his new best friend. 

We all had a good time, family time…

355/365

…robbing all the food from the table whilst everyone else is dancing time!! Ha!!

xxxxx

342-349/365

342/365

What a wonderful weekend. Spent with horses, friends, wine and afternoon tea! I love going to York it's such pretty city day and night! It's great to be there with such good company!

Mmm and mince pies! I only ever make these at Christmas. Isn't it funny that we only have certain hints at Christmas. It would feel odd to me having mince pies, mulled wine, even TURKEY any other time of the year…so lets enjoy it whilst the time is here :) 

343/365

OK so it's been a bit crazy with the weather being really cold then unusually warm.

I love seeing the sky so beautiful. Even though I'm surrounded by hundreds of buildings everyday I can look up and see pretty things :) Maybe pretend I'm not here :)

 344/365

Feeling festive in her Christmas jumper.  It's nice she understands all about Christmas this year and helping me decorate the house. By which I mean I brought the decorations down stairs and she decorated the everywhere :)

 345/365

Really, really enjoyed this new born shoot. Ava was so tiny and looks so breakable. She has the tiniest little face. With a house full of children I'm not quite sure how Mummy Sarah does it! I think 2 is hrs work try having 5!! All at primary school age! One very busy lady!

346/365

It's never too young to start helping Daddy lift his weights!

347/365

First time I've used hairspray on Amelie's hair! It had to be high pony tails for her dance show. Round the front it's still pretty short so I had to hair wrap it up! She loved having her flat, like she's always trying to make it!

348,349/365

338, 339, 340, 341/365

338/365

Trying to get into the festive mood! We had a Christmas craft morning at school. It was so lovely to be able to spend a bit of quality time at school just me and my little lady :) We made some damn fine food too! Amelie seemed to enjoy telling all the other children not to bother her because she was concentrating on crafting with her mummy :)

 339/365

What better way to feel festive than get up the smelly loft and drag out what you can find!

Amelie and Arthur did such a great job decorating the tree so sweetly together. OK, so it's not how I would do it but now I can't seem to change it round knowing how hard they've worked on it!

340/365

341/365

Arthur really loves to read now. He goes to the book shelf grabs a book then brings it to me shouting and sits on my knee. This is one of his favourite pages. Probably cause we all swoon at him saying purple (with a scottish accent)! :)

His dinky little squishy toes and fingers are getting bigger everyday. I can't believe one day they'll be big hairy man feet :(

xxxx

330-337/365

Festive season…busy time for me. Fitting in family, working and house stuff..oh and photography is just squeezing in at the end.

I wanted to do a lot more Autumn/Winter shoots. But it sounds like the snow is coming soon so I shall be out enjoying that!

330/365

We haven't seen these guys for ages! Olivia and Arthur had great fun playing and fighting. Ceri and I enjoyed cake and caramel Latte! Fabulous morning! 

331/365

332/365

Walking home from the library with all my lovely family. I can't believe how dark it gets so quickly now. It's lovely getting all cosy in the house snuggled up. BUT I'm looking forward to the sun coming back and visits to the park and beach :)

333/365

Hot chocolates are best shared with friends, in pyjamas with blankets.

CHEERS TO THAT!!

334/365

 335-336/365

Lucky me getting flowers from my husband. A rare but very welcome treat. ;)

Another rare treat is having Rory come to stay. He is such a cutie. At the tender age of 15 he's lasted longer than his breed usually would. He's blind and quite deaf (slight selective hearing) but he's hanging on in there, with not long left it's been great for Martin, Amelie, Arthur and I all to spend quality time with him. His little face when the other dogs were taken out for a walk was not happy. So now he joins us on our walks. We don't take him far but he goes out wagging his little tail trotting along with us all. You can't wander off to far from him though because he'll either follow some other legs or look around hopelessly for you. 

337/365

All children grow and learn differently. Amelie was always loved to learn something new and show everyone. Arthur is the total opposite. He likes to learn quietly, slyly on his own. I was sat watching him doing his usual bashing his balls continuously. Then I realised he was concentrating on what he was doing he was looking at the balls and matching the colours up. Even rushing to put them down and  then swap them round to the right places.

Growing up quickly. I plan to enjoy every moment of that. Nothing will ever be more important than enjoying my children grow up. 

xxxx

323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329/365

323/365

My little animals!! Amelie looking majorly cute as the famous Miss. Mouse.

Arthur playing dog! I'm actually surprised he hasn't spent more time climbing in and out of the crate. 

What a looney he is!

324/365

Yey!! I have been having some fantastic me time. Thanks to my lovely Bev, who enjoys these beasts everyday. I've definitely got some work to do and get some practise in but I'm so happy to be getting back into and I get to enjoy it with a friend! 

Oh and Kilkenny is my handsome new friend. 

My legs were in agony after but it was well worth it. It makes me so happy to be back up in the saddle. It's been 10 long years since I've been riding properly and after my centre parcs experience I've been looking at affordable ways to get back into it. I hope this is something I can carry on doing for a good while :) And I feel so lucky that I have Bev to help me better and teach me all sorts. It's all VERY exciting!!

Oh and do you love my hat? Thanks Martha :)

 325/365

New naughty thing to do? Empty Mummy and Daddys pants and socks out and throw them down the stairs!  

 326/365

Just so happens Arthur loves it at the stables too. Amelie loved helping cleaning up and mucking out. Arthur loved mooching about after his fav, Bev, and falling about the mud. They were both a bit scared  to start with but by home time they were feeding little Kenny hay. Amelie would love to go to riding lessons. Hopefully when she's older this might be an option :)

327/365

328/365

 329/365

I can't believe how much older Amelie looks all of a sudden. 

She definitely looks like me with this crazy face on!! Ha ha 

xxxxx

319, 320, 321, 322/365

319/365

Every time I take a picture of the back of my head I notice I have such an odd shaped head!

Just thought I'd put that out there before I start. But on a plus I'm loving the curls. 

I have always loved my hair curly since I was very young but since having children I don't have the time to be doing much with it. 

One of my lovely client/friends came to help me out for this and it didn't take long. She's even offered to do it for me again! Awesome! 

Must make more effort to do my hair!

 320/365

Well we had a horrible wonderful weekend.

I'll get the horrible out of the way first. Amelie, Martin and I were all ill in one way or another and spend a good few hours not being able to move very far from a bathroom :/

But we spent time with family and ate nice food (some of us didn't eat and with some of us the food decided to come right back out) but all in all it was nice to see everyone.

Oh yeah and we had a HUGE lie in! I also spent most of Sunday asleep more than awake!

 321/365

All is well today we are just about recovered although a little tender.

Daddy and Amelie are back to the grind whilst me and Arthur have the day together. We did a little drawing this morning. And spent a lot of time cuddling and chilling :)

Martin is always calling me monkey feet because I can pick stuff up with them and do a lot of other things. So when Arthur started wrapping his little toes around the bars on the chair I saw he has a little bit of me in him.

His temper, on the other hand, is all from a younger version of Daddy!

 322/365

xxxx

315, 316, 317, 318/365

Arthur's concentration face. With a little help from Daddy he's working well on his pokey skills!

They played for ages popping the animals up, Daddy making it jump and Arthur screaming with laughter.

Loving the cutie pout!

315/365

Ha look what the little tinker has figured out today. He managed to pull the step over, get up on it and turn the tap on. I loved this picture the best because he'd just figured it out and looked fascinated. His cute little cackle soon followed by clapping and shouting. Every time he'd turn it on he would shout for me to turn it off so he could do it again!!

316/365

Amelie's learnt ballet now for about 2 years. She's always enjoyed it. Mainly I think because she has a lovely teacher who she will listen to and they do 2 shows a year. She practises her good and bad toes :) She often dances around the house singing. 

Lately she's been saying she doesn't want to go and she doesn't like it. Which leaves me with the dilemma should I encourage her to stick at it or if she says she doesn't like it anymore stop taking her.

Its difficult because I think they need encouragement to carry on things they don't know yet will be good for them or they might do well in. But what if she really doesn't like it and we could stop these lessons and try something else?

Answers please?

317/365

You may know, second to being a Mummy, I'm a hair dresser. 

As being a Mummy comes first I don't have time to do much with my hair. Easy styles work best and plaits are my best friend. I have a natural wave to my hair that really works in my favour. Pinning my fringe from my face is usually a must! I always suggest people work with their natural hair. We fight so much against what we naturally have. Our figures, eye colours, hair colour/texture. 

OK, OK I'm one of the worst for wanting all these things to be different but it doesn't mean I think we should be like that. So from now on I will try to like what I have and hope that Amelie will follow in my footsteps. 

318/365

xxxxx